spectating participant

I’m pretty sure I’ve yet to mention that we’re expecting a little one at some point in July. For the longest time, July was a very long time away and it was easy to let that fact slip into the background. But, today we’re now just 7-11 weeks away (38-42 weeks is a normal gestation) from time being up and this new little being joining our family. This finally sunk in this morning in the most unusual way…

Yesterday, we stopped by a friends house and got to see their baby chickens. They’re a couple week younger than ours, but one variety already dwarfs ours: Cornish Rock crosses. These are a 100% meat bird and their soul purpose in life is to eat, eat, eat and get fat, fat, fat. Looking at them now, you can already see dinner on the table. Looking at our birds, you see fast growing chickens, but not dinner. The Cornish Rock crosses are ready for harvest in just 8 weeks — our dual purpose birds might not be ready for harvest until 20 weeks or so. Lots of people refer to these birds as “frakenchickens” and other derogatory terms - they’re not universally popular among chicken farmers because they’ve got lots of genetic problems. For one, they gain weight so fast that they often lose the ability to walk. Also, some will gain so much, so fast, that their tiny little heart will just give way and they’ll keel over. Some people find them to be a genetic atrocity and others appreciate the quick egg-to-freezer timeline. Also, the quality of the meat is often questioned in comparison to slower growing breeds. But, seeing them up close it’s hard to ignore their fast growth and the quick turn around available with this breed.

I’d seen these chicks the week before, so I wasn’t as surprised by their size and weight (most are already over a pound where only one of our 6-week old chickens has crossed that marker so far). Chris, on the other hand, was pretty impressed and came home with visions of chicken dances in his head. Our chicken tractor is about finished and the birds should be moving out within a day or so. We’d already discussed the idea of getting another round of meat chicks once this batch is outside and Chris is thinking Rock Cornish crosses now. This morning, he comments on picking some up, “And they’ll be ready to slaughter at 8 weeks.” 8 weeks, huh? I thoughtfully respond, “8 weeks is about when a baby will be showing up” and it’s then the reality hits me that time is passing. We’ve now hit the point that upcoming events are within the magical 4-week period of birth possibility.

Now, I find the agricultural connection to this realization rather amusing. Especially because today is also Mother’s Day - an important day in terms of planting and gardening. For the past 14 weeks, Mother’s Day has been on my mind as the commonly accepted last frost date for our area. Everything we’ve been doing has been a countdown to this date. This week, seeing Mother’s Day approaching, I couldn’t help picturing all the work that needs done and thinking how the past 14 weeks have flown by. And then, I was reading on one of my boards about the upcoming holiday - Mother’s Day. “Yes, yes, I know…” was my first mental response, until I then started reading about all the plans people were making for that day. None of these plans included tomato plants and squash seeds, not one. All of these people were talking about gifts and celebrations for their Mothers! “Oh crap!” It dawned on me that Mother’s Day was this week and I’d totally missed the “Mother” part of it. To me, it was all about plants, and I’m hoping my mom won’t mind when I tell her that, had she been a seed packet, I would have great things planned for her; but being that she’s just a mom, a celebratory phone call is all there will be this year.

there I said it outloud and that’ll make it true. It just doesn’t seem feasible with our current schedule and stress loads and financial stuff. So, there, we’re not doing pdf. We’ll still come out for a day, at least, to see some folk we like — though the only option is Friday or Sunday — most likely Sunday cause Friday will be getting ready for the show on Saturday! Argh, I so didn’t want to lame out of PDF, but I just can’t see making it happen either.

About two weeks ago, I learned about a natural living baby fair to take place this afternoon. In usual last minute fashion, I discovered that the usual spaces were already full, but that I could have a table outside, weather permitting. So,began a mad scramble to get things together in time, a scramble that was way overwhelming and unbelievably stressful. I’ve discovered that two weeks is not a sufficient amount of time to prep for a show, even one that was as small as this one. I could barely manage to get just a couple sample diapers assembled - which are still not done - and all my other planned-to-take projects are still in various states of completion.

The past two days, Chris and Alex have been putting in some hard evening hours helping me get ready. I’m very impressed with how well Alex has taken this extra responsibility and responded to my non-stop requests for assistance. I’ve learned that I can manage some stress fairly well, but overwhelming amounts of stress are almost impossible to get through. I’ve thrown in the towel more than once and broken down crying over little errors here and there multiple times. Luckily, I’ve got a good hormone excuse going on at the moment, but that doesn’t make the experience any more pleasant.

