The value of failure

I just had to share this excellent piece from the Maritime Gardening Newsletter, Failure is the Best Guru.

This is the video included with the newsletter.

I highly recommend signing up for his newsletter and subscribing to his Substack.

In regards to failures, I heartily concur. We’ve had a couple of really bad years in our garden, and learned the most from both of them! We now know how our garden spaces respond to heat waves and drought, flooding, and that we’ve got a major problem with slugs to figure out!

The Re-Farmer

In full force!

The melting is happening at full force right now!

Yesterday, we ended up reaching a high of 7C/45F, and it was still above freezing, well past midnight. Today’s high was supposed to be 3C/37F but, as I write this, at almost 3pm, we’re at 5C/41F, with a “feels like” of 9C/48F!

The cats aren’t the only creatures loving the warmth!

When I came outside to feed them, I found a couple of odd things. The first was clumps of snow all over the well cap. I clear that, because some of the outside cats like to eat there, away from the other cats. There’s a pile of snow beside it from shoveling paths clear, and something had been digging into the pile, kicking chunks of snow all over, and creating tunnels into the pile.

That wasn’t the only thing dug up.

This is the roof of the cat house. Not only is the snow dug up, pieces of shingles have been torn of!

I’d say, racoons.

The roof of that cat house makes sense, since we normally drop food on there. Quite a few of the cats prefer to eat on the roof instead of at ground level.

As for the pile of snow, we’ve had snowfalls that covered kibble that was on the well cap. When I shoveled it clear, those bits of kibble ended up on the snow pile. The racoons must have been able to smell them, and were digging to find the food!

After feeding the cats and continuing my rounds, I remembered to grab a shovel and clear some snow so the two sides of the gate can be opened wider. The paths through the snow in certain areas were full of frozen pools of water, from yesterday’s melt. It was already warm enough for things to start melting again, so it was very slippery. We haven’t been able to make it to the dump lately, with the storms, and I was planning to do it today. Since we can’t drive into the yard, though, we’d have to carry the garbage to the garage. I was needing to use the snow shovel as a walking stick to keep from slipping. There was no way we could make multiple trips to the garage while carrying bags, safely.

The dump trip will have to wait.

I did end up having to go into town again today, though. One of the places I needed to go is a mini department store, so I made a point of looking at their rubber boots. The last time I got rubber boots, I had a hard time finding any that could fit over my calves. I ended up getting a pair that fit my feet, then cut the boots off above the ankles. One of the boots from that pair now has a bit crack across the top of the foot, so they are now useless. With the troubles I had before, I didn’t have much hope in finding a pair that fit.

Much to my surprise, not only did I find boots that fit over my calves (even if a bit on the tight side), they were wide enough at the feet that, instead of my usual men’s size 9’s, I was able to get size 8’s! I haven’t been able to wear size 8 shoes in decades! On top of that, the price was actually reasonable – just under $35.

When I got home and my younger daughter helped me put things away, I got her to try them on, since she has the same trouble finding shoes and boots that fit that I do. Happily, they fit her, too! There was even room for a pair of insoles she happened to have spares of.

Now we just need to see if they will fit my older daughter, too. She has an even harder time finding shoes that fit right than I do!

You know, I never thought I’d see the day where I would be so excited over being able to find a pair of rubber boots that fit. 😂😂

It’s going to make my morning rounds much more pleasant, though! Not to mention just going to the compost pile. That path is completely flooded out. I didn’t bother checking, but that would mean the low area in the path to the back door of the garage, and the outhouse, would be a lake right now.

We’ve got a few more days above freezing ahead of us, but the long range forecast now says we’ll have a high of only -8C/18F by Sunday, and that the highs will stay below freezing for at least the next week after that. Considering how often the forecasts change, though, I’m not holding much stock to that right now. We shall see what actually happens!

For now, we – and the outside cats – are going to enjoy the warmth and the melting snow!

The Re-Farmer

Gorgeous days, and another delay

It is so beautiful out there right now!

And so is this beastly beast!

Rolando Moon was loving the hard packed snow on the sides of the driveway, while I was doing my morning rounds. In fact, all the cats were running around, enjoying the bright morning sunshine. I counted 26 this morning. The most I’ve seen for a while, now!

At the time I did my morning rounds, it was about -5C/23F, but felt much warmer. As I write this, shortly after 1pm, we’re at 2C/36F, and expected to reach a high of 5C/41F! Several degrees warmer than the forecast has been, for the past few days.

