The whole family went over to the good neighbor’s farm across the street this evening. We fed the chickens, collected eggs, and fed the horses apples and DW and both boys took turns riding one of the them.
It was nice, but the best thing about it was seeing D running around there, confident of himself, completely comfortable with the animals, showing me how to do things, making sure the gates were latched behind us. I got a very different sense of him than I normally get at home.
DW bought me some steel-cut oats (also known as pinhead or Irish oats).
I cooked them for 5 minutes the night before I wanted to eat them, then put the pot into a cardboard box and wrapped it in one of my boy’s sleeping bags. When I opened it up the next morning, it was completely cooked, but cold. I still had to warm it up before I ate it.
I like eating less-refined food, and I think it’s better for you. With the hay box, I can spend little more time and energy than the more-refined product with the use of my informal hay box.
Of course, I’d like to make a more convenient hay box that I can just fit the pot into and throw a blanket over the top of it, probably out of styrofoam.
Today I transplanted 28 tomato seedlings from the little plastic containers in which we started them into the newspaper pots made with a Pot Maker.
That was not the best way to do it. Next time, we should plant the seeds in the Pot Maker pot, and plant fewer seeds per pot, like two in each, so less thinning will be needed and we won’t have to pull multiple seedlings out of those plastic pots and try to separate the roots. I like the Pot Maker pot, but it isn’t large and should really be the first pot for seedlings.
I’d like to find a larger pot I could make myself from material that will decompose in the ground. Maybe newspaper or corrugated, old oatmeal boxes, other cardboard boxes.
Ending and Beginning 