We caught a break on this last cold snap and didn’t come even close to a freeze. It was nasty – cold, wet, and windy but no frost or freezing – Portland weather. I can’t seem to get any sympathy from Chris in NY or Tommy in Chicago but I suspect this January will go down as the worst in decades. The silver lining is that we’ve been getting a decent amount of rain in the normally dry season; good for the garden, good for the lake; the irony is my rain gauge quit working a couple of weeks back so I have no readings to analyze.
Stuck in the house 3 days in a row – cold, wet and windy. I would be ok with that and just catch up on reading and listening to Fox on the XM but as luck would have it, Nancy is also home. That means drivel TV all day. The subject on all the daytime shows is about hosting super bowl parties. I almost threw up a couple of times listening to these women talking about the games they play, drinks they make, appetizers, clothes they wear etc etc etc. Nobody mentioned just sitting watching the game and hoisting a few brewskis. I’m not sure how I would handle being in a house where the hostess (or host) was insistent on playing some stupid game, even at half time. Does that make me an old curmudgeon? bah, humbug.
Add carrots to the list of veggies currently being harvested; also currently being planted directly (seeds) into the garden. Carrots are one of the crops that was a complete disaster the first couple of years because of poor soil and nematodes. Once I broke the code, we’ve been getting nicer and nicer looking carrots each year. This year I plan to extend the growing season and see just how late we can still be picking them. I planted a few rows early in January and just thinned those yesterday. I’m going to plant more towards the end of February, which might be considered a little late. The variety I’m going to plant says it tolerates heat, a term I’ve found to mean Maine heat, but I plan to plant them in a row shaded by corn on one side and pole beans on the other. I’m also going to try “heat tolerant” spinach in the same row with the carrots so that will also get plenty of shade. I have low expectations but you never know. If my 1960 professor’s predictions of a coming ice age are starting to prove out, we could have a carrot and spinach mild kind of summer. Polar vortex in July.
I’ve got to start planning to be a bachelor again. Next week Nancy goes on a 7 day quilting cruise down to the islands somewhere. The tough planning is to have Netflix programmed so that my favorite British spy show DVD’s arrive on the day she leaves and to be finished with season 5 the day before she gets back. I was not sequenced exactly right on her sabbatical to Utah last year but I plan to better that performance. Food planning is no concern at all because she’s been stashing away left overs for the past month and without a doubt, I won’t eat my way through half of the stuff before she’s back.
Joe's Blog 