The last surviving baby bunny is doing well. We've named her Xerox, because she looks like a carbon copy of her mother. She's eating and drinking on her own, and has been reintroduced to her mom full time. She's ready to go to her new home soon. I'm asking $50 and I'm looking to find her a good indoor pet home. She's well socialized, actively seeks out human affection, and loves snuggles. Some of the plants in the garden are finally flowering. I think it may be too late in the season for most, but here's hoping that the late start and the geese getting into the garden - twice - won't destroy all hope of some harvest. The Fur Crusher cucumbers are growing, the Little Greasy beans are flowering, and the various squash and watermelon varieties are starting to flower. Here's hoping for at least some harvest. Home grown food always seems to taste so much better!
I've been working hard this month to get seeds in soil. Yes, it's late to be planting, but better late than never, right? Here's to a long season and a bountiful harvest! I planted Canada Crookneck Squash, Honey Boat Delicata Squash, Patisson Golden Marbre Scallop Squash, Odessa Squash, and Dwarf Grey Sugar Peas in the strawberry bed. I also planted Marvel of Four Seasons lettuce and Table Queen Acorn Squash, but I suspect the local chipmunks had a snack as none of them came up. I planted Grey Zucchini, Black Beauty Zucchini, Fordhook Zucchini, Golden Zucchini, Hmong Speckled Squash, Dolya (Share of) Pumpkin, Interception Pumpkin, Titovka Melon, Malachite Watermelon, Bozeman Watermelon, Kentucky Wonder Bean, Little Greasy Bean, and Ever Blooms Bean seeds into grow bags in a broken plastic kids pool. I planted San Remo Melon, Mexican Sour Gherkin, Boston Pickling Cucumber, Blue #2 Cinderella Pumpkin, and Cushaw squash in a raised bed near the fence. So far only the San Remo has come up. I planted True Lemon Cucumber, Seagull Melon, Mulatto Watermelon, Sugar Magnolia Sugar Pea, Blue Lake Pole Bean, Guicoy Squash, Fur Crusher (F1) Cucumber, and Armenian Cucumber seeds into buckets in the small fenced garden - so far everything has sprouted except the Armenian cucs. I planted Chicago Pickling, National Pickling, Marketmore, and Dragon's Egg cucumbers, as well as Beni Kodama Watermelon, Golden Crispy Melon, Zolotinka Zucchini, Svitozar Zucchini, Graduate Student Zucchini, and Burpee's Stringless Green Pod Bush Beans in grow bags in a new garden area beside the barn. Last week #3 was able to get several varieties of flower planted too. It looks like we will have sunflowers and zinnias and butterfly / pollinator mix flowers growing in the new garden and along the west side of the house by the fenced garden. An excellent balance of edible and insect friendly seeds planted for this year. Last week we welcomed five new goslings. Our flock more than doubled overnight! The new babies join their mom (Goose-Toph), and their dads (A-Goose-Tus, and Freckles). They're a week old now, and aside from getting stepped on frequently by the adult geese, the babies seem to be doing well. They eat commercial crumbles, grass, and I tossed in some strawberries the other day which were gone by the next day. Today we welcomed a litter of eight baby bunnies. Mom (Extra Stuff) made a good nest in the nest box and didn't mind me reaching in to count them. Looks like it'll be a nice colorful litter. A couple dark ones, a couple spotted ones, some pink ones, a few that might be brown. Mom is a broken black lop mix, dad is a torte lop mix. I'm excited to see how these babies look as they get bigger. If all goes well, these bunnies will be ready to move on to new homes in 6-8 weeks depending on how they're doing with eating and drinking on their own. Right now all four of the adult rabbits are on a grass-only diet. I cut fresh grass (and weeds and whatever else is in the yarn) to give them every day. They do seem to be maintaining their weight and they eat until they're full, munching away all day long. The geese appreciate the grass that falls underneath the cages. I have a new eBay account if anyone wants to take a peek at what I've got up for sale. I'm going to try to be more active there as I clean out the garage. I need to find new income sources as our family has changed a lot in the last year or two and I'm really struggling to make ends meet right now.
In other news, our dear #3 graduated high school and is looking into out-of-state colleges for this fall. Congratulations #3! I am so proud of you! Today I received my Baker Creek seed order. It contained:
Phil's One Tomato Phil's Two Tomato Merlot Lettuce Datil Pepper Indigo Blue Chocolate Tomato Ozark Pink Tomato Tokyo Blue Squash Nicaise Squash Gulcoy Squash Odessa Squash Jigsaw Hot Pepper Golden Crispy Melon Mexican Sour Gherkin Cucumber Purple Ball Basil Persian Basil With the new seeds arriving, I was able to get my seed starting kit set up and planted. The line up for this year (so far)?
