Random thoughts for the day...
I'm not sure my cover crops are sprouting well. I've been peering at the ground in the places I planted it, wondering if I needed to cover the seed better, or if the ground was too hard, or if I simply have too many birds around. Or I suppose the seed batch could have been bad. Hrmm. Might have to write off that idea for another year. I did manage to finish planting my vegetables (the last four 6-packs) yesterday; they were starting to suffer a bit for not being planted. I had run out of room near the house so over a period of several days (snatches of time) I dug up a patch in the back corner, added some compost, and planted the last few. I'm not sure I'll plant more than that, since it's a minor hike to get the watering can over there and what I've planted so far uses up just about one canful.
I've been working on pulling up weeds, a few at a time, when I have a moment. I'm hoping it will make a difference in the long run, without having to use chemicals, since they haven't gone to seed yet (and hey, I get to toss them in my compost bin). It's a lot of weeds, though. It'll be a learning experience in a good way, to compare the 'now' to this time next year.
On the other hand, I think my composting is going well. I'd filled bin A and went to working on filling bin B, and when I checked on A recently, the material inside had gone uniformly darker and the level had dropped 6-8 inches. Looks good to me! Now I just have to figure out when to use it; I suppose I'll just dig into it every so often and see how it looks.
I've been having some good success with getting items from thrift stores, since we've been working with a lower budget. So far we're up by two lovely red tapestry pillows with a fern pattern for the sofa, a solid silver snowflake trivet for my christmas cactus on the dining room table, three green beaded placemats (Crate & Barrel!) to go with a red oval tablecloth, 'Wuthering Heights' from the 1940s and a book of Poe's poetry from 1892), six glazed pottery bowls for soup or cereal (avocado green on the outside, pale blue on the inside, nice steep sides to hold a lot and not slosh when carried), a cast iron frying pan for G to experiment with since he's never owned one, a hand-held small electric whipper by the same high-rated company that makes my French Press (G had had his eye on that specific gadget type), a big wool rug for our family room (Jeeves loves the feel of it under his paws) and some sandstone coasters to match the ones we already have. Most of the items were $2 each, with a bit more for the cast iron pan and of course more for the rug ($60?) Amazing. It keeps me feeling like we're improving our home while not spending nearly as much as we might if we only looked in stores with new things, and I enjoy looking through shops where you never know what they might have, and it's constantly changing. "One man's trash...?" We've certainly donated more than our share of "trash" to become someone else's "treasure" over the past year. It's nice that it all works out that way.
Our cat G continues to be just-okay. He still suffers from coughing fits and even had a sneezing fit this morning. We're keeping an eye on him and a record of events to show the vet. Poor guy. He's still cheerful and sweet, though, as always, and I'm glad he has Jeeves around to act as his portable self-heated furry pillow.
We might get a Christmas tree today -- that would help to make the place more festive and more 'ours', I think. We're still enjoying the house, and don't miss the extra living room, dining room and bedroom. We could probably use more rugs to use during the winter, though, for warmth, more comfort for unshod feet, and cat traction. The ancient furnace is up and running, surprisingly quietly, and keeping the place at a reasonably comfortable 65 degrees.
Time to go make pancakes, now that I've let the mixture sit for a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment