Planting!

So, we got planting done yesterday. This is the first I've done since November, geared toward that goal, excepting the buying of more seed back in February.

I'm going to start back into the IDC updates (That is "Food Independence Day Challenge") sooner or later, but today I just wanted to post about what's going on here for weather and veggies and such.

The weather has been BEAUTIFUL! around here lately. Day-time temps were at first getting only as high as the high 30's, then over the course of the next week they got up into the 40's, yesterday I think it may even have hit 60 degrees in the sun, and the shade was about 40. Our road is more slush and water at this point than snow. (In fact, for all the "ditch-digging" a few years back, those darn ditches clog with snow & slush and we still end up with a "lake" at the end of our road every "break-up" season.)

Saturday I took my long-dead pepper plant out of my kitchen window and took it outside. I carefully loosened the root-pack up out of the planter it was in, then pulled from the stem (which I broke down considerably first) and carefully worked the mostly-dry soil from around the stem, till the whole system of roots & soil was broken up nicely back INTO the pot, and the stem I tossed over toward my compost heap. (The compost heap is STILL buried in snow, thus I haven't yet taken to tossing things in there yet. Besides, I'm rather hoping that last year's compost will finally be ready to add to my planter-beds when it all thaws & dries a bit, and therefore I don't want to toss anything new in there yet.)

Once I had that planter refilled with the now-loosened dirt, I soaked it down, even to the point of forming a couple of snow-balls and leaving them to melt into the soil. Wanted it really nice & saturated. Then, once the snow-balls melted, I let it sit overnight till yesterday morning. Before heading over to the inlaw's for Easter dinner, I planted a couple of my pepper seeds smack dab in the center of that planter, and put 6 lettuce seeds (3 each of 2 different variety) around the perimeter. I figure that if the pepper comes up, GREAT. If not, at least I'll hopefully get some leaf-lettuce growing in my kitchen window. *wink* Then I topped it off with a water-reservoir tray that I inverted over the top, terrarium-style, and left it in the sun all day.

We finally made it over to the Inlaw's at about 1 pm. Got started right away on going through the FIL's stash of seed, discussing what to plant, what needed to be started ASAP. We had a mishap with the cabbage and broccoli seed, though. Turns out that his ONLY pkg of cabbage seed, and one of his 2 pkg of broccoli seed were cut open along top. Something I was not aware of. *wry smile* When they got inverted while sorting through, one or the other (or both?) spilled all it's contents out into the tray we were using for sorting seed. I thought, initially, that it was the broccoli seed, so I got it all back INTO the pkg of broccoli. Only then to discover that the pkg of cabbage seed (the ONLY pkg of cabbage seed that the FIL had) was empty but for 4 little seeds. *rolling eyes* So, now I had either just added a lot of broccoli seed to the broccoli pkg, a lot of cabbage seed to the broccoli pkg, or they'd BOTH dumped out and gotten completely mixed anyway and had gotten added back into the broccoli pkg together. And since broccoli and cabbage seed look identical (at least, to me), there was NO way to seperate the two. *sigh*

So, what we got started yesterday was a lot of cabbage (cause we proceeded to use the seed _I_ had bought, since neither Sentry or Safeway had any cabbage seed in stock, and Hawk's Farm & Garden was closed for Easter); a lot of broccoli -or more cabbage!; a full 36 squares of green-onion; about 18 tomato; 26 cucumber (just one variety this year). I also started a couple melon, a couple watermelon, another pepper seed, a couple eggplant, a couple of MY variety of broccoli, a couple of my Stupice tomato seeds (3 that I saved from last year's one ripe stupice tomato), and about 5 Bushy cucumbers to be planted here at my place. We're starting them there at Al's house, and going to bring those back here to my place to do most of their growing, once they've gotten their start there, and once the snow melts here.

Anyway, so the seed starting is all done now, hopefully. When we got here, I walked through the snow (because yes, my front and back yards still have a lot of snow) to the side of the house where I've got my bean-patch, my rhubarb, and chive plants, as well as those 2 big half-barrel planters. The snow has melted completely in a little 2-1/2 ft wide strip alongside the entire width of the house, so within the next week or two, I'm going to make all efforts to get out there and clean out my planter bins and pull out the dead stalks of last year's plants, and get a row of beans or peas in right away. Those should be the first to go in. Shortly after, I should be able to get my first picking of rhubarb. And shortly after that, I should be able to put in some zucchini and eventually my tomato plants. I can hardly wait.

