For Those Who Enjoy Winter

If you happen to be in the area this weekend, or within driving distance, the Miller's Mills Annual Ice Harvest is happening this Sunday, February 11th.

It's a must do! I attended years ago with my parents, and even as a child was quite taken with the action of the harvest. (OK, I fell in love with the horses!)

The annual event was canceled last year due to warm weather and no ice. Not a problem this year!

Here is a link to the photo gallery: Miller's Mills Ice Harvest. (second set of photos, bottom right)

The ice is stored in a nearby shed until they use it in the summer to make ice cream for the Annual Ice Cream Social. I don't believe the date for that has been announced yet.

Winter Sowing Will Save Your Sanity

So, after all this other crap, the transmission in the car is going.
Thank God for my Jack-of-all-trades hubby.

Once I was informed of problem number 8,558, I just wanted to cry and crawl in bed with a good garden book and ignore everything.

Instead, I cried, got out my happy little razor blade and started slicing up some milk jugs (By the way-plastic is slippery when wet!). Though slicing my wrists with it sounded like a better plan, dirt actually makes much less mess in the long run.

Half way through the self-imposed stress relief program, I started thumbing through all those luscious seed packs that had been so thoughtfully sent my way by a few very caring people, deciding what was going into those jugs.

Honestly, why should I be so stressed, depressed and freaked out when I have all those beautiful plants to come and we're all healthy and safe? Even with all we've had to deal with, we're pretty darn fortunate! We have a house and land, everyone in the fam is doing pretty well, D didn't get affected by the recent layoff, I have friends that love me, virtual friends who've been there, done that, can commiserate and know that there's an end in sight.

In the grand scheme of things, these are just road bumps we'll have to slowly roll over to move on. There are many people out there who are going through much, much worse. Who am I to whine and complain?

So, problems and winter blues be damned! I plastered a smile on my face, shuffled through the seeds again and finished up the jug prep, happy as a New York gardener in August. Yay for WSing!

I don't care what goes wrong next. Together, the hubs and I can get through anything!

It Just Never Ends

If you don't want to deal with depressing whining, quit reading now.

If things come in threes, we're done! Well, unless we add a missed day of work for D because there was so much snow he couldn't get out of the driveway, that'd either be four, or God forbid, we're working on a second set of three.

I swear, you don't realize what a wonderful invention a simple, everday thing like a toilet is until yours decides to revolt. Ugh! But, eighty bucks and three days later, that's fixed.

Ok, good to go? Nope! Furnace decides to throw a friggin tantrum with wind chill at -22 at 3am. Figures! When the stores finally decide to open the next morning (what?! No 24 hour furnace parts stores?) got the nozzel and gun changed and adjusted again (been through this one a few times before), so we're all set? Ha! Water in the fuel, so the lines freeze at 5am the next night (in the cellar no less!).

Fabulous...I think it was too much cold for my newly sprouted azaleas to handle, though the buddleia seemed to have pulled through like champs. I hate, hate, HATE winter!

Fine, that takes the count to three things that have gone wrong - so I thought. Not a chance.

Why is the water pump on so long? Oh, and why is there water pouring accross my bathroom floor? Ummm, that'd be because the heat tape quit working and the pipes froze and burst! Peachy.

So D replaces the pipes and runs all over looking for more heat tape because, of COURSE, everyone is sold out! Grrrr!

To top everything off, my daughter had her heart broken by a cheating boyfriend, so has moved back home. I love having her home, hate that she's hurting and there's nothing I can do for her. Well, short of making a voodoo doll of the little SOB and filling it like a pin cushion. I can't believe she's added up so much 'stuff' in just over four years. Bags and boxes everywhere, but she's hanging in there surprisingly well emotionally.

It hasn't stopped snowing and the temps haven't hit even close to the 20's in almost, what, 3 weeks now? Have I mentioned I HATE winter?

I'm afraid of what's coming next. Geezz, I've lost count...what are we up to?

Panic!

Unbelievable!
Here I was chomping at the bit to get things going, and now that I've gone and done it...I'm in a complete state of panic.

Buddleia-144 little squirts going gangbusters.
Azaleas-sprouting.
Rhododendrons-If I got out the magnifying glass (don't laugh, it's quite possible, if I could find it), I'd probably see them sprouting, too.
Yellow lily-2 sprouted and I know the next 4 aren't far behind. (they are the cutest little things!)
Amaryllis-growing like a monster.

What have I done?! One side of my brain is overjoyed to the max (it's having a celebratory margarita), the other (if it had a foot) is trying it's damndest to give me a swift kick, muttering, "You idiot! It's much, much too soon! Look, there's a good 10 inches of blowing snow out there and it's still accumulating. Gardening = sun, heat!"

Ok, so I only have to test my gardening skills on keeping everything alive for, ummm...4 more months. Uh-oh. (I'm completely ignoring the fact I'll be starting veg and flowers inside soon enough, so don't mention it!)

I'm not sure which side of my brain I should listen to. Maybe I'll just ignore the both of them and go talk to the plants.

What's Their Hurry?

My azalaes germinated already!

I'm a little shocked at how fast they've decided they needed to start.

Anyway, it was only 8 days ago that I sprinkled those tiny seeds from The Willow Garden onto carefully prepared peat/coffee ground soil. Maybe they're happy with the soil, maybe the containers.

Years ago, My Aunt, aka The Plant Lady, showed me how to make these self-watering pots out of juice and soda bottles for rooting cuttings. Or, any kind of container you could cut through that would work. (Hacksaws are a grand thing to have hanging around!) She showed me this because, dummy me couldn't figure out the "moist, but not too wet - moist, but not too dry" formula for making cuttings happy.

It's very simple: You cut something in half, like a 2 liter soda bottle (which is perfect), flip the top upside down into the bottom (making sure the cap part-that's now inside- hits the bottom), fill upside down one with soil, make sure the bottom (under the upside down part) never runs out of water, and voila! You can either pull the top edge of the bottom piece out and squish the upside down side in to add water (whew! Did anyone understand that?) or just cut a hole a few inches up on the bottom piece and water through that. The whole setup works perfectly for keeping soil moist, but not too wet, as it wicks up from the bottom (where the screw-cap was).

Making a fill hole sure sounds like the easier way, which is why that's exactly what I do. lol. But to each his own.

Well, it hit me that it would be the perfect environment for starting rhododendrons and azaleas! Duh! Just add a clear storage bag over the top with a rubber band around the bottom of the bag, and perfectly moist soil with 100% humidity!

Well, the seeds obviously like it.

Tinker with the idea. I bet you'll like it and get some spectacular results. I do!