- Why did I start a new business the year I was pregnant with twins?
- Why did I start a new business that involves a lot of physical labor?
- What made me think that things would get "easier" once the twins were born?
- What was I thinking when I figured I could start thousands of plants, from seed, inside my house?
- What was I thinking when I started tomato plants at the end of February?
- Why didn't I start the flowering plants at the end of February?
- Why can't I remember appointments day to day anymore? (We've had way too many conversations about overlapping appointments. "Oh, Saturday as in TOMORROW Saturday? Uh oh!")
- When am I going to sleep through the night again?
- Why am I filled with so many great ideas that I can't follow through on? (Making yogurt from scratch sounds cool! Wow! Cheese, too?!)
- What was I thinking when I thought using fish emulsion as a fertilizer inside my house would be a good idea? A house that contains cats?
- Why can't these babies sleep when I want them to sleep?
- Who is this almost seven year old that can't seem to hear my voice anymore?
- Will I always feel like I need help and can't get anything done?!
The twins were, as you may have guessed, fussy today.
I got them down for their first nap at 9:42 and they woke up again about 15 minutes later and wouldn't sleep for ages. Round after round of nursing, playing, feeding, jiggling and attempting to put them down. I really hope they're so tired that they sleep through the frickin' night. However, it's probably a vain hope.
Fortunately for me, Heather came over and saved the day. Even though we only got a little bit of work done (Do you have any idea of how many tiny little plants I have that need pricking out and potting on?! Neither do I, but there are hundreds of them!), it was good work. It was a nice day, we continued to work on hardening plants outside, and we potted up ~50 Greek Oregano and spearmint plants. I watered some number of plants. I even managed to pull a few weeds (I have even more weeds than I have started plants. Whee!) in the garden.
By the way, in case you've ever wondered: gardening and farming don't mix real well!
You'd think they would, since one is a smaller scale than the other, but they don't, really. What happens is the farming gets bigger and bigger and absorbs all of your waking time and thoughts, leaving you with no energy for gardening. Then you watch the slow, steady creep of weeds into your flower beds, causing you to tear out your hair and rend your garments in frustration. If only the weeds would Wait! You'll be right there! Right after you finish this thing over here. Oh, but this thing logically leads to that thing and next thing you know, the weeds are throwing little block parties and inviting more of their ugly, brutish friends to come on over and they're smashing windows and destroying property values.
Somewhere in there, you remember that you promised the family you'd grow them some vegetables and you have to make good on that promise, so you go shopping for yet more seeds.
Here's what I picked up:
- Scallions (My other seeds are several years old and don't appear to have germinated.)
- Squash - Buttercup - heirloom
- Squash - table queen/acorn
- Squash - early summer crookneck - heirloom
- Squash - spaghetti - heirloom (Went crazy on squash although Eric says he doesn't like them. I figure he can learn and that if these keep well over winter = free food!)
- Rhubarb - Victoria - heirloom (I figured, why not! These are essentially transitional fruits! Something to tide you over until tree fruits become available!)
- Cucumber - Muncher (How could I resist such a name?)
- Garden bean - gourmet French bush
- Peas: snow - Oregon sugar pod (Might be too late to plant peas, but I can try again in the fall!)
- Peas: shelling - Little Marvel
- Peas: sugar snap - Super Sugar Snap
- Spinach - Melody
- Watermelon - Rainbow sherbet - the innards are pink, yellow and orange - 3 separate varieties in the package: Tiger Baby (P), Yellow Doll (Y), New Orchid (O).
Argh!
9 comments:
Can you mulch to fight the weeds? I spent every summer of my childhood weeding the ginormous garden we had. You have my deep sympathies.
My fingers are crossed that your babies sleep through the night. And that you do, too.
I'm exhausted reading this.
You're trying to do too much this year. No harm in aiming high, of course; just try not to be frustrated when things don't work out perfectly. Look at this year as a trial run for the business, maybe. And enjoy those little babies - they grow up so fast!
We never bother with scallion seeds. We buy a bunch of organic scallions from the supermarket, use the greens and plant the bulbs. We get scallions all season that way.
Jennifer: the weeds are already up. Mulching just seems to make them cozy. I need to rip them out and then mulch. In my copious spare time! Heh!
SC: You're...you're brilliant! Use the leftover bulbs. Gaaah! I feel like such an idiot!
Um, and I probably am trying to do too much. Sigh.
just curious.... what would you consider sleeping through the night at this point? questioning as i have a six-month old of my own. ohhh, i know what the peds say.
you are amazing. i am tired reading your list! it's mother's day. are you getting some time off? stop laughing. really. stop laughing.
Hmm, yogurt from scratch is a bit time consuming...the dogs love it, though. Yeah, the dogs. I eat it too. Haven't made cheese yet...I must nap now, after perusing your list. Very tired.
Elisava: through the night would be if they went from 11 or 12 to 6. I'd totally call that "through the night". One daaaay!
Madge: Day off? What? Who? Did you know that I have twins? *slow blink* I don't even get time off to vomit! No really, I blogged that one, too. : )
Alessa: Everything I DO is time consuming. But at least I might get some yogurt out of it. Maybe. I mean, a lot of the time is just letting it sit, right? Sigh. Backburner project!
Yeah, a lot of time is just letting it sit, but you only have a narrow window when it's cooling down from a near boil to add the starter, or else you crank it the heat again, then watch while it cools off....or set a 2 minute timer, which is annoying to everyone in the house. :P
and when I say set a two minute timer, I mean set it 2 minutes, leave, come back, check the temp, reset the timer, come back, check the temp...
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