With our bulb onions already starting to show sprouts (so quickly!) I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about getting the shallot seed started, too. With how dry the loose peat in the K-cups are in the middles, this time I wanted to make sure the peat was thoroughly saturated before putting them into the planting trays.
After looking at what we had available that is cat proof, I settled on reusing a container from cheese balls that we would sometimes get at Costco. I’ve been keeping the containers like these, in various sizes, to cut open and use as cloche in the garden in the spring, but they are coming in very handy in other ways! We don’t actually buy these treats very often, which means that at this rate, I’m using them up pretty fast!
At least for this, I don’t have to cut it apart, so it will still be usable when it’s done. Because the peat is so very dry and fluffy, I made sure to scoop quite a bit into the container, filling it to just under half full.
Then it was time to add water. The arrow in the above image is the water line! The peat just floated on top.
It took a while to mix the water into the peat. Even when I thought I was done I’d uncover another dry clump of peat!
Then it was time to cover it, to keep the cats out.
They were very interested in the process. It the few seconds it took me to put the mixing spoon down and pop the lid on the containers, Saffron was pulling at the spoon, trying to drag it away!
Once it was set aside to sit for a while, before we can see if it needs more water or not, I checked the space I had in the big aquarium. How many egg flats would I be able to fit inside? One, for sure, but would I be able to fit two?
Yes!!! Each tray holds 30 eggs, so I’ll have close to the same number of potential seedlings as the seed tray the bulb onion seeds are in.
The next question was, what to put under them to support them when they need to be moved?
Handily, I had a piece of leftover rigid insulation that was large enough to fit both trays. So I cut it in half, and we’ll be able to move them around independently, even after the cardboard has started to get soft.
I don’t have anything I can use as a drain tray that will fit, unfortunately. If I did, I would be keeping them watered from below. Ah, well. We’ll manage!
Since I was checking sizes, anyhow, I checked to see if these would fit in the 20 gallon, for when we start the bunching onions. One tray does fit, but it’s a bit too snug. We would not be able to lift it out again later, without problems.
But that’s okay. When my brother and his wife picked up groceries for us, there were no flats of eggs available, so they got us 2 packs of 18 eggs. Those will fit, plus I have long, narrow scraps of the rigid insulation I can put under them, to support the bottoms when it’s time to lift them out of the aquarium.
This is going to work out rather well!
Also, that magnificent tail in the above photo is Fenrir, sitting on the light fixture. She did not approve of my activities! :-D
For now, it looks like I’ll need to add more water to the peat, so I will probably leave it to continue soaking overnight, and plant the shallots tomorrow.
What a fun and cheerful thing to do, to keep us thinking of summer on a cold, cold day! :-)
Yesterday, we never reached the predicted high of the day, though we did come close. Today, it looks to be much the same.
So much for starting to warm up!
It was -33C, with a wind chill of -39C (-27F and -38F) when I headed out. That didn’t stop the cats from being out and about! Even before I headed out, I saw Rolando Moon in a tree branch outside my window. It was good to see her today. She hasn’t been around for a while, so I was a bit concerned. When she joined me and the other cats, her only interest was in the fresh, warm water! She did, however, allow me to pet her briefly. She is such a snob! :-D
Poor Nosy is just miserable! After I finished with the food and water – which he had no interest in – he let me pick him up and snuggle him for a bit, then I put him on the warm(ish) wooden bench in a sun spot before going back inside.
Just as I started writing this (after many failed attempts, due to our internet still flicking out repeatedly), the weather icon on my task bar refreshed to -29C with a wind chill of -36C (-20F and -33F). The high forecast for this afternoon is now a couple of degrees lower than had been forecast yesterday.
Even the long range forecast has been modified overnight. They’re still saying we’ll reach 0C (32F) by the 22nd, but the rise to that temperature is no longer expected to be as quick and smooth. We’ll be chilly for a little bit longer.
This polar vortex just does NOT want to move or dissipate!
While I will probably go out later this afternoon to run the vehicles for a while, I no longer expect to go into town at all. It isn’t a necessity, but was more about running at least my mother’s car for a while.
I am glad we will be getting my husband’s prescriptions delivered, though it will be on Tuesday instead of tomorrow, because of the holiday (February’s statutory has different names in different provinces). My husband is trying to stretch his painkillers out to last until it comes in. The refills will have his updated and changed prescriptions. Hopefully, that will help him manage the pain better. He’s really struggling right now, and the cold – even though he is set up in the warmest room of the house – is making it much harder to cope. :-(
On the plus side – and I’ll take any positives I can get right now – I have an announcement to make.
