Things that are on my mind, and other drivel …

In no particular order…

I am out of work again

Since last August, I had been working at a cafe in South Royalton. This was somewhat because I needed a job; partially because I needed to talk to people and stop annoying our dogs; but also because the experience was expected to help since Sarah and I were thinking of buying the place. Without going into details, after many months of negotiations we decided not to pursue it further. So the cafe was sold to others, who understandably decided to run the cafe themselves and save the cost of paid staff. So as of February 16 (yep, my birthday), I am out of work. So the hunt for a job begins again. Any leads are appreciated.

I have plenty of pro bono work to keep me busy

In December I was asked to join the board of directors at Friends of the Morrill Homestead, the nonprofit group that helps oversee the Justin Morrill Homestead in Strafford, Vermont where I have been volunteer gardening since last spring. Each Board member is asked to sit on two committees, so I am now part of the garden committee and the web/technology committee. The latter is where much of the work comes in as I have volunteered to host, design and manage the group’s web site, which has not been revamped in nearly 10 years. There’s a lot of work to be done, but I am looking forward to it. As much as I have been enjoying the snow and lovely winter weather, I am also eager to start working in the Morrill gardens—as well as our own…

This year’s garden plans

After clearing all of those trees, and stumping the field, there is still much work to be done before we can start reaping the rewards of our own garden. Our soil analysis report came back last fall and, as we expected, the soil is extremely acidic and will require much amending. Couple this with the amount of rocks we still need to dig up and our decision has been made. We will spend this spring digging up rocks in one large patch that will eventually become our first garden. We will use those rocks in various places around the property, including using some to raise the aforementioned area where we plan to plant first. We will then begin amending the soil with lime and compost so that it will be ready for planting in 2008. We have also begun researching inexpensive ways to build a greenhouse, and hope to spend this summer getting that raised so that come next year we can use it to extend our growing season. All this means that we will again be using a local CSA as our main source of yummy vegetables.

Vermont Master Gardeners

All the time I spent toiling in the soil at JMH last summer paid off, allowing me to accumulate the required number of volunteer hours (and then some) to become a certified Vermont Master Gardener. Which is nice. There is still much work to be done in the JMH gardens to keep those volunteer hours rolling in, but I am also earning hours this year by being a site facilitator for the class in Randolph Center. The great part about this is that I essentially get to re-take the class, plus I get to meet lots of nice people.

Building project in the planning stages

One of the nice people I met in the Vermont Master Gardeners class this year is also a partner in a construction company that specializes in “green” building. Green building is—in a nutshell—construction that emphasizes using reclaimed, recycled, and engineered materials that reduce energy use and building impacts on human health and the environment. We want to build a two-car garage that will also have a rental unit on top of it and space for cold storage as well. We are in the preliminary stages of planning and have no clue what will happen with this project, but we really like the people at Albee Construction and hope we can work with them.

House decorating plans

This winter Sarah began acquiring paint samples and now there are little splashes of color in many of the rooms in the house. There are a few patches of various shades of orange (think butternut squash) around the kitchen to help us decide on a color for that room. There are also many types of green in the bedroom from which to choose. The splashes of paint serve two purposes as far as I can tell: first they offer us a few choices of color from which to choose, and secondly the splashes mean there is no going back. We have to paint now because we have all these colors patches all over the damn place. Well played, Sarah. In all seriousness, I am looking forward to adding our touches to the place in the form of color. The previous owners did a nice job of decorating, but we prefer bright and bold colors.

In addition to painting, we have decided that we need a better place than our $40 yard sale love seat to park our butts, and to accommodate the dogs, naturally. That and we have no place for guests to sit in the living area. So we took advantage of a recent Presidents’ Day sale and bought a sectional. Unlike the previously mentioned yard sale piece, we got to pick the colors and fabrics too.

A plow with a truck attached

After months and months of searching we finally found a second vehicle. Last fall we sold the Taurus that Sarah’s dad was generous enough to pass on to us. We sold it mostly because there was no way it was going to be able to get up and down our driveway. We had been hoping to find a truck this year and start saving for a plow for next year. Our neighbor charges reasonable rates to plow for us, but we wanted to be able to do this ourselves eventually. This month’s Valentine’s Day storm emphasized why this was important. It was a big storm and our neighbor was very busy plowing out his many clients. The day after the storm we had to wait until nearly 11 a.m. for our neighbor to free us from the more than two feet that had accumulated the day before. With our own plow we could have removed the snow incrementally rather than having our neighbor do the work in two sessions. We ended up finding a great deal on a used Ford F-150. The truck needs work, but the body is in great shape, it has relatively low mileage, and the thing came with a plow! The other great thing about having the truck is that we can use it to haul stuff to the recycling center and it will be great for hauling compost and other garden-related materials that we really have no interest schlepping around in the CRV.

Other fun distractions

We recently started attending some of the events coordinated by the members of UV Meet. Sarah has been making new knitting friends and attending small knitting parties, and we both have gone to at least one bowling outing. There are lots of similar “clubs” for home-brewing, and movie watching too. The site is set up like a local myspace, and is filled with lots and lots of really nice people. The only draw back is that while we are technically in the Upper Valley, most of the site’s participants live in New Hampshire, meaning many of the events are 30 minutes or so away.

Whew

I know this was another brain-dump post, but it seems that is all I am capable of lately. Besides, Doug challenged me to update, so I had to write something.