I labeled each seed part with both the name of the variety and the coordinating number, to better help me keep varieties identified. Yes, I'm only growing two to four seeds of each in one single starting pod. It's more of a taste test to see what I like and to compare a few varieties, less about growing out for seeds. Years ago we got the most amazing purple basil plant from the local greenhouse. It was the best tasting basil I've ever had. We've tried various other purple basil varieties but can't find that one. The greenhouse said it's in their catalog simply as "purple basil" - This year I am growing out all of my red and purple basil varieties in an attempt to identify the one we had so many years ago from that greenhouse - and to refill our stock of dried basil (that we use for spaghetti). I am growing out all of the dragon tomato varieties, all three colors of Peter Peppers, all of the D&D themed names, and I'm doing a head-to-head comparison of Gnome Fight With Shadow vs Dwarf Shadow Boxing Type 4, Hazel Mae vs Hazelnoottomaat, Vegetable Sorcerer vs Clairvoyant Sorcerer, and Spoon vs Post Office Spoonful tomatoes. There are four flower varieties there upon #3's request. Here's to a great growing season in 2023! Winter sowing should start sometime in February or March. Gypsy's kittens are eight weeks old and currently living in the house. They're doing great, using the litter box, and eating and drinking all on their own. I should take photos and get them posted online to find them new homes but I've been working myself to exhaustion with my new job and just don't have the energy right now.
The school changed their last day of school up a week, so kids have less time to get missing assignments in but get out sooner. The kids are thrilled. It will be nice not to have to get up so early. I managed to get most of my tomato and pepper plants re-potted into containers. I still need to plant my strawberry plants, my new apple tree, and some flowers I picked up. I'm still not sure where to put the flowers or apple tree but I'm sure they'll find a place somewhere. The cherry tree has blossomed and the blossoms have faded. The apple tree and lilacs are in full bloom right now. It's starting to get hot. The last few days have been in the 80's. Today I got the first of the two large orders of seeds from Heritage Seed Market. I've already got all 65 varieties added to the Seed Stash page! They kindly sent along five additional varieties, of which four were new to the collection, so very cool! I'm excited to try some of these as many were on my wish list, and several are dwarf or micro-dwarf tomato varieties. The next order from there is the one with all the rest of the micro-dwarf varieties I went back for.
I ordered some stuff from Amazon recently and part of that order arrived today. I got a bunch of earring cards to put my earrings on so they look more presentable than just stuffing them in to little plastic bags. I'm hoping to sell them at a local flea market if we ever get back to being able to safely gather again. I also ordered a mannequin head so I could better photograph the hats I made and get them sold, but I ordered one with green eye shadow and natural looking lips, and they sent me a head with bright pink eye shadow and nearly fluorescent lips - it looks like Barbie, so I'm going to have to send it back. I also ordered a big pack of 1000 plant labels so I could set to work winter sowing. I figure 1000 will last me a while. I had two other packages coming from USPS that show "out for delivery" but they didn't make it. The teas I ordered on the 30th of December are supposed to be coming via FedEx but they've been in transit for ten days now and have finally made it to Minnesota, but no longer have an estimated delivery date. I'm hoping they'll show up tomorrow. Perhaps the couple missing USPS packages will arrive too. I moved the Aero Garden from the kitchen up to my bedroom just to clear space in the kitchen. I have it plugged in but not planted yet. I hope to put two micro-dwarf tomato varieties in and a few different lettuce plants. I can have salad while I wait for the tomato plants to grow. I've always used the system for basil but the basil tends to overwhelm everything else. Last time the basil was the only thing that came up! Crossing my fingers that I'll have better luck when I get around to setting it up this next go round. As much as I have enjoyed the abundance of basil produced by the Aero Garden, that's really all we've been able to grow in it thus far. I would love to get a hold of an aquaponics aquarium with built in lighting system. For a while a long time ago, #2 had one in his room, but the sunlight wasn't enough for the plants to thrive without putting the whole tank in the window which just grows algae in the tank. I wonder if I could find a similar aquaponics tank and set it up beside the Aero Garden if the lighting from the Aero Garden would be enough to get the plants to grow in the other system. I'm pretty sure that tank was in the old basement when it flooded, so we don't have it anymore. That's a shame; it was expensive. I love the idea of growing food indoors over winter when it's too cold to be gardening outside. With cats, having potted plants is a challenge. We have a few houseplants but they have to be very hardy to survive the cats - and me forgetting to water them on a regular basis. So far the pothos and the aloe vera seem to be surviving alright. The Wandering Jew plant I keep killing but managing to save one sad cutting to restart the plant again. It is not as resiliant when I forget to water it. Anyway - I suppose I should start considering my options for what to grow this year. It's already halfway through January, which means Winter Sowing season will soon be upon us! Yesterday I got the seeds from the eBay vendor in the mail. They kindly included seven additional tomato varieties, and a pepper variety as well. Unfortunately they only sent 29 of the 30 varieties I ordered. It's frustrating, but not the end of the world.
