Well, it finally got done! At about 1am, the video I meant to post yesterday was finally uploaded to YouTube, which then was going to take another hour to process it, in three different quality options. I waited until the lowest quality one was done, so I could select a thumbnail, then went to bed!
The question is, was it worth it?
I’ve watched the video myself, selecting the highest quality option, but I really can’t see much of a different.
Here is the video in question.
Could I ask a huge favour?
Could you please watch this video on YouTube, selecting the highest quality option, then compare it to this one…
… also on highest quality option?
Then let me know in the comments how you watched it, and if you could see any difference in quality or play.
I’m using my new desktop to watch these, and the YouTube settings for both allow me to watch them at 2160p/4K.
When exporting the older video in my software, I used the default “good” quality setting. There is little difference in file size with either “good” or “high” options, so it should not have taken so very long to upload. I don’t know if it was an issue with our internet, or with YouTube itself. Or both. I’ve had this happen before where the upload took so long. it was basically stopped. I gave up and started over again. The problem with doing that is, no matter how far along the upload was, trying again starts at the beginning, not from where you left off. In that case, when I tried it again, it uploaded much faster and without any problems the second time around. I seriously considered doing that again with this one, and probably should have.
I save the video as high quality instead of merely “good” quality. Which makes a 12 minute video into a much larger file.
It’s 70% uploaded to YouTube, but will apparently take another 2 hours and 19 minutes to upload.
I thought it would finish uploading while I did the evening chores and made myself something to eat, but I think the upload paused when my computer went to sleep or something.
It’s finally thawed out enough to dig into. I just loosened things up this morning. There are many roots and rhizomes that need to be removed, some of which are now drying in the sun until I can get back to it later.
Syndol would follow me along as I worked my way down the bed, reaching out every now and then to bat at the garden fork, or the roots I was pulling up!
He’s such a cutie!
On another note, my younger daughter now has a nice new pair or steel toed shoes.
I confirmed that the pain in my left foot was from my outer toes hitting the edge of the steel toe cap. The problem is not so much the shoe, as my deformed feet. *sigh* This is not something that is going to get better, so I got my daughter to try them on and walk around in them for a while. She can feel the edge of the toe cap, but it’s not a problem for her.
So it’s back to my old ones or my rubber boots, until I can get another pair of steel toes. I’m really glad my daughter can use these new ones!
Before working on the bed by the chain link fence, I uncovered the carrot bed and removed more of the mulch over the carrots. Unfortunately, there are still frozen chunks that just won’t move. The three beds in this location do get quite a bit of light throughout the day, but no morning light, and that seems to be making the difference.
Which means the carrots frozen in the bed are likely not salvageable. Lesson learned!
Oh! I got a call while I was writing the above. The Cat Lady updated us on Wolfman. He did get those fancy drops and his first treatment, and his eye is already looking almost completely healed! The vet says that for sure the injury was blunt force trauma of some kind. There may even be a tiny fracture in the bone. We’re at a complete loss as to how this happened! He’s going back to the vet on Monday, and they’ll get a look at the back of his eye to see if there’s any other damage to be concerned about, but so far, he’s healing up really well.
Such good news!
Now… where was I?
Ah. Garden stuff!
Before heading outside, I turn on the lights for the seedlings and check on them. Check these out!
They are just exploding in size! Even the comparatively small luffa are growing so quickly! I’m quite thrilled.
I will have to decide, though; will I thin them by removing, or transplanting? I’m very tempted to try transplanting the extras. The more potential transplants, the more likely we’ll have at least one survive outside.
I still have time to decide.
Among my goals for the day is to finish up that bed at the chain link fence, but I will start on that after I’ve gone to the post office when it reopens for the afternoon. According to the tracking information, our potatoes are ready for pick up at the post office, and the owner of the store has signed for our Fed Ex delivery, so that’s ready for pick up, too.
I hadn’t decided on what will be planted in the bed by the chain link fence. Once that’s done, it should be suitable for the 1kg of Caribe potatoes. Then we’ll just have to prepare space for the 2kg of Butterball potatoes.
We haven’t named this one, but that pattern over his nose makes me think of Nosencrantz, every time I see him!
Nosencratnz is doing well at her new home, btw. 😊
I counted 32 yard cats this morning. Remarkably, while I was petting a bunch of the males as they ate on the cat house roof, Broccoli not only allowed me to pet her, but even pushed her way through the boys to get better pets! Even Caramel let me pet her, in between trying to bite my hand.
