The first seedling to break soil surface was a drum gourd – one of the two in the middle pot – but then a Crespo Squash, on the right, burst through and exploded out of the soil. It seems like every time I look at the pots, there’s more visible growth.
What I’m really happy about is that not one of the seedlings emerged with the outer shell of the seed stuck on the leaves. Last year, there was more than a few times that I had to very carefully remove the shell, because the seed leaves were being killed off. As careful as I was, sometimes pieces of the leaves would break off, because the shells were so tightly encasing them.
I really like this pre-germinating technique!
The heat mat will need to be unplugged very soon. I won’t move them off right away, as I need to arrange space. I won’t need it until I start more seeds.
This weekend will be 7 weeks before our last average frost date. I will go through some of my seeds to see what I want to start first. The seeds we have left are pretty much all supposed to be started 3-4 weeks before last frost, but if I started all the ones I want to, I’ll run out of space in no time at all – and I will have way too many things that need to be transplanted, all at once. So I plan to stagger them.
I might even start some of these.
Baked Potato SquashMashed Potato squash
I had to go to town today and finally picked up the mail. There were probably in and waiting for a while. Since we have so many varieties of winter squash seeds, we will probably start just a couple of seeds of each. At this point, we’re still after trying out different types to see what we like the most, and will then probably drop it down to one or two varieties.
Who am I kidding. We’ll probably be constantly trying new ones! Just maybe not quite so many different types, all at the same time.
That’s one thing about having the luxury of space like we do. We can spare some to try growing new things we don’t even know if we’ll like, yet.
Recently, I was going to start some new seeds in pots, but at the last moment, changed my mind. We had such trouble with these last year, and these seeds were anywhere from 2 to 4 years old. I decided to try pre-germinating them, and if some of the seeds turned out to be dead, I’d know right away. Plus, I could avoid our situation last year, where so many seeds didn’t germinate, or died soon after.
Here is a video from Maritime Gardening about the planting process.
Typically, pre-germinating seeds is done in slide lock baggies, but he does it in reusable plastic containers, and I liked that idea better. The take-out container I used was big enough to hold all the seeds I wanted to start, and they are all so different there was no concern about getting them mixed up.
Today – after only 4 days, with only a couple of those on the heat mat (I had the container elevated, so the wouldn’t get too hot) – they germinated! When I turned the lights on this morning and checked them, I saw a few little roots poking out. By the time I was ready to put them in pots this afternoon, every seed either had a root emerging, or just visible.
Before I got to that, though, I saw this new video from Gardening in Canada. Excellent timing.
Almost all plastic containers have that triple arrow reduce-reuse-recycle symbol, with a number in it. She goes through all of them, from 1 through 6. All the plastic containers she looked at are considered food safe, but some are better than others, though the green tray sets with the LED lights, which I now have, too, have no number on them at all.
When it was time to plant, I made sure to check the bottoms of the pots I’d bought for these, and was happy to see a number 5. Discovering that the Red Solo cups (which have a 6 on them) are made of a plastic that is among the worse for shedding was a bit of a surprise. I still have a lot of those!
Honestly, though, I’m not too worried about it. If I worried about all it all, I’d never do anything. Still, if I am in a position to choose one over the other, I now have the information to made an educated decision.
Thanks, Ashley!
So here is my little video of today’s progress!
The seeds had already been soaking for a while when I decided to take clippers to them and scarify the outer shells. Normally, I’d have used sandpaper. All the emerging radicles found their way through the clipped openings. It likely would have taken several more days for them to break through, otherwise, and even longer if they’d gone straight into pots.
I’m quite impressed that every single seed sprouted. The luffa are the oldest seeds of them all, so I was really expecting to have at least a couple of duds.
So now they are on the heat mat, and I expect to see them emerge from the soil in a few days. Theoretically, I should have given each seed its own pot, but we’ll see how they do, first.