Did I get bored with the monotony of editing Redbubble listings and start scrolling through seed listings again? Yes. Did I spend the rest of my garden plant/seed budget on yet *more* tomato seeds? Also yes... But in my defense, I've discovered "micro-dwarf" tomatoes, and while I've had a few Dwarf Project tomatoes in the collection, I've never really focused on them. But I must admit, the idea of being able to grow a tiny tomato plant indoors in a basket in the window over winter has a huge draw to me. And, as I tend to do when excited about things - I went all in. I have begun to believe that my brain thinks that tomato varieties are like Pokemon, and I have a deep desire to collect and try them all.
So - what did I spend the last of my garden funding for 2021 buying? I went over to Heritage Seed and bought 69 varieties of tomatoes. There were 70 in my cart, but by the time I went to check out, one variety had sold out. Anyway - here's what will be coming soon! Rosa de Falula Shimofuri Post Office Spoonful (again, it's a freebie and a variety I'm excited to try) Dwarf Awesome Dwarf Mary's Cherry Dwarf Melanie's Ballet Dwarf Mahogany Mallee Rose Sturt Desert Pea Sibirsky Velikan Rozovyi (because I forgot I already had it in the collection) Giannini Pachino Gary O'Sena Dwarf Sarah's Red Tanunda Red West Virginia Penitentiary Great White Blue Sister Miriam Red Striped Furry Hog Green Bumble Bee Kenai Mondo Green Faworyt Angora Orange Kodiak Brown Shadow Boxing - Type 4 Kaleidoscope Jewel Irish Pink Mammaw's Treat Reverend Michael Keyes Grandma Oliver's Chocolate Cherry Brownies Hundreds and Thousands Blue Ambrodia Blue Suede Shoes Black Strawberry Dwarf Spunky Bird Dwarf Yellow Warbler Chocolate Drop Dancing With Smurfs (because mine didn't grow, I need to restock) Sweet Aperitif Romito de Dulce Pink Pendulina Orange Floragold Basket (micro-dwarf) Gold Pearl (micro-dwarf) Louisiana Gulf State Aztek (micro-dwarf) Andrina (micro-dwarf) Vilma (micro-dwarf) Negrillo de Almoguera Rumpelstiltskin Rama de Mallorca Pinocchio (micro-dwarf) Dark Orange Muscat Monetka / Coin (micro-dwarf) Pigmy / Pygmy (micro-dwarf) Dwarf Bundaberg Rumball Venus (micro-dwarf) Bonsai / Bonsay (micro-dwarf) Douce de Picardie Moment (micro-dwarf) Rosy Finch (micro-dwarf) Birdy Jaune (micro-dwarf) The Thong Minibel (micro-dwarf) Mama Leone Tiny Totem (micro-dwarf) Piennolo Giallo del Vesuvio / GiaGiu Dwarf Alma's Century Pink Lil Peeps (micro-dwarf) And this concludes my seed shopping for 2021. I will update the SeedStash page as seeds arrive, but I will be unlikely to trade my new varieties, as I did choose to buy in small quantities (sometimes just 10-15 seeds of each). Did I just put in a large order for seeds and spend way more money than I intended to? Yes, yes I definitely did. Was it worth it? I'm sure I'll have a dopamine high when the seeds arrive, but for a solid answer, ask me once I've grown a bunch of the new varieties. No joke, I placed orders with two seed companies and another online seed vendor and should be receiving three packages containing a total of 105 varieties. Did I go overboard? Yes. Do I regret it? Not right now.