I was up at 4am to keep working in hopes of getting stuff finished up. To my surprise, rain was falling - oh how hard it is to get out of bed with the sound of rain and cool breezes lulling you back to sleep. Luckily, my stress over the day’s plan of action made staying in bed impossible. But, a check of the weather shows that what was supposed to be a clear week without any real rain, is now a day of rain showers, turning thunderstorms later. My “weather permitting” space seems to be nulled on account of the rain. This is a HUGE relief, by the way, and I would even celebrate if I wasn’t already so drained from the work I’ve already put in. So, in good news, I’m now fully started in terms of stuff for the show later this month. Thanks to this mad dash - I know have completed business cards, a services brochure mostly finished, items already assembled and labeled for sale, and a decent start on the stash I’ll need later this month.

I can now release the guilt that I don’t have more done for today. I can also stop worrying that I’d be showing up with embarrassingly little on hand for sale and have wasted the hour drive to the location, not to mention the stress endured by the entire family this week. I can also get some more supplies ordered which seem ironic seeing how more than 70 yards of fabric and 6000 snap pieces showed up this week. I’ll be placing some bulk wholesale orders today, including 120 yards of fabric as well.

I’m in super prep mode right now, preparing for a couple shows and restocking supplies that have been dwindling rapidly in the past few weeks. Yesterday, 28 yards of fabric showed up at my door. Today, I placed an order for 70 more yards. We’re gonna be drowning in fabric soon!

For some folks, 5:30am is a perfectly reasonable start of the day. To others, it’s god awful early, especially when the sun isn’t up yet. To our local bird population, it’s just a point in time in marathon serenading. The birds have been going at it, chirping that is, since about 4:00am. Perhaps they’re the designated alarm clock for the local commuters. Birds start singing at 4am and commuters start rolling past shortly past 5am.

For me, I just couldn’t sleep and eventually gave up trying. I’ve been pretty achey all evening and the stress over my car is really getting to me. After waking up every 45 minutes or so, I finally abandoned hope and just got out of bed. Typically, I’d be happy to just lie in bed listening to the morning unfold, especially with the cool breeze flowing in off our bedroom balcony, but the stress drug me to my laptop to google-obsess and get all anxious about things to come.

Thanks to the accident, I’m sure I need to go see the chiropractor again. However, I’m worried about the costs, as always, since I stopped going before because the money just wasn’t there. Part of my brain rationalizes that it’s something that should be covered, but my safe-bet worst-case-scenario-approach to life tells me that I better accept that I’ll end up eating the cost of visits I can’t really afford. I’m staying home tomorrow, instead of working, cause caring for a little infant when everything hurts doesn’t sound so appealing. But again, the cost really gets to me and it’s a day of pay that I’ll not be getting. Taking care of oneself, mentally and physically, sure is easy to do when money isn’t tight. Add that stress along with the indignation I’m feeling about the unfairness of losing my car at the cost of some else’s carelessness, and it’s no surprise that sleep isn’t happening. Instead, I’m smirking at birds who don’t care if there’s daylight and constantly fighting back a flood of overwhelmed tear at the whole situation.

At 1:23pm I sent Chris the following text message:

oh man I want a new car with ac. It’s gonna be a hot summer.

At approximately 1:40pm, I was side swiped by a large GMC pickup truck pulling out of a parking lot.

Based on the damage and the relative value of my car, I’m expecting the insurance company to “total” my car and offer a lump sum settlement versus paying for repairs. I’m extremely upset by this because I really love my car. Even though the lack of a/c does make me fairly miserable during the summer, I still really love my car. I’m slowly accepting that my 9 year relationship with my car may be coming to and end.

I originally thought the car was still drivable, but after additional inspections this afternoon I no longer agree. While I thought the damage was limited to the side and was more cosmetic (well, structural too considering the passenger door is inoperable), further inspection shows that the wheel was also impacted. Test driving at highway speeds (versus the 20mpg I did on the mile drive from the accident site to my home) shows additional indication that there is some damage either to the wheel/rim or to the axle as well. Sigh, now I have to struggle with vanity issues as I’m left with the option of driving Chris’ less-attractive vehicles.

Chris forwarded me this recent article from the Carroll County Times on the upcoming MD Sustainable Living Fair. I’m glad to see this getting some press and I would love to see some more. I should probably start talking about it more since it’s a little more than a month away.

