Spring, for sure. I think.

It was a beautiful weekend and I was outside a lot.  Yesterday was the area's first big outdoor auction, and I was there for about six hours, waiting for those timeless treasures.  Actually the last thing I bought was a chair for my newly cleaned gazebo, but more about that later.  The auction was OK.  No real things of great value but enough interesting things throughout that it kept your attention.

Today I hired two teenage boys to clean up the lawn/gardens of casa de Tetzloff.  There were just a lot of leaves and it kept the two of them busy for almost four hours.  I did my part and raked almost that long. It was well worth the investment, as they probably hauled 30+ tarps full of leaves  to the pile.  It will never be a leaf-free zone, but it looks a lot better.  I also cleaned up my gazebo and hopefully discouraged the spiders and other creatures from being too settled in their abode.

So I am tired.  I am telling you, this life of a homesteading pioneer is tough.  I raked, I cleaned, I churned butter--you know, all this normal things that  people in the North Woods do. Yes, you did read that correctly:  I did churn and make butter tonight.  One of the treasures I found yesterday was a Daisy butter churn--who knew I needed one?  So I tried it out and made butter. It seemed to turn out.  It was yellow, it was good on toast (once I added salt--man, who eats unsalted butter?  Yuk) and it was kind of fun.

I am no doubt a renaissance man of sorts.  While I am not quite a useful fellow, the highest praise my Dad could ever bestow on someone, I am broadening by skill set, even beyond the butter making.  I am taking a blacksmith class this spring, too.  So far I have made a fireplace set with a poker and a shovel and a chicken picker.  Yep, if the apocalypse comes, I can supply the new world with really really primitive utensils.  Who knows?  This new skill might save my life.  At the least I have butter to put on the burns from the forge.  Or, if the retirement savings don't add up, I could sell chicken pickers on Ebay and fireplace tools with candles and potatoes at a roadside stand near my land up north.

Though if I am going to do all of this, I have to learn to make wine.