So what did I order? I went through my wish list and compared it to the seeds available from these two companies, and then I found some interesting varieties, and added to the order. Here's what I picked out: From Adaptive Seeds I ordered: Starfire Tomato - this one has been on my wish list for quite a while Humboldtii Wild Pink Tomato - this one has been on my wish list for a few years Beers bush dry bean - on my wish list due to the interesting name Brightstone bush dry bean - on my wish list because it's so pretty Whipple bush dry bean - on my wish list because we have a local lake with the same name Pisarecka Zlutoluske bush snap bean Cerise Oak Leaf Lettuce Romulus Lettuce Smile Lettuce Morgana Lettuce Hyper Red Rumple Waved Lettuce Sweet Freckles Melon Lower Salmon River winter squash Canada Crookneck winter squash Black Futsu winter squash I only picked out 15 varieties from this seed company, largely due to the fact that their pricing is higher than the other company. (15 packets with free shipping averages out to $3.58 per packet for the varieties I chose). I do love that they offered free shipping - likely because my total was over $50. I also placed a (significantly larger) order with Heritage Seed Market (specifically Bunny Hop Seeds). If you're looking for interesting tomato varieties... you won't find a better selection than this shop. I've wanted to place an order for a while but never had the funds. I'm excited to support this company. I ordered: Piennolo del Vesuvio - which has been on my wish list since I started my wish list Dwarf Egypt Yellow - from my wish list Dwarf Pink Opal - from my wish list Barossa Fest (dwarf) - from my wish list Blue Ridge Black - from my wish list Clackamas Blueberry - from my wishlist Fruit Punch - from my wish list Gobstopper - from my wish list Little Lucky - from my wish list Mamie Brown's Pink - from my wish list Muddy Waters - from my wish list Serendipity / Sarandipity - from my wish list Thorburn's Terra Cotta - from my wish list Post Office Spoonful - I'm most excited for this one due to it's story Sleeping Lady Dwarf Barossa Moon Dwarf Bendigo Drop Dwarf Grandpa Gary's Green Broad Ripple Yellow Kazachka Cherry Kazachka Cherry Purple Cereza Amarilla (Yellow Cherry) Versalkie (Versaviya) Early Ssubakus Aliana Cherriots of Fire Mini Parvula Glovel Plate of Chateaurenard Yellow Radiance Glossy Rose Blue Bushy Chabarovsky Stripes of Yore Esmeralda Golosina Borgo Celano Gru Vee Cascade Village Blue Dark Tiger Pinky Blast Opal Essence Wheatley's Frost Resistant Beauty Mark Dark Queen Sokolades Lover's Lunch Irish Liqueur / Irish Liquor Lumos Blue Dawg Cappuccino Cape Teaser D. Steel Groovy Tunes Kangaroo Paw Red Little Red Riding Hood Mermaid Skykomish Xanadu Green Goddess Elephant's Ear Pepper Ferenc Tender Pepper Karmen Pepper Kamo Eggplant Despite paying postage, these packets averaged out to $1.78 per packet (I ordered 60 varieties). As if those weren't enough, I found another online seed vendor that I have purchased from before. I went through their availability list and picked out twenty five varieties I wanted to try. Unfortunately, this vendor only sells in quantities of 10, 15, 20, or 30. The price for one 10-pack and one 15-pack was one penny less than just buying a 30-pack, so I picked out five more varieties to try. Coming from the online seed vendor will be (these are all tomatoes): Golden Nugget Martino's Roma Garden Peach Dr Carolyn White Hard Rock Saint Pierre Snow White - the seeds in my collection produce yellow fruit, I suspect they're mislabeled, so I'm trying new seeds Fluted Pink Pink Ping Pong Costoluto Fiorentino - was on my wish list Little Sun Pink Boar Indigo Blue Berries Basket Vee Pink Tiger Blush Tiger Burgundy Traveler Indian Stripe Sweet Carnernos Elberta Peach Balcony Red Mountain Gold Sweet Pea (currant) Golden Sunrise Marianna's Peace Red Zebra Peacevine Eva Purple Ball Red Robin Brandywine Yellow With shipping these seeds averaged out to just 88-cents per variety. Granted there's only 15-20 seeds per pack, but that's really all I need to try them. All in all, I purchased 105 varieties, mostly tomatoes, and I hope I'm done with my seed shopping for this year because yikes! That's a lot! Today I got my Baker Creek order in the mail. My mom gave me some money for Christmas and told me to buy some seeds. I picked out eleven varieties, including Triumpheter lettuce, Raspberry Lyanna tomato, Sart Roloise tomato, Blot pepper, Heavy Hitter okra, Titan sunflower, Natsu Fushinari cucumber, Monika cucumber, Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumber, Slippery Silks bean, and yellow toothache plant. I had the Mexican sour gherkins already but I manage to lose them every year and despite planting them a few times, I've never gotten them to grow. I want to try again.