Drumroll, please!
We have onion sprouts!
Little bitty sprrrroooooooots!!
I found 2, yesterday afternoon, and a third one showed up by evening. They are so tiny, I didn’t even try to take a photo. They are all in the peat pellets, not the K-cups, which we have had to spray daily, because they’re drying out on the tops. I will be working on the shallots today, starting by saturating the peat completely, before I put it into the starter trays. Which will be the cardboard trays from flats of eggs. I just have to make sure they are on something that will allow me to lift them later on, when the cardboard will be soft and damp. Depending on how long it takes the peat to get saturated, the actual planting of seeds might not happen until tomorrow.
Meanwhile.
We have sprrrrrooooooootttsss!!!
Yes. I am a silly child at times! :-D
So that’s a bit of cheer on another bitterly cold day.
I was able to head out and get both vehicles running for a while. It’s a good thing I trust my brother so much, or I would never have left the engines running for any length of time, from the noises I was hearing. The van stalled right away, but did eventually start.
Since I was leaving them to run – with the garage doors wide open – for some time, I took the opportunity to finally switch the memory cards on the trail cams. I had to take the new camera inside and switch the batteries to warm ones to get it working again. The batteries from when I last did this were fine, once they reached room temperature, so I’ll be switching the same two sets of batteries back and forth, as needed.
When I first came outside, my brother’s dog was here. He really wanted to play with the cats! Nostrildamus would have nothing to do with him. When I was heading out to the trail cams, he was in the driveway, trying to get Junk Pile to play with him.
Junk Pile hissed and scratched at him, and he was the one to back away, but he didn’t go far. She stood her ground, but I think it was more because she was so cold and didn’t want to move!
I haven’t been able to get a good look at her for some time, so I was dismayed to see that one of her eyes is leaking and stuck mostly shut. There is enough fluid that it was leaking down the side of her nose. She has the same plaintive meow as her boy, Nostrildamus!
After I shut down the vehicles (both sounded much better by then; the van was still making more noise that usual, but the engine was warmed up, while my mother’s car sounded almost normal, but the engine warmed up only half as much in the same time frame) and closed up the garage doors, I tried to see if Junk Pile would let me come close.
She did not, but in getting away from me, I managed to steer her towards the garage, when she squeezed under the door. There, she would no longer be sitting in the snow, or bothered by a big dog!
We have to build new doors for the side of the garage my mother’s car is in. When we do, I’m hoping to put windows near the bottom, to provide sun spots and passive solar heat for the cats. :-)
When checking the files from the trail cams, I found that the new camera had stopped recording after about a day and a half, but the old camera kept recording the whole time. The next time I have a chance, I will switch the cameras, and have the new one on the post in full sunlight. I think that might be enough to keep it going. The old camera used to be where the new one is now, before our very first camera finally died, so I already know it has no issues in the shaded location.
All sorts of things are having a rough time in this cold, both mechanical and biological!
Thanks to my dear brother and his wife, I had plenty of kibble to feed the kitties this morning. I would have emptied the bin this morning, otherwise.
Ginger was out and about, and covered in frost!
While the tips of their fur makes them look chilled, when I pet them or pick them up (at least the ones that allow me to!) feel surprisingly warm. Their winter undercoats are doing the job of keeping them somewhat insulated.
Once again, the heated water bowl was almost completely frozen over! I made sure all the water bowls were filled with warm water, before doing the kibble. Their food bowls are full, but even dry kibble must get pretty hard in these temperatures, as they definitely prefer the new kibble, which would be slightly less frozen! :-D The thermometer in the sun room has shown it to be typically half the outside temperature or warmer, so when we are in the -30’s C outside, it’s at about -15C. (-22F and 5F). So everything in there is definitely frozen, but the cats seem to find it better.
While filling the water bowls, I made sure to look into the cat house.