Before I was able to get started on this, though, I had to finish cleaning up after my near disaster with the San Marzano tomato tray, yesterday. The remaining soil spilled onto the floor had finally dried enough to vacuum, though I was actually able to salvage some of it, first. As everything was put back in front of the window, I made sure to top up the soil on the onion tray that got knocked over. Mostly, it was filling in around the edges, since the roots held the soil together in the middle.
I’m really at a loss as to how I’m going to set up more seed trays as they get moved out of the big aquarium greenhouse. We won’t be able to do the same set up as we did last year. Hopefully, things will stay mild enough that I can start using the sun room, early. The outside cats won’t be happy, though. They’ll be losing their lounging spaces! We’ll probably have to start closing the sun room door completely. At least for the night.
If the door can close all the way. Things are still shifting, and I recall having trouble getting the outer door to fully close because of it.
The sun room certainly gets warm enough during the day – today, I saw the thermometer at about 25C/77F – but it loses pretty much all that heat, overnight, and that would be cold enough to kill seedlings. It’ll be a few weeks before we’re going to need the space, though, so it might be warm enough overnight, by then. We shall see.
For now, I’m really happy with how pre-germinating these seeds worked out. When it comes time to start things like the melons and winter squash indoors, I think it would be worthwhile to do it again!
It’s been a while since we could get to the bed with the carrots in it. Previously, we had no issues harvesting them, and the bed did have a nice thick layer of mulch.
One of the first things I did was detach the arched cover from the box cover in the centre, and switch it to the bed on the left. This way, we could put the cover on the carrot bed onto the box frame, making it much easier to attach the plastic.
The painter’s cover sheets I got are 12’x8′. My daughter and I folded them in half to make them 12’x4′. Once we had the plastic over the arched cover, she went to start removing the mulch for me while I attached the plastic to the frame. This is temporary, so I just stapled it down. The staples didn’t want to go in all the way, though, so I had to go around and hammer them in.
I can see wind is going to be a problem with the plastic.
As for the carrots, I had a bin all ready to collect the last of them, but it was not to be. Not only was the soil frozen solid, so was a lot of the mulch! My daughter got off as much as she could, then we put the cover, now with plastic over it, back on the bed.
We then took the other arched cover and set it back on the box cover. The mesh on this one is temporary. The chicken wire I used is too bendy and easily misshapen, so it will be replaced with stronger welded wire or something, later on. For now, though, it’s enough to hold some plastic. It went faster this time, as I went around stapling the plastic down, and my daughter followed with a hammer, tacking the staples down so the were actually holding the plastic in place. Very frustrating.
The second arched cover’s wire is a bit smaller than the first one we did, so there was more excess plastic to tuck under at the ends, and a bit more on the sides. This one went onto the bed next to the compost ring, which still has quite a bit of snow on it. It also did not get weeded or reworked as thoroughly as the one in the middle, before things got too cold.
So now we have two beds with plastic “greenhouse” covers on them. We’ll need to check on the carrot bed regularly over the next few days. As the ice in the mulch thaws, we’ll remove more of it, until the soil itself can finally start thawing out – and we can finally harvest those carrots!
Note for future reference. If we use this method to store carrots again, we need to either use a lot more mulch, or have it covered in plastic like this – or both!
It’s 10C/50F right now, making for a gorgeous day to work outside.
This is what it was like, a year ago today!
We were having to dig ourselves out and were still expecting a blizzard.
It’s not at all unusual to have at least one last blizzard in April. We aren’t expecting anything but warm days and mostly sunny skies for the rest of April, this year. In fact, if the long range forecast is at all accurate (ha!), May will be chillier than April.
Gosh is feels good to be able to work outside right now! Yes, I know, we need more snow, and we’re expected to have drought again this summer, but I will enjoy what I can, when I can!
So I went through my seed bin again – main bin, not just the smaller bins organized by “direct sow” or “start indoors” – and found my package of Uzbek Golden Carrots from last year. I really liked these carrots, so I want to plant more this year. I also found my leftover Napoli carrots. Those are pelleted seeds, so no need to do anything with those, but after how well it worked out with our Naval carrots last year, I wanted to make seed tape with the Uzbek Golden Carrots. I also found some other things, but more on that later.