Which of course has now put seeds and gardening in the front of my mind. I have a couple of seed companies that I want to support. Adaptive Seeds has been closed since last October and just re-opened for orders today. They have five seed varieties that have been on my wish list for years that I have not been able to track down anywhere else. Bunny Hop Seeds is a small but amazing seed company with such a jaw-dropping assortment of rare and unheard of varieties. I put together a quick wish-list from both companies, but my grand total between the two is just over $100. Yikes! I have to talk to my dear husband about investing this much into the collection. Yes, I do plan to get back into gardening, and yes, some of these varieties are virtually unknown and difficult to find, but do I need them right now? I think I do, but I may be biased. I'm still working on the crocheted blanket. Rather than a long back and forth, I'm making smaller panels that I will then stitch together when I've got them all done. I finished the first skein of "Wizard" (Mandala, Lion brand) yarn, and started on the second skein. I only have the two. I had originally hoped to get some variegated yarn for each rainbow color to do one panel of each rainbow color with a variegated pattern, but it turns out finding variegated orange and variegated yellow is kind of tricky and I could only find them in cotton or hand-dyed (expensive) varieties. This wouldn't be so bad, except the panels are all the same size, and I'd have to adjust my hook size and stitch count for thinner or thicker yarn, making it so it won't line up as well when I need to stitch the panels together. So I scrapped that part of the plan and looked at what I have on hand. I have two different skeins of black/white/grey variegated (both different), so I think instead of going for fully colorful, perhaps I will go for contrast and do every other panel being the colorful Wizard yarn and then a panel of black/white/grey yarn. It might be a bit busy, but it might turn out well. If nothing else, I can count it as a learning experience, and I'll still get a nice handmade blanket out of it. 2020 was a strange and complicated year. A lot was happening, both personally and out in the world. I'm hoping to get back into regular blogging after a year, largely off doing other stuff.
It is New Year's Day, so as is my annual tradition, here is your official reminder. Check the batteries in your smoke detectors! I just changed the batteries in one of mine today. Smoke detectors save lives - but only if they are functional! Take a few minutes to make sure your smoke detectors are working, and replace the batteries regularly to make sure they don't run out! So, what have I been up to recently? Crochet. Yup, I'm back to my yarn addiction. A few months ago I got bored and taught myself how to make an amigurumi octopus. Keep in mind, I can't read patterns, so I have to figure it out for myself. I liked the original result so much I made another, and another, and another. I made them in different sizes and colors, I even made one in Vikings colors with horns for my mom for Christmas (she's obviously a big Vikings football fan) Then I tried making a banana, and a kiwi, and a snowman. I'm working on a blanket now with some of the yarn I got for Christmas. Eventually I do plan on listing the hats and amigurumi octopi in the Bonanza shop, but for now my mind is more on creating and less on listing and selling. In October I officially gave up my child-production capabilities. After many years of medical issues with my "baby maker bits" it was finally time to have it removed. It was an excellent option because it turned out I had major adhesion issues inside from my last surgery, and the doctor was able to "unstick" bowel, bladder, and ovary from the mess. It turns out, I don't have nearly as many food intolerances as I struggled with, it was purely a digestion issue caused by the adhesions strangling my innards. I still can't have some foods, but I'm relearning what's allowed and what's still off limits. What about gardening? This year I largely took a break from all of it. Mostly due to ongoing health and pain issues (now hopefully resolved). I do plan to get back into winter sowing this year, and gardening this summer. We have some perennial beds with strawberries and raspberries, but I want to get back into regular gardening too. Cucumbers, lettuce, peppers, and so on. What about rabbits? As for the rabbits, we are down to the last handful of rabbits on the homestead and we really don't have any plans to breed anymore. The original plan had been to raise meat rabbits and only eat the ones we didn't sell by the time they were big enough - but of course by then we're attached to them. Not to mention with Facebook blocking animal sales, there's only a limited audience with sites like Craigslist, and we virtually stopped selling any rabbits at all. We've slowly sold off what we can. I'd happily sell most, if not all of the rest, if someone were to make a reasonable offer and provide them with a good home. I loved raising them, and it was fun, but we don't eat as much meat these days, and I've come to hate having to butcher and process animals. It takes a heavy emotional toll, and honestly, it's just not worth it for me. Maybe we will try again in the future, but right now I think our rabbit breeding days are going to be on hiatus unless one of the kids wants to take over breeding and marketing the kits to find them homes. On the plus side, the barn chores that used to take 45 minutes can now be done in about five to seven minutes. Check your smoke detectors! Happy New Year! There's not a lot going on lately with the homestead. Gardens are all tucked away for the winter, it's too cold for anything to grow, the chickens have stopped laying due to the short days, and we don't breed rabbits in the winter months.