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On to other subjects, I suppose.

As for the suggestions of Tay maybe simply being a rebellious teen...... I DO appreciate the thought that maybe there isn't anything going on beyond that, that maybe this is simply a "this too shall pass" stage in our lives. That'd be my thought too if it wasn't for the fact that Tay and I have been knocking heads since she was 2. She hit her "terrible 2" stage a bit early, but never outgrew it. I mean, literally. She was as ornery and strong-willed and defiant at 3 and 4 and 5 as she was at 2. Years 6 and 7 weren't much better, if anything her attitude worsened while her physical expressions of anger diminished a bit. Year 8 was ok for the most part. Then at 9 years old, she hit puberty and her attitude (and her physical expressions of anger and violence) have been sky-rocketing ever since. Just last night, she spent 30 minutes yelling and screaming at Scott and I simply over brushing her teeth. Or, more precisely, that she didn't WANT to brush her teeth and she was being directed to. Even before that, right after we got home from the Inlaw's, I directed her (nicely, mind you!) to unload the dishwasher before calling her best friend to hang out. A simple, quick chore that she KNOWS she's been assigned. She slammed the front door in my face in anger over my reminding her that she needed to do her chore before running off with her friend. (Suffice it to say, Scott went in and told her that because of her behavior, she wasn't going to get to see that friend at ALL, even once dishes had been done.)

Her attitude is that if she doesn't find it fun, then she's going to raise hell till she gets her way. And as I don't tend to give in more than 1% of the time, and Scott's quickly learning to NOT give in either, that results in slammed doors, banging her head against walls and doors, throwing things...... It's beyond simple teenage rebellion. Last night, Scott was standing outside her bathroom giving her the "evil eye", trying to stare her down over her refusal to brush her teeth, and she went to slam the door IN his face. (Literally, it would have hit him in the face.) He put his hand up, and as hard and fast as Tay was pushing that door, his hand went through the door with no effort from him. She kicks walls and doors and furniture when she's pissed. She's gotten pretty damned abusive. It's no longer acceptable in any way.

So yeah..... Again I appreciate the thought that maybe it's just a phase of teenage rebellion, but Tay's attitude and actions make her a hazard to herself and others. That's simply unacceptable and not something ANYBODY should have to live with for the sake of putting up with a rebellious teenager.

(And, before anybody says "well, if she doesn't want to brush her teeth, why don't you just let her get a cavity, maybe she'd care more about brushing?" remember that our insurance, as much as most insurance plans will cover cleanings and other preventative for minors 100%, but treatment for dental ill's, such as cavities and worse, is covered at maybe 80% AFTER the yearly deductable is paid. We simply don't have the cash to just "let her get a cavity". There are other medical needs that are a little harder to prevent, so why just give up in this case, in hopes that she'll come around to brushing after she's had to suffer a cavity. We're working on preventing what we can, to avoid the dental bills, when we know that other bills will come along for other physical needs that cannot be avoided so easily. And, as for making Tay pay for those cavity fillings, could be except we're trying to save her meager savings for college some day. AND, simply paying for the cavity filling isn't all the fight we might have. There's also the fight of dragging her butt into a dentist chair if she decides to NOT go. She's gotten too big for me to throw over my shoulder and sit on. *wry smile*)

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I found this quote on a bookmark at work early last week, and I thought it was interesting and thought provoking enough to want to share.

"Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which EVERYBODY sees." -- Schopenhauer

Isn't that a neat quote? I love the thought that our job in life, as thinking individuals is not to FIND new things, but to be creative in our thinking processes about even that which has already been discovered. To challenge the limits of our imagination and belief by questioning what is commonly believed to be true.

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Last but not least, today is my younger nephew, Grant's, 5th birthday. I know he doesn't see this, just thought I'd throw it out there though. Rather astonished that the little hooligan hasn't blown himself up, or gotten himself hit by a car yet. Then again, at 5 he's just finally gaining the physical ability to REALLY do himself in. (He's majorly dangerous that way. Not just in a rather physically violent way, but in a totally careless and carefree manner as well. He'd be the one to jump off the roof of the house onto a trampoline just to see how high he can jump afterwards.)

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Ok, I'd better get a move on. It's warm enough outside now to move my seed-pot outside, and to move my couple of hyacinth bulbs outside for the day. Then I've got to get ready for work.

Have a Blessed Week!