Yesterday evening, I got a call from my mother, and arranged for me to come over today to help her with her shopping. This morning, however, I got another call from her. She had a rough night, and wanted me to decide for her, whether she should go to the clinic in her town. At least she wasn’t talking about going to the emergency! That would have been in the nearer city. After talking to her for a bit, it seems that she had issues with heartburn again, but my mother can’t quite understand what that means, and always tries to blame whatever food the TV or magazines tell her is bad. We talked for a while and I reminded her of the list of foods that can make it worse. I remember she had it taped to a cupboard door in her kitchen at some point, but I have no idea if it’s still there. She keeps insisting on eating foods that are known to cause heart burn, though, then blames other foods that don’t, but that she has decided are bad for her. It’s really hard to talk to her about this stuff, because she can’t understand so much, including basic anatomy. We have tried to explain things to her, even showing her diagrams or looking up medical information, but if it doesn’t match what she had decided it is, she doesn’t accept it and promptly forgets it.
One thing that did seem to finally get through was talking about processed meats. She keeps trying to say she needs to eat less meat. If it weren’t for the meat we’ve been bringing over for her, she’d be eating nothing but garlic sausage and deli chicken. At least she eats eggs! I spent some time talking about how, as we get older, it’s important for us to eat high quality protein, and some of the ingredients in processed meats might be triggering her heartburn. She seemed to actually hear me for a change.
Still, what she wanted was for me to decide it I “wanted” to take her to the doctor or not. I told her no, that’s her decision, and we’ll see how she feels when I got there!
So I left I bit earlier and picked up Chinese food for lunch, which she actually did eat. As we were talking on the phone, she’d mentioned going there for onion rings (she still thinks they serve cat meat, because someone said something, and she saw a thing on the news …. ). Onions are among the things she shouldn’t be eating. Deep fried foods are also among the things she shouldn’t be eating!
She hadn’t had breakfast, though, so she was happy for the meal!
There was one unfortunate surprise, though.
When I reached her door, I saw some things on her walker, which she parks next to it. There was a jar wrapped in paper two, a carton of eggs, and two carrots.
Under it was a piece of paper.
I immediately recognized our vandal’s handwriting.
It seems he’d swung by her place, left the stuff, but never knocked or anything like that. Who knows how long it was sitting there.
I brought the stuff inside and ended up reading the letter out to her. It was all the usual stuff about the farm and me and my brother, some invented accusations, and how she’s going against the wishes of my late father and GOD!!! Complete with underlines. Then he threw in a comment about going to the doctor. From past calls he’d made to her, before his number was finally blocked, he told her he was dying, but didn’t say from what. He still seems to think she can give him the farm somehow? Either way, it’s clear he still thinks the property should go to him, but 1) he already has a farm and 2) if he’s dying, what’s he going to do with it, anyhow? It’s not like he’s got any kids to leave it to.
Our theory is, he’d simply sell it. It’s the money he’s really interested in.
The paper towel wrapped jar turned out to be soup in what looked like a small mayonnaise jar – at least it wasn’t a pickled herring jar this time! My mother was so disgusted after hearing what was in the letter, she didn’t want any of it. At least not anything that he cooked (it was full of onions and chunks of sausage, anyhow!).
Instead, we enjoyed our Chinese food and had a good conversation. She was feeling a lot better once she was up and out of bed, and I talked some more about how sleeping more upright can be a help (another thing that’s on the list I made for her, along with food choices). It would be really helpful for her to have a hospital bed, like my husband – it would even be better for her and her knees – but no. She doesn’t want to “bother anyone”. ?? In our province, our home care service department can provide a hospital bed as a “loan” – that way, if anything breaks or whatever, they simply replace it. The company they get these from sends a couple of people over to bring it in, assemble it and test it out. Easy peasy. But no. She even has a chair my brother bought for her that can be reclined almost flat and would be good to use as a sleep chair, but she won’t do that, either.
As we were talking about how being upright and moving around obviously helped out, she then suggested that if she hadn’t gotten out of bed this morning, she probably would have died.
*sigh*
She was clearly feeling better, but not enough to run errands, so we went over her list. She writes her stuff out in a mix of English, Polish or English with Polish spelling. Then she makes little doodles of what they are, beside each item.
I was very confused when I saw “soup” followed by an =, a drawing of a jar, another =, then a drawing of a cup.
It turns out, she meant “soap”.
