Road Kill Cafe

It has been just over a week since I finished planting. We had a nice rain over the week end and the garden is showing definite signs of life!  The early sweet corn is about 2 inches high.  The first planting of green beans, peas, onions,and radishes have made their appearance.  I expect to see other things coming up when I can get out there to do some weeding when this little spell of rain has passed.

It is so nice to see everything green and growing! I think one of reasons that this past winter seemed so long was that due to the heat and drought of last summer, lots of things died off early. Long before autumn, quite a number of the trees had already lost their leaves. The grass in the yard had mostly turned brown. Most things, it seemed, had just given up the will to live. They had either died off or gone dormant waiting for better conditions.

The lush green that surrounds us now is even more abundant looking, if for no other reason than the starkness we dealt with most of last year.

With the possibility of some over night rain in yesterdays forecast I decided that the seeds would do much better if they were actually in the ground. So I spent the afternoon doing the rest of the planting. I am glad that I did, not because of the possible rain, but more of a drive to just get it done.

So now, with the exception of the succession planting of some things the garden now holds the promise of the following:

Early sweet corn, green beans, peas, turnips, onions, sweet peppers, jalapeños, tomatoes, spinach, head lettuce, leaf lettuce, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, broccoli, more sweet corn, watermelon and cantaloupe. I decided to put off planting the sugar pie pumpkins for a while as I did not want them maturing too early.

I have saved room at the far end of the garden space for some of the succession planting and for the pumpkins. So for now I will be on weed control and anxiously awaiting the plants emergence. I am hoping for regular rain and ample sunshine, I really want the garden to do well.

After a period of damp, overcast, cool and rainy weather accompanied by the cold virus from hell, I am finally back out in the garden. We actually had some beautiful weather over the week end. It was sunny and warm, it felt really good to have the warmth of the sun as we worked. Having finally won the battle of the weeds it was time to prepare the soil for planting.

Tillers are useful things, but are brutal to operate. Especially in hard, compact dirt laced liberally with weed roots and a clay component in the soil. After not having a garden last year and the heat and drought, large parts of the garden area were as hard as concrete. Breaking through it was a slow process but we finally got it done.

After looking at the result, I determined that we needed to run the tiller through it again in a different direction. The second time through was much easier and helped break up the rest of the compacted spots. The newly turned ground looked wonderful. It was finally ready to start planting.

With such a large garden spot, at just about a quarter of an acre, it will take me a few days to get it all planted. Yesterday I put in the early bearing sweet corn, the first planting of sweet peppers, the first planting of green beans and peas. When I start again today I will put in another row of peas followed by turnips, different varieties of lettuce and some of the tomatoes. If I plant a few rows every day I should have the whole garden planted by the end of the week.

I have saved a nice wide spot at the west end of the garden to put in cantaloupe, watermelon and later sugar pie pumpkin. I am looking forward to having all the planting done and then will go into full bore weed control. I learned the first year with the garden just how unbelievably fast that the weeds can take over. I am determined to have a successful garden with plenty to eat both fresh and to preserve for the winter.

All but one of the fruit trees seem to have survived the heat and drought of last summer. I had thought that we had lost the granny smith tree, but it is putting out new growth from near the bottom. It will be considerably behind the maturity of the other trees, but the new growth looks sturdy and strong.

With a bit of luck, vigilance with weed control, regular rain and sunshine I should have a successful garden. All of the work, and sore muscles, will be worth it in the end. I am probably getting ahead of myself, but I can already visualize all the veggies both for eating fresh and tucked away for the winter.

The story of the exploding can of red spray paint…….

Have you ever had a can of spray paint explode?

Have you ever seen a can of spray paint explode?

Have you ever seen a can of red spray paint explode……………..in your kitchen?

This actually happened a couple of years ago, shortly after we purchased the gulch. It was February and was fairly cold outside. Jeff2 was wanting to paint something, I forget now what it was, with a can of red enamel spray paint. The can of spray paint had been outside in the box truck. It was too cold to work properly so he brought it in the house to warm up. Unfortunately even after the can had come to room temperature it still would not function. Upon shaking the can you could tell that was full, but for whatever reason it would not spray.

