Outdoor adventures
Nice day today! Of course I'm inside. Bummer. However I did take advantage of the sun yesterday by hanging out a load of diapers, and even managed to get home before it did more than sprinkle so they were mostly dry. They were crispy, though, that rough dried-on-the-line feeling so I tossed them in the dryer for 15 minutes to finish drying them and fluff them up. Hey, 15 minutes instead of 80, that's good to me!
I need to cajole my husband into putting up a couple more clotheslines. One just isn't going to cut it. They'll make the deck look ugly but oh well. Maybe when they're not being used for laundry I can string xmas lights on them for atmosphere.
Last night Michael got the barn window put back in, yay! Last Autumn my brother was closing the barn door and a pane of glass fell from 20 feet up and landed on his back, fortunately it hit him broadside on his shoulderblades, miraculously bounced off, clattered to the deck, and didn't break. Truly amazing.
Michael took the window down and found that the caulking was pretty old (20 years? 30? 50? Who knows.), totally dried out and cracked so he recaulked the entire thing and then bought some all-weather paint to seal the wood. By this point it was the middle of Winter and he decided to wait until it was warmer. He put a piece of masonite wrapped in plastic in the hole to keep it closed, but after the heavy rains of the past couple of months it warped then eventually fell out last weekend. It looked so sad lying there on the deck. Leonard came over and helped him get it in place, and it looks great! It's so nice not having a warped piece of crap sticking out with shredded plastic riffling in the breeze all around it. It was very white trash.
While he and Leonard were busy with the window I played with kidlet out in the yard. He wasn't interested in kicking a ball around so I introduced him to one of my favorite childhood pursuits...Let's-See-What's-Under-This-Rock! I loved looking for bugs as a kid, I still do. I showed him how to carefully lift the corner of a rock, or a fallen branch, or some wet leaves, to see what lurked beneath. I pointed out molds, tiny sprouts, worms, millipedes, armadillo-looking pill bugs, and we even saw a chipmunk's burrow beneath an old beam. He was facinated by the millipede and watched it carefully, backing away when he thought it was coming toward him. I then showed him how to replace what was lifted so as not to damage their habitat. I think I'll put some pieces of wood in the dirt part of the garage under the barn to see if we get salamanders!
I showed him how to carefully handle these creatures and not to be afraid of them (though I didn't handle any pill bugs because I remember from my childhood that they make your hands stink). We looked under the black plastic through which my monster tomato plants protruded last summer and found a wooly bear caterpillar all curled up, looking like it was asleep as it was curled in a matching-sized divot in the damp earth. I placed it on the deck in the hopes it would uncurl and crawl around, but it wasn't having any of that. Michael pointed at it and shouted "Hey! HEY!" and I took his fingertip and gently touched its fuzzy setae. That made him laugh.
Toward the back of the yard is a small pile of hay, I have no idea where it came from but it must have been dumped out there last Autumn to break down over the Winter. I lifted it and was extremely excited to find it crawling with earthworms! Since they were above-ground and eating the hay, I believe they're the kind I want for composting. One or two of them had the distinct stripes of the redworm, though there were many others that didn't have any significant characteristics. However they weren't nightcrawlers, and all the garden-variety worms are underground, so I'm going to give these buggers a try.
We collected some fallen leaves from last Autumn and put them into a shallow Rubbermaid bin where I covered them with water. I'm going to try the complete cheap-ass vermicomposting bin, using only what I have around the house. I figure I'll start with these worms and if things go well they'll make baby worms so I can grow my colony. I have a newspaper kicking around the house I can shred up and mix that with the leaves and some of that hay for bedding. I plan to leave the hay out in the yard and check it every week for more worms.
This morning I drained the water from the bin after breaking the skin of ice on top, and this afternoon I plan to squeeze the leaves out to get rid of the excess moisture. Here at work I found a stack of corrugated cardboard, which I'll also shred up to add to the bin after soaking it. That should be all I need, I already have an old margarine container and a plastic ziplock bag full of scraps from the kitchen and work, so once the wormies settle into their new home in a few days I'll put some food in and see what happens!
I love cheap. I'm totally looking forward to a way to not only reduce the amount of waste being carted away by the garbage man or put down the drain into our septic tank, but also to have nutrient-rich soil to add to my houseplants, my garden, and my yard. I think this will be a really fun project for little Michael when he's older, too. He can set up his own little bin himself.
