Winter already?

No more rain! I am not ready for the icky nor-cal version of winter to begin. We've been wearing hats and sweaters around the cottage, refusing to turn on the heaters until our lips were blue - which happened yesterday. Today there have already been 5 bouts of rain interspersed with random blinding sun. I ducked into Ross on my way from the bank this morning to wait out one squall and found myself purchasing yet another pair of maternity pants as well as a little head supporter for our hand-me-down carseat. When will the purchasing end!! We're suddenly rolling in baby stuff, which feels odd considering how much more time we have to wait for the little tike. We spent a rainy Sunday poking through and stockpiling a gold mine of baby gear from the folks I used to sit for a cool $100. Infant car seat, snap n' go stroller, snugli carrier, jumper swing, activity mat...the list goes on. Since they've stopped their procreation at 2 boys, and we're pretty confident we're having a little guy, too, we also got a full wardrobe of hand-me-downs from them. I spent the rest of the day washing and sorting onesies and playsuits and blankets and teeny little socks. The baby dresser is already nearly full! I feel sort of guilty about having all this stuff already, but I guess we'll need it. And what a deal...we get a well clothed kid for cheap and they get room in their garage. I wish we had a garage...then I wouldn't have to trip over this empty carseat for four more months!

Nat turned all our compost and planted a cover crop of winter rye in the garden last week...tasks hard for me to let go of as the resident farmer. But I'm supposed to avoid both compost and our neighborhood-kitty-infested soil, and I figured he could use the practice for when I finally convince him to let us move back to the boonies. I'm sad not to have a winter garden this year like we did last year, but I just won't have the time to take care of it. Plus, the painters put so much painting dust in the soil that I don't feel right about planting in it until that crud has leached out. The cover crop and the rain should do that, and will keep it nice and fertile for the Spring, when the baby and I can start a garden together. Until then we're waiting for our Meyer lemons to ripen and are contemplating the prickly pear fruit, which we're still not quite sure what to do with. And the CSA box keeps coming every week, full of squash and greens and other wintery things - like pomegranates. It is amazing to live in a place where pomegranate actually grow. It must be all that rain...