Tomorrow we are taking in three more rabbits. Two came from our colony rabbits (Lapis and Cheddar), and the other is from a different breeder. It seems that last year about this time we had rabbits returned too. I wonder what it is about this time - cold weather and upcoming holidays - that seems to make people decide to return their rabbits. Anyway, as of tomorrow when we get back home, all three of the new rabbits will be available for adoption. The sooner we can move them out the better, since I'm running out of space in the house for rabbits, and one of the kids is very allergic to them... This past week has been spent working on my next cosplay project. I'm (slowly) learning about make up. I've been trying to do beard make up, with varying success. I mean... it's not great, but it's not absolutely awful either. I have a lot of room to improve. I'm worried that I could actually make the cosplay worse by using the beard make up at this point, so I need to practice and figure it out. I have the basic idea down, but I can't seem to get the chin and under-lip area to look right, despite consulting numerous pictures, videos, and a couple tutorials. I'm hoping we can grab a different color of make up tomorrow while we're in town to see if maybe that will help. In the meantime, I added a few accessories and a ring light to my Christmas wish list. I'm now working on crocheting a scarf with the Gryffindor (Hogwarts) colors - since I can't afford the $40 they want for an authentic one from Universal Studios. Of course, #1 has the authentic one from our trip there many years ago, so if I totally botch mine, I can still borrow hers... I just doubt she'd borrow it to me knowing I may end up accidentally rubbing my beard make up onto it. It does smear on everything it touches. Which brings me to a question. Having not been one to wear make up... like... almost ever... how do you make-up-wearing-folks not touch your face!? Good golly! I'm constantly itching my nose or rubbing my cheek or putting my hand under my chin or swiping hair out of my face... This whole "don't touch your face" to avoid smearing or smudging make up is frustrating. Is there a trick to it? If I'm not in front of a camera or mirror, I tend to forget I'm wearing it... The big seed trade package came in the mail today. Yay! I went through it briefly to make sure everything was in there (as it wasn't closed properly), but I haven't had a chance to sort it all out and update the seed list yet. Maybe Wednesday when the kids are in school and Tony is at work I will have time to spread it all out on the table and get it all inventoried. Today I learned how to put my hair in a ponytail using a pencil or crochet hook. I guess I need to learn to do the same with a wand for my next cosplay, but I need to buy my wand first. Unfortunately, the two I'm looking at are pretty expensive ($38 for one of $53 for the other). That's why they're on the Christmas list. Ditto went off to her new home today. The house seems quieter. The remaining kittens seem more subdued than usual. Are they sad she's gone? Or is it just that she instigated much of the running-through-the-house-at-full-speed play time and she's not here to start the stampede? I guess we'll wait to see if they perk up tomorrow. The hamsters will sleep without a watcher tonight. I'm wrapping up the big year-end seed swap for one of the Facebook groups I'm in. It's far too stressful, and I think this will be my last year participating. Every year they add more rules and more hassle to the process. It's getting to be a bit much. I really should have bowed out this year, but I'm going to stick with it and get it done to add some new varieties to the collection. After that I'm going to take a break. I'm stretching myself too thin and I'm stressing out more than I should. Between social things and kids and pets and seed swapping and my own brain being a bit of a butt (stay on task.... resist the urge to wander off.... resist... aaaand my mind has gone off track again....)... I just need a couple days to go nuts with crafting ideas, or watching educational videos, or doing something fun that doesn't involve cleaning the house, replying to emails, or fighting to get kids to clean their bedrooms or go to bed at night. It's time for some re-set time. Like, a few days of reset time. I plan to be a complete sloth most of this weekend. Yes, I'll have to suck it up and catch up on what falls apart while I'm down and out, but it'll be worth it to reset my sanity. We picked up a box of mini Pringles cans for the kids' after-school-snacks. I took one of them (after the chips had been eaten), and filled it with soil, then sprinkled some Tom Thumb lettuce seeds in. I put the lid back on and set it in a window sill. If sprouts come up, the lid will come off and hopefully I can grow my own salad for over winter. I do love fresh home grown salad. Yay for indoor gardening during the harsh Minnesota winter months! Yesterday I siphoned and refilled both the aquarium and the turtle tank. For those who don't know, that's quite a rare occurrence. I only clean out the fish tank maybe once a year, and I only siphon off the debris on top of the gravel. That tank has been up and running longer than I've been alive. It belonged to a relative who left it to me when they passed away. I am honored to keep it running. The tank is 100% natural. I vastly under-stock it, which means the two fish in the 30-gallon tank don't need frequent water changes. The long established beneficial bacteria in the thick gravel takes care of almost everything. Aside from topping off water lost to evaporation and cats drinking from it, and the occasional addition of live bacteria cultures, the tank is largely self sustaining. We have one female bristle-nose pleco who keeps the algae in check (as the tank is in a window), and we have one weather loach (technically a bottom feeder) who cruises around and entertains us. The turtle tank needed to be siphoned as the water was turning orange. I added a piece of driftwood we found down by the lake. I didn't bother to sanitize it because it wouldn't fit in my oven and the shape wouldn't allow for it to fit into a pot to be boiled. Inevitably it leaked tannin into the water. Totally normal, not a big surprise. It didn't seem to bother Minnow, but I want to make sure she had good clean water. It's still tinted yellow, but I'll give it some time to see if the driftwood leaks any more tannin before I change out more water. I ended up taking out eight gallons. She lives in a 55-gallon tank that was about 3/4 full. If I did my math right, an 8 gallon tank change was roughly 20% of the water. I also added more water (now the tank is nearly full) and pushed the driftwood down the rest of the way to fully submerge it. It had about 1-inch sticking up above the water before. It looks nice over all and I think once we add more goldfish for Minnow they'll have a nice natural area that will make a little more of a challenge for Minnow when hunting. Overall, not bad considering I was changing the water with a gallon jug by hand, walking back and forth across the length of the house. Yes, I accidentally created a blackwater aquarium for my turtle. Which wouldn't be so bad really - it does mimic an aquatic turtle's natural environment. This is why I am not overly worried about siphoning it again right away. So long as she seems happy, and she's still eating and basking, it's really more about the aesthetic of the tank. I've been exploring some creative outlets I want to try. The main one I'm really looking into right now is creating aquarium decor. We live on a lake and have beautiful trees all around us. There is ample access to driftwood (pieces weathered by water or by wind and rain on land). I've never worked with silicone before, but I'm still in the research phase of all of this. I've been out of the aquarium world since leaving the pet store job in 2013. I'm quickly getting back into the swing of things.
