Thursday, June 3, 2010

A Different Kind of Day

The first Nasturtium about to blossom!  Love those things, hope these are the vining kind that they are supposed to be.  I want to see them trailing along the ground, a'la Monet's Garden.

This has been an interesting day of rearranging priorities and finding things to fill the day other than using my hands.  Rearranging priorities, because it has become all too obvious that I am just not going to be able to do many of the things I wanted to do, such as painstakingly rebuild every window in this house back to theoriginal state.  It's just too hard.  I have no choice but to finish -- one way or another -- the one I've begun, but beyond that I'm just going to have to take stop-gap measures.  And that's OK.

My hands are swollen and sore, probably arthritis, from using the scraper these past few days.  I've had this syndrome before -- years ago in Eugene when I landed a 'dream job' of candymaker at Eugene's incredibly luscious Euphoria Chocolates.  I lasted 2 or 3 days before my hands swelled up to the point I literally could not move them out of a bent position.  Couldn't straighten them out, couldn't squeeze any harder.  Doc said the only cure was rest, so that's what I'm doing now.  Resting the hands and re-evaluating.  Aside from the hands and energy, there is also only so much money to be spent.

I have decided that the two most important things around here are getting the house healthy (attic ventilation, moisture control in the crawlspace, missing insulation, primer on the bad spots of the siding, etc.), and getting more food production (fruit trees, chickens, more veggie beds).  Half of the attic ventilation is done -- the front gable vent -- and we are awaiting a stretch of days when no rain is forecast and when James has the time, to cut a hole in the roof and install the big turbine.  I have a pest control company from Rockmart coming Tuesday to see about the moisture control and possibly getting rid of these wood mites or whatever they are with some Tim-bor dust, or something.  The rain garden is very much a part of these priorities, because I really need to keep the water away from the building. 

Funny how much easier it is to put paint ON the siding than it is to get it OFF the siding!  It's not a perfect job, but my hands won't allow perfect.  I'm just buying some time until I can get the entire job done by a professional.  Looks much better, methinks. Not sure when I can tackle another spot.


I guess this falls into the 'nice problem to have' category, but my tomato plants have grown taller than their support sticks.  They're still sturdy at the moment, but I think I need to get some longer sticks. I sprayed the veggies, blueberries and dogwoods with a concoction called Garrett Juice this morning, as a foliar feeding.  Haven't tried spraying before but I must say that a gallon of the stuff goes a lot farther in the sprayer than it does as a soil drench. It's a combination of compost tea (steeped from used coffee grounds, in my case), water, molasses, natural apple cider vinegar with the mother, hydrolized fish and this time, orange oil as a mild insecticide along with the nutrients.
The beginnings of my rain garden.  Oh, c'mon now, you can't see it?  Where is your imagination?  It's actually made a decent temporary solution, although I'm not sure it would work with another gullywasher like we had a few days back.  One step at a time.  Gotta design and plan before I can dig more.


Another temporary solution -- keeps the critters out of the crawlspace but lifts the access door for better air-flow, which the pest control man said was the best solution to the problem. I've had in mind building a little frame with wire on it, but since I don't have a saw that's really unlikely to happen, and this works.

So that's the photo-journey around Kitty's Place for today.  This morning, I drove to Rockmart to find Carlton Farms and get some raw milk and eggs from pastured hens.  It's illegal to sell raw milk for human consumption in this state, so it's labeled as pet food and most of it is sold in and around Atlanta.  Nice, old family dairy that's moved over to the natural side of things, and that is really great to see.  They have 600-700 hens who freely roam about 8 acres of pasture, shared with a few calves and a couple of small donkeys to keep hawks away.  Nice place, nice folks.  I'm guessing this will become a weekly journey for me, and it's only about a 15 minute drive.

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