Even yesterday, with the forecast shifting and predicting a high of 2C/36F, we actually hit 4C/39F, and things were melting all over!

This morning, I took the time to widen a section of the driveway, to make it easier to turn into the garage when coming home. Coming back to the house I noticed the old market tent set up by the fire pit was partially collapsed. It’s broken on one side, so it doesn’t take much. Unfortunately, we haven’t dug any paths to the fire pit, so I was slogging through snow half way to my knees to get to it.

Getting the roof of the market tent, which is set up over the old picnic table and the folding table we made with parts and pieces we found in the barn and basement, clear was more difficult that I expected. Because of how warm it was yesterday, melted snow started pooling in the canvas roof, even leaking through and leaving icicles hanging on the inside. We have an old hoe with rounded edges that is safe to scrape the snow off without damaging the canvas. The handle is a steel pipe welded onto the hoe, so we use it in the fire pit, rather than the garden, so it was handy. I got as much snow off the tent roof as I could, then ducked underneath to try and knock it off from below, and lift the roof supports. One section turned out to be really, really heavy for some reason. That’s when I realized there was a big pool of water that had frozen overnight! I was able to scrape more snow off and break up the ice from the outside, until I could finally lift things from the inside.

We have been using the picnic table to cure onions and potatoes, setting them on old window screens I found in the barn and sheds. Short scrap boards were used to elevate the screen for more air circulation. All of that is still stored on the picnic table. The boards are just long enough that I could set them up on the picnic table and the folding table to prop up the tent roof supports. Unless they get knocked over by a cat or something (the cats do love the shelter the tent and tables provide!), they should keep the roof from collapsing again. The long range forecasts have changed again and now say that, a week from now, we will have highs below freezing again and, depending on which app I look at, we might get a bit more snow, too.

I got a message from the Cat Lady last night. The “problem cat” that the city shelter had asked her to take on is going to her today. The cat had all its teeth pulled and is now well enough for her to try and rehabilitate. Which means she couldn’t meet me to get our three today. We should be able to connect mid week, but that will depend on how things go with her new acquisition.

Since we were going to meet her half way, at the smaller city, I was going to take advantage of the trip to pick up a few things. Now that we were not going to be meeting her today, after all, my younger daughter and I went to town this morning, instead. Since I was in town anyhow, one of my stops was at the pharmacy. My husband had ordered prescription refills for delivery on Wednesday, so I thought I might be able to pick those up while there. They weren’t ready yet, so those will wait, but the other reason I was there was to get our printouts for our taxes, now that my husband’s second T4A is in. They were able to print mine out, but then needed permission them to be able to give me my husband’s printout. They gave me the form for him to fill out, and we’ll give it to the delivery guy when he comes. They will make sure my husband’s printouts are included in the bag with his refills.

I found out something interesting while doing this. Just about everyone that works there knows me well, by now, so when I come in, they know my husband’s name, and that I have a hyphenated name. Today, there was a new person helping me. I first asked about the refills, and gave her my husband’s name for her to look up. She confirmed having the right file using our postal address. After she confirmed the prescription wasn’t filled yet (since it didn’t need to be delivered for another 2 days), I said it could wait and mentioned the printouts.

In looking up my file, she didn’t know I had a different name. She started confirming my postal address, but the box number was one we hadn’t used since the last time we lived in this province, some 25 years ago! A pharmacist that knows our file well came by and helped her find the right file under my hyphenated name. While doing all this, I commented that the box number she had read out was one we used to have, many years ago. She noticed that the health care number was the same.

They had two files on me!

My old file had been using my non-hyphenated married name – something I would use when people didn’t have enough space to put in my full name. A common problem I had for many years! At some point, programmers changed software to fit longer names, because I no longer have that problem.

As I was leaving, they were in the process of merging my old and new accounts, so they will have just one account for me now.

To think, if it hadn’t been for a new person who didn’t know me as well, it wouldn’t have been discovered that there was a second file for me!

I may not have been able to get my husband’s refills early, nor get his tax printouts, but we at least got that discovered and fixed!

Today was such a nice day to be out and running errands. In the time it took me to write the above, we’ve already warmed up to 4C/39F – with a “feels like” of 7C/45F! That’s downright tropical for this time of year. 😄 Meanwhile, the thermometer in the sun room is reading 15C/59F!! There are cats played out in sun spots all over the room. 😄

On days like today, I can hardly wait for the snow to be gone, and finally getting outside and back to work! We’ve still got probably another month or two before we can do that, though!

