So, next week we are off to Wisconsin again for our yearly visit. It seemed to come really fast this time. I've been keeping a mental list in my head of everything that I've been wanting/needing to get done before we leave. I haven't blogged in awhile cuz I don't have anything outside of humdrum going on right now. So that means.....
#1 UPDATE MY BLOG
Between my blog posts, I take random pictures with my camera that I think might make a semi-interesting blog post, and then some time goes by, and by the time I blog again, I had forgotten what I had taken pictures of. For example, here is a picture of a big pile of moose poop that we found in our back yard. So that's what Bossy was looking at outside our bedroom window in the middle of the night!
I read from our local newspaper website that moose poop is good for gardens (depending on what they've been eating), so I grabbed the shovel and into the garden they went!
Waste not, want not.
Then, a couple weeks ago me and Chuck went out for a walk, and I spontaneously decided to bring my camera along - in case we ran into something interesting - you never know, right?
(I hope I don't have you sitting on the edge your seat right now, cuz this won't be very exciting.)
Anyhoo, we have been curious for some time now about this trail that we have passed many times, so this time we decided to take a look.
Can you pronounce this?
Once we got back in there, I really liked it!
I wanted to go on the wooden trail really bad, but Chuck said "no".
Gee, I felt like a little kid at that moment.
I made him promise me that we would walk that trail some day.
Unfortunately, "some day" is often a nice way of saying "never".
#2 MOVE ALL THE GARDEN BEDS
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| Supervisor |
We decided that we would move all our garden beds and put them together in a group, in the part of our back yard that gets the most sun. This will make it easier to water them all, but also we are sorta planning to put a fence around them to keep the moose out, but the fence may not happen until next year. We'll see how things go this year.
So we moved the bed frames, and then had to move all the piles of dirt into them.
But, before we moved the dirt, Chuck thought it would be a good idea to get the utility guys out there to mark where the power line was cuz if we put a fence up, we didn't want to end up having to move the beds again. If we have to move them over, before to do it BEFORE we fill them up with dirt!
So we waited a couple days for that, and after learning that all was fine, we moved all the dirt back into the beds.
Done!
#3 GET ALL THE CHIVES OUT OF MY FLOWER BED
I love my chive plants, but when we bought them, I wish we would've been given a fair warning about how aggressive they are. They spread like cancer and are very hard to control. They were taking over my whole flower bed, making it look run over with weeds.
So I dug out my chive plants and put them in pots.
Hopefully, this will solve the problem.
All these chive weeds are hard to pull out, and it's important to get the roots out, so I had to take a shovel and loosen them up one shovelful at a time. It took a long time and I got a sore back out of it, but the weather was nice, so I didn't complain. Just glad I got it all done.
#4 FINISH PW'S QUILT
I really wanted to have that done before we left, and I did manage it. Whew!
I still didn't put the label on it yet, but that part can wait.
#5 PUT IN ONE LAST ORDER FROM STAMPIN' UP!
Our current catalog is expiring at the end of this month, so if I wait 'til we get back from WI, it will be too late to order from it. So that was another thing I wanted to do, and I can check that one off my list!! So now I can start working on my Wish List from the new catalog, which my good friend Tammie already sent to me. It's really tempting to dive into it Right Now, but I am forcing myself to wait until I get on the plane. It'll give me something to do during the long flight.
#6 PREPARE FOR ONE LAST BIBLE CLASS
I teach class on Wednesday nights, and since we will be gone for the last two Wednesdays of this month, I have just one more to get prepared for. We have been studying about King David for the past few weeks, so this lesson will be from 2 Samuel 7. I already have an idea cooking up in my head for it, so it should be easy. But after that class is done and out of my way, then I can focus on
#7 BAKING
I need to get some baking done and also need to make sure there's food in the house for the kids to eat while we're gone.
#8 MISCELLANEOUS
Cleaning, laundry, last-minute shopping, you know.......all those little things you have to do before you go on a trip.
