April 2025 – gave us more snow than we had all winter!

April 2025 I’m liking this actually. Bring on the snow in April because we know it won’t last long! And that’s what happened. We got over a foot of snow literally over April fools day. My boss just text everyone the night before, “I’m just gonna be proactive and not open tomorrow. Be safe!” Of all the years I’ve lived here in northern MN I never would have believed that the only actual “snow day” we got would be in April… So, that is to say, we had a pretty easy winter and its already over.

It snowed for a day and a half with little to no breaks. It was those gorgeous giant flakes clinging to everything like something out of Disney movie… if you like that sort of thing lol. We didn’t get much snow this year and spring came early so I enjoyed it from my warm spot on the couch.

The next day I waited hours for them to plow our township road because we’re always the last on the list.

And then I promptly buried my car in our yard! A foot of heavy wet snow is my little Honda’s worst nightmare. The only reason I attempted it was because I felt like if I could get into the tracks that Lodi left behind with the truck I might be able to make it…

So my morning started by digging my car out of the hole I put her in and managing to make it to work and that was literally the end of winter for us here in northern Minnesota.

We only had to plow our driveway three times all winter and I sure hope this becomes the norm every year!

Once the weather really turns one of the things I’d like to get done is a little work on our deck. The top rails and tallest posts have been all but destroyed by squirrels, birds and wood peckers.

One day this winter I just had had enough and moved all of the bird feeders off the deck to my Grandma’s shepherd’s hook carousel. I was exclusively using it for our hummingbird feeders in the summer but with six hooks that’s plenty of feeders for everybody.

I’m so annoyed I didn’t do that sooner!

April 2025

Seeing as their full of holes from wood peckers anyway we will cut the tall posts off to the same height as the others and run a new top rail all around and ditch our two old gates too. That will really improve things and not cost very much.

Our deck was made out of treated lumber and is starting to show its full ten years of age living through the yearly roller coaster ride of Minnesota weather.

We’re going to get at least a few more years out of it and then we will replace it using composite. Composite is WAY more expensive but then we might never have to worry about it again in our lifetimes.

Do I think this is going to stop the wood peckers?

Of course not lol.

But getting all the food off the deck and away from the house is still going to help.

In all the cases where our deck was chewed on the worst of it was right beside a feeder and it totally felt like they were punishing me for not filling it fast enough.

One day this last winter I accidentally left the lid off the can we keep our sunflower seeds in and there were half a dozen mice in there the next day and guess what we had in the house at the time…

I think this will help at least a little bit with rodents as well. I also moved the cans off the deck so, officially, there is nothing for any of them close to the house now.

I love helping take care of our wildlife but I don’t want to live with them!

April 2025 for those that have asked: YES I have decided to start posting recipes once a month here on the blog!

My first recipe is coming out in July and so far my experiments with my camera in the kitchen have gone all right. I’m focusing on recipes I’m already making anyway and trying to make them when I have some decent natural light lol.

When I told my mom about it she got super excited and exclaimed, “What about my cookies!”

And then she took my gaping mouth to back track like she had over stepped or something, “Oh I’m sorry its your blog I didn’t mean to-”

I felt terrible for giving her the wrong impression!

My Mom’s cookie recipe is LEGENDARY. It never ever would have EVER occurred to me that she might want to join me to make a whole blog post AND share her cookie recipe with the internet.

(I work really hard not to bother other people with my blogging. Its my thing and my choice. Not everyone wants to be included in something so public so I try not to include anyone. So this whole time I thought I was being considerate when really I was making my mom feel a little like I didn’t want her to be a part of this part of my life… *Cue guilty daughter feelings*)

I don’t bake. I have never attempted to make her cookies and I know a lot of people who have tried and failed. Of course I was there all my years growing up helping her make them but that was a really long time ago now.

In fact its been a long time since we cooked together at all.

And it would be the first time I’d have someone fully work with me through a blog post from start to finish. (Lodi doesn’t count as he lives here and married me lol.)

So I asked her and she did stutter a bit, “Oh, you have the recipe you can make them.”

“LOL nah Mom, this was your idea. I’m gonna come over with my camera and we’re going to document you making your cookies, step by step, and its gonna be lit.”

She’s all nervous, its really sweet lol but April 2025 she has agreed!