The joy of owning your own house is the reassurance that something will always break. Add 140 years to that house and you spend you time hoping that it’s not something major. Saturday was a super productive day outside, getting lots of yard work one and what not. While we were watering a re-sodded area, I noticed the water pressure to the hose was lacking somehow. After enough complaining, Chris went to see if something was causing the problem. The shut off valve for the outdoor spigot is under the kitchen sink and there he found a very wet cabinet - obviously a problem. We yanked the pipe out out the wall and viola:

The busted pipe had been leaking in the wall/under the cabinet - fun, fun. As for how long it’s been leaking… We turned the outside water back on last week and it could have busted over the winter as we might have remembered to turn the water off but failed to drain the water remaining in the pipe. Or it could have frozen and burst this week during one of our two nighttime freezes. Luckily, it’s a fairly simple fix when you know what you’re doing. In the meantime, I’m appreciating all the rain we’re getting because I can’t water the garden right now anyways.

We took out baby chicks outside for the first time on Saturday. They had a blast digging up worms in our freshly dug garden bed. We weren’t sure how they’d act outside and we planned to only bring out two at a time. We didn’t thinking chasing down 10 chicks would be any fun if they tried to get away. But, once in the 4′x4′ garden plot, they were content to explore that area and never tried to go anywhere else. We kept bringing more and more out until they were all happily scratching away, stealing worms from each other, and gobbling them up. I had hoped to get good individual pictures of each one, but that gets hard to do when they’re herded together.

Sunday was a good day for rain. I was pretty exhausted from all the work on Saturday, plus a little sunburned, but had planned on having company over in my craft room. I spent all morning getting it cleaned up, which was half putting things where they go and half shoving stuff somewhere. Jamie and Jen came over and it was great hanging out with them, reminds me that I need to be more social every now and again. They got some projects started and/or completed and I managed to get nothing done. But, I do have a clean craft room waiting for my attention today. Since it’s still cold and rainy and I’m feeling a bit sluggish, think I’ll take advantage of another day indoors.

The chickens continue to provide us with endless entertainment, though Alex’s fascination seems to be fading a little. We’re still weighing them daily - I’ve yet to make a graph that I find useful enough to share - and we’re still watching them on the TV when we’re not peering over the edge of the brooder. I’m impressed at their growth and feathering rates and at how they seem to be getting more and more accustomed to handling. But, this is the sport addition, so lets get to that part.

I was goofing off online and ignoring the tv while Chris was over playing with the birds. It seems he’s noticed they have a new game to play - chicken football. While he was watching them, a chick grabbed a large piece of wood shaving (their bedding material/litter) and started running around, peeping wildly. Several other chicks joined in and the lucky chick with the “ball” then started doing quick little touch-downs in each of the brooder corners, all while being chased by louder and louder peeping chicks. It was hilarious to watch because they were clearly having a ton of fun in their little game.

Chris has since learned tricks to get a new game started. He’ll reach into the brooder and slowly pick up some litter - this gets them all excited and one or two birds will come pecking after him and take it away. The first few tries, the chicks seem more interested in just getting that wood shaving back into their domain and will go about their business. But, as a critical mass of chicken attention develops, the excitement builds on repeated attempts and eventually a chick will steal the shaving/ball and start running around, peeping madly with it’s prize. Sometimes the other chicks follow, sometimes they just watch the antics of the lucky winner. Chris and I, on the other hand, are laughing hysterically each time.

Rhode Island Red Chick

Originally uploaded by xixstar

Our chicks are growing like crazy it seems. I’m working on some charts that I’ll add to this post on their overall growth the past two weeks. We’re still watching Chick TV/Dinner Theatre regularly and it is incredibly entertaining. I’d always read that chickens are far more interesting than people give them credit for and I have to agree.

Each one has a pretty distinct personality and I’m noticing some breed personality traits too. The Rhode Island Red (RIR), pictured here, is very curious about anything and everything happening around the brooder. She’s always the first one to run up when we stick our hands in to either catch one or to change out the food/water. Most of the others tend to shy away. We have two RIRs and they’re both more forward and somewhat more aggressive than the other breeds.

I still have my favorite chicken and I think Alex has developed a preference for one as well. The Araucanas seem to be our overall favorites, probably because of their colorful markings. The birds are really starting to feather out now and are hitting the ugly puberty stage. Some of feathers coming out at funny angles in odd little places, making them look rather comical. Our New Hampshire breed have all look very similar from the start - only a problem when tracking their daily weight gain and you need to tell them apart - and hopefully their incoming feathers will help us distinguish differences soon. Otherwise, I’m thinking about some colorful hair dye or something!

[posted via BlogThis on flickr]

I like using flickr and am currently planning on using them for my new business site hosted craft blog. It’s time to get a pro membership, but I’m not sure if I want to upgrade my personal account or if I want to create a new account for my business blog. Part of me thinks it’d be good to separate the two, but the other part of me wants to keep everything together and just use my existing account. Oh the choices are too complicated. I really want to decide as I’m tired of not having enough sets and I’ve crossed display limits on the free account.