There had been at least three cat in there, but only Nostrildamus is socialized enough to not run off when I come near. I got the picture of him in mid meow! :-D
In the upper left of the photo, you can see the timer the heat bulb is plugged into. It had been propped against some screws in the joist, so that the light sensor faced the window, but it keeps falling half off one of them. I have not tried to put it back, since it just means it will turn on earlier than if it was facing the window, and warm things up. The cats do love sitting in the sun of that one window! What I’d love to do before next winter is find a way to make another shelter for them that takes advantage of passive solar heat. I was thinking of making a smaller version of the kibble house to hold the water bowls. I’m sure we have some old windows in the barn that can be used as a roof and maybe even a back wall.
As I was coming back from putting feed out for the deer and birds, I found Creamsicle Jr had shown up in the kibble house. I only got a brief look at his injured eye, and while the fur is still dirty around it, the eye itself is looking almost normal again.
I did not run the van or my mother’s car this morning, as the cold was already getting to me. I wasn’t up to having to open up both sets of garage doors so I could run the vehicles, in a wind chill of -46C/-51F I’ll bundle up again and head out after I finish this.
Check out our long range forecast!
Look at that!!! Not only are we supposed to consistently keep warming up over the next while, but by the 22nd and 23rd, we’re supposed to be around 0C!! (32F) Things will actually be melting!
Assuming the weather actually cooperates, and this polar vortex doesn’t decide to just hang out even longer. It has messed up the forecasts a few times, now.
I’ve been thinking warm thoughts in response. Which has meant looking at the websites of seed companies. I’ve gone so far as to start an account with Heritage Harvest Seed, and have been filling my Favourites list! We don’t need more seeds, and much of what I’ve added are sold out, anyhow. It’s still fun to look. I love the little write ups that come with each item. Half the time, the thing that convinces me to add something to my Favourites is the words “extremely rare!!” I love the idea of keeping rare varieties going. We’ll have the space to do it, as we clean up and prepare more of the property and eventually expand into the outer yard. Even if we don’t necessarily grow things for our own use, they won’t go to waste, and we’ll have the privilege of space to grow them for their seeds. With this company, I can be sure that they will grow in our climate, too, since they are even further North than we are, though we’re in the same zone. From other cold climate gardeners I’ve been hearing from, the company has an excellent reputation.
I will just have to resist the temptation of ordering more seeds when we already have so many, and more on the way!
Our internet connection repeatedly cutting out should make that easier. Most of the time, it means pages don’t load well, or don’t load completely. Oddly, the most common thing that will not load, no matter how many times I try reloading a page, is the “like” button. !!
Now it’s time to see if I’ll be able to publish this post now, or have to try again later! :-D
I have the best brother in the world! And the best sister-in-law!
We were looking over our options on how to get some of the supplies we needed. I even put feelers out to see if there was someone local who could give me a ride or something. No responses.
The grocery store in town had begun offering delivery service when the shut downs started. Was that still happening? And would they deliver here? I looked it up and discovered they do deliveries 3 days a week, including Fridays – today. Unfortunately, orders have to be called in before 11am, and it was past that when I found that the service was still available, so I didn’t bother to call to see if they’d deliver as far away as us.
After failing there, I headed outside and started up my mother’s car, hoping to be able to use it to make at least a short trip to the general store/post office. Even before I started it, when the key was turned part way and the console fan turned on, it immediately started making horrible noises! The car did start, with all sorts of nasty, frozen belt and fan noises, and the engine revved itself way too high.
I shut it off.
In my head, I know I probably should have just let it run for a while and warm up, but every time I thought of doing that, I’d remember an engine block cracked from the cold, and dying on the side of a highway, all those years ago. At these temperatures, it’s just too dangerous to risk a breakdown and not even know if I’d have cell phone reception to call for help.
After trying a few other options that didn’t pan out (made more challenging with our continued internet connectivity problems), I finally sent an email to my older brother and his wife. Long story short, I emailed them a shopping list and, after my brother got home from the office, they went back into the city to pick the stuff up, then drove to our place to drop it off, tonight!
They are so awesome!
Then, because my brother wasn’t done being awesome, he checked on my mothers car.
Of course, when he started it, it wasn’t making the noises or revving like mad for him, like it did for me! We popped the hood and he checked things out. It still ran rough, but he assured me everything was okay. He told me to leave it running for about half an hour, and it should be fine. Then they left, unable to stay for longer. By the time I went out again to shut the car off, it seemed to be running smoothly again.
So I guess I should make it a habit of starting both vehicles and just letting them run for a while, as I do my morning rounds. At least for the next few days.
