Spring planting

January might be a little early to start thinking about your garden but most of us have. The seed catalogs began showing up last month and the talk about spring began, what worked and what didn't. We narrowed down the majority of our problems to being behind the curve, we were reactive and not proactive. So we are starting in January this year!

Noah and I built this mini green house/seed starter in the basement. We'll be able to flood irrigate all the soil blocks and the lights are going to be all independent and adjustable.

We have already started some herbs, later they will be potted up and then moved out to the cold frames for hardening off in the spring.

On a side note, Noah, Luke and I will be camping this weekend with the scouts for the annual winter "Klondike". I don't know what it will all consist of but the weather is certainly going to be a central part of the story. More to follow next week...

King air is finished

The King Air was finished and picked up on Monday. My last job on the project was to replace the ELT. ELT is short for emergency location transponder, a ELT's job is to transmit a traceable signal when an aircraft crashes so it can be found. The old elt's have become outdated and we were not allowed to install one like we removed. The regulations required a new elt with an in dash activation indicator. What happens alot of times is that during a bumpy landing the elt is accidental set of and lots of time and money is spent looking for a plane that did not crash. The new elt's now have a light on the panel that indicate to the pilot that the elt has been activated. The only problem is the ELT is in the rear of the plane and the instrument panel is in the front. It took a little over a day to remove all the interior of the aircraft that was in the way run the wire and then reinstall the interior. It was a good exercise in electrical work, something that I don't get much of.

We've got the greenhouse planted and most all the sprouts are up. It takes lots of water too keep everything growing, the green house is extra warm, the beds are raised and easier to heat up and there is plenty of ventilation. All that adds up to dry beds. Since the picture was taken we have installed the door on the other end. We've had our first frost and are in the process of cleaning up the garden and greenhouse for next year.

Hannah is a horse nut and here you can see her riding 'Spirit" a three year old Halflinger. She gets lessons once a week at another MMS families house.

Thanks for visiting and I'll try to update again next week. Josh

Around the house

I just thought I would post some pictures from around the house today. We have nearly 18" of snow on the ground. I've been trying to figure out how to deal with the ice dams and related water problems. As you can see the green house is buried and all looks frozen but looks can be deceiving. Under that snow and ice is our winter garden.

(sorry about the flash) Inside our green house we have row covers (left over plastic from the greenhouse) and those two layers of plastic have kept our lettuce protected. I know you cannot tell, but those droplets on the top of the plastic are not frozen and we use no source of heat. These pictures were taken yesterday morning at 20 degrees F. Today Kristi picked us a wonderful salad to go along with our dinner. The ideas and plans for this green house are taken from the books "Four Season Harvest" and "The Winter Harvest Handbook" by Eliott Coleman.

In an upstairs window Kristi has started the first of our garden's seedlings. They are mostly different herbs and some flowers. We are trying to grow all of our own veggies for the year and have a 6000 sqft garden planned. Besides the garden, we are going to try our hand at maple syrup again this year. We will try to get 10 gallons of finished syrup. That will require 400 gallons of sap to be boiled down! More on that later though.

The kids have been outside every day playing until they are so tired staying awake can be a problem in the evenings. The bushes heavy with snow have become favorite hiding places and the large piles of snow, forts to be defended. The snow has been too powdery to build anything but the world is a whole new adventure when the snow is above your knees. The kids are not the only one having fun, Bree runs and runs the whole time she is outside. Her fur becomes matted with snow and when she comes inside she leaves a puddle on the floor wherever she lays down.

This weekend is the boys big award banquet for scouts--the "Blue and Gold". Noah will get his WEBLOS badge and several achievement pins and Luke his Bobcat patch and several achievement belt loops. Look for our next posting to see pictures of the boys.

Thanks for checking in! I'll do my best to keep this up to date with new post of current activities. Josh