I guess I’ll just enjoy it as it is. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Learning about soil zones (video)

Most of us are familiar with climate zones, but soil zones, too?

Of course, I was aware of different soil types in different regions. I just didn’t know there were names and classifications for them.

Gardening in Canada just did a video all about soil zones, and I learned so much!

Well, things make a lot more sense, now!

In the past, I’ve described where we live as being in that transition zone between Boreal forest and prairie. It turns out that zone is known as the Dark Grey soil zone.

I’ve also written about testing our soil. You can read about how those went, here, here and here.

This is a picture from one of those soil tests. Blue cap is phosphorous, purple cap is nitrogen and orange cap is potash. The only bright colour is the dark green pH test, showing we have very alkaline soil. The test colour strip only went to 7.5, and the samples were all darker than the colour strip got! Even our direct soil pH meter only goes up to a pH of 8, and I think our soil is probably at least a pH of 9 or even 10.

Besides being in a Dark Grey soil zone, we are also sitting on top of where the ancient glacial Lake Agassiz one was. When the lake drained, it was with incredible speed, and is believed to have extended the last ice age. Which means the water also took a lot of the lighter sediment from the lake bottom, with it, leaving behind the heavy stuff.

Like rocks, gravel, sand and clay.

Dark Grey soil zones have a problem with leaching. Basically, any time we have rain, the soil nutrients get leached down through the sandier layers below. Our region has more sand and gravel, than others. That means we’d have nutrients leaching out of our soil, even faster. Also, the leached nutrients would normally form a dense, compact lower layer. I don’t know where that layer would be forming in our area. Even when heavy equipment was used to deepen our gravel pit, as well as a dugout in the other quarter section that’s rented out, there’s just gravel and sand and clay.

When my mother had her huge garden here, my dad would plow cow manure into it almost every fall. That hasn’t been done in over 20 years. However, gardening did continue. Even after my parents could no longer garden, a couple of my brothers and their wives kept up small areas. The old garden area did still get plowed in the fall.

Plowed, but not amended. Among the things that disappeared from here over the years was the old manure pile from behind the barn. In fact, there are now dips on the ground where the pile used to be, so whoever took it, dug down pretty deep.

Yeah. Someone stole the manure pile.

I’m pretty sure I know who, but no matter.

So our soil conditions are as poor as they are due to both the lack of amendments, and our geology.

We’re not in a position to buy truckloads of manure and getting it all plowed into the area. Which means our plans to use raised beds of varying heights, modified hügelkultur style, is going to make all the difference in the world.

Thank you, GIC, for putting out this video! This information is going to be very useful in helping us plan things out.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: pepper and eggplant progress

Check these out!

I took this picture after turning on the LED grow lights, but before turning on the bright shop lights. The LED lights are only along one edge of the shelf above, and I had them over the peppers for a while, but I’ve since rotated the tray, so the eggplants can be under the grow lights for a while.

It’s getting to be time to thin out those eggplants, and a couple more peppers. Thinning out is always so hard for me. I keep wanting to thin by transplanting, since I don’t want to “waste” any seedlings. The thing is, we don’t need that many! We could probably do fine with maybe 3 or 4 of each plant, including the peppers. We certainly don’t have enough space for all of them!

In the big aquarium greenhouse, all three cups with the Sweet Chocolate peppers now have seedlings in them, though it’ll be a while before they’re at the stage that they need to be thinned. With the Purple Beauty peppers, the one cup now has 4 seeds germinating; one cup had 4 seeds planted in it, the other had 3 seeds – the last of our Purple Beauty seeds. The second cup has nothing germinating it, so for that variety, when it comes time to thin them, I will thin by transplanting. I’d like to have at least two surviving plants and, right now, there are four seedlings, so we’ll see how that works out. For now, I’m leaving them in the aquarium, but I’ve moved the red onions out and under the lights at the window. We’re not going to have many of those to transplant, compared to the yellow onions and the shallots.

I spent some time looking for replacement bulbs for one of our tank light fixtures. The one with a burnt out bulb holds 2 bulbs that are T5HO. Looking at the various hardware store website, I can find the bulbs, but at sizes ranging form 12 to 18 inches. We need 48 inch bulbs. The one place that had them, they were sold out.