*sigh*
While my brother and I were fussing with the car, the girls put away the groceries, so I didn’t see what they got until later. They did get everything on the list I sent them, but more of it! So we – and the cats – are going to be just fine for the next while. Plus, because they were able to go into the city to get it all, their getting more than I asked for, still cost less than if I’d made the trip into town. When I sent an e-transfer to pay them back, I made sure to add extra to cover the cost of gas, and we still have an ample budget left to buy locally, when we are finally able to emerge from our frozen cave and do things like refill our water jugs.
I am just to grateful that they were able to do this for us, and willing to do it so late in the day (waiting until tomorrow would have been just fine!), making the long drive and even taking the time to check on my mom’s car.
My brother and his wife are the best!!!
The Re-Farmer
ps: as an aside, as I write this, we’ve dropped to -37C (-35F), with a wind chill of -45C (-49F). All the forecasts telling us when things are supposed to start warming up seem to keep getting pushed further ahead, as this polar vortex stubbornly hangs around!
This is what we were at, when I would normally be heading outside to feed the critters. -40C/F At least the “real feel” was a bit warmer, though when I did go outside, there was enough of a wind to prove that wrong!
As I write this, several hours later, my phone’s app has us at -33C (-27F) with no wind chill. The app on my desktop has us at -36C (-33F) with a wind chill of -44C (-47F). Thankfully, what wind we do have is from the North, and our door faces South. As long as we’re sheltered by the south, it’s not too bad, but once I went around to the feeding station, what a different story! Even a slight breeze is brutal at these temperatures.
That cats were out and about, though! Mostly to sit in the sun, curled up like Nosy over here.
Last night, I was prepping a turkey for the crock pot (I’ve never done that before; I hope it turned out!) and made sure to keep some bits as a treat for the outside cats. It was probably about 10:30-11pm when I popped out to scatter it among the food bowls in the kibble house. I could see through the window of the cat house, the red light on the timer showing that the ceramic heat bulb was on. I also saw some white fur moving around, so there was at least one cat actually using it last night. When I came out this morning, I saw Junk Pile in there, and I think Nutmeg was in there, too. Ginger and Nosy were out by the house, and even Butterscotch popped up from somewhere while I was tending to the food and water. I saw Creamsicle Jr, too – he ran off just before I could catch him in the above photo. I was later able to see that his eye is looking almost normal again.
They’re active, they’re eating and drinking, and it’s too cold to fight, so they’re good.
We’ve been seeing a pair of deer showing up at the feeding station during the day, so I’m hoping we’ve got some good pictures. I think it’s a mom and her baby, though they are very close to the same size. Their fur is so dense right now! I know we have deer coming by during the night, but it’s nice to actually see them.
Meanwhile…
We got the call from our doctor this morning. After going over my husband’s file and the pain clinic recommendations, etc., he’s changing things up slowly over the next few months. So he’s got a change in one medication for this month, it’ll be changed again for the next two months, and then another medication the pain clinic talked about will be added. There will be no change to the opioids right now. All of this has already been faxed to the pharmacy, though he suggested we call them later, just to make sure they got it. They would be ready to pick up today, if we could get there.
As it is, I’m going to see if I can get my mother’s car going and try to make a trip to the post office/general store this afternoon. We’re almost out of cat food. :-(
Once again, none of the cats were in their cat house, and I wish I knew why. They were all looking like poor Nosy, here, covered in frost and looking miserable!
Amazingly, though, Nosy is in a warm spot, here. When I picked him up, his fur actually felt warm, from the sun. I took a scraper to the packed snow and cleared the front step so the mat and concrete is exposed. They’ll absorb warmth from the sun at least a little bit, and be more pleasant on the kitty toes.
After such a mild winter, nature is really giving us one last wallop! When I got up during the night, I checked the weather, and this is what we were at, just before 3am.
We were at -38C/-36F! While there was no wind chill at the time, the warnings are for wind chills between -40C and -50C. That’s -40F and -58F. And we’re not in southern Manitoba or southern Saskatchewan. We’re north central.
I stalled going outside, and yet even later in the morning, we were still at -36C/-33F, with a wind chill at -40C
The Dust and Dander rating was “extreme”, though. ??? What are they measuring for, and where, to get that rating, in these temperatures?
It’s hard to believe right now, but by Monday – just three days from now – we’re going to be hitting -16C/3F. We’re expected to stay in that range for about a week, and then we’ll be above -10C/14F and staying in that range. I’m even seeing a -2C/28F, in the long range forecast!