Chick TV/Dinner Theatre

Originally uploaded by xixstar

Raising chicks is a completely new and un-charted territory for us. In the short week we’ve been doing it, we’ve already learned a lot of things. Today was our most exciting day in chicken raising so far. But first, some background.

As I mentioned, we bought 10 one-day old baby chicks and they’ve been providing us an endless source of entertainment. Against my better judgment, we brought them home before we had a proper brooder set up. However, Chris and Alex had set up reasonable looking accommodations in a large galvanized tub that we were sure would work for the first week, at least. When I got them home, the tub seemed like a great starting point. Being new to raising chicks, we didn’t realize just how fast they were going to grow. We began weighing them daily (chick stats to come) and it wasn’t unusual for them to put on 10% of their body weight in one day.

This weekend, Chris spent most of Saturday designing and building the brooder box. The tub was still serving it’s purpose but I was getting more and more nervous about the chicks increasing size and ability to jump. I was very happy to see the brooder built, but we didn’t move the chicks over right away. We still had to make space in the mud room to make it fit. That was put on Sunday’s agenda.

This morning, we planned to visit one of Chris’ friends, about 45 minutes away, to check out his place and see if he had any chicken wire or building supplies we could use for building our chicken tractors. Before leaving, I commented on how it seemed like at least one chick was testing the height limits of the tub and how the brooder couldn’t come any sooner. Instead of bring responsible chick owners and placing some wire over the tub, just in case, we headed out the door assuming all would be well when we got home.

While visiting, we even commented on how we hoped to get home and find 10 chicks still in the brooder. Seems our intuition was kicking in. About 5 hours after we left, we finally got home and the first thing I did is check the tub - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine… nine… Shit! Literally, shit on the floor and no baby chick in sight.

The chicken hunt began and it wasn’t a pretty sight. For those who’ve visited our place, you might recall that we’ve got a lot of crap every where and there are lots of places for a little chick to hide. Plus, the basement door had been left open, even more places to check. We basically tore the mudroom apart, flinging stuff on the porch and in the dining room — a challenging and aggravating process (to me) because there were 3 people, stressed over finding a missing chick, in a tiny mudroom crammed with too much stuff. The basement was searched, each corner and possible hiding spot was excavated, and we had no baby chick.

I finally gave up, decided that the chick was gone and that someday we’d finally find it’s body somewhere. The fact that it wasn’t making any noise (chicks will chirp loudly when cold or upset) had me convinced it was already dead. This failure to properly care for our chicks really upset me. Also, as much as I usually find that I form no emotional attachments to animals, I’d taken a liking to one of them - the missing one. I was so upset that it couldn’t have been one of the “dumb white rocks or the boring new hampshires”. Instead, it was one of the Araucanas with the squirrel face markings. Several times, hormones took over (that’s my story) and I was bawling over a missing chicken.

While I was pouting at the dining room table, I watched another chick make a near escape from the tub. The brooder couldn’t wait any longer and Chris and I got the new brooder set up. Within moments of being in their new space, a couple of them had already taken to zooming across the brooder with wings flapping; they were happy. The new brooder’s biggest downside was the it limited our visibility of the chicks; we can no longer just stand around and watch the chicks. The only space we could find, in the house, was on top of the dryer. The new brooder had to be elevated even higher to extend past the dryer and basically took over a corner of the mudroom (I’ll try to post pictures later, they’d make more sense)

At this point the chicken hunt is over; Chris is putting the mudroom back together and I’m trying to get some work done. Then, Chris comes and tells us that he’s pretty sure he hears the chick in the basement. We rush down there and sure enough, we find the little chick hiding under a random piece of insulation. Alex gets her back in the brooder with her friends (all this time, they’ve seemed to be completely indifferent to her absence) and she struts around taking stock of the new digs. Sigh of relief, I’m so happy that she’s back.

So, we’ve got all 10 chicks again, though we’re now lacking access to our primary form of entertainment of the past week - chick watching. While I’m busy working on some sewing projects, Chris sets up Chick TV — or Dinner Theatre as he calls it ( appropriately so). There is a camera on the chicks with lines feeding into the television, providing us continued access to watching our baby chicks. I must say, this is decadently entertaining and a decent end to a rather stressful day of chicken rearing.

[posted via BlogThis on flickr]

Baby Chicks - Day 2

Originally uploaded by xixstar

Last night’s entertainment was watching our brand new baby chicks. Alex was anxious to pick them up, but respected our statement that you should leave them alone for at least 24 hours to reduce the stress of their new environment. Of course, that didn’t stop her from peering over the edge and making them a little nervous anyways.