So that is my world this week.
Wanna see an experiment that I'm working on?
Okay, this might be boring cuz it's connected with gardening.
And I hope it doesn't gross you out.
Anyhoo, every year I'm always wondering if I should start a compost bin.
Are they overhyped? Are they really necessary? Do I really wanna commit to maintaining one? How much science is involved? How bad will I screw up the balance of the micro-organisms? How much work do they entail? What do you with it during the winter? Do they attract flies?
Do they stink?!
I just don't know what I'm getting into with one of those. So every year I put it off and look for alternative composting for the squeamish and the lazy. That's me.
So here is what I am doing instead. Just trying it for now.........
In my kitchen I keep two bins for kitchen scraps.
This "slop bucket" is about a gallon big, and this is where I throw things in there that don't really need boiling and breaking down. I put coffee grounds in there, and also cut up the coffee filters into bite-size pieces, old lettuce and other forgotten rotting produce that I pull out of my fridge every now and then, crushed (boiled) egg shells, used paper towels get ripped up into pieces and thrown in there, and also some biodegradable type cardboard packaging that some foods come in. Stuff like that.
In this smaller bin, I put things that I want to boil, just long enough to soften up so I can grind them up in the food processor, usually about half an hour is long enough. I know I don't have to boil them and grind them, but this way they make nice a "slush" that's easy to spread over the dirt and rake in - plus it decomposes faster than big uncooked dry chunks. So in this one, I put things in there like orange peels, lemon peels, banana peels, apple cores, raw egg shells, potato skins, you get the idea. (Anything but meat, dairy, or grease.)
I put those in the smaller container cuz when it gets full, it's just the right amount that will fit in my pan without boiling over.
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| Yummy! |
And it gets full fast enough to where I don't have to keep it on my kitchen counter too long. The first time doing this, I wondered if it would be my last - wasn't sure if it was gonna stink really bad. But I was surprised - the first batch didn't smell at all. And the next few batches actually smelled kinda good cuz they had the orange peels in them. So, after I boil them, I put it all in the food processor and grind it all down into a chunky sludge. And then dump it into the bigger slop bucket along with the water that it was boiled in.
And when the big slop bucket gets full, I take it outside. So far I'm averaging about every 2-3 days.
If you keep a tight lid on these bins, there is really is NO smell.
So here I have this batch all put together. This one filled up a little faster cuz I added a whole watermelon rind (after boiling it and grinding it up). On the top I added the cut up stem of the carnation that they were giving away to all the mother's at church for Mother's Day yesterday.
In case you were wondering what those were...
They look like green onions, but they're not.......
My first couple batches were put into my raspberry bushes.
This one I fed to my rose bushes.
It looked like someone puked under my rose bush.
In case you're wondering, the slop does not stink! I was surprised by this!
It actually kinda smells like coffee.
I used a garden fork to work it into the dirt with some dead leaves, and then gave the bushes a good watering.
They will love it! - I hope.
So anyhoo, I've been doing this now for the past couple weeks, and so far, it's working for me pretty well. Yes, it is extra work, but if it gives me better veggies, it'll be worth it. When I was telling Chuck I needed to boil the scraps and put it in the food processor, he asked me "isn't that too much work?" For some people, I suppose it might be. But for me, it's really not that bad, and I think I like this better than the idea of a compost bin.
At least for now.
We'll see how long it takes for me to get sick of doing it.
Here are all my plants sunbathing, just waiting to be permanently planted into their new beds.
I hope PW remembers to do this for me while we're gone, so they will be "hardened" and ready to plant when we get back.
The weather has been so nice, it is really tempting to go ahead and start planting, but that usually ends up being a mistake this early.
So they will wait 'til we get back from our trip.
So now that I got #1 on my list done, I can start thinking about #6.
I probably won't get back on here now until after our trip.
And hopefully I will have something worth blogging about.
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