I did, however, find replacement bulbs on the Veseys website. These are the bulbs they use in their grow light set ups. The price for a pair of fluorescent bulbs is quite affordable. They also have LED alternative bulbs that fit the same fixtures, which last much longer and use less power, but are more than triple the price. I’ll be sticking with the fluorescents!

I checked the other light fixture we have over the tank, and it uses a single T8 bulb. That bulb is still fine, but it’ll be a good idea to get some spares of that one, too.

In the next couple of weeks, we’ll need to start our next batches of seeds. Time to go over them and make some decisions.

Speaking of seeds, I’m considering making another seed order. I’d had an order with my T&T Seeds shopping cart when my computer died. By the time I logged back on to place an order it was, of course, no longer there. My daughter had requested a couple of squash to try and I remembered one of them. Talking to my daughter later, she asked about the second one I’d completely forgotten about. When looking for replacement bulbs on the Veseys site, I couldn’t resist looking at seeds, and realized they also have the type of squash my daughter was interested in. In fact, there are two similar ones. So now I’m thinking of getting those, too.

We already have SO many squash seeds right now, though, including a winter squash surprise mix. We don’t need more seeds!

And yet…

The Re-Farmer

Good morning, my pretties!

Just look at these handsome boys!

Gotta laugh at Patience in the back, caught mid yawn!

I got to pet the tuxedo on the left while it was eating. He seemed so surprised when I did. Not “oh, no, the human is touching me!” surprised. More like “I’m not supposed to like the human touching me!” surprised. 😄

I counted only 17 outside cats this morning. Most in the sun room. They are using the cat house for shelter, but clearly the heat bulb in there is not working. I tried looking in the window, and I can see the heat shield is handing down, but that’s about it. I am assuming they unplugged it somehow, because I can’t see the red light that’s on the timer device. The window is so dirty and dark on the inside, I can’t see the timer or the outlet it’s plugged into at all. The good thing is, even without the heat bulb going, it’s warm enough that their body heat alone will warm it up in there. Opening up the roof to check isn’t an option right now. I like to leave the snow on the roof for extra insulation, plus we haven’t dug the path around it since the most recent snowfalls, so we can only access one corner right now. Even the back, where the counterweight is set up, would need to be dug out more. Otherwise, it can’t be fully opened.

When it comes time to build a new cat house, I definitely want to change up how to access the inside. The roof is just too heavy to be opened the way it is now. As it’s getting older and more fragile, we have to have two people to open it, so it won’t twist and crack. The counterweight helps, but not enough.

My brother built it so it’s sitting on a skid that allowed him to move it around. That skid is rotting and falling apart now, so it wouldn’t be of any use to try and move it again. In the future, I want to built a cat house that’s on legs maybe 6 inches off the ground, and then we can use things like bricks or whatever, to 1) protect the wood of the legs from the moist soil and 2) level it, since our yard is wildly uneven.

Since the cats like to use the space under the various shelters, I will also want to put some sort of skirting around probably three sides, maybe 3 1/2 sides, to shelter them from the winds. With how well having a sheet of rigid insulation under the kibble house has worked out so well for them, I’d want to do something similar under any other shelters we build, too. It would be good to include a racoon proof space to store their kibble and supplies. We need to free up space in the old kitchen, where it’s all currently stored. We used to keep it in the sun room, but the racoons kept getting at it.

I also want to have one whole wall, or at least a large part of one wall, to be of Lexan, and have that side facing south. That will allow for passive solar heating (we would need to be able to vent that heat out in the summer, so it doesn’t get too hot!), while also allowing us to see what’s going on inside. The problem is, a single sheet that’s .093 Inch x 18 Inch x 24 Inch costs almost $90! That’s at Home Depot in the city. There are cheaper brands, like Optix, where a sheet that’s .080 Inch x 18 Inch x 24 Inch costs a little under $35. Lexan is a much higher quality, but… well, it’s for a cat house, so we don’t necessarily want to go all out on it!

One of these days, when we have a budget for it, I want to go to the Restore in the city. There’s no way to know what’s going to be in stock at any given time, but they often have all sorts of building materials available for much lower prices. Not just for building cat houses, of course! We need materials for the sheds and other structures we need to build. For the cordwood garden shed we want to build, for example, I want to make sure it’s on a foundation that can hold the weight of the walls. Otherwise, it’ll just sink into the soil. I follow the local Restore on Facebook and have seen all sorts of bricks and pavers and the like some available at times. There’s also a salvage yard in the city that sells items salvaged by a demolitions company – the company my late brother used to work for – and they’ve got huge piles of bricks and stone that would work. For a trip there, though, I’d want to go with my brother and his trailer. This is not stuff I would be able to load into the back of our truck!