Of course, Chris and I spent a good long while just standing and watching them chirp and move around. They seem fairly content as far as we can tell. Occasionally, one or two of them seemed determined to pick on the others, either picking at their feathers or poking at their eyes (ouch). We know that pecking each other can be a sign of over crowding, but we’re not convinced we were seeing that behavior and not just some random pecking that happens naturally.

They seem to have a lot of group think going on. One starts pecking at something on the side of the brooder and they all flock over to check it out. Or, one will eat from one of the feeder holes and four more will decide that the one they want to eat from. But, that seems pretty natural to descend on whoever has found something to peck at cause that means food! One funny thing is that they really like white dots — our metal tub has a tiny little white speck that they’ll occasionally come up and peck at (ding, ding, ding) and there is another speck on the cardboard they they like going after too.

I got up once (well, I had to get up anyways) in the middle of the night to check on them and they were sleeping soundly.

Alex is anxious to get home today so that she can finally pick them up. I think she’ll be surprised when she gets home and finds I’m running a little late and she’s gone and left her house key at home. Normally, I’d still make sure she can get in, but her exuberance about the chicks has me happy to make her just wait outside until I get home — for their sake.

[posted via BlogThis on flickr]

it’s been a crazy busy weekend, seems like we’ve been going here and there non-stop. today we got to meet with some other local folk interested in sustainability issues, yay. also got to talk to someone running the upcoming Sustainable Living fair in Carroll County — look for it in May. I plan to have a table there, which will make that an interesting weekend as I guess we’ll leave PDF at the crack of dawn, hopefully be presentable enough to run a table at the fair, and then return to PDF that evening to catch the ridiculousness of the big burn. :)

i was starting to get nervous that freecycle wasn’t going to come through for me on some clothing needs that are coming up later this year. in fact, I’d finally contacted a friend who does consignment sales to see what she had on hand in order to start buying items. seems thats all i needed to do because the same week I planned to meet with her, I scored three freecycle lots of clothing, just what I needed. I still need some more stuff, but I now have faith that freecycle will indeed meet my needs in this area, yay. :)

i’m at a point that I basically need a nap every day that I go out somewhere. problem is that I don’t want to take a nap so I put it off and put it off and put it off until I’m then about to collapse because I’m tired — of course, at this point, it’s really too late to nap without throwing the rest of the evening off — but not napping is no longer an option.

in other words, i’m going to bed, sigh.

Did nexflix used to list the movie rating in the queue? I think so — because I thought I used that so that I could always have a family friendly movie on hand for pizza-movie nights.

There is often strange stuff in my queue, it’s nice to have the rating there as the titles mean very little at this point.

I’ve been coming back to the idea of homeschooling alex again and again. It seems very clear that this is something I want to do, but I also know that it isn’t that easy of a decision to make either. We did the homeschool thing once before and it wasn’t fun. Also, alex and I don’t get along perfectly, or anything remotely close to perfectly, and I know that homeschooling could really tread on that relationship. Also, next fall will involve a whole new family dynamic that I also need to take into consideration.

But, even with all the reasons not to, I still keep coming back to this feeling that it is something that would be a good thing to do for her. I’ve spent many years fully supporting the idea of public school and wanting to be sure my children went to public school, but the reality of the situation has proven time and again to not live up to my expectations of what children should learn. It seems like schools have lost the ability to teach children and are now simply catering to the testing requirements mandated by state and national measures. I don’t see anything in the schools the resembles the educational foundation that I feel children should get. Testing requirements continue to erode the overall curriculum and all that is left is just math and reading and few regurgitated facts.

Add to this continued disappointment in public schools - and the schools we’ve attended are actually decent school comparatively — is the fact that alex really struggles with getting challenging work and being engaged in her school work. Because she rarely completes out-of-class assignments, her teachers have begun taking that as a sign that she can’t do the work. The reality is that the work isn’t engaging and she doesn’t want to do it. Because she doesn’t do her homework and sometimes her school work, her teachers said that they will not allow her to continue in the advanced classes next year. She’s already bored with the work in these classes, I can imagine how much work they’ll get out of her next year when she basically repeats the material she’s doing now.

So, my frustration with the schools is really making me want to try this homeschooling thing again. but, I also can’t shake the fact that this might be a serious challenge. Talking to alex about it isn’t all that encouraging either. On one hand she wants to stay in school so she can go to PE every day — yeah, as though that is a reason to stay in public school — and then she’ll be all over the homeschool idea for un-encouraging reasons, such as wanting to go on field trips her her friend. I try to paint realistic pictures of what homeschooling would be like, but she constantly swings on pendulums in understanding and listening, it seems.