The package still had quite a lot of seeds in it. We planted only one row, about 14′-15′ long, last year, so we didn’t use much.
Like last year, I used strips of toilet paper the length of the end of our dining table, split into single ply. I pre folded the toilet paper, lengthwise, to make it easier later on. A flour and water paste was used as the “glue”, and I used a bamboo chopstick to apply the paste with the thick end, and to pick up the seeds with the narrow end. Once the seeds were in place, the toilet paper strip was folded over, pressed into the flour paste, then set aside to start drying while the next batch was done.
After a while, the stack of drying strips was getting rather thick. There were still plenty of seeds when I stopped, so I took another look at the package.
A minimum of 800 seeds! Wow!
Each strip has 20 seeds in it (a few got pairs of seeds stuck together, but I’m counting those as one). I counted the strips, and had another 20.
I think 400 seeds will be enough! I’d estimate there’s still close to 300 seeds left in the package.
The seed tape is now draped around the cat free zone in the living room to finish drying, before they get rolled up and stored until it’s time to plant.
As for the other stuff I found…
I confirmed that I do have a few Crespo squash seeds left. I really want to grow those, as they are supposed to be quite delicious. I got the seeds from Baker Creek, but they don’t seem to carry them anymore, so I want to be able to save my own seeds. I also am thinking of trying the African Drum gourds again. Last year, I had issues with the gourd seedlings and replanted a few times, to the point I started getting the pots mixed up. By the time the survivors were transplanted and started producing fruit, we discovered none of them were drum gourds! Hopefully, I’ll have better luck this year.
I also was surprised to find I still had luffa seeds! Last year, they also had issues and got replanted a couple of times, but it’s also the first year we actually had a luffa develop. So I think I will try those again, this year. Being in the old kitchen garden was so much better for it compared to our previous attempts, so I will take that into consideration when it comes time to transplant them. It’ll be the same thing with the Drum gourds and Crespo squash. I’ll need to really think about where they need to be planted, as much to protect them from the deer as anything else. The first year we grew Crespo squash, they did fantastic, until then got eaten by deer and groundhogs three times before we could get them sufficiently protected! They recovered very well and started developing fruit like crazy, but there just wasn’t enough growing season left for them. Last year, we had one develop to about the size of a smallish pumpkin, but I think their location got too much sun, and the plants got baked.
Anyhow.
I will try starting the three of them within the next couple of weeks. I still have some larger peat pots left from last year, so they’ll go straight into there. Hopefully, that will mean there will be no potting up needed. The pots didn’t break down after transplanting the Crespo squash, like they were supposed to, but they can be broken up without disturbing the roots at transplant time. The main thing will be to keep the pots moist until then. Otherwise, they dry out and suck the moisture out of the seed starting mix!
I’m still waffling about whether or not I will try growing corn again this year. We have some short season varieties, but I don’t know that we’ll have enough space prepared for them. They are not a priority, compared to some of the other things we want to grow this year. A lot will hinge on being able to get those new beds built in time for planting. We’ll be growing potatoes where we grew winter squash last year, so we’ll be needing space for the squash we want to grow this year, and I hope to grow quite a bit of both winter and summer squash. We’ve got a melon mix this year, too.
Well, we’ll see how it works out when the time comes. For all the plans we’ve made, I’ve found it’s awfully easy for things to side swipe them!
Still, I’m happy to at least have the seed tape done and ready for planting, once the ground is thawed out enough. Carrots, at least, can be planted before last frost, and I can hardly wait!
Shuffling the trays around has certainly helped! Check this out.
When I turned the lights on yesterday morning, there was nothing in the tray. When I turned them off in the evening, all the cells on the far right of the photo had seedlings breaking ground. By morning, they were opening their seed leaves, and I could even see one starting to break the surface in the middle row, though it’s not visible in the photo.
