Dreaming of Spring Gardening in the Middle of a Wisconsin winter part 2

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Starting to plan my garden for this summer.
I may go out with the weedwacker and do some cleanup where I am going to put in a raised bed for strawberries.
Get the weeds chopped down to ground level, maybe scrape some roots out and then get the cardboard down and covered with coop cleanings. Get some hoops set up to keep out the rabbits and birds.
Seed Starting: 6 slicing tomatoes, 6 cherry tomatoes, 12 paste tomatoes, 6 salsa peppers, 4 jalapeno, onions, and various flowers.
What else needs to be started early?

Tomatoes can get pretty big fast. I have been waiting until 4-6 weeks before because they get so leggy. The way this year is going I might direct seed them into my waterwalls.

Peppers I know take at least 12 weeks, onions, Leeks, and sweet potatoes come to mind for real early planting.

Stuff like cucumbers, pumpkin, melons, and beans can be started ahead of time but I think both are more like 6 weeks.

With these warmer temperatures I'm not sure if it will alter the frost date or not which is May 15 but sometimes goes into June some years.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

A red-tailed hawk took my Rooster last Wednesday. Hubby found the massacre, said both the male and female were there partaking of the feast. He called and said he had some sorta bad news, he thinks. He told me that the rooster was killed and I celebrated. I was planning on butchering him this weekend since he has been attacking me, his spurs were about 2" long and he was picking on some of the hens. He had his 4 favorites and would chase the lowest of the pecking order away from the food. The flock is much colmer already.

He definitely would have gone in the freezer here.

This year I had a hawk using my sunflower seed feeder as his personal bird feeder.

 

[ShrekDawg]

He definitely would have gone in the freezer here.

This year I had a hawk using my sunflower seed feeder as his personal bird feeder.

View attachment 3757235

Wow

 

[jvls1942]

today I put a few things back into the freezer.. did a smell test and didn't detect any odor coming from the cooler where the stuff was stored overnight.. so we must have eliminated it with the things we tossed yesterday..
I am going to get an erasable white board and mount it to the freezer door. just list whatever we put in and take out..
also found a couple of plastic bins that we will put small items into. just pull the whole bin out and look for whatever.. this should eliminate things falling on my feet when sorting through a maze of packages..
went to dinner today for Annie's birthday. only one daughter couldmake it.
the other one is in Milwaukee teaching a class..
Our son hasn't been here for about nine years.. his woman cannot travel because of acute shingles..
good news.. the tractor repair guy is coming this week..

 

[Callender Girl]

Jim, has the tractor guy shown up yet? I'd sure like to find someone who can get my dad's old Allis out of my yard where my Jim and a pal parked it to "work on it," many years ago.

I like the idea of the erasable board. I have one on the fridge where I write down anything and everything I need to buy during a trip into town. I can't trust my brain to remember what I've run out of. Of course, some days, even though I write a list, I come home without getting everything I intended.

Shingles are miserable. I got them one year when we were primitive camping during a historic re-enacting event in the far north of Minnesota. Thank goodness for a pharmacist some 40 miles away who said, "I can't diagnosis that as shingles. BUT, if it is shingles, here's what I'd do." The OTC stuff at least made it more tolerable.

According to TV, there will be an 80-degree difference between yesterday afternoon and tomorrow morning. What the heck is going on? Remember the finale of the TV show "ER" where it was revealed that every crazy thing that happened was just a kid shaking a snow globe? Kinda feels like that.

Spent yesterday afternoon scrubbing down poultry waterers and making sure I have plenty of clean ones in the house so I can trade them out for the soon-to-be frozen ones tomorrow morning.

 

[jvls1942]

Barb, I am still OK with tune ups and changing points and spark plugs.. but tearing into the bowels of a machine is not for me anymore..
I got up at 2 AM, went back to bed at 6, got up at 9AM..
one more nice day and then we are going to get really cold..
I did some research.. the off flavored ice cubes was not coming from something in the freezer.. it appears that it is the ice cubes thenselves.. something about freezing minerals in the water.. I took the ice cubes out and the odor is gone..

 

[jvls1942]

I did some more searching.
there is a simple inline filter that can be installed easily. it is good for 5000 of water.
that is a lot of ice cubes..

 

[Callender Girl]

It was 76 two days ago. It's 5 degrees this morning with a trace of snow.

I used to be able to count the months or weeks until it was time to start planting veggies. Now, I have no idea how I'm going to know when it's time.

 

[jvls1942]

good morning
4 AM. coffee is done. I got a solid 4 hour's sleep in..
there is very little snow.. about 50 flakes to the acre.. the ground isn't even white..
the wind is blowing hard..
a friend from another byc web site suggested that there might be some mold in the freezer water system.. that makes sense, I know ice machines in restaurants get mold in them..
the rest of the water in the house tastes fine.. I don't know about the water in the toilet, though. lol

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I came to my senses and cancelled my chick order. I will see what the local tractor supply has this year. I couldn't handle the worry, and today's weather was a slap of reality. That wind is wicked today. Especially after the warm weather yesterday.

Jim, toilet water must taste good, otherwise so many dogs wouldn't be trying to drink it. My dog, I will eat a rotten old chicken leg I dug up, but turn my nose up noodles that aren't warmed up, and seasoned correctly.