46°, mostly cloudy, showers, 103.22” rain so far this year
I did end up laying landscape pavers over my muddy path yesterday. They were free pavers and they do the job even though they are a bit wonky. I got tired of sinking to my ankles in mud when stepping out of my camper. And I figured my puppy prefers it as well.
Today I started off before daylight to make some jam with a rare fit of early morning energy. My neighbor requested my pear ginger jam.
I managed to do it in my tiny kitchen since it was a small batch instead of using my neighbor’s kitchen this time. It’s a tight squeeze but I’m more comfortable without an audience when I do things like this. Maybe it’s the loner in me or maybe it’s the years of constant criticism being raised by a narcissist that has made me like this, who knows? Maybe a therapist would. When I am by myself I tend to listen to music and can focus a lot more at my tasks.
After that was done, I started to do some prep for the next couple days. Since tomorrow I’m taking my dad’s ashes and finally releasing them to the wild world, I plan to take it as a day of really mourning in hopes I can let it go and try to start the new year with a clean slate. To try to put the fear and torment behind me and in hope Dad’s spirit can have the peace he should have enjoyed in his retirement years. I don’t know how I will react to that, honestly. The weirdest things can set off my grief. Today I was sharpening the grass shears I’d gotten dad to replace the old rusty ones he’d insisted on using. The murdering narcissist had insisted he cut the grass by hand in places and refused to let him buy himself a nice tool and had been using a badly rusted piece of junk. So I’d bought him a nice pair. Today I was sharpening my cutting tools in prep for tree and vine pruning and getting them oiled (a task I missed doing last year so there was a tad bit of rust.) When I got to the grass shears, the memories of Dad bent over in the yard, trimming the grass along the edges, around trees and the mail box came flooding back. He swore he enjoyed the chore whenever I offered to just weed whack. I think it was a way from him to get away from the Narcissist for a bit since she never really went outside and he could get a break from her. But the memories made me cry in my task obviously the grief isn’t gone yet.
That task done, I cut up the water jugs for winter sowing. I only had 12 to work with. I keep a couple empties to use for water when my hose is too cold to use. I could have used about 4 more but that’s ok. 12 I can work with. I got them cut up with holes in the bottom. In a couple days or maybe even tomorrow I will fill them with soil and seeds and set them in the garden. Since these are a longer term seed starting situation I cut up some old blinds that were headed for the landfill as plant tags to label them. I use wooden craft sticks that can be composted for quicker growing things as they tend to not last too long while the old blinds can be reused forever, if you scrub the marker off of them to renew.
I’ve chosen what seeds I will start in the little water jugs containers and the onions and asparagus that I will be starting inside the camper here. I will use up the previous year onion seeds just to use them up. My pod people here have told me what their onion preferences are and I will stick with those from here on out as there is no need to experiment anymore. The garlic chives are for me, as I don’t like the taste of regular onion chives. Or onions, period. But I like the garlic flavor.
Climate Wary Homesteader 