So many plans to prioritize!

The Re-Farmer

Is growing your own food affordable? (Videos)

I just had to share this really interesting video from Huw Richards.

Richards is based in the UK, and he’s in a wildly different growing climate than we are, but some things are pretty universal.

Richards set himself the goal of growing enough food to feed a household of four in a small space, and kept track of everything, including the costs, then comparing to what it would cost to buy that food (he does include what the costs are in US$ and Euros). Of course, his costs and availability would be different than were we are, but the same methodology can be used anywhere.

For our situation, we have the luxury of space, which is good because we also need to take into account accessibility in our planning. His narrow paths between beds, for example, are not something we can get away with. We also need to have higher raised beds, again for accessibility and mobility reasons. To a certain extent, we are also able to scavenge materials around the farm, whether it’s felling dead trees and using the logs to build the raised beds, or scrounging for lumber and tools in the barn and various sheds, we should be able to get away with spending less. Our plans will – eventually – incorporate animals to help improve and amend our soil. We were supposed to at least have a few chickens, a couple of years ago, and that just didn’t happen. It’s a goal that has been shifted to this year but, the way things tend to derail our plans, I’m just hoping we can at least get started on building a chicken coop, so we can get chicks next year!

This next video on self sufficiency is also really useful.

He’s a real wealth of information!

The Re-Farmer

Gorgeous morning, and good neighbours!

It’s all gone as I write this, but heading out this morning was a glittering, sparkling winter wonderland!

All the trees were frosted like this. There’s no way the camera in my phone could pick up how it was all sparkling in the sunshine!

I also had a nice surprise when I got to our gate. Yesterday, I saw that someone had opened up one side of the driveway more for us, at the plow ridge. This morning, the other side was done! This time, the motion sensor on the trail cam was triggered, and I could confirm it was the same neighbour who would suddenly clear our driveway last year. Last year, we had enough accumulated snow that, once it was deeper than the bottom of our gate, we left the gate open, so he just went in and cleared our driveway for us. With how much milder this winter has been, and seeing our vandal do things like stalk along the road when the vehicles we’d sold for parts were being collected, we didn’t dare leave the gate open. Otherwise, I know he would have widened the whole driveway for us. As it is, he did what we could, just because he could!

Having such great neighbours does make up a lot for having to take extra precautions because of our vandal.

The good thing is, our new truck can handle a plow attachment. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find a used one, because even the cheap, generic new kits start at around $1300, before taxes, with some costing more than $5000!

Something else to try and figure out how to squeeze out of our budget!

The Re-Farmer

I think they like it!

The yard cats seem to really like the freshly cleared paths!

They are much more active these days, and I’m seeing far fewer of them when I head out.

On the downside, this being prime baby making season, is increased fighting among the males.  This morning, I found things knocked about in the sun room.  As I cleaned up, I was finding tufts of fur all over.  When I untied the doors, I found fresh blood on the threshold.   I’m not seeing new injuries on any cats, but Sad Face has more scratches healing on his nose.

We did make it out yesterday to pick up some takeout.   The driveway is a bit tight in places, but we had no issues getting in and out.  This morning, though, I saw that someone had widened the end of our driveway, on the side we normally turn towards.  I’m pretty sure I know who it was, but the piles of snow are so high that whoever it was did not trigger the motion sensor on the gate cam.  Which is fine since it still gets triggered where I need it to monitor.

I shared a couple of photos of our plow ridge to a FB group for our municipality.   Many others had the same problem, which they never had before this year.  One person lost days of work because their road wasn’t plowed, then when it did get plowed, their driveway was blocked by the plow ridge, and they still couldn’t get out!  It seems we are not the only ones with limited means to clear our own driveways.

I’m glad we got it done, though.  I heard from the Cat Lady this morning, and we are on to bring three cats to her on Monday.  We will meet her at our usual parking lot to do the deal. 😉  I just need to get a time to meet, depending on her schedule.  I might widen a couple of spots in the driveway between now and then.

I did clear the paths to the compost heap, back door of the garage, and outhouse this morning.  It was a beautiful day for it.   I’m actually quite surprised by how much I am not in pain today.

As much as I’m tempted to get out and do more digging, I need to make myself take a break.  I’m a terrible one for pushing myself too far, then paying for it for days.  I keep forgetting how broken this old body is!  Especially on beautiful days like today.

