Archive for April, 2010

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Starting

4 April 2010

I had a vivid dream last night that my family and I were looking for a new house to live in, and that we’d found one: a beautiful, newish, non-traditional log multi-building property with acreage in the hills near Mt. Horeb. I even dreamed the name of the builder (who built the house and lived there for a time with his family): Mike Dolan. (I checked online when I woke up, and there doesn’t appear to be a builder by that name in Mt. Horeb…although there is a realtor by that name in Wisconsin.)

And when I woke up from that vivid, exciting dream, I realized why it was so appealing: Starting things is exciting. Continuing things through to their completion is not exciting. That goes for love affairs, careers, marriages, home ownership, life…. The beginning is always fun and thrilling. The rest is hopefully not drudgery, but it doesn’t give you that rush that the start does.

And when you’re at a certain age and phase of life, there are fewer and fewer starts and more and more of the continuing part of things, so life is less exciting. It may be more satisfying, but sometimes one wants some excitement.

I think it’s not necessary that there be no starts later in life, and perhaps intentionally starting something new is one way of keeping some of the excitement in life. Although when your plate is full the opportunities to start new things don’t just fall in your lap like they used to.

I’m a great starter, but a poor finisher. All of the above is why.

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First Seeds Planted Indoors

3 April 2010

The boys and I planted onions (Johnny’s Hybrid Onion, Yellow Storage, Gunnison F1), ground cherries (Jung’s Husk Tomato), tomatoes (Johnny’s Hybrid Tomato, Red Short Vine JTO-99197 F1), and peppers (Jung’s Margaret’s) in newspaper pots today.

Planted 18 pots onions, 7 or 8 of each of the others, two seeds in each pot. We’re going to be ruthless and if more than one comes up, we’re going to pull it up. We’re not going to do any of this bare-root transplanting of seedlings from pot to pot. Probably.

I put the flat down in the greenhouse and put the heating pad under them. We’re a month later this year than last year, and having a much warmer spring, so they should be fine down there and we don’t have to have the seed-starting table in the living room, which M didn’t want. I just have to be vigilant and make adjustments if the forecast overnight low is under 25°F.

Also spent a couple of hours digging more dandelions, catnip, and clover out of the garden. Had some help from the boys and M. We’ve really made good headway getting rid of these perennial weeds. Have also been leveling out the high and low spots in the garden. All in all, the main garden is looking good.

Saved some of the catnip plants to make a tincture. Chopped them (should have chopped them more finely), put them in a quart jaw (about 1/2 full). Added vodka to cover and put on top of the refrigerator where they’ll sit for the next 6 weeks, shaken daily. It’s supposed to be soothing and calming, a fever reducer, and a digestive aid. We’ll see how it goes.

We only got about half an inch of rain last night, so it dried out early. The rain barrel by the garage is only about 2/3 full. We still need more rain, but showers are forecast in the next couple of days so maybe we’ll luck out.

I was looking around the back yard today, and even though we have what most people would call a big garden, we still have way more grass than anything else. If worse came to worse, there’s a lot of grass we could dig up to grow food. Of course, as I’ve been reminded over the last couple of years, that is much easier said to done. It’s like a lot of self-sufficiency-related tasks: the ideas are easy to understand, but you can’t implement them overnight. And some of them that involve a lot of learning-by-doing take years.

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Dandelion Digging Day

2 April 2010

The boys and I dug dandelions in the garden today. We got about a 5-gallon bucket packed full of them. Later, I cut off the leaves and ended up with about 2/3 of a bucket of leaves.

Rinsed them twice with water from the hose, then again inside, and had some for a salad for lunch — very good. M cooked some for dinner as well, but they were kind of bitter, don’t know why. The ones I had in my salad weren’t bitter. Put a bagfull in the fridge so I can eat them for a few days. This qualifies as the first fresh garden produce of the year.

It’s a great year for daffodils (which I think means that early last summer was great for daffodils).

We’re supposed to get some rain this evening through tomorrow am — sure hope we do, we had a very dry and warm March.

Also mixed up some potting soil for the garden vegetable seeds we’ll be planting this weekend. Mixed the commercial potting mix I bought a month or two ago with worm castings from the basement worm bin. It should be excellent stuff.

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