Of course, there’s always one last spring blizzard, but after these few days, that should be it for extreme cold for the season.
When it warmed up to -32C/-26F, with the “real feel” being warmer rather than colder, I finally headed outside.
The cats had no interest in food. There is still plenty out there. While there was still water in the heated water bowl, and it wasn’t completely frosted over, it was the warm water I was bringing out that they wanted!
In talking to my husband about it later, mentioning that the vehicles would be frozen, he commented “I guess you won’t be going in to pick up my prescriptions tomorrow.”
!!!
No. I won’t.
They do deliver to our area, but we don’t have a credit card and their wireless debit won’t work out here. I’ll have to phone them and see what we can arrange. I should ask to make sure they have my husband’s new prescriptions, too. If he’s off the opiates, we won’t be forced to wait until the last minute to get refills all the time.
This is another time of extra frustration. After we moved here, we talked to my brother a lot about what should be here, and what’s missing.
There used to be a heater in the garage. It was a kerosene heater. I believe it was my late brother that brought it out here, and I think all my brothers used it so they could work in the garage in the winter and not get frost bite. It is, of course, gone. Along with the huge, heavy compressor that had been in the garage (and, I’ve learned, two other large compressors that were in the barn are gone). If it were still here, we could have used it to warm up the garage enough to keep the vehicles from getting so frozen that driving them is a risk. As it is, there is nothing here that is capable of warming up such a large, uninsulated space.
There’s really only one person who would have taken it, even if that person may not have it in his possession, now. He’s done things like take furniture and given them away to others, so who knows where it’s at now.
I don’t waste my energy getting angry over all of this, but it does get frustrating, knowing that we are having a harder time over the oddest things, because of other people’s greed.
Ah, well. It is what it is. It’ll work out in the long term. We’ll just have to use it to become stronger and more resilient.
The Re-Farmer
Update: well, at least I’ve got some good news!
I talked to the pharmacy about my husband’s prescriptions, telling them that he had got a call from the pain clinic to follow up on his new medications. They had nothing on file for new prescriptions. I explained that when we saw the doctor after the pain clinic visit, they hadn’t called him yet, but he had assured us that if they recommended different medications, he would send the new prescription directly to the pharmacy, so we wouldn’t have to come back or make other appointments. So the call from the pain clinic was a surprise. They will call our doctor’s clinic and look into that.
Then I mentioned that our van is frozen and asked about delivery, and payment methods. It turns out that they can now do debit Visa! So we can pay for the meds and they will be delivered. It won’t be until Tuesday, because Monday is a holiday, but that’s still faster than if we had to do it ourselves!
If all goes well, not only will we have our prescriptions delivered here at the farm – with directions on how to find us – but they should include the new medications. If there’s any problem getting the prescriptions updated, I know they’ll call us and let us know.
So we at least have one less thing to deal with! Whoot!
With my concerns about the drive, my older daughter was willing to take time off from working on commissions to go with me. Her sister is my back up driver, who would be able to take my mother’s car to come get me, if it ever came to that, so she had to stay home.
I had gone ahead to start the van and give it time to warm up. The first time I started it, it immediately stalled. It started again, and I could hear the fan and belts screaming from being so frozen, and the idle was way too high.
It’s just cold. It’s entirely possible that, if I just left it running for a few minutes, the engine would have warmed itself up and been just fine.
Memories of a rental car’s engine block cracking from the cold, many years ago, were enough to convince me not to push our luck.
My daughter barely had time to get out of the house by the time I was closing up the garage again.
At least we have a garage! It may be completely insulated, but at least the vehicles are getting hit by the winds and snow; just the temperatures. Even when we were living in the city, we just had an outdoor parking spot, and our old home has been hit with the same bitter cold we have.
Which means it will be at least a week before we can do any sort of major shopping. I should be able to take my mother’s car (which has a battery warmer and trickle charger, as well as a block heater, and that part of the garage does actually have a bit of insulation) to the post office/general store. We can at least get some basic groceries, cat food and (I think) litter, if we need to.
For now, my younger daughter and I have been doing some bread baking, and I whipped up some mayonnaise. Making mayonnaise is easy, but it takes a lot of oil. Thankfully, the last time I picked up a few groceries, I did get a large jug of basic cooking oil, so we’ve got plenty.