For dishes.
We had a good laugh over that!
One thing I did take note of was that she included “turkey or chicken”, but not sliced, with a doodle of a deli chicken.
I can’t even wrap my mind around how she spelled “sliced” enough to remember it!
It’s been a while, and a longer list than usual, so I was hitting both the pharmacy and the grocery store to get it all. Which is fine by me.
My only problem is, I think I messed up with my new shoes. Wearing thinner socks has helped, but only with one foot. My other foot could have used a half size bigger. Not that there was any half sizes to choose from. Normally, I’d be confident that the shoe would eventually stretch out a bit, but I’m not sure how far the steel toe extends. I might be hooped. I won’t return them. I’m not going to take back shoes I’ve already worn in the mud. Ah, well. Live and learn! I’ll work it out, but gosh, it got pretty painful by the time I was done! The main thing is, my mother is now well stocked again, and I was even able to get her a variety of fresh meat in single person size packages, instead of the processed meats she usually gets!
As I was heading home, I remembered to stop at a hardware store. I got metal corner supports to put on the corners of our raised bed covers.
In other garden related things, I got a notification today that our T&T Seeds order of potatoes got shipped today, and should arrive tomorrow!
These are the varieties we ordered; 1kg of Purple Caribe and 2kg of German Butterball.
I wasn’t expecting them to be shipped so soon! The space we will be planting them was still mostly covered with snow, this morning. It was warm enough today that it’s almost all gone, but the ground is probably still quite frozen. Of course, they don’t need to be planted right away; they can be stored for a little while, at least, but perishables like this get shipped based on the local growing zone, which means they really should be going into the ground soon!
The potatoes are not the only things that are on the way. My husband ordered a hand crank for my crossbow. I have not been able to use it for a frustrating reason. I’m too short to cock the bow, using the rope cocking aid that came with it. Basically, it’s got a pair of hooks you place on the string, with a matching pair of handles. With the bow secured with a foot, you bend over the stock, pull the sting with your arms, then straighten up. Once upright, the string should be far enough along to lock in place.
I’m too short.
I even tried shortening the cords on the ropes of the cocking aid, but there’s only so far you can do that without compromising the gear. My husband can cock it but, with his back injury, he can only do it a few times before it becomes too painful.
The hard part has been finding a hand crank that will fit the model of crossbow I have. There was one made for it, but it was discontinued shortly after I bought mine! It took a couple of years, but my husband finally found one that is supposed to work on my model – and was affordable!
So that should arrive soon.
If Fed Ex can figure out the address.
It might just end up at the store the post office is in. We shall see!
I look forward to finally being able to practice again!
Anyhow.
That’s a few of the things going on today.
Tomorrow, the septic guy comes in to replace the pill switch!
I’m so excited! 😄😄😄
Besides that, I think the ground is thawed out enough that I can continue working on that bed along the chain link fence. I was able to pry out the last chunk of broken sidewalk block that was under the one end, but that was it. We hit 12C/54F today, so that should have helped a lot. We’ll see how tomorrow is. We’re expected to have a high of 9C/48F, with possible rain.
Rain would be good. I even drove through rain on my way home from my mother’s today!
Maybe not so good if it comes while the septic guy is working on our tank, though!
We shall see.
Lots to do outside, as things keep warming up, and that now includes preparing the potato patch!
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.
No, not finally petting this cat, though that did happen (I counted 30 yard cats this morning).
No, not finally the snow is almost gone, or the moat around the garage disappearing, or even large sections of the main garden area accessible again.
No, what finally happened was our tax returns finally got deposited!!!!
I’ve already called and left a message with the septic guy about replacing the pill switch in our septic tank.
Just a little bit longer, and we won’t be having to manually turn that thing on several times a day.
We’ve certainly learned to recognize the signs of when it needs to be done, before things start backing up into the basement!
We were having a problem with it yesterday, though. One of the things that was modified on our system was the addition of a pool filter. Greywater from the tank goes through the filter before it reaches the pump, which then sends the water out to the field by the barn. Hang on… I should have some photos. That will make it much easier to explain!
There they are!
These go back to 2020, in February, when things backed up into the basement, and my brother helped get things unplugged – at least until we had the roots professionally augured out of those floor drains!
This is what it looked like, before the filter was installed.
This is what it’s like now.
