Well then, we had ourselves a nasty November spell. Swathing all the way from Tennessee up to the UP. Tornadoes, nasty storms... An upper 60's front driven by a nower 40's front.
It was truly terrible for about a whole 35 minutes from first flush till watery sun started breaking out of the sky.
On a yay note- that radio I paid 15 buck for a couple weeks back really paid itself off- the power died, and the batteries picked up without a hiccup. We were able to keep tuned into the weather after we lost power :) There was a goodly bit of destruction according to reports!
I hate winter power outages- made me super happy we got power back this afternoon, about 24 hours after it went out :) We were figuring sometime tomorrow at the soonest.
We tried out tealight heaters. That's when you take a loaf pan, a couple terra cotta pots, and some tealights to make a little heater. They worked rather nicely for a desk and countertop heater- fortunately, we got power back before needing to see how well they would work in our bedroom.
Got the chance to put plastic up over 3 of the 4 office windows. Really making a difference!
The luffa experiments... Well, the bleaching process went well enough that I felt encouraged to pick the dozen still on the vine that felt "fibrous" enough to pick. I think I left about 10 on the vine that were too squishy to be of use. And I'm really liking using a segment at the kitchen sink- though I think I need to cut some of the rest up a bit longer in segments for a bit bigger sponge. So those all got picked, peeled, and put into bleach solution to sit for a day or few :)
Got in a whole heap of seeds for the Christmas bag, woot! And a couple more big swaps coming in still. And the seed catalogs are starting to come in, so I get to compile a 2014 wishlist :) I'm sure it will be considerably shorter than the 2013 list was. I have quite a bit of growing to do next year to catch up on the going out growing stock!
Next year is going to be a lot of drying beans, perhaps some small gourds. I think I'm going to do up a full round of black tomatoes in the kitty buckets. A lot of greens experiments. Need to figure out if we can set up a spring raised bed or two for early root veggies and perhaps peas. A shitton of flower seeds for wintersowing experimenting.
Luckly enough, we have been saving up a heap of 1 gallon milk jugs and other big plastic jugs for the project. Still need a LOT of regular bagged dirt and perhaps a bale or few of straw to work in with the compost pile.
I think I want to re-arrange the chicken kennel walls/doors. I want to move the center wall to the south wall position. Move the middle door to the south too. Sort of prelim setup into eventual chicken space there. We only want a half dozen at most chickens- well and plenty for eggs and a couple hens in the pot every cutting season. And a lot of goodly bug control, especially ticks!
But I want to blend the back couple spaces into the eventual coop footprint, and gate in the southmost area securely for plant growing and perhaps some storage. Now that I think I have an idea on how to handle the area, time to start setting up with with what we got.
We have come a long way with the cats since we first brought Tikki into the house. She also responds well to twitchywitchy, lol. We've promised Pooks no more new kitties till well after he is resting next to Moon :)
I found some inspiration the other day with this link: http://themetapicture.com/if-youre-only-going-to-read-one-thing-today-read-this/
It's a story about a man who adopts a dog... and a ways into the troubled relationship when he is just about to give up and is willing to return the dog to the pound is reminded that this pet they got was someone elses companion first, and might need extra patience via a letter from the surrendering owner that the guy didn't open till just before he was going to give his new companion up.
No comments:
Post a Comment