Emmalyn's New Explorations

I worked last night and will work again tomorrow. The shoppers are not in the stores. My customer counts are way down. The store is in an affluent neighborhood. I did not expect this. My guess is that more people are shopping at Aldi's or are heading all the way out to Costco. A number of "guests" told me about their Aldi experiences. All of which were good. I'm taking every gig I can because, who knows when they'll stop doing sampling? Cheese and crackers is usually one of the best received samples. We'll see how tomorrow's goes.



Although it was dreary looking out, the weather was warm but windy. I worked about an hour and a half in the garden. It was a little of this and a little of that. I edged some of the grass along the sidewalk and curb. I raked and put the leaves in the back garden. The leaves were from all over the neighborhood, oaks, elms, maples. They collected in my long grass. Chrono worked on cutting back the juniper bush that died. She found snakeskin and snail shells. I grabbed the sickle and worked on creeping charlie removal from the currant bushes. I don't know if the bushes survived this year's drought. Two years in a row is a lot of suffering. I only cleared one bush. Then I dumped the chicken manure wood chips around the bush. A good thick layer will hold moisture in next year. Only 2 more bushes to go. The fig tree also got a healthy heap of chips around it. I'll pick up more chips on Wednesday. The cut grass went to the fire ring garden bed. There is a lot more to do. It felt good to get this exercise in.



Then I was bored and wanted to do more but I am old enough to know my limits. I went upstairs and went through my garden log book, updating it. What did I achieve? What can I improve? It's still down to soil improvement and fencing. I also need to work on tree trimming. Some areas of the garden are getting shaded out. I'm also writing things down from my spreadsheet in case I can no longer rely on the old laptop. It might be helpful to know planting dates versus harvest dates because those online plant planners are always wrong. I have micro-climates. It doesn't account for those, nor the crop failures from squirrels digging or bad seed germination. And I still haven't figured out why I can't grow onions. The wild ones grow just fine. I think the squirrel dug them up to plants his peanuts. Maybe chicken wire laid flat on the ground?



I drew a rough outline of next year's garden. I know where I want to put a few things. It's not all planned out yet. I just started with a list of what I want to grow. I have seeds for 95% of it. A lot will depend on whether those currant bushes die. They live in a huge bed. I have two metal raised beds that I just got. I looked at a city layout of my land. In theory, I have 20 ft by 40 ft on the hill. If that was flat, I'd need 120 ft of 6 ft. high fencing. I laugh at the concept. I can't imagine pounding the T posts in while standing on a ladder. The ladder would flip. Instead, I want to divide up the yard into sections, like little rooms. I'm hoping my grapevine survives in its pot. I need to make a grape arbor too. I foresee woodworking practice in my future.



There were bees out today. The sweater is coming along. The trim is complete but I need to redo the sleeve tops. The sleeves are from a different pattern and are about an inch too wide. Fortunately I put a life line in each. It shouldn't take long now. It'll be 29 degrees on Tuesday night.

I was just going to put the empty potato grow bags into the garage. Not. It blossomed into cleaning the garage. The mice had dug in a pot and I swept up soil to put back into a container. The Walking Wheel was just plain in the way. Things were falling off the peg board wall. Fine. As I started to move things to get at other things, it seemed I had created a gravity well and everything was falling.

My pavilion shelving boards were everywhere. I wanted those along side the built-in shelves. But no, an old area carpet was jammed in there. Then someone else's bow and arrows with quiver, fell on top of my head. The "someone else" is a long story. It took a lot to get the rug out. That is finally on the curb for garbage pickup. Once that was out, I convinced the things on the pegboard to stay put. The Yakima bike rack for our old Jeep ('98) got set on top of the VW's back bench. The boards got wedged into place between the bench and shelves. I used those in summer to make a portable bed in a cooler place than my attic room.

Drop Spindle


I found the extra slightly warped boards that I want to make a new garden bed with. It turns out they are 6' long. I was hoping for 8'. At 12" wide, they will make great side panels for a potato bed behind the garage next year. So yay! I found them. Now that the floor was clear, I swept before putting the giant spinning wheel back in place. I promised it a good oiling in spring and a bit of time for me to learn to use it. I bought a refurbished castle for it. I think that's what you call it. It's been a while. The majority of my spinning is done on a drop spindle.

Walking Wheel


The frost blankets were stowed. The fire wood is in a metal wagon. Those got lined up neatly so I could still access the frost blankets. The post I made for indoor events to hang hats on also fit nicely. I had to take off my coat at this point as I had warmed up. I ran inside and got a trash bag. I could not believe the crap that is out there. I decided before I buried stuff too deep that just maybe the snow shovel could come out. It will flurry on Monday. Gradually sweeping and garbage cleared out a nice niche. There was room for both lawnmowers.

Now it was time to fill the remaining space. The pop-up tent from the last show came out of the van. The sand-bag weights went with it. I went inside and snagged a plastic table cloth to cover the garage work table. It'll protect the wood. I started bringing in potato pots. Some I stacked into a tower, topped with cloth grow bags to keep the mice out of those. The camp stoves for dyeing went on top on the plastic tablecloth too. The weight will hold the corners down. The extra dye table that I used all summer got brought in too. I brought in a bunch of PVC pipe I used to deter deer. I have several buckets and garbage bins that hold it nicely. I'll have to go through rebar come spring. I have plans. . .

PVC Tubing


Come spring, there is another section I need to clear out. I have a Leclerc tapestry loom between two tables and a horizontal warping mill. I need to get rid of cheap broken plastic displays on the top of the table. I just couldn't reach it. I stacked tomato cages too. Before the temperature drops too far, I need to clean the front porch and get the ceramic planters up onto the garage work table. Ceramics crack if they freeze to the ground. All the strawberry pots and pretty planters I bought when Big Lots went out of business, those will go into the garage.

I picked the last of the basil on the front porch. Chrono washed and laid it flat on trays for the dehydrator along with the last of the tomatoes.

The winter crops of spinach and cabbage need to go up and under covers Sunday and Monday night. At some point, it warms up again into the 50s. Such a weird weather pattern we've been in. Meanwhile, I had to work today and again on Sunday. I still need to put away my dye studio. Frozen dye baths will bend the crap out of the base of the stainless dyepot. And is bursts the seems of plastic buckets too. Sometimes I feel like I'm under siege There is too much to do..