Global climate change

So, on my friend Sharon's blog (see my links) someone suggested a Peak Oil party. It's like this, instead of having a party to buy stuff (Pampered Chef, Tupperware, etc.) have a party, with wine, where you can trade seeds or clothes or household items that you don't need and drink and eat yummy food. I love this idea.

Peak oil and global climate change are linked and I tend to think of them as one and the same issue. Now if I could just scrape up a few friends to do this with. I've got seeds and probably some household stuff to start.

February 14th and the aftermath

I turned 41 on February 14th. We had our first snowstorm of the Winter and it was a good one. We had 2 feet of blowing and drifting snow. I stayed home partly because the weather was so awful and partly because my son was sick. He ended up being sick most of the next week too. I'm glad the snowstorm and my birthday are over. Other than the cards I received, and some gifts, I tried to ignore getting older.

I've been letting go of "stuff". It's very freeing. My kitchen if starting to contain only tools that I use. The more I let go of the more I want to get rid of.

The chickens are letting me know that the days are getting longer. Suddenly they are laying lots of eggs. They really did not like January and February.

Global warming

I finally saw "An Inconvienient Truth". It was good. Really good. It inspired me to get better at my gardening. Work towards staying at home sooner.

The next day I saw "March of the Penguins". It's really sad. You can see how the penguins are so endangered. Just like the polar bears. The two movies go together but not in a good way.

We are in a deep freeze here. Not much snow. Supposedly Spring is coming early this year. So says the groundhog.

Yesterday was Sunday...

and I kicked ass cleaning and decluttering. I got up at my normal time, showered, dressed, cooked pancakes and cleaned. After I watched CBS Sunday Morning. The boy helped out in his way. He pretends to vacuum. He also took a really long morning nap. That is more helpful than anything. I decluttered my closet, the cedar chest and my dresser. I can't believe how many articles of clothing I was hanging on to for no reason. I can close my dresser drawers easily now. I cleaned off the top of the piano. Things were starting to accumulate. It changed the whole look of the livingroom (to me anyway).

Sunday afternoons

I'm really wondering what is up with me. The last 2 Sundays I have been sluggish and mopey. It's like I'm 12 again and dreading school on Monday. I hated Sundays as a kid.

Some days I feel the need to DO something. Clean, cook, de-clutter. If things weren't frozen solid I could be making up garden beds. I guess, based on this little exercise, that my problem is cabin fever. I'm between projects and feeling restless. I'm not getting enough exercise.

Next month I'm going to visit my friend Sharon. Hopefully I'll get some inspiration from her. She doesn't get everything done but she seems content to let the little stuff go. She is way busier than I am. Every now and again I need to get reinvigorated and inspired about the things I feel are important (my child, growing food, wasting less, our health).

I usually fizzle

Every year I start out in January with big plans. I want to expand my fruit production. Last year I had raspberries and they were very successful. This year I want to do blueberries. Plants are expensive but the county will have them for the plant sale.

I try to draw out where things are going to go in the garden. Then a nice day appears in March or April and I plant lettuce and peas. Then I totally forget about my plan. I try and squeeze in one more tomato plant. I plant kale and never eat it or freeze it. The rabbits eat it. I SHOULD plant kale. It's easy to grow. I SHOULD eat kale. It's really good for me.

This year the goal is to not over do. I'll use my space efficiently. I'll do succession planting and I won't expand by more than one bed.

Watch me fizzle!

2007

I don't make resolutions but, I do start planning for the garden. The seed catalogs are arriving and the vegetables are all sounding so good. The trick is to actually eat what you sow, and keep the rabbits away. I am all about good intentions and eating more vegetables. I really look forward to tomatoes and corn (I buy it, don't grow it). Lettuce and snow peas are the first veggies we have and they are a great treat. I'm liking summer squash more and more.

If the winter stays mild I might even start the landscaping around the house.

We are the proud owners of a paid-for John Deere tractor. Unfortunately it is not a real tractor, it's a garden tractor, but, it's all ours and we do a lot of different stuff with it. We mow the lawn(weekly), the pasture(annually) and the loop around the pasture(quarterly). We haul wood in from the woods. We scrape the horse paddock and push all the manure into a great big compost pile. We move the compost to the garden. The driveway gets plowed. I'm sure there is other stuff we do with it but it's enough to say that it's a pretty useful tool. In a perfect world I would be doing stuff with fewer steps and with horse power. However the tractor only needs a little bit of gas run through it in the winter to keep it in good working order. A horse eats a lot even when not doing anything.