That row of seedlings on the right are the Black Cherry, which are new seeds for this year. The middle row are the Chocolate cherry, which are seeds from previous years. The ones on the left, which we got this year as a freebie with our order, are a completely different type of tomato, so I expect those to take longer to germinate, compared to the cherries.
I will wait until there’s more sprouts before I raise the tray off the heat mat. I’ll just put one of the dome lids under it, which will raise the tray about 5 or 6 inches off the mat and closer to the light. I don’t want to unplug the mat until the peppers start germinating, which will take longer.
The tray with the San Marzano seeds has been a bit of a surprise. There weren’t many seeds in the packet, but it turns out that there were more than I thought. There are seedlings in all the cells in the tray, but in the row where I had enough to plant only one seed per cell, there’s extra, and in some of the cells where two seeds had been planted, there are three seedlings! These would have been seeds that had stuck together in the package. Some are so close together, I’ll just cut away one, rather than thin by transplanting, as removing one would damage the other.
Okay, so I’m really a week early for this, but I decided to start more seeds, anyhow!
It was also an excuse to finally get my video making software up and running on the new computer. That was far more complicated than it should have been, but once it was all set up, everything went well.
Plus, PBC makes a cameo appearance.
This time, I started the three varieties of short season bell peppers left over from last year; Early Sunsation, Dragonfly and Early Summer. When it comes time to transplanting them outdoors, we need to try a completely different location. Definitely well away from those trees along the north side of the low raised garden beds! Hopefully, by starting them indoors this early, as well as planting them in a better location, we will actually get ripe peppers to try. With the peppers we started last month, this will make for 6 varieties, only one of which was able to ripen outdoors last year. None of the seeds are new.
I ended up starting 4 varieties of tomatoes. We were intending to only plant a couple varieties, originally; one paste tomato variety and one cherry tomato variety for fresh eating. Then we got some free seeds I wanted to try, too. When going through the tomato seeds we had, I decided to grow the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes again. I used the new seed starting trays for the tomatoes, which have only 12 cells, so I’m going for more variety over quantity of plants. I know the cherry tomatoes should be prolific (if they do well this year), but the free Forme de Coeur we got are also supposed to be quite prolific. I planted only 2 seeds per cell. If we end up with only a few plants of each variety, all together should be adequate to our needs. If we do end up with a high germination rate, I’ll might thin by transplanting, but we’ll see when the time comes.
The San Marzano tomatoes went into my remaining new style of tray I got this year, with the larger, deeper cells. There weren’t a lot of seeds in the package, though, and I used them all up. I filled the cells only half way for now, and will top them up as the seedlings get bigger. With this, if we do have a high enough germination rate that they’ll need thinning, I will definitely thin by transplanting. As it is, I only had enough seeds to plant a pair of seeds in two rows, and the last row got only one seed each. It’s entirely possible that thinning won’t even be an issue.
Last of all, I started some Butterfly Flower, which is an orange variety of milkweed. That one had plenty of seeds, so I might also try direct sowing in the spring, too. I had a small tray with Jiffy Pellets left over from last year, so I used that. The seeds are pretty big, compared to all the others I started today, and each pellet got only one seed each. That’s still a dozen seeds, so not bad. Since these are perennials, we will need to be selective on where we transplant these.
Starting these seeds meant a bit of rearranging needed to happen. The seeds starting in the Red Solo cups were still in the big aquarium greenhouse, and that was going to be needed for the large tray of tomatoes.
Zero oregano seeds germinated, so I took those cups out completely. With the Purple Beauty bell peppers, one cup had all 4 seeds germinate, while the other had none, so I transplanted two of them into the empty cup. The German Winter Thyme doesn’t seem to be growing much bigger. I’m not sure what to make of that. The bin with these went into the mini greenhouse in front of the window. The two trays with the LED grow lights on them went into the mini greenhouse as well, and are now plugged into their USB cables. For now, I can still use the remaining three lights to supplement the tray with the eggplants and hot peppers.