All this, because our van started acting up and needed repairs at a time when we should have been using it to stock up! Frustrating, but our habit of stocking up in general means that we will manage okay, even if we do run out of a few things. It’ll be inconvenient, but we’ll be okay.
When heading out this morning, I was on the lookout for Creamsicle Jr., hoping to get as much of a look at his eye as I can.
Much to my surprise, the cats that showed up this morning all came from either around the house, or the outer yard. Not a single cat was in the cat shelter!
Ginger came running up, right away, after the jug of warm water. Even Nutmeg almost came close. Nutmeg does let me pet him, every now and then, but not today. Ginger likes to drink right out of the jug (he’s more careful about it, after knocking it over once!), so I left him to it while I kicked the frozen water bowls out of the snow and knocked out the ice. The heated water bowl was mostly frozen over, but not as much as yesterday. I tried looking in the windows into the cat’s house, but could see nothing to explain why they weren’t using it.
While I was taking care of the bird and deer feed (yesterday, we saw five deer come to the feeding station!) I was happy to see Creamsicle Jr.
I had to walk past him to go back to the sun room after putting bird and deer feed out, which he didn’t like, but that warm water was tempting enough that he didn’t run away completely. I tried to move slowly and carefully to get these pictures, trying not to scare him away.
It half worked.
He did not like me coming close.
You can see some frost on the tips of his fur. All of the cats that came out had frosted tips! I don’t know where they were sheltering instead of their cat house, but wherever it was had enough humidity to get them frosty.
The one eye does seem to be more open now. The dark whatever-it-is under his eye and next to his nose is actually something stuck and dangling from a bit of fur.
The poor thing looks so miserable! It’s frustrating, that we were not able to socialize him more over the summer. I really want to get a closer look at that eye and maybe give it a wash, but not even Ginger is socialized enough for that. Hopefully, whatever is wrong will heal up faster as we get warmer.
At the time I headed out, we were still at -34C, though the “real feel” put us at -32C (-29F/-25F). As I write this, the app on my desktop, from The Weather Network, has us at -33C with a “feels like” of -38C (-27F/-36F). It also says our high of the day is expected to be -24C with a “feels like” -33C (-11F/-27F). My Accuweather app on my phone, however, has us at -29C and a “real feel” of -27C (-20F/-16F) with a high of -21C (-6F) with the “real feel” expected to be -31C (-24F).
It’s supposed to get colder again for a few more days, then slightly milder for another couple of days. After that, we’re basically hitting spring and temperatures are expected to keep getting warmer and warmer. By the end of February and into March, we should be hovering just under freezing. So in the week after this polar vortex is finally gone, we’ll be warming up by about 30 degrees from what we’re at right now. It’s going to feel positively tropical. We’re going to be breaking out the shorts and t-shirts! :-D
So I’m going to have to take advantage of this relatively warm day and head into town. Making our monthly bulk shop is out the window for this month. Buying locally, little by little, has really wrecked our budget. It’s the things like cat food and litter that is so much more expensive here that messes up our numbers. I know a lot of people hate on Walmart, but it’s places like that, and their prices, that allow us to have the room in our budget to care for the cats, and ourselves, at the same time. At Walmart and Costco prices, we easily spend about $300 a month on cat food and litter. Buying the same quantities locally would be closer to $600.
My original plan had been to head out late this morning to hit the post office before the general store it’s located in closes for the afternoon, as they do every Wednesday. However, the mail can wait. I’ll head out in the afternoon, instead. I’ll be heading into town, first. The package my husband was supposed to get turns out to be with Purolator, not FedEx, and now they’re saying we’re not in their delivery zone. They never said that when they first phoned him about it. It has been delivered to a depot in town and we’ve got 5 business days to pick it up. Fair enough. I can take advantage of that side trip to fill our gas tank (at a non co-op gas station, so we don’t end up with more than $400 in damages again) along the way. I’ve already gone over my planned route with a daughter. I’ll be going to the Walmart in a smaller city. They don’t have as much available there, but my sister lives not too far from there, so if the van breaks down on the road, I can call her for help.