For example, did you know that plecos need wood in their diet to remain healthy? There should be driftwood in any aquarium that also houses a pleco. The pleco will pick at and clean off the drift wood, and in return will be healthier. Did you know that plecos and cichlids (and lots of other varieties of fish) love to have a cave or a tube to hide in or swim through? I knew this one but it had never occurred to me to actually build one myself. My first planned project will be a simple one meant to build my confidence and give me a simple start with using silicone in a caulking gun. I plan to make an above-water shelf for the fish tank to allow the cats to perch in a safe place to drink from the aquarium. I'm hoping to do this project within the next week, but it depends on if we have the extra money for the supplies or not. Once I've got that project done and I'm feeling a little more confident, I do plan to start trying my hand at a couple different caves and/or other hides with different materials. I have so many ideas! I want to incorporate all kinds of materials that have been suggested in numerous hobbyist videos and forums. I'm so excited. And if all goes well, maybe I'd even offer some of my creations for sale. Again, timeline on this depends on when we have some spare money to buy some supplies. Has it really been this long since I blogged? Wow. Well, not too much to update actually. We've had a bit of a heatwave recently (a "second summer" before the cold really sets in). I had to open the house windows again to keep from baking. I do love having the windows open and the breeze through the house. With no air conditioning it gets hot in here quickly with windows all shut. Today I worked out how to make adjustable crocheted bell collars for the kittens. Hanzo got green, Lucio got red, and Mercy has yellow. I made orange for Mei, blue for Genji, and rainbow for Tracer. They're ridiculously cute. Best part? When kittens out grow them (they are adjustable), they can be used as a toy too! I have been slowly acclimating kittens to the house. Hanzo was the first. He came in last Saturday when they first turned eight weeks old. He's a house cat through and through. A couple days later, Lucio came in the house. It turns out he loves to snuggle and makes a great indoor cat too. Today I added Mercy and she's been purring and snuggling and playing and napping all day long. She has a loud purr too!
I have brought all of them in, but had some issues with the last three. Tracer is so scared of the dogs and the constant flow of movement through the house that in the several hours she was indoors, she never left the litter box area. She's going to need some reassurance that it's OK to be inside. She's also probably going to do best in a quieter home. Genji did well for the couple of hours he was in a few days in a row, but he always ends up in the window facing the screen porch, crying to get back to his momma and out of the house. He has learned to escape the screen porch and now runs and plays in the yard. I worry he may disappear like Tigerlily and Carbon did. Mei is a strong independent girl and she's not so interested in snuggles and cuddles and all that mushy stuff. She might need some serious work coaxing her to behave like a house cat and not an adventurer on a quest to explore lands unknown, or scale heights unclimbed. She actually reminds me a lot of how Ditto was when she first came in. It's doable, but right now I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. These babies need to start finding homes soon. Anyone want a kitten? Today I dug up the last three garlic plants. From what I understand, the little fragrant bulb pieces where the flower expired should work as seed parts for planting. I'm going to give it a shot, because there were no bulbs around the root area. A couple tiny cloves, but no bulbs. I do have two bulbs of purple garlic from the local farmers market that I did plan to use a few cloves to plant this fall too. I sold Wanda (Holland Lop / Jersey Wooly bunny) on Thursday. She's such a sweet girl, I'm almost sorry to see her go. I hope her new family will enjoy her. Now if I could just find homes for Waldo and Peanut. Little #5 had his first sick day on Thursday. Poor kid was up half the night coughing and then ended up puking. He loves school so much, he hates weekends. He cries on Fridays because it means two days away from school. What a gem. I hope he learns to read soon. I'm fairly certain the ability to read will unlock the world to him. He's a clever boy, and has been all along. I think the world has big things in store for him. Once he can read, I doubt anything will slow him down. I de-wormed every cat and kitten today (including the barn cats). Oddly enough, none of them seemed to mind. Little Hanzo purrs a lot. He loves to snuggle. Ditto has stopped beating him up and they cuddle and nap together on the couch. I just need to train Hanzo to use the scratching post and not the couch. He also hasn't figured out how to get to the hidden food bowl yet. It's in a cupboard to keep the dogs out of it. Today I just gave him a bowl and fed him on the couch while the dogs were out for a potty break. Tomorrow I'll put him in the cupboard and let him find his own way back out so he'll better remember where the food is normally. I separated Rhona from Snowflake and Lorna. I've been meaning to for quite some time, but just kept putting it off. I dug up the last of the potatoes today. Not bad considering these beds were not maintained at all. No weeding, no watering, no mounding, no added dirt. Just 2-5 seed potatoes dropped in the compost-amended soil and left all summer. The Purple Majesty variety had fewer potatoes over all because only one seed potato actually grew, but the potatoes were a lot larger than Red Thumb. There was a lot of creeping charlie in this bed, and almost no worms.