The trays with the tomatoes and peppers are set up above the heat vent. Hopefully, that will be enough, because we’ve only got one heat mat, and that’s now being used with the San Marzano tomatoes. The milkweed is in the big aquarium greenhouse, too, but off on the side. These shouldn’t need the extra heat, anyhow, but the warmth from the lights themselves should be adequate for them.
Now I’m really going to be getting antsy. We are at 11 weeks before last frost and with these seeds started, the seeds I have left don’t need to be started until 2-4 weeks before our last frost date. Unless I decide to start some gourds, but even they all are recommended for starting at 2-4 weeks. That means having to wait until the start of May, at the earliest!
Well, before then, I’m sure some things will need to be potted up or something, so I should still be able to get my gardening fix! 😂😂
Gardening in Canada put out another really useful video today that I just had to share.
Of course, we still need to take into account our individual situations.
Some of these I would have thought were obvious. Root vegetables, for example. I’ve heard you can actually buy root vegetables as transplants in greenhouses (I don’t recall seeing them, myself, but I might just have missed them), and to me, that seems downright unethical.
Only recently have I seen people starting things like peas, beans and spinach indoors, which I found perplexing. Peas and spinach are among those things that need cool temperatures to germinate, and can be planted before last frost. It’s just too warm to start them indoors, isn’t it? Beans germinate and grow so quickly, it seems like extra work to start them indoors. As for lettuces, I do know of people who grow them indoors, not for transplant, but for winter greens, so that’s an option. I do recall seeing lettuces and leafy green transplants in the stores.
With things like melons, cucumbers and squash, winter or summer, I’ve been starting some of them indoors because I only have a 100 day growing season. Last year was the first time I direct sowed summer squash, and they were a magnet for slugs. Some of the ones that survived did well – the G Star patty pans in particular – but I had to resow most of them several times, and still ended up with just a few plants that didn’t produce very well, compared to past years where they were transplanted. This year, I will be direct sowing again, but need to find a better way to protect them from slugs. I just won’t have the space to start them indoors.
As for the winter squash and melons that we transplanted; the melons did well in the kiddie pool raised bed, but needed more time than we had, even though they were supposed to be short season varieties. With the winter squash, the mounds that got full sun suffered more than those that got partial shade. Basically, the full sun ones got baked. The transplants also survived the slugs better than the direct sown summer squash. Because of the growing season, I will probably start winter squash indoors, but this year, we have some shorter season winter squash, so we might be able to get away with direct sowing.
Her comments about luffa is in line with what I had been considering doing myself. I don’t have the seeds to try them again this year, but when I get more seeds, I want to try starting them in a larger pot, and simply taking the pot outside when the time comes. Last year’s transplanted luffa, we got one plant that did remarkably well in the wattle weave bed, so I know it can be done!
As for cucumbers, those were something we tried starting indoors two years in a row. The first year worked fine. The second year, not at all, so we’ve got something else going on there. It could simply be the different varieties.
I have never heard of anyone starting potatoes indoors before! Same with garlic, other than in those silly 5 Minute Craft type content mill videos.
As for corn, we did try starting corn indoors, because we were trying to grow kulli (Maize Morado) corn. We could get away with direct sowing the Montana Morado corn, as it’s a shorter season black corn, but kulli needs 120 days to maturity. Transplanting the kulli corn did result in transplant shock that set them back. Once they started growing, they got huge – but didn’t start developing tassels or cobs before the season ran out. Since we are building covers for our beds, I am thinking that when we try them again in the future, I will make use of those. First, to create a greenhouse situation to warm the soil of a bed earlier, then keeping it warm after sowing. While our last frost date is June 2, we do tend to get nice warm weather before then, so we should be able to get that extra 27-30 days (days to maturity, plus days for germination). Basically, we’d have to find a way to plant them at the beginning of May to give them enough time to fully mature.
Hmmm… I should check the calendar. I’m sure there’s something I can start indoors about now…
The gardening itch is hitting me hard right now!! 😄
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!
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.
While shutting down the lights in the big aquarium greenhouse, I spotted a bit of green. By this morning, there was more!