I’ll be taking a route that will take longer, but the highway runs through a number of small towns. I know I’ll have a cell phone signal along there, too. My usual route would be first to the town my mother lives in, and the cell phone dead zone covers most of that drive. There’s nothing but isolated farms in between. From that town, I would cut across to a different highway, take the highway to another cross road before finally reaching the highway that goes to the city I am aiming for. The entire route is basically open land with a few farmhouses tucked away behind shelter belts, well away from the roads. The only towns I would go through, between home and this city, is the town my mother lives in, and the village near my sister’s farm.
I sometimes think I’m being ridiculous about this. I grew up there, and I’ve moved back to this area with my own family a couple of times over the decades. At one point, we lived in a house my parents owned, maybe 3 miles away from where we are now, and my husband was one of the many people who made the commute to the city. We are not strangers to these temperatures and road conditions, and didn’t think twice of packing the kids into the car and making a trip to the city just to see a movie. Back then, however, we had a car that was only 3-5 years old, and we were all younger and able bodied.
The van we have now is almost 15 years old and has well over 400,000km on it. We depend on that van more than we’ve depended on any vehicle before. Partly because, with his disability, it’s the vehicle my husband can get in and out of, and has room for his walker. Partly because it allows us to do those monthly shops that would never fit in any car we’ve ever owned.
Thankfully, we do have my mother’s car as a back up vehicle. It’s a couple of years newer than ours and has half the mileage, but has had a remarkable number of problems with it, and not just because of my mother’s terrifying driving habits. After discovering what happened with our van, I’ve already asked the mechanic about checking it over when we bring her car in for an oil change. My mother bought her gas at the co-op gas stations, too, so it may well be pretty clogged up. It would explain things like the terrible mileage. It’s still a relief to have it. We may not use it much, and the registration and insurance costs more than for our van, but being as much in the boonies as we are, it’s worth that expense to have access to a second vehicle, just in case.
Bah. I’m rambling right now. Nerves. I really don’t want to make this trip, but we just can’t afford to buy what we need locally. They often don’t even have any inventory left for things like the bigger boxes of cat litter (almost half the size of what I can get at Walmart or Costco, but almost double the price!). Other things, we just can’t get locally.
But hey! In the time it took to write this, it has warmed up a degree! :-/
After having to get creative to prepare our first tray of seed starts, we left the tray overnight to give the peat in the K-cups more time to absorb the water.
I didn’t check it until late morning, and the peat was still dry in the middle! The water was basically staying on top. It was better than before, though, so I went ahead and planted our first seeds of the year!
I used a skewer to make holes for the seeds and sprayed more water into the holes in the K-cups (the peat pellets were fully saturated). Then I poured some of the seeds into a small dish and used the dampened, flat end of the skewer to pick up seeds and transfer them into the pots and lightly cover them. Using the skewer works really well! I ended up using only about half the seeds in the package to fill the tray, and that’s with 2 or 3 seeds each! Then I sprayed the tops with more water – especially the K-cups – before getting a daughter to help me transfer it into the big aquarium.
I am not going to use the tray’s dome to cover them, as the high humidity can promote mold growth. Instead, we will be checking them every day, and probably spraying them daily. The tray is designed to water from below, to encourage the roots to grow downward, so we won’t keep up the spraying for too long. It’s mostly the dry peat in the K-cups that concerns me. I will also be leaving the light on all the time until the sprouts are emerged for a few days, then reduce it to about 16 hours a day. Hopefully, we will soon have a tray of shallots in here, too! Before filling any pots (if I can’t get more pellets), I’ll have to make sure to use a container to saturate the peat in, first, then fill the pots.
Meanwhile…
I’m a suck.
I’ve mentioned that a few times, usually in the context of cats, but it turns out I’m a gardening suck, too.
Last night, the girls and I were pouring over a satellite image of the property. We marked out the current garden beds, and we have been using it to figure out where we are going to plant various things.
One thing is for sure. If we aren’t able to get a load of soil this spring, we’re lining ourselves up for some back breaking labour, and probably a lot of failed growth. Last year, we basically dug small holes for everything we planted, filled the holes with a soil mix, then planted or transplanted into these in-ground “pots” we created. That’s fine for the small garden we had last year, but not so much for this year! The soil is so hard and filled with rocks, it’s difficult to use a spade or hoe. Even sticking wire flags into the ground left me with several bent flags from hitting rocks. We have so few tools here, we don’t want to break what’s left of what we’ve found! My mother still goes on about how we could get one of the tillers fixed and using it, but I’m pretty sure we’d just break a tiller, trying to use it! I couldn’t even use the soil auger drill attachment when we planted all those bulbs in the maple grove last fall. The original plan had been to slowly build up areas and increase our garden size over several years, but… well, then the world went crazy.