The Red Thumb potatoes were all over in the bed, but some of them are no bigger than the fingernail on my pinkie finger. I doubt they'll stay good for long. This bed was positively crawling with worms, some of them large (night crawlers?). In an additional experiment, I used tall grass I hand pulled from the yard and laid it over this bed to make a barrier. I want to see if doing this makes any difference when I go to plant next year. I can only imagine how much bigger this harvest could have been had I maintained the potato beds this year. It's amazing the difference location and soil amendments can make! Welcome to September already! Temperatures are cooling down, the leaves will soon start changing colors, and before we know it, we'll be in the bitter grip of winter again. School starts this week. I'm both excited and anxious. All of the school open houses, teacher meetings, and kindergarten screenings are done. Backpacks are packed, some are already in lockers dropped off on open house days. The bus driver has called with the new pick up time. All of the new school clothes are folded and put away, awaiting the school year. Schedules are printed, locker combinations have been tested, and the kids have connected with friends once again and compared schedules and lunch times. The kids are excited to head back to school. Yesterday Tony and I took the two oldest kids (#1 and #2) to the Renaissance Festival. It was so much more enjoyable without the little kids. I've never gone without little ones, so this was a real treat. I love seeing the vendors, the entertainers, and the costumes. I always ogle the beautiful dresses in the shops. I have neither the body, nor the pocket book, for such beautiful things. This weekend the theme was Bellies and Beer I think, but they were having a costume contest: Steampunk. I admit, I love the aesthetic of gears and old fashioned things, so we scheduled our trip accordingly. While there we watched the costume contest, Danger Committee, and Puke & Snot. We tried to watch the jousting but it was so crowded we couldn't see anything and the announcer's microphone was cutting out badly, so we couldn't even hear what was going on. Not a big loss though, we've watched the jousting before. I love seeing the dogs that people bring. We saw German shepherds, great Danes, Irish wolfhounds, huskies, malamutes, great Pyrenees, and more. At one point #1 just rolled her eyes and said "Mom, quit pointing out every dog you see and saying what breed it is..." We walked past the little exotic zoo, and the pen right out in front had white geese just a hair smaller than our embdens. As we got closer I realized what they were and got excited. I pointed to the gorgeous curled feathers and exclaimed "Sebastapol geese!" to which my daughter replied "Of course you'd see geese and know what breed they are..." We all have talents and passions, mine just happens to be knowledge about animals. We had a good laugh about that. Not to feel left out, Grandma took the three younger kids (#3, #4, and #5) to the zoo. I'm told it was crowded but fun. The zoo was having some kind of promotion where they invited people to enjoy the zoo with various "local heroes" - police men, EMTs, firemen, etc. Apparently it brought in quite a crowd. On Friday I dug up the King Edward potatoes. I failed miserably at gardening this year, and despite not doing anything to my potato towers (like, not raising it and adding dirt like I needed to, never watering it, and letting the grass grow long around the towers), this variety managed to produce some good sized fingerling potatoes. I still have two more potato towers with other varieties that haven't died back yet. I'll have to wait a bit longer to see if those ones produced anything. It's worth noting that I did end up throwing out about four potatoes because they were turning green from sun exposure. The shallow soil had allowed the potatoes to push up above the soil, and green potatoes are not edible. I will try to do better next year.
I have started a GoFundMe campaign to try to help pay for getting Luna and Gypsy and all the kittens spayed and neutered. I calculated it out and it's going to cost more than $2000 for just basic vaccinations and spay/neuter surgeries for nine cats. That doesn't include the $64 per microchip, the $3 for worming medicine, the $5 collar, or the cost of food and litter. My thought is that if we can get them all spayed and neutered, even if we can't find them homes, we won't have to worry about having a ton more next spring. Don't get me wrong, kittens are fun, but we have more than enough as it is. |
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