Thursday, May 6, 2010

Everything's pretty much normal...

In the last two weeks, we've had almost as much snowfall as we got for the entire winter before now...so, in other words, it's a standard Alberta springtime. Except for the one last snowfall on the May long weekend. That should be the last. Maybe.

It's already May 7, and the kind of weather that I should have been expecting has been prevalent. It was warmer for most of February than it was today, but I'm just grateful there was no wind!
The wind seems to make bad weather seem 1000% worse...

So, nothing has come up in the garden yet, except for the broccoli seedlings, which are still in the tray. No peas, although I planted a ton. I expect that I may have soaked them for too long, and they used all of their energy. I will try again, I have no shortage of pea seeds...but I was sort of hoping for some plants by now : (

I finally decided to buy some more blades for the wind turbine, and it turns out they cost around $250! I don't have that much money to spare, needless to say...but that doesn't mean I can't put blades on my turbine. I have decided to make an interim set of blades out of PVC pipe, which I will hopefully be able to find for free, or cheap. I found some instructions on Youtube, which were very detailed, and it doesn't seem too terribly hard. The blades won't be as efficient, but if they can at least pick up some decent power on the really windy days, I'll save some money on propane!

Tomorrow, I'm going to pick up a couple truckloads of composted horse doody, which should nicely fill up the remainder of my planting tires. I figure I'll mix about 30% topsoil, 15% peat moss, and the rest with horsie poo, and try planting in that. Apparently some of this guys "stuff" is 12 years old, so it's probably REALLY nice and broken down by now! He's very close too, which is very important to me, I'd rather not drive all over the province to get this stuff, and I really do need it.

After some conversations with the mortgage people, they might let me refinance everything, including the parts that I'm behind on. I need to demonstrate that I can make $5,000 this year, so I'm going to have to pull out all the stops. I know I won't make that much, but if I can show the POTENTIAL, that is good enough for them! My tax return is nowhere to be seen, and probably won't be done till June...I just can't wait any longer!!!! We need to sort this out now. On the plus side, when my return does come through, I would be able to use the entire thing for improvements, solar panels, and buying my cherry and apples trees. That's a good thing! The sooner those trees are in the ground, the sooner they will be producing food, and income for us.

Last, my little boy turned three weeks old yesterday! He's really porking up quick, he's put on two pounds already. Unfortunately, he's become more fussy and needy...my poor, poor wife.
Anyway, warm weather is coming, hopefully to stay. Adios!