Winter Doldrums Feeling Stress

This is a fairly new thing to me. The winter doldrums, for me, have set in and it's not even February yet. It's truly making me irritable! Down in the more southern regions where I used to live, winter was wet and freezing for several weeks out of the season. A handy covering of extra sheets were enough to handle the frosty overnight and early morning temperatures for the most part. My plants were rarely damaged. These frosts are deadly here. Everything on the greenhouse that we planted is dead. But the rosemary, spearmint, and raspberry are doing well. At least one raspberry bush is. The one that was trying to make a comeback after the dog fight this summer died back to the roots. It may be salvageable in the Spring if I can keep the roots healthy through winter. The only thing still living in the greenhouse is the English peas. But something is nibbling the green leaves. I can check it in the morning and find an entire plant reduced to a main stem. Mel seems to think it's rats. I'm not seeing any signs of insects so she may be right, but I'm not seeing any rat signs either.

Our plans to breed the meat rabbits and house them in the greenhouse is on hold until our wwoofer can help build the hanging rabbit cages. She and her teenage son should be here sometime this week. She's been off doing holiday stuff with friends and family for over a month. It will be a welcome relief and some company. Man oh man, I'm glad the holidays are over. Maybe with some positive, forward action around the homestead it will help my mood.

Mel's got another new project in the works so it kind of leaves me in a lurch. There's no sense in video taping because the unedited footage cannot be uploaded. The video editing software is on Mel's laptop currently in use for her new project. She doesn't frequent the online live streams because of her project also. Mel's ADHD and depression is working overtime because of the gray days of winter. Me, I'm just stir crazy.

My usual winter activities of spinning and knitting hold no interest for me. I'm feeling my body run down. I'm busy tending to animals, with frozen or broken water bottles, breaking up layers of ice on the various 5-gallon water pails around the houses, gathering buckets of kindling, to keep the house 78 degrees like Mel likes it, and tending the wood stove, making sure all the rabbits have hay and food keeps me hopping.  The automatic chicken and rabbit waterers that I purchased to make this chore easier is left by the wayside. Forget about grooming the rabbits. I'm just too pooped just trying to keep up with this list!

A lot of projects Mel wanted to do like replacing and burying the water pipe deeper from the well to the house so it won't freeze. All that pipe and connectors sits in the barn while the water pipes freeze until noon or so. First the ground was too dry and hard due to the drought. I can honestly understand this. Now, it's too wet and spongy to get anything done. Huh? Hello?

This really sounds like a griping session doesn't it? But to me, I wasted my limited financial resources. Yeah, I know it will be eventually done when Mel gets around to it. Everything is half done which drives me nuts! Like I said her depression and ADHD is working overtime. Not that I'm a stranger to either of these health issues. I've had decades of practice with my youngest daughter. We are suffering through some growing pains or getting to know you right now. The close confinement and Mel not working. During the spring, summer and fall the issues were minor. We were just too busy. I'll have to plan better for next winter to keep her on task until completion, but it's harder with an adult who is used to having her own way.

The way I see it there are quite a few options. We'll either kill each other over the winter. Fight and bicker through the winter (neat trick when neither of us like conflict). Decide for sanity's sake to stay in separate corners. We can decide to go our separate ways in the spring. I won't feel bad about leaving because my almost $10K investment mostly stays here. I would have done all that I could do given the situation. Or, we can decide that three months out of a year isn't too bad and find a workable solution for next year. I don't call anything quits unless the pain is greater than I can bear...always leading to more health issues. I may be a martyr, but I do have my limits. I will only give up when there is no other choice. Now Mel is the opposite. It should be interesting.

Y'all gave a blessed week.