The filter needs to be primed for proper flow, but once that’s done and closed up, it should run fine. If, however, we turn on the pump, but the greywater side of the tank outside isn’t full enough to be drained, the filter reservoir drains out the bottom, and that’s it. So we need to open it up and fill it to above the inflow opening to prime. We can even keep an eye through the clear lid and see what’s going on, which I find very useful.
You can see the white handle of the filter basket inside. We have two of them, so that when it needs to be cleaned, we can just quickly switch in the second one, then let the dirty one soak in detergent for a while before scrubbing it out. Typically, we only need to do this a couple of times a year.
That got switched out when the septic tank was emptied and it was really bad, so I switched out the detergent water it was soaking in a few times, and it was still soaking, as of yesterday.
Yesterday, we could tell that the tank needed to be drained, but every time I tried to run the pump, the filter would drain, but no greywater from the tank would come in. I’d prime the filter, but it would happen again.
So I decided to switch the filter basket, but the other one was still soaking. The detergent got most of the gunge off, so I gloved up and started scrubbing the basket with brush that we have, just for this job.
What I found myself doing was pulling out wads and wads of cat hair! Enough that it was blocking the mesh of the filter basket from the inside.
Once I got that clear and clean, I took the other filter basket out and set it to soak. I also made a point of cleaning the inside of the reservoir, the threads and the parts and pieces of the cover. I even scrubbed the inside of the clear cover as best I could. Over time, grease and grime can build up under there and make it harder to see inside.
It was a very disgusting job, but it needs to be done!
Once everything was cleaned up, I popped the newly cleaned filter basket in, primed the filter, then turned on the pump.
It ran fine! I could see the inflow splashing through, and the water level remained high.
While that ran, I started cleaning the other filter basket…
… and started pulling out wads of cat hair!
There was enough cat hair lining the inside of the basket to prevent proper flow and mess with the vacuum seal.
I got the cat hair out, but left the basket to soak in detergent longer, since the other scunge that was already accumulating wasn’t going to come off well, otherwise.
When living on a town or city sewage system, we don’t really think about what goes down the drains. Sure, we know about flushing toilets, baths, showers and draining washing machines. How often, though, do we think about the bits of food and grease from washing our dishes? Or all the different types of cleaners, getting all mixed up together? Or how much HAIR gets in there! We already have to regularly clear the drains in the tub and bathroom sink because of the hair that gets caught – both human and cat – but I never imagined that so much cat fur was making its way into the septic system that it would clog that filter basket after only about 10 days. The Septo-Bac and the bio pipe maintenance stuff both include bacteria and enzymes to break down grease and hair. It just needs more time to do it!
It would be getting in through the washing machine, mostly. Every time we do the laundry, and I clean out the lint trap on the drier, it’s got a thick layer of cat hair on it. It gets everywhere. What we need to get are some air filters for various rooms, but even that would reduce the problem, not get rid of it. We just have too many indoor cats!
Well, by the end of today, we’ll be down by one, as I deliver the Wolfman to the rescue for vet care and adoption. I’m happy to say his eye is looking SO much better today. Hopefully, that will mean a much smaller vet bill for the rescue, though the vet was willing to give them samples of that super expensive medication.
Talking about the Wolfman with my husband today, he joked that he’ll put money on them deciding to keep him permanently. I hope not! They already have 17 permanent cats, plus the ones up for adoption that have their own space, and 4 or 5 (or is it 5 or 6?) of their permanent ones are from us!
Wolfman is such a sweet cat, though. We’re going to miss him!
What can’t we adopt out the a****e cats, instead?
Oh, right. Because they’re a****s. 😂
Anyhow.
It will work out.
Later today, I will deliver the Wolfman, then take advantage of the trip to pick up a few necessities. Hopefully, I’ll hear back from the septic guy before then, and will know how much cash to take out to pay him, and a date for when he can replace the pill switch.
Today is turning out to be such a gorgeous day! The outside cats are very happy and spending more time outside, rather than in the sun room.
Unfortunately, the skunks are out, too. I went into the sun room from outside and found one in there, eating the cat kibble. At least the skunk doesn’t bother the cats any, and the cats generally stay in the sun room while the skunks are there. The racoons, on the other hand, usually come in groups and tear the place apart, digging for stray bits of kibble, and they’re easily twice the size of any of the cats. Expect maybe Shop Towel.
As I write this, it’s coming up on 4pm, and we’re at 13C/55F, with a “feels like” of 15C/59F. I couldn’t resist! I had to get out there and get some work done!