Jeff2 checked to make sure that there wasn’t anything clogging the nozzle. It was clean and clear, it was, after all, a new and unused can. Nothing tried would make the can function. So he decided that it was just a faulty can and probably just had no propellant. He still wanted to use the paint trapped inside the can, and decided to open the can and use a brush to apply the paint. This is when the can opener came into play.

Thinking to myself that this might be a bad idea, I moved to the far side of the kitchen. He was having trouble with the can opener and I thought he had decided to give up on it and just go and purchase another can of paint. I was mistaken for suddenly I heard a hissing noise and more than a few choice words emanating from his general direction.

I must be a crazy old broad, because I laughed until I almost cried. It is just amazing how much can be covered, or at least speckled in this type of incident. There was red paint on the ceiling, on the window, the wall, the counter, the sink, the floor and on the trash can. Red paint speckles covered the front of the fridge, and the wall behind it. Actually in that part of the kitchen nothing had been spared. I commented that while I did want red accents in the kitchen, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.

That doesn’t even address what he looked like. A couple of days later he still looked like a serial killer with bad hygiene habits. The kitchen looked like it needed some bright yellow crime scene tape, just to complete the scene of the aftermath………….

Needless to say, the kitchen remodel was moved to the top of the to do list.

Edit to add:

I thought I would add the link to the before and after pictures. I am amazed at how much of the red spray paint did not show on these pictures. However, if you look closely at the before pic on the floor around the rugs, you can see a bit of it there.

http://morrigantoo.wordpress.com/2006/04/21/before-and-after/

We still have a list of projects here at the gulch that need to be addressed. Some are slated for the future, some are the would be nice to get to and some are in the I can’t stand it any more category. When we bought the gulch 2 1/2+ years ago, remodeling the bathroom was at the top of the list of projects. That is until we had the exploding spray can of red enamel paint incident in the kitchen.

We have done some upgrades to the bathroom, but only in bits and pieces, and not all at once to be sure. Discovering and opening up the walled over window was supposed to be the beginning. But we had the afore mentioned exploding spray can incident in the kitchen, which moved the kitchen to the top of the list. It was either address the kitchen at that point or live with what looked like a crime scene………….

So the work on the bathroom slid way down the list. Along the way we have replaced the ugly, water guzzling green toilet with a white much less water consuming model. The equally ugly and chipped green sink with the green and white chipped and stained formica was replaced with a one piece sink and counter top. The old sink faucet was replaced with new. But that is where it was left. The linoleum still needs to be replaced, but is mostly livable and too obnoxious.

Then we come to the wallpaper. It was pink. A drab dusty kind of pink. With little white flowers. And an outrageous multi-colored, multi-floral boarder. It was the type of thing that grated on me. Well, I finally had enough of looking at the pink and the flowers. Yesterday I covered those flowers with a coat of paint. It is a vast improvement. Gone are the jeering little white flowers, pink background and in your face boarder. It is now a much more restful shade of green.

I used the left over paint from the bedroom. There was no reason to run to the store to buy more paint when I had something suitable with which to cover the pink and the flowers. I am so pleased with the way it turned out. It looks much lighter, brighter and much less of a jumbled mess. Originally it had avocado green sink, toilet and tub. Yellow linoleum, lots of white tile, pink flowered wall paper, dark base and wall cabinet with a much lighter shade of wood on the light fixture and on the medicine cabinet.

My next project is to paint the previously mentioned cabinets, light fixture and medicine cabinets. Then it will be something that I can live with until we can finish the work we want to do in there. And all it will cost me is some time and using up left over paint from other projects.

After feeling like death warmed over for the last two+ weeks, I think I am finally beginning to feel human again.  We have had a wonderful cold/flu virus circulating around the gulch.  I was hoping to be spared, but living amongst the viral soup that was just unrealistic, and I succumbed.

With spring blossoming all around feeling sick was all that much worse. I didn’t really enjoy all the plants and trees bursting into leaves and flowers. Sleep was an elusive thing. Lying down only spurred on fits of coughing, so many nights I just sat up listening to a cacophony of wheezes, sneezes and coughs emanating from all parts of the house. It sounded like the terminal ward of a TB hospital.

I actually got a full nights sleep last night. That alone has gone a long way to helping me feel better. And that was after I fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the afternoon, something that I next to never do. But I guess exhaustion finally took over.

I am hoping for another full nights sleep tonight. Maybe then I will be back to my normal self instead of a grouchy, hacking, sleep deprived lunatic…………….