So, for now, it’s still and idea, an idea that should be best left untouched, I feel. But, we may give it a test run over the summer - something alex isn’t excited about, but i want to see that she will do the work involved before trying to do it full-time. Of course, there is still the time issue and the fact that this is probably more than I should take on right now.

- Our broccoli and unknown seedlings have started on true sets of leaves.
- We planted cabbage, brussesls sprouts, and more broccoli last weekend. We had to put a heating pad under the tray and they are now sprouting.
- This weekend, we started some asparagus seeds and thinned out some more of the unknown seedlings into individual trays.
- We picked up 4 strawberry plants while at Home Depot looking for seedling trays.

We were pretty disturbed to find that Home Depot sells seeds and potting soil, but no seedling trays — uhh!. Guess they aren’t used to people really planning out their gardens and extending their harvest by starting seeds indoors. But, while we were disappointed to come home without the trays, we were happy to have some locally grown strawberry plants in the car with us.

In other news, the plan is to bring home 5 baby chicks next weekend. We’re still a little unsure about what will become the brooder, but we’ve at least cleared out a space for them. I really want to order some 20-week pullets now that I know that means we’ll get fresh eggs sooner, but Chris isn’t as excited about that plan. So, we’ll keep with the starting small plan, which is probably the best plan.

First day of spring and we’re now done using our dryer for the next few seasons. I love hanging clothes out on the line and I love how fresh they smell when I bring them in. I thought that I’d keep doing it during winter, but when a free dryer showed up (we were without one when we bought the house), it became an easy solution when the temps started dropping. It was still a bit chilly hanging stuff out, but I figure the first day of spring is as good a time as any.

SECU has been really hyping up their new, improved online bill payment system. I finally got a chance to check it out and can’t see anything worth cheering about. Not sure if it’s cause they’re credit-union-small-beans or if they just know nothing about online bill payment, but they seem rather clueless about how to make online banking a positive and powerful experience. I don’t really mind the home-grown feel to their online banking, it does get the job done, but I had high hopes that they were finally implementing a sophisticated system — guess I’ll just have to be patient for another 5 years in hopes that by then they’ll have finally crossed the threshold of online banking I found with other banks almost 10 years ago.

A quick update on this year’s garden:

We ordered seeds from Territorial Seed Company on February 11 and they arrived within a week. At the same time, we also ordered from artisticgardens.com and the seeds never arrived. I contacted them after a couple weeks and our order had been lost, so I re-placed the order on March 4 and the seeds arrive on March 8 (sans one back-ordered packet of pumpkin seeds).

We started seedlings last Sunday (March 2): broccoli and mystery seeds. We set the broccoli seedlings on top of the office computer monitor and the mystery seeds hung out in the kitchen window above the radiator. The broccoli sprouted tall by Thursday (March 6) and the mystery seeds were pushing up a day later (March 7). Since sprouting, we’ve moved my wire craft shelving to the living room window and have put them there in hopes of getting a decent amount of sunlight. We’re also supplementing with artificial light, since the days aren’t quite long enough yet, and need a better lamp stand in. We may also add some white sheeting to help reflect more sunlight at the plants as well.

Yesterday, Chris and I went through his stock of seeds and added them to our spreadsheet (which I hope to make publicly available at a later time). We have 82 packets of seeds on hands and more than 52 different plant varieties, which includes companion-planting flowers and two specialty crops (luffa sponges and kale walking sticks). Some of Chris’ stock is many years old, so we’re not sure if they are all viable - but they have been properly stored cold and dry and there is a good chance they’ll all be good. The broccoli that sprouted were from one of the older packets since the ones we ordered from artisticgardens.com had not yet arrived.

In somewhat related news, We’ve been reading “Animal, Plant, Miracle” in the evenings before bed and I’m renewing my interest in eating locally AND adding interest in eating in season. The author basically journals her year in food and doing the same and I think we’ll incorporate as much locally grown and seasonally appropriate foods into our diet as possible, with hopes at being fully in-season by next year (which will also be easier when we have our root cellar, freezer, and jars of canned foods available to consumption). Reading this book has also shared new information, such as the connection between Monsanto and Territorial Seed company (no more ordering from Territorial for me) and heirloom versus hybrid seeds. I plan to order a few more seeds for this year from either Baker Seed Catalog or Seed Savers since getting more information on the importance of heirloom plant varieties and diversity in our food sources.

Items we still need to buy for our garden: seed potatoes, garlic, onions, strawberries.

Today gardening to-do list includes making up a gardening journal to help track data on seedlings, transplants, maturity dates, harvest, and all that good stuff. I may actually move my gardening journal over to my business site since it may be slightly more relevant there in terms of gardening in Carroll County and possibly directing more work my way — gotta love passive advertising, I guess. May also be moving all my crafting posts over there as well, but thats another subject altogether.

