sorting seeds

See this mess? These are seed packets that I need to sort through before I can decide on my seed orders for this spring. I'm thinking that I will buy seedlings of the brocolli and cabbage.

I'm getting so excited, but our winter, which so late in coming, has now seemingly settled in to stay. An easterly wind this morning brought a lot of snow. Drifts are a foot high in some places.

My afternoon walk today, plowing through the snowdrifts, was quite demanding. I came back so hot that I had to take my mitts off. Not having dressed in appropriate layers -- I didn't think I'd be working so hard in those drifts -- I couldn't even unzip my jacket to cool off a little. It would have been too extreme.

Speaking of hot. Our hot water has been giving us trouble again over the last two days. The plumber finally was called in, and it's the electrical. We're on old-fashioned fuse-boxes instead of having the wiring go through a breaker panel, which I'm told would be safer. The wiring leading from the hotwater heater to the fuses, at the point just outside the box, was to the point of catching on fire, overheated and shorting out! So, the hot-water heater would go on and off....Lovely, isn't it? Old houses are charming, but then, if they are not maintained quite up to date, they are full of hazards too! In a way, maybe I'm glad I don't own this old place! All that stuff is the landlords' responsibility!