One Step Forward, One Step Back

The weather in early March was basically too good to last, of course, and the weekend before last we paid for it with a heavy, wet snowstorm.

On the positive side, it brought enough moisture to nearly get us out of draught. That's a big deal with spring planting on the way.

The crazy early planted snow peas and arugula and kale were, I think it is safe to say, destroyed. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Bed with appropriately named snow peas in it...

But other developments have moved along apace. The greenhouse is full of tomato, cherry tomato, sweet pepper & marigolds, all popped up and thriving.

This year, I shall be ruthless. Note that there are two seeds in each container. The weak one (rather than in past years when I would try to plant them in another container & save them) will be...disposed of...[mwahahahaha...].

Hardscape work has begun. "Curb Appeal Summer" began this past weekend with a resurrection of the mailbox. 

Old

New

We also signed up to have our driveway re-paved. Unfortunately, that will not happen until August. 

New front door was delivered today. Bit of a project to get it installed, but now we know what we're doing next weekend.

While winter seems to have a few rotten days left in it, it is safe to say that we did manage to heat with wood all winter. About three and a half cords for a very mild winter. The last power bill was ~$60 with the solar and the wood. It is amazing that so much wood is now gone, up in smoke. Still, the savings are accumulating to get four cords for next winter. Over time, we want to build up a reserve of, ideally, a full winter's wood. 

On the self-sufficiency and preparedness front, we purchased a small, dual-fuel generator. 2200 watts, it will run on either gasoline or (better because it doesn't go bad) propane. If we have a power outage, we will have some backup for a while. It will run a few lights, a fan, and the refrigerator.

Firing that up for a test run will be another weekend project. It's arrival was timely, too. Just the weekend before, my cousins in Maine went through an ice storm which took their power down for three days. They were warm (with their woodstove), and comfortable with their electricity from their generator. It turned out that they also needed their stockpiled water to flush their toilets. They had everything they needed. Well done, cousins. This is exactly the sort of situation for which everyone should be prepared. It's real. It happens. It will happen more often with extreme weather events multiplying with climate change. We must adapt or die.