I woke up with a sever hankering for Dim Sum — I feel it’s related to re-watching Eat Drink Man Woman last night. After talking about it for an hour or so, Chris finally realizes I’m pretty serious about this craving and suddenly it’s a possibility.

We’ve tried a few places, none of which are local to our current home, and have been most impressed food and cost wise with A&J in Rockville and repeat customer at Jesse Wong’s in Columbia. Both Rockville and Columbia felt like a hike but my craving wasn’t gonna go away just because it was going to take almost an hour to get here. In searching for someone a little closer, I found a listing for a place called Oriental Manor that is in Ellicott City, slightly closer than Columbia, that had some positive and some negative reviews for Dim Sum. A little more searching for more reviews informed me the place had just changed ownership and names, Asian Court, and had just re-opened a few weeks ago. There were a few not-so-positive reviews of food and service, but nothing talked about Dim Sum. I was a bit nervous trying a new place, but also didn’t feel like driving all the way into Columbia for Dim Sum that is okay but not great.

We got to Asian Court at prime Dim Sum hour on a Saturday (11:30) and there were a few other tables already seated. Upon sitting we got immediate service from picking the type of tea we wanted and the first cart was upon us. At one point, it seemed that we had about 8 wait staff and two carts at our table in some crazy frenzy of selections. We were doing our best to pick things we knew we liked, try something new, and get stuff that the two kids with us would like.

There were language issues in that no one was able to really translate what was being offered. This usually isn’t a big deal, but when picking items that are also kid friendly, it’s nice to have a general idea of what you’re getting. A few months ago, taking my mom out for Dim Sum, we were much more content to constantly repeat “we don’t know” to her never ending questions about what things were and just picked based on appearance.

I am very impressed with Alex’s friend who’d never tried Dim Sum but was willing to try anything that sounded good; picky Alex only ate from 2 of the dishes we ordered (sticky rice and pork). We found everything to be pretty good, plus some new items that were stellar (a green scallion dumpling and a shrimp/crab dumpling). They convinced us to try a bitter melon dish that was way too bitter for our palette, but otherwise all of their suggestions were well received. Of the 12 dishes we picked, we were only dissatisfied with 3 of the: the bitter melon dish, a meat dumpling that was just boring, and roast pork in flaky pastry that did live up to the roast pork bun.

The prices were $3.25 - $3.95 for the dishes we picked; we weren’t offered any larger dishes while we were still hungry enough to try them (Alex normally likes to get a large meat dish, but they didn’t bring one out until we were done). For the 12 dishes we ordered, the bill was over $50.00 with tip. This seems a little high, but I didn’t leave feeling cheated either. We all left stuffed beyond reason and Chris and I ended up in a food coma for most of the afternoon.

Overall, if Asian Court in Ellicott City is local to you, it’s probably worth the trip for dim sum. Several of their dishes were excellent, most were very good, and we didn’t even trying 1/3 of what they had available. I wanted to try more, but my stomach couldn’t accommodate any more than it did.

For months I’ve been very frustrated about the limited power of mail’s rules to do what I want. What I wanted was to review all messages from an email list I’m on and only keep the ones with a certain subject line. To try and make do, I made rule after rule deleting all the messages with other subject lines but that wasn’t enough and was too labor intensive too.

I saw that applescripts could be of some help but I didn’t want to go that direction. What I really wanted was the ability to say if message matched x and any of y (with lots of variables) then do z.

After months of random search failures, my brain finally flipped on a switch when it remembered that the rules are run in order of preference and that I could simply make two rules to do what I wanted. The first rule found the messages I wanted to keep and sorted them into the proper folder. The second rule deleted everything else. Here I spent so much time being frustrated when a rather simple solution was waiting for me the entire time.

I still feel like it would be useful if you could have rules that with more options that just “match any” or “match all” because I can see lots of instance where you’d want to run a rule on all messages from a certain sender that match a variety of (aka “any”) variables. As far as I can tell, short of writing an applescript to do this, it isn’t an option at this time.

I’ve been calling Chris a termite lately — mostly because of the latest steps taken to get more of the wiring replaced in our lovely old house. This has been a bit by bit project since we moved in, basically he’ll tackle and outlet or switch at a time and usually it isn’t too complicated. But, I think all the simple wire replacements have been done and now all thats left are ones that are a little more invasive.

