Two Birdbrains Reporting For Affirmation Duty

The world has enough critics. We hope you’ll love yourself today at least half as much as we love you. (And that’s a lot!) — Heebeejeebees + A.C.

---

Here’s What’s Happening At Good Spirits Farm

• I am apparently doomed to never learn the lesson that lazinees now equals extra work in the future. When I looked at the weather yesterday, it appeared too warm for a real snow or ice situation to materialize. Now, as I write this, the heavens are delivering the world’s least-favorite confetti: a mix of snow, freezing rain, and ice pellets. I should have gotten the tractor out and placed a round hay bale out in the field yesterday…but…I didn’t. So now I either get to haul square bales a few at a time, or get the tractor out in icy weather. [And I definitely won’t learn my lesson for next time.]

  

  I took advantage of the dreary weather last Sunday to bake a loaf of bread and inventory my seeds. One nice thing about keeping close tabs on what I do and don’t have is that I can set aside a pile of seeds I’m definitely not going to sow (hi okra, I wish I loved you, but I do not) and ship them to Slow Food DC’s "Share A Seed” program. If you have extra seeds you don’t plan to use this year, consider shipping them off for distribution in free little seed libraries. (And there are chapters throughout the country, so if you have seeds for things that grow better out west, you can send yours to California or Colorado.)

• Despite the fact that I ended up having to run the tractor twice after dark this week, this was the week when I finally noticed a change in the length of our days. On Tuesday, the chickens were out and about at 5:45 p.m. when I left for a run with friends. That’s progress! Chins up, brighter days are coming, y’all.

  

  ---

  Here’s What I Loved This Week

  This Dear Sugar advice column is more than 10 years old, and the letter writer’s problem isn’t really relevant to my life. And yet, I find myself returning to the last paragraph of Cheryl Strayed’s advice all the time (and especially recently).

  Sometimes we just have to watch the ghost ships of the lives we could have had sail away. It’s comforting to me to know that other people have to make these choices too, and it’s useful to be given permission to feel a bit of sadness about the path you didn’t choose.