We have so many more things we’re planning to grow compared to last year, it’s going to be a huge job. Especially the area where we want to plant the tallest things – 3 of our corn varieties, and the giant sunflowers. We’re wanting to start going into an area that has never been part of the garden before, and has only had grass on it. Two of the reason we grew giant sunflowers last year was for a privacy screen and wind break. We’re still keeping that in mind for this year. Between tall plants, using trellises, and whatever we come up with to keep the deer out, we should be able to make a pretty decent privacy screen. We may be in the boonies, but the main road goes right by the garden. Aside from vehicles slowing down to watch the deer at the feeding station, through the lilac hedge, we’ve got our vandal and his creeping about to contend with. :-/
As we talked about what seeds we have now, and what will be shipped in time for spring planting, we ended up talking about other things we’d like to plant, and I showed the girls some things I’d found on the Baker Creek website. We have a lot of things that are purple (corn, potatoes, sunflowers, beans, carrots…). We had a blast looking up other purple things, and talked about having a purple themed garden. So, of course, I was adding all sorts of things to my wish list.
I really ought to know better. :-D
Yeah, you guessed it.
I made another order this morning!
Thankfully, seeds are still cheap.
When I placed the order, there was a highlighted note telling people that, because there are so many more orders this year, things are taking longer to process. For us in Canada, that means it could take up to 3 months for our seeds to arrive. That would be too late for anything that would require starting indoors, but that’s okay. I’d rather order them now, while they are still available.
So, this is what we’ve ordered (all links will open in a new tab, so you don’t lose your place. :-) ).
Spoon Tomato: this is the one that I really wanted to show the girls – and then we got sucked into the vortex! We are not big tomato eaters; my older daughter enjoys eating them, and we have ordered a mix of cherry and grape tomatoes for her, but when I saw these “micro mini” tomatoes, I just had to show them to her. While they are incredibly small (possibly the world’s tiniest tomato), they’re supposed to be big on flavour. They’re adorable!
Chinese Pink Celery: this is a new variety for Baker Creek, and one that was already on my wish list. I was thinking for next year, but I went for it. These are supposed to be easier to grow than other types of celery, and seem to be well suited for our climate. Hopefully, we’ll get them early enough to plant them this year.
King Tut Purple Pea: This was another one already on my wish list, and since we’re going with a purple/pink theme, I included them. We only have 1 variety of peas right now, anyhow, and I felt it wasn’t enough. I’d resisted ordering more, since we already have so many other things, but… it’s peas. Can you have too many peas? I don’t think so. I highly recommend checking out the link and reading the story included about them. :-D
Merlot Lettuce: lettuce is one thing I had not included in previous orders for various reasons. We’ve tried growing lettuce before, in our balcony gardens, and never had much luck with them. Plus, they just seem to go bad quickly. But as we were looking at the purples and dark reds, these stood out. Not only do they have an amazing colour (they are well named!), but they are bolt resistance and cold tolerant.
Lunix Lettuce: Every time I see the name, I want to say “Linux” instead of “Lunix”. LOL These have such deep, dark red leaves! Bolt resistant, and apparently great for hydroponics and off season low tunnel growing. We’ve been looking at ways to use poly-tunnels to extend our growing season, so it would be good to test these out.
Lollo Rossa Lettuce: This is a very dramatic looking head lettuce! Also noted for its great flavour. I’ve had no luck growing head lettuce before, but maybe now that we have the spaces that we do, we can make it work.
Dishcloth or Luffa Gourd: this one’s for me! We have so many squash already, the last thing we needed was one more but, like I said, I’m a suck! Chances are, we won’t be able to start them this year, but they seem to be having a surge in popularity, so I figured I should get the seeds now, while I can. Young squash are edible and tasty. Left to fully mature, the gourds are dried, peeled, the seeds shaken out, and the remaining sponge is great for washing with. I don’t think I’d use something that size as a dishcloth, but in the shower, they are great for exfoliating the skin. You’ve probably seen them in stores, along with the back scrubbers and such.
Along with these, we will also be getting some free mystery seeds that Baker Creek always includes with their orders.
This really should be the last of the seeds we order, but I’m pretty sure I said that after our first two orders for this season! :-D
