Untamed Spirit: March 2014

It's a good thing i started planting when I did because now it's snowing again! What crazy Ohio weather!

Yesterday, with our lovely 65° temperature I took my lemon tree outside and transplanted her into a larger pot. I even added a cute decorative stone scape to the top. Lucky me this time the roots weren't bound or rotting but rather looked mighty healthy. I'm hoping for flowers this year but I'm pretty sure that wont happen until at the least next year when she's 4. I think anyways. I planted the seed in February of 2010 ... I think.

Then upcycling all my k-cups as planters I started some seeds. It turns out that off all my seed collecting last year I somehow forgot the Roma tomatoes. I mean really, how badly can I mess up! I'm going to dig through ALL my seed stores and see if I just miss placed them. In the mean time I've got a yellow heirloom (one of those gourd shaped tiny ones), a grape, and 2 vine tomatoes. That leaves 6 pots for Roma. I also started strawberries again (hopefully they do better this year), a poblano pepper, and a jalapeno plant. The jalapenos last year were deadly!

My rosemary died over the winter and after reading that it's not cold hardy I don't plan to get another one until I have a green house. The lavender seedlings did fine all winter but are now starting to show signs of stress. The crumpling leaves make me think it's lacking water but the dirt is nice and damp virtually on a constant basis. I transplanted some of the seedlings into the castoff pot of the lemon tree and the rest into an upcycled cup then moved both of them into a tiny green house I purchased for my seeds. The new soil and warmer weather I hope helps. I'm going to give half of them away this year if they perk back up.

That was all yesterday. Today, I took our largish tree outside in the 31° and wet weather ... After the rain had stopped and transplanted him into a bigger pot I'd gotten for him yesterday. The roots were starting to bind so I cut them back a bit with very nervous hands and loaded on the new dirt. I even had to go out and get more, the new pot was so big. It was really the only option I had outside of ceramic which at a size bigger than the pot the tree was already in would have been too heavy for me to have carried comfortably. As it was the dirt, tree and new pot made my numbing fingers hurt. I'd guess it to weight about 40lbs. It's got a whole bag of dirt after all.

Some bad news in my farm hunt. ... It's not going to happen for at lest another year. The banks don't seem to want to give me the loan. However, mother wants to travel and can,t manage it in the way she wants with the horse being around. So she's thrown around the idea of making me the care taker. She'll get a condo to move her stuff to and use as a home base then gallivant around the world while I happily move back into the old farm house. A few things will need some fixing, it's over 200 years old after all, but in the all it'll be perfect. I've got grand plans for it!

My sister doesn't think I'll have to worry about having to move out due to the farm selling (that's mom's goal for the farm) anytime soon so I can get my money out of a garage and chicken coop. Those are the two main things I'd build first. The coop would be the easiest as I'd just convert the old ice house. The garage would be built from the ground up. I've got 2 locations to consider for it. 1 I would need to build an access point for the septic system the other would just be at the edge of the drive.

It's probably all just wishful thinking!

I should get back to knitting more booties. They are moving pretty quickly through the store.