So I decided to work on the low raised bed that runs along the chain link fence between the people gate and the vehicle gate. It needs to be narrowed for better reach, but we didn’t get a chance to work on it before the ground froze.
I’ve been making sure to take photos and videos that will be put together in a video later on, but there was one thing I found I just had to share now.
After removing the mulch to get started, I found onions!
Last year, after transplanting onion seedlings in various places, I still had lots of teeny, tiny onions left over. I also found onion bulbs in various places, from the year before, that had survived the winter. Most of the seedlings got transplanted just inside the bricks framing the bed – and most did not survive. The bulbs I found from the previous year’s onions – Oneida onions, if I remember correctly – all got transplanted at one end of this bed, plus there was a single surviving shallot that survived the previous year’s flooding that I just left to grow. It tried to go to seed, but didn’t quite make it. I didn’t harvest any onions out of here in the fall, because there was nothing to harvest.
Well, those previous year onions actually survived the winter, and I uncovered a bunch of them! Even the shallot at the opposite end was starting to show green!
Where they were growing was part of the bed I had to move to make it narrower, so these had to go.
The largest bulbs in here are the yellow onions that I think are Oneida. The shallots had two bulbs growing against each other, plus there were a few little onions that I think may have been survivors last year’s transplants. There is a pair of bulbs that look like yellow onions that I think might be a different variety of shallots, but I’m not sure.
These got transplanted in the raised bed we will have peas planted all down the middle. I haven’t quite decided what I will plant on either side of the peas but, at one end, it now has these onions. If they survive, they should go to seed, which would be awesome. Onion seeds are viable for only a year, but once the plants go to seed in their second (or, in this case, third) year, I believe they go to seed every year. We could potentially have our own annual onion seeds to collect.
We shall see!
After the onions were transplanted, I went to work on the end of the bed next to the people gate. That’s where I’d found there were broken pieces of sidewalk blocks and bricks, buried under the soil. You can read about that here.
Unfortunately, the ground it still too frozen. I got one broken piece loose that can be left in place, as it will not be under the bed. I was able to remove another broken piece, but found the edge of yet another chunk. I tried pouring water over it do make it more visible, and possibly thaw the soil a bit, too, but eventually had to stop. Depending on where it extends under the soil, I might be able to leave it for now.
When I realized I was just chipping through soil that was frozen rock solid, I set that job aside and started working on pulling up weeds along the edge of the bed, and moving the soil away from the path and closer to the chain link fence. In some places, it worked out okay, but for the most part, the ground is just too frozen.
With the mulch removed and the black soil now exposed to sunlight, it should start thawing out faster. Hopefully, we’ll have that bed reworked and ready for planting, soon. It’s one of the areas thawing out fast enough that we will be able to direct sow things that can be planted before last frost.
Gosh, it felt good to be working out in such a beautiful day!
We’ve got another beautiful day today. It was already above freezing by the time I got outside to feed the kitties and do my morning rounds. I counted 28 yard cats this morning.
I was coming back from the outer yard when I spotted the gathering…
Sorry for the shakiness. I was zoomed in from across the yard! If you turn your volume up, you’ll hear a noise right at the start. That’s actually ice crackling! You’ll also hear the Canada Geese flying overhead. There were a lot of them this morning. We’re at that time of year where the cats are preferring to drink melt water instead of the warm water I’m still leaving for them in the heated water bowls. Here, though, I think they were mostly just playing. The water is receding quite a bit – which is good, because it’s actually being absorbed by the ground, not washing away. In some areas, though, that means there is a top layer of ice, then a gap over the water level, with another layer of ice. It’s that sort of top layer of ice cracking that you’re hearing in the video.
Enough snow has melted away that I was able to start adding areas back into my rounds, and even start doing a bit of clean up. It’s still too early for the snow crocuses, but the area they are in is mostly clear of ice and snow. I was even able to check on the Korean pines. I think we lost one of them. There’s four left altogether, and I’ll be happy if even just one survives. We shall see!
In other things, today is our anniversary. Thirty six years ago, while my husband was in “X platoon” in Basic Training (Basic Officer Training Course, to be specific; it’s an option that I don’t think exists anymore) due to an injury, he flew home for about a week. He arrived late on a Thursday, before Easter weekend, which meant all government offices were closed from Friday to Monday. On Tuesday, we bought our marriage license, then waited the requisite 24 hours before getting married on Wednesday. We had two days together, then he flew back to Chilliwack.