Ah, I'm getting all misty. Maybe I am meant to homeschool. I can totally see myself teaching him all sorts of practical and creative things like gardening, sewing, knitting, crocheting, pottery, earth-friendly practices, singing, dancing...
Okay, now I'm getting out of control. I'll think about that another day.
I need to cajole my husband into putting up a couple more clotheslines. One just isn't going to cut it. They'll make the deck look ugly but oh well. Maybe when they're not being used for laundry I can string xmas lights on them for atmosphere.
Last night Michael got the barn window put back in, yay! Last Autumn my brother was closing the barn door and a pane of glass fell from 20 feet up and landed on his back, fortunately it hit him broadside on his shoulderblades, miraculously bounced off, clattered to the deck, and didn't break. Truly amazing.
Michael took the window down and found that the caulking was pretty old (20 years? 30? 50? Who knows.), totally dried out and cracked so he recaulked the entire thing and then bought some all-weather paint to seal the wood. By this point it was the middle of Winter and he decided to wait until it was warmer. He put a piece of masonite wrapped in plastic in the hole to keep it closed, but after the heavy rains of the past couple of months it warped then eventually fell out last weekend. It looked so sad lying there on the deck. Leonard came over and helped him get it in place, and it looks great! It's so nice not having a warped piece of crap sticking out with shredded plastic riffling in the breeze all around it. It was very white trash.
While he and Leonard were busy with the window I played with kidlet out in the yard. He wasn't interested in kicking a ball around so I introduced him to one of my favorite childhood pursuits...Let's-See-What's-Under-This-Rock! I loved looking for bugs as a kid, I still do. I showed him how to carefully lift the corner of a rock, or a fallen branch, or some wet leaves, to see what lurked beneath. I pointed out molds, tiny sprouts, worms, millipedes, armadillo-looking pill bugs, and we even saw a chipmunk's burrow beneath an old beam. He was facinated by the millipede and watched it carefully, backing away when he thought it was coming toward him. I then showed him how to replace what was lifted so as not to damage their habitat. I think I'll put some pieces of wood in the dirt part of the garage under the barn to see if we get salamanders!
I showed him how to carefully handle these creatures and not to be afraid of them (though I didn't handle any pill bugs because I remember from my childhood that they make your hands stink). We looked under the black plastic through which my monster tomato plants protruded last summer and found a wooly bear caterpillar all curled up, looking like it was asleep as it was curled in a matching-sized divot in the damp earth. I placed it on the deck in the hopes it would uncurl and crawl around, but it wasn't having any of that. Michael pointed at it and shouted "Hey! HEY!" and I took his fingertip and gently touched its fuzzy setae. That made him laugh.
Toward the back of the yard is a small pile of hay, I have no idea where it came from but it must have been dumped out there last Autumn to break down over the Winter. I lifted it and was extremely excited to find it crawling with earthworms! Since they were above-ground and eating the hay, I believe they're the kind I want for composting. One or two of them had the distinct stripes of the redworm, though there were many others that didn't have any significant characteristics. However they weren't nightcrawlers, and all the garden-variety worms are underground, so I'm going to give these buggers a try.
We collected some fallen leaves from last Autumn and put them into a shallow Rubbermaid bin where I covered them with water. I'm going to try the complete cheap-ass vermicomposting bin, using only what I have around the house. I figure I'll start with these worms and if things go well they'll make baby worms so I can grow my colony. I have a newspaper kicking around the house I can shred up and mix that with the leaves and some of that hay for bedding. I plan to leave the hay out in the yard and check it every week for more worms.
This morning I drained the water from the bin after breaking the skin of ice on top, and this afternoon I plan to squeeze the leaves out to get rid of the excess moisture. Here at work I found a stack of corrugated cardboard, which I'll also shred up to add to the bin after soaking it. That should be all I need, I already have an old margarine container and a plastic ziplock bag full of scraps from the kitchen and work, so once the wormies settle into their new home in a few days I'll put some food in and see what happens!
I love cheap. I'm totally looking forward to a way to not only reduce the amount of waste being carted away by the garbage man or put down the drain into our septic tank, but also to have nutrient-rich soil to add to my houseplants, my garden, and my yard. I think this will be a really fun project for little Michael when he's older, too. He can set up his own little bin himself.
Ah, I'm getting all misty. Maybe I am meant to homeschool. I can totally see myself teaching him all sorts of practical and creative things like gardening, sewing, knitting, crocheting, pottery, earth-friendly practices, singing, dancing...
Okay, now I'm getting out of control. I'll think about that another day.
posted by Jen at
3:01 PM
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