Good morning from the frigid freaking cold Midwest. I am sitting in my piggy bed wearing my warm Kathmandu jersey and my brothers wooly hat writing to you because the house is cold! Everything is cold!
I will race to a hot shower then put on multiple layers and that’s just for inside! This feels like such a cold start to the winter but the caterpillar did warn us!
Go HERE to read your newsletter.
It is a good one. AND has the photos from the weekend. Though there are not many as touchscreen does not work in this cold. 🥺
Go HERE to join the kitchens garden chat.
The chat thread is developing nicely. We have some lovely conversations. I am concerned that this is sometimes the loneliest time of the year. And I want you all to be able to pop into my conversation at any time. It is free to all of course.
Coming very soon:
Though I don’t leave for the city until Sunday, I want us all snuggled in with my new ideas for the blog and its sister substack before I leave. I realize that every time I go away I try and do the same things in new spaces. So I have forced myself to think about changing this up. (You know how much I hate thinking – I am more of an organic go with the flow person!) But these new additions bring air and freshness to my posts while I am off the farm. I call the collection City Hours in my head.
Chapters by the Fireside. Audio by the fire. Audio classics. (Not sure what to call this yet – feel free!) On Tuesday and Thursday evenings. (In place of TKG Take Ten which will return when I return to the farm). I will be reading to you. A chapter at a time.
Fireside Stories begin with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; this Thursday). HERE.
The Compact Kitchens Garden: which will follow my new Melbourne garden. (And in March we visit the two Wellington gardens). This is brand new! And a challenge after all the big space and big gardens I have here.
Archives starts on Friday and every Friday while I am away, we will go back in time and look at some old posts. And talk about them. I am going to do this in chronological order with up to date discussion. Starting way back in 2011 and moving forward. We might find some interesting stuff!! And it will force me to be super organized.
The Archives exercise has two outcomes – you and I get to chat about the old days! 😂 And I will collect content for the little ebooks that are coming together.
Ebooks so far- (in draft form).
- Lazy Baking: Loafing Around.
- The Country Food book: (no title yet)
- Leftovers ( no title yet)
- The Tiny Farm Book (working title)
- Sustainable Matters (working title)
And MORE- ideas?
Anyway. What do you think? Are you ready to come along. You are my marketing team so if you like something SHARE.
This morning it is:
FREEZING.
No wind so far. And a clear cold dawn.
Have a good one!
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
29 responses to “Frigid.”
Very cold here in Michigan as well but beautiful. Looking forward to your new initiatives
I am looking forward to it too. It is comforting to have a plan that moves us forward.
You must be getting air down from Canada. It seems this cold snap came on really quickly. I quite enjoy seeing your presence grown on Substack. Every time I meander through the threads and chat there I am seeing your tribe of climate conscious, sustainable protectors and innovators grow.
I am really loving the chat! This is something I have been trying to create – and was doing it all wrong. This is well set up chat for us!
Shoot, I left a comment here and then WordPress fouled me up and it disappeared. So I’ll start over. You have been THINKING a lot. I love it. I’m like you, a go-with-the-flow type, so I’m impressed. Can’t wait for the new features!
Terrible cold here also. Shiver!!!
I always watch your weather to see what is coming!!
I do that with blog friends in the west of us. 🙂
In London very mild!
I miss London!
Fortunately I am in a very leafy part of london, Hampton…..which gives me the best of both worlds. However, I still miss my cottage in the Brecon Beacons, Wales….
It’s not nearly as cold here as where you are! Freezing at night, low 20s, but up into the mid-40s in the daytime, thank goodness! 🙂 So thankful for lots of wood to keep the wood stove going! Looks like lots of exciting happenings coming our way from you! And what great ideas for the ebooks!
We start to roll back up into the 40’s by the end of the week and then all the through to the 50’s . But by then I will be gone of course!!
Cold here in north central Indiana. The day started sunny but it has clouded over. There might be some snow flurries. The wind has picked up a bit. Brat is happily sleeping in his crate (he loves his crate). Stay warm.
Frigid Pink! The weather is totally unpredictable here – 13ºC yesterday and 7ºC today. There were frosts last week too!
I love the picure of the pigs and leaping chicken!
The unpredictability is what makes it difficult. When I first arrived here we had a slow slide into deep cold then an even slower climb out. Now like you we can do huge jumps in temperature all in a day. I know that weather is not climate but I am glued to my weather forecasts!!
I wish the weather forecasts here were accurate. I think they have a piece of seaweed and guess most of the time 🤣
Too funny! Meteorology must be a changing game for the forecasters now. I would love to be a fly on the wall in that smoko room!
The BBC stopped using the Met Office for forecasts, in a cost cutting exercise, a few years ago. Their forecasts have been much worse since then!
Cold here in Iowa. Bonus…we woke to some light snow. It only amounted to about 1”. Warmer tomorrow up to a blistering 40˚. Much colder Wednesday and warmer on the weekend. This is all very normal weather.
Btw…this week has the earliest sunsets of the year.
Looking back at how we got here and how and why we do what we do… and what it means and does now and going forward. Lots of ‘ands’ but is that not life… and…
Wow. I woke up to 24F and very cold bedroom floors this AM, but it wasn’t 9F!!! I’d be bundling up too. Stay warm.
Ah Celi, It has gotten so incredibly cold here as well! That, and we’re under a (lake effect) snowsquall alert for Tuesday afternoon and on into Wednesday… I mean, Old Man Winter was bound to happen along eventually, but does he need to carry a club to deliver it?
With possibility of 2-5cm/hour for 24hrs?
Oh dear! That sounds like a lot of snow!
I am so excited about Archives. You and I and Judith Baxter all started about the same time and I love the idea of revisiting those posts!! Your planning is genius on everything!! How do you do it??
I am still working on how to format a page with the old posts in a new way
That will make sense to a new reader. Plus I am just skipping all the really awful ones!!
I read them all and don’t remember awful ones LOL
I’ve been having a think about your Country Food book. Depending on the approach, maybe you could call it ‘Roots and Reasons: Family recipes using Seasonal Local Food’. Everyone here has recipes their mother or grandmother made at certain times of year when certain foods were in season. It could be a really gorgeous collection. And maybe the Leftovers one could be ‘Fridge Chemistry: making marvellous meals from random remains’. Or something along those lines.