Been cleaning... and packing... and shuffling...
That's what spring is all about. Got lots of plans and wants and needs for this coming warm season. Been doing tons of cleaning upstairs, something long overdue. It's amazing how once stuff is cleaned up and packed away in the proper places how much space there is. And a ton of cleaning and re-arranging downstairs too. Just a lot of moving stuff around for best use of space and bringing workspaces together.
Decided to move the laundry room table out to the solarium, and re-arrange the potting bench. Double stacked those wide ass boards so now I have effectively doubled my close up window space for all my seedlings. And streamlined that whole side of the solarium. And have a decent potting table right there by the door which is extra nice. I never fold laundry in the laundry room anyway, so the table was a dump spot more than anything else.
Moved basement shelves to the solarium and laundry room, and moved all the canned goods to the laundry room shelves for now. I noticed the canning lids and boxes were degrading downstairs- too humid. So first salt teat area to get a hang will be in the cellar proper to see how much that affects humidity down there. If we can get it under control it will be prime again for canning storage and brewing storage.
Of course all this is bringing on a lot of sickie and icky. Kicking up lots of dust and such without the windows open- Mama N teased us with some really nice early spring days but I wasn't fooled. Used the time to my best and didn't give in to opening windows. Though I have cut back on the heaters on this side of the house a smidge.
So a lot of sneezing, coughing, and runny noses. Stiff and achy muscles from doing moving activities I'm not used to. It's good for getting in shape before hitting the real yard stuff, lol.
Been seeing lots more birds since I started filling feeders again. The snow was just too deep to get out there proper before the big melt off. So I hung a couple suet feeders, cleaned and refilled the regular seed feeder, and cleaned and filled the thistle seed bag feeder. We have had a lovely red-belly woodpecker showing up and cleaning up on the suet- it's been hanging around so not surprised. The black capped chickadees, dark-eyed juncos, fat little titmouses and sparrows, some big ass bluejays, and a plethora of early goldfinches still in winter plumage have popped up for eats. Not surprisingly the blackbirds have been showing up too, but looks like I've hung stuff right this time so it's not so pleasant and tempting for them. Lets hope this continue once the grackles show up, heh.
On some sad news.. We only have one swan on the pond this spring. We think it's Mr. McSwanums by the behavior. Don't know what happened to Mrs., but for sure there is no one on a nest. Good news is that mute swans can indeed change mates and be just fine.
Seen more ducks on the pond, though the geese are still chased off. Spotted out great blue heron a couple times now, and I think at least one other one, it's smaller but I'm unsure of the colors.
There have been a few predator birds swooping the trees along the shoreline, pouncing on dinner in the sanctuary.
Been fucking with the chippies that have found our home so delightful so far. Been letting cats out into the solarium, spreading the smell around and actually giving chippy chase a couple times. Scared one right into the garbage bag which promptly went outside, lol. I stuffed a wad of aluminum foil into the wire pipe the other day when I caught the little shits running out of it- the foil has not been disturbed.
In gardening notes... At least one of every tomato and pepper pot started has sprung with a seedling or two. Some kinds have more than one pot sprouting. Hooray! If I can get at least one plant of everything I will have seed stock base and a decent amount of produce for the year hopefully. Almost all the pots in the library have positive sprouts too.
I have realized a mistake in the soil I used for all these pots- I mixed some of last years litter buckets with some dirt from the horseradish buckets... And I'm not sure what some of the sprouts are, but I got a bunch of either weed or horseradish starts all over the place, lol. I'm plucking them out as soon as I positively ID those from other seedlings in the pots. OOPPPPPSSSS.....
Good thing I've been using straight bagged soil for the rest of the seedlings so far, heh. No activity out of the milk jugs yet, I don't expect to for a while yet. But it is pretty cool seeing them sitting on the front porch and not panicking about the weather. Or the critters- not one jug has been disturbed or tampered with so far.
Of course, none of the trays in the solarium have done anything yet either. I'm really looking forward to the tulip trays since I packed them for forcing like I did to the hyacinths last year.
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