Preparing the Surface

It's too soon to plant, as we discovered last year. But it is not too early to lay things out and get them in place. A slow afternoon in February is the perfect time to clean up the greenhouse, re-hang the grow lights, and label the starting pots.

This is the kind of thing that drives me nuts when it is time to drop in the seeds, and it takes hours. Now it's done. All we have to do is get some seed starting soil, pop in the seeds, and pour on some water. Cauliflower will be first. 

The grocery store put out flower seeds. It's a little early...sort of 4-5 months early, but hopeful.

I purchased some fencing for the side of the house to build a shadow-box fence around our garbage cans. This way we spread some of the summer expenses and we'll be ready to go when it starts to warm up. I picture one of those "teaser" days in March when it is in the '50's and you think spring is right around the corner before you get slammed with a foot of snow the next day. 

We also found a supplier of wood who still had a few face cords of ash available (oak was sold out). We get that delivered tomorrow. Even with strict rationing, we were looking at running out before April. An extra face cord should pull us through.

Also in the news this week, another reason to stockpile drinking water. This time, in a town to the west of the Twin Cities, Mound, where the water is rust colored and has elevated levels of manganese making it unsafe to drink. Apparently, "The problem isn't going away any time soon." Of course, it will be out of the headlines, and the people who deal with this will have to go on dealing with it for years. How many of these issues are going on right now and never publicized or even discovered?

This week we're going to get a little melting for the first time since December. It's been a particularly brutal winter, but spring cannot be stopped from coming.