Screw it, I'm starting anyway!

We're past the middle of April...by now I should have been industriously digging, putting down compost and manure, and perhaps planting peas, brocolli, cabbage or spinach.  Instead, there is still 2 inches of snow on the ground, and this early in the morning, the ground is still frozen from last night.  And I am quickly running out of days off to do all of the things I had planned!
So, I'm starting a bunch of stuff anyway.  I'm going to layout the boards for my hoophouse, and maybe build the end pieces from OSB and plywood.  I might try and find some cross bars to start the framework.  The greenhouse plastic is waiting for me in Calgary, I'll be picking that up tomorrow.  I still need a new axle for my trailer, which will cost $188 (not too bad, considering the trailer is $1000), and I will pay for and pick up my garden tractor.  I also have the back of my truck filled with gravel, which I've been using to fill in my driveway, and I'll be making some garden pathways with gravel and some extra soil.


GARDEN
I keep changing my mind, but after doing some research that I have actually done before (I'm a little dense, ok?) I've decided NOT to rototill anything!  Instead, I'm going to lay a couple sheets of newspaper directly on the ground, and pile hay, straw and manure in rows, leaving a tiny gap to plant into down the centre.  I will buy several bags of peat, mix it with manure, and that will be my "soil" for planting.  I might shove a digging fork into the planting row, and wiggle it to try and loosen the clay down below.  I've also got about 200 strawberry plants, and 30 asperagus crowns to dig in, but that can wait for some better weather.

ENERGY
I finally got almost all of my solar panels mounted on some homemade racks, and collecting sunlight.  I had 12 panels total, for some reason one of them doesn't work.  I don't know how I can fix it, and sending it back for a warranty repair would cost as much as the panel is worth...I guess I'll be running with 11 panels then.  I also took down my wind turbine to see if I could fix it.  It looks like I'm going to have to tear it right apart, it might be the bearings that are shot...but the sun should fill in quite nicely for power!
I was surprised at two things over the last two weeks;  the solar panels don't produce as much power as I thought they would, and number two, we don't use nearly as much power as I thought we did!  We're using an average of 3-4 kwhrs per day, which is about half what I expected.  I found this out because the solar charge controller tells me how much power the panels made over that day, and we haven't run the generator for a while, so we're using less than we're making.  In fact, yesterday, the batteries were full at 2 pm, and for the rest of the day were equalizing!  It's too bad our batteries are crap, or we would have several days worth of power.  They barely last overnight now...

MISC
I have a part time job!  I may have mentioned this, but I've got all the details now, and it is a sweet, sweet gig.  I have to deliver census forms to a certain area, which just happens to be on my way to work.  I also get paid mileage for driving there, and also a per/hour rate, only $15, but it's better than minimum wage.  So, essentially, I can drive to my zone a couple hours before I start work, work a few hours, go to work, drive back, and be paid for it!  Well, at least the part from my house to my zone.  The mileage rate is decent too, it more than covers gas in my very efficient Corolla.  The one little difficulty:  The job starts right at the beginning of May, which would be prime gardening time.  Hence, I'm trying to get everything done now...

BUSINESS
I need a website, but I don't have a lot of time right now to set one up.  Watch for it though, at www.sunset-meadows.com in the coming months.  It will be, of course, a work in progress, and the first posts will be my podcast, which will be a once/week thing, eventually going to 2-3 per week.  Eventually, this blog will appear there, and not here.  In time, we will have an online store, zillions of pictures, and articles about all sorts of nutty and cool stuff.
Bookmark it now!  www.sunset-meadows.com