The powers that be were not impressed. Apparently, he was supposed to get their permission before getting married!
We didn’t see each other for another 3 months. That’s when his parents and sister were able to fly in from Africa, where they were living at the time. My husband was still in X platoon, so he was able to fly out for a few days, and our two families gathered together here at the farm to celebrate our marriage. After he returned to Chilliwack, we didn’t see each other again for another 3 months, when I took the train and moved out to join him, just in time for him to officially leave X platoon and be part of the next BOTC start date. We didn’t actually live under the same roof until after he was done the 13 week course, and we moved to Victoria, BC, where he had his first posting as a very green naval officer.
Of course, we had all sorts of people making assumptions about why we eloped like we did, but it really came down to, it was the only time slot we had. It was either do it then, or wait a couple of years. The entire wedding, including my dress (I bought it earlier because I was able to get an employee discount on top of a warehouse clearance discount – it only cost me $10! I never thought I’d be getting married in it!) and rings (I got those with my employee discount, too! 😄) cost about $100. My BIL paid the $40 or whatever it was for the license fee, and my brother and his wife took us out to dinner after the wedding. My brother and his wife were the only family members to know what we planned to do in advance, and my SIL walked me through what I needed to do and where I needed to go to get it all arranged before my husband (fiancé) flew out.
I highly recommend eloping. Very stress free!!
My mother had been okay with it at first; just surprised. Then she talked to the local priest, who told her we weren’t really married, because we didn’t get married in a church.
*sigh*
That priest didn’t last long. He replaced a well loved priest that retired early for health reasons. The new guy was a terrible, angry and bitter man who should never have gone into the priesthood in the first place. So many people complained about him, the bishop moved him somewhere else (hopefully, to either get some counselling, or leave the priesthood!). Which says a lot because, even then, there were very few priests, and it was a long time before they found someone to stay as parish priest.
But I digress.
My husband and I were both 19 when we eloped, so of course, we had all the predictions of how it would never last. Interestingly, our marriage has outlasted many others that did things “right”.
It was no fairy tale wedding, but I’ve never been big on fairly tales, anyhow. I wouldn’t have it any other way!
As for celebrating, my husband is in no condition to go out, so I headed into town and got take out to celebrate, instead.
Okay, it could have been worse, but I had a bit of a disaster this morning.
While trending the seedlings and doing a tray rotation, I topped up the larger cell tray of San Marzano tomatoes with more soil. I’d deliberately half filled the cells to start, and now I’m “potting up” the seedlings this way.
After carefully putting the soil around the seedlings, tamping it down gently, then gently top watering to settle the soil around the stems more and avoid air gaps, I went to put the tray back into the mini greenhouse frame at the window. I had to rotate the peppers and eggplant tray back to the top, as they’re getting too tall to be anywhere else, so the tomatoes needed to go one shelf down. I’ve got the LED lights set up above the lower shelves, but I did move the cables around to get them out of the way.
Well, not enough.
Between getting caught on a cable and the uneven bottom of the tray catching on one of the wire squares on the shelf itself, the entire tray ended up sliding off the far side. There is a gap between the shelf and the wall, because of a baseboard heater (these are never used and the breakers are off. I don’t remember them ever being used when this part of the house was built!). The tray, however, landed against the window sill, rather than sliding all the way down to the floor.
In the process of falling, it knocked one of the onion trays on the shelf below, off in the other direction.
What. A. Mess.
I was able to retrieve the tray, but a lot of the soil – and water! – was all over the window sill, down the wall, and on the carpet below.
The shag carpet.
*sigh*
I think they’ll survive, though.
Once the tomato tray was cleared away, I had to pick up the onions before I could reach anything else. They are in four sections of a vegetable tray, and the roots actually held everything together pretty well, but some soil was lost. The bundles could be popped back into the tray. I think they’ll survive, too.
The mini greenhouse frame had to be cleared of everything else before I could move it and reach the biggest mess. I was able to save some of the spilled soil, but most of it will have to be vacuumed up.
I fixed up the tomato seedlings as best I could, and had to add more soil to a few of them.
For now, I’ve got the trays spread out in various sun spots, though those will be gone soon. We have a fan going in the room for the seedlings all the time, so that will help dry things out faster. Once the mess can be vacuumed, we can put the frame back and return the seedling trays.
It could have been worse.
Well. I suppose it still could be. Let’s see how the seedlings survive over the next little while!
The Re-Farmer 