In one of the two cups they were sown in, all three Purple Beauty bell peppers have started to sprout.
In one of the three cups the Sweet Chocolate bell peppers were sown in, there’s one sprout emerged, and another pushing its way through. There may even be a third, under a piece of perlite, on the right. If it is, we’ll know by the end of the day.
With the thyme sprouted for so long, but nothing else, I had unplugged the heat mat some time ago and just hoped the tank would still be warm enough for the other seeds. There is NO sign of the oregano. We had issues with oregano last year, too. I’ll give it a bit longer, then decide if I want to try sowing them again, or just give up on the oregano from seed this year. It might be better to buy a transplant when the garden centres open in the spring.
In other news…
I was contacted by the Cat Lady a couple of days ago. She has been able to find open adoption spaces at a couple of shelters in the city for us. After much discussion, we’ve decided that both Ginger and Toni will go to one shelter. They have a set up just for special needs cats, and apparently three legged cats are extremely popular. In the city, at least! The other shelter specialized in Siamese or Siamese looking cats. I sent a picture of Ghosty’s face, and she was identified as a Lynx Point Siamese. My daughters figured she was a tabby with albinism! Either way, this shelter tends to have rather high end clientele, so Ghosty will likely find herself in the lap of luxury before long!
As I write this, I can see the live feed from the garage cam. There are 6 cats milling about. It’s that time of year again. There’s been a lot of baby making going on, and the males are starting to fight over the females. I’m so frustrated that we haven’t been able to snag any of the females to get fixed! They simply will NOT let us near them! I think the super fluffy little tabby that is sibling to Patience outside, and Peanut Butter Cup, the Beast, and Soot Sprite, inside, is female. It’s hard to tell with all the fur, and I can’t get close enough to check, anyhow, but the way I see her behaving around the males right now…. *sigh* Why are all the females so skittish, but the males so friendly?
Anyhow.
If all goes to plan, we might be down three indoor cats on Friday! I’ll be driving them out half way to meet the Cat Lady, and she’ll take them the rest of the way.
This morning, after giving the outside cats their food and warm water, I did a bit of shoveling. I’m much less stiff and sore than I expected to be, after yesterday! I made sure to have some Golden Milk before bed, which I think helped a lot. Lord knows, the painkillers aren’t doing much. We now have paths to the compost pile, the back of the garage, the outhouse, and the litter pellet compost behind the outhouse.
What I am NOT going to bother doing is clear a path to drive into the inner yard. I don’t see the point.
We are getting snowfall warnings for this evening, though – another 10-15cm/4-6 inches – so we might need to clear the driveway again tomorrow, so we can meet with the Cat Lady on Friday. Hopefully, the gravel roads will be plowed, too. I thought it was done already, but when I cleared our driveway, I found that what I though was a plow ridge visible on the garage cam was just tire tracks from the one vehicle that managed to make its way down our road. !! I don’t expect to have troubles with the truck on the road, but our driveway tends to drift a fair bit. Mostly right in front of the garage.
We have several packages to pick up at the post office, which closes at noon today, so I will be heading out soon to get those, then keep going into town with a couple of water jugs to refill, and pick up a few groceries. I’ll have to snag a daughter to help me bring things to the house from the garage, since I won’t be able to pull up to the house. Either that, or reclaim the wagon from the storage side of the garage. It’s got our chainsaw and other tools I was using to clear trees and work on the first trellis bed stored in it. With the paths in the snow, though, it might be easier to just carry things in. We’ll see.
As I write this, we’ve already warmed up to -13C/8F, and we are expected to reach a high of -5/23F after the snow starts to fall. We’re expected to stay below freezing for a few more days, but the forecast is now saying we should reach of high of 2C/36F on Sunday, and be staying with highs at or above freezing from then on.
We’ll see what actually happens! I just want that snow to melt away slowly, so we don’t get any flooding aside from our usual moat around the garage. 😁
Well, time to get ready to head out, and see what the roads are like!
The Re-Farmer 