So today will be a day of enforced rest, even though I did already do more digging! 😆

The Re-Farmer

I guess I wasn’t done, after all!

But I at least got some rest, first.

I saw my daughter on the garage cam, trying to cut her way through a snow drift in front of one side of the garage that didn’t need to be cleared. It was so deep, she had to use a shovel to cut into it before little Spewie could do its job. When I cleared the area in front of the garage, I hadn’t made a wide enough turn radius, so when we headed into town and I tried backing the truck out of the garage and turning into the driveway, I couldn’t back up far enough to clear a corner of the drift I’d left behind.

So I quickly took some painkillers, bundled up and headed outside, grabbing the snow shovel along the way.

After talking to her for a bit to explain that only the one edge of the drift needed to be cleared, not the whole thing, I stayed out to help. The area in front of the garage was drifted over even deeper than when I cleared it yesterday, and it wasn’t light and fluffy, like in the yard! To top it off, my daughter could maneuver Spewie only in certain directions without the wind blowing the snow right back into her.

For the next while, we had a routine. I’d use the shovel to break up the snow along the edge she’d just cleared, then rested while she cleared the area I broke up. Once she did a pass, she’s drag the snow blower back towards the garage, then she could rest while I broke up the next area of snow.

We kept this up until we cleared a decent sized area, far enough to clear that section of drift that I’d hit, then my daughter started making the first cut through the snow to the gate. While she did that, I started working on the turning radius space that she couldn’t get into with Spewie. After a while, though, she stopped and asked if I could help her out. In order to not trip the power bar by overtaxing the snow blower, she was doing a lot of slow back and forthing, while dragging the extension cord behind her. She kept stepping on the cord as she backed up, so I helped by simply following along, holding the cord off the ground behind her, moving back and forth with her, while also pulling more slack from the garage along the way. My daughter had the cord slung over her shoulder, so this ensured she never had to have the cord pulling at her as she went along. We have 100′ extension cords, and we need to use both to reach the end of the driveway – roughly 150-160′, I’d say. Dragging that behind you can get pretty “heavy”.

As we got closer to the gate, I was trying to see if the road had been plowed, but was very perplexed by what I was seeing. Everything was so glaring white, I just couldn’t make things out until we get closer.

I was seeing a mountain of snow, blocking the end of our driveway.

It was easily the worst plow ridge we’ve had left across our driveway, in the 7 winters we’ve seen since moving out here! Not even when we were snowed in for a month, did the plow leave behind a ridge so high!

Once we reached the gate and my daughter stopped to unlock it, I went back to get the snow shovel, and a metal shovel to break up ridge. The snow shovel is plastic and already has a crack in it, so I didn’t want to use that to break up the plow ridge.

Then I clambered over the ridge to start working on it from the road side, first. I quickly realized that, even if Spewie were powerful enough to clear the ridge (which it isn’t, even if I broke it up, first), the snow was so full of gravel, we couldn’t have done it, anyhow. Spewie’s parts are plastic, so the gravel would have completely wrecked it.

Check this out.

It’s hard to see, with everything so white, but that plow ridge reached to over halfway up my thigh. I had to use both shovels to steady myself, just to climb over it.

You can get a better idea of how tall it was in this next photo.

I’d cleared about half of the ridge at this point.

The thing is, it isn’t enough to clear enough space to fit the truck through. There needs to be a turning radius, of course, but we also need enough space to get in and out of the truck to open and close the gate.

It’s a good thing I enjoy shoveling.

By the time I mostly cleared the ridge, my daughter was almost done the rest of the driveway. She even cleared a path to the trail cam for me, while I got the last bit done, and she could finish her pass and turn around.

While she did her last pass, I went back to working on the turning radius by the garage. I hope I got the range right. It was actually faster for me to use a shovel to clear the space than it took for my daughter to cut her way through the last section of driveway with Spewie, so I just kept on clearing until we finally caught up with each other.

Once everything was put away and my daughter brushed the snow and ice off of Spewie, we were more than happy to hobbler our way inside. I’m thankful for the longer daylight hours, because it was already starting to get dark by the time we were done!

My husband, sweetheart that he is, has offered to order take out pizza for tonight. Once I’m done writing this, I need to decide if I’m up for the drive. Not that I can eat pizza during Lent, but they might have something on their menu I can have, instead.

What do I feel more up to? Cooking, or driving?

I think driving might just win.

The Re-Farmer