The first sign that this might be a little more project than I was prepared for was the not so small hole that was cut into our bedroom wall. To give him lots of credit, it is in a very un-obvious place and, of course, can always be patched. But, this was needed to access staircase wiring that needed replaced — and, this was actually an out of the way access hole that after many valiant attempts, failed to provide the needed access and necessitated another, more visible hole in the hallway. He did try to less intrusive step first, but old houses have a way of not cooperating and you never quite know whats behind the wall until you break it open.

These access holes are the gateway to the super drill bit, which is a couple feet long, that is hopefully precisely pointed down through the joists/floorboards and into the lower level. But, well that hasn’t always been the case due to various nuisance common to old houses. Though, my favorite is the drill bit that appeared through the living room ceiling much to mine and chris’s surprise (that was also one of the last straws before admitting defeat and making the access hole in the hallway).

Saturday night, I come home and there is a new hole in the living room wall, this one is a nice outlet size, so not something to get nervous about, another peek-a-boo hole in the living room ceiling (accompanied by a sheepish oops), and a very ample access panel in the office upstairs. Each access panel usually results in at least two attempted holes drilled down through the floor/joists/ceilings, hence my comment that he’s worse than termites lately. Luckily, he realizes this too and isn’t doing all this extra destruction just for the fun of it. Sadly, if we want wiring up to par with this century’s safety standards, then we’ll just have a patch a few (dozen?) holes in the process.

Oh, and in other fun wiring news, he discovered another wiring mishap when I couldn’t get the bathroom outlet working. After tracing and testing (and much head scratching) the cables from the box and through the attic (seems there are some gratuitous splice box usage up in the attic), he eventually discovered the problem. Seems that whoever installed the GFCI outlet in the downstairs bathroom felt like saving a few pennies and just connected it to the one in the upstairs bathroom instead of installing a second one. Take a moment to consider the wiring hoops this required - the wire must go from the downstairs bathroom, up and out past the kitchen to the outside wall, up the wall past our bedroom to the attic, across the full length of our bedroom and then the hallway, and then down into the upstairs bathroom. I’d think that another GFCI switch would have been cheaper than all that wiring.

So, we’re considering how to eloquently word the reminder that if the upstairs bathroom outlet isn’t working, one should proceed down the stairs to the other side of the house and press the button on the outlet in the other bathroom. Perhaps a reminder isn’t needed, because surely thats the first thought that would cross one’s mind if the bathroom outlet wasn’t working, right?

for a week or so now I’ve been having routing problems or something from flickr. basically, I can’t see any flickr photos which makes browsing sites pretty boring. From the support forum, its not their problem and I agree — somewhere the message isn’t getting though. I’m starting to notice that it isn’t just flickr either, though I’ve not taken the time to compile the list to see whats up. I’m blaming comcast but am feeling lost about how to go about getting this fixed — I would like full access to the web again, especially the photos. :)

but I’ve been looking into some digital scrapbooking stuff and am trying to download some freebie items to get started with and see if I like it. Then, will prolly work on making my own stuff as I’m much happier with affordable hobbies. But, these are some serious downloads and I need some honest-to-goodness high speed connection thats free too. I can’t recall what the library offers, but I’ll give them a try tomorrow since Alex is going to Mardi Gras party there anyways.

As if this is what I needed to be doing right now, surely there is some sewing I could be doing. Why oh why did I click that link… sigh.

Several of the recent posts have provided project inspiration for me. The pen holder for journals and the tea wallet are great ideas that I hope to whip up sometime soon, as soon as some other projects get done first. Thought I’d share the love a bit.

http://diynamite.com/

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I need to go see a chiropractor and just can’t seem to make that happen. It doesn’t help that the one I’ve decided to see in in Thurmont and thats a hike even for me. But, the recommendation is awesome and the price is what I can do right now with our monies being all out of whack. I really wanted to go today, but I must hit the bank too and unfortunately the bank and Thurmont are in very opposite directions and I’m sure that’ll be too much driving for me. But, ow, ow, ow I need to go.

Hitting the gym the past few weeks has gone from uncomfortable to almost excruciating — obviously it’s time to deal with this. Sadly, I have to work tomorrow, so thats probably out too. I sure wish there were some other things I could do in the meantime, but it seems that I’ve tried all I can and thats just the next step. So, hopefully I can still make it out there tomorrow after work, hopefully. There must be some kind of end in sight here.

I get bogged down when I start browsing my crafting sites - there is just too much awesome stuff out there to look at and want to do. I jump from wanting to do one project to another before even starting. For years, I’ve been more content with just looking at projects than doing them — its about time to get over that and actually make some more stuff. I had so much fun with the secret santa swap I did and am working on a cloth diaper shower gift at the moment - but I just want to sew, sew, sew and not just read, read, read.