Greetings, All
Everything is fine with us here in the country. Doing our normal stuff in our normal way, except for wearing gloves at the store if we need to shop. There is definitely an advantage to being retired, living in the country, and being preppers.
I speak to my grandsons, one every few days, just to check in with them so they don’t get too bored. The family is a very close-knot one and they are getting along fine. At 19, 17, and 14 they seem to do more cooperating now. The 19-yr old is doing his college classes online just fine. The other two just started this week and I don’t know how it is with them yet. While they have access to home computers and internet, they do not have the “Chrome books” that many schools, do, and their school is not set-up for distance learning. There are some sleep issues. As in – day is night and sleeping until 2 PM. But, with both parents working at home, the schedule is a bit lax. That is changing this week with schools starting.
Dear Daughter is more busy than ever. Since she has her family counseling position, she is talking to even more clients than before. She deals with many teenagers who have been arrested for a variety of reasons, and are required to have a number of counseling sessions; and they, many times, come from dysfunctional homes to begin with. There are stresses in those families that, fortunately, we do not have nor will understand. Add to that the requirement to stay at home in this environment, with an abusive parent, etc., she may need a counselor herself. I am very proud of her.
We bought a new set of shelving. The older smaller one is becoming a plant shelf for seed starting. I just finished putting the food items on the new and deeper shelves. I still need more shelves for our food and preps. But, they are a bit expensive so this one will have to do for a while since we still need to purchase grow lights for the plant shelf.
I put some seeds in a wet paper towel to give them a head start while we moved the shelf and I filled the trays with soil. When I finally put them in the soil, the seeds only took a day to sprout. The bad thing is the two grow lamps I used before, are round spotlight types and not large enough for the shelving, and they just died. I did not want to go out of the house so soon, but if I am going to depend on these seeds, they need more light that one little window they are in front of can give. I need more soil for more seeds, too.
That said, my lettuce seeds are doing great in the west window with one grow lamp. They are getting their second leaves. Not ready to eat for a while, but I may be able to actually have some lettuce soon. I am hoping they do well and I can have lettuce and a patio tomato inside for Fall and Winter.
I also put some sweet potatoes into water to try for some slips for planting, but I think I should have done that four months ago.
It is like a sudden Spring here in MN. Snow is gone and the temps in the 60s. We will be able to do a lot of winter clean-up, but must restrain our inclinations and not work in the actual gardens. New fencing perhaps if the ground has thawed.
So, nothing really new here. Just a normal Spring except for not being able to spend time with our neighbors and family. No emotional issues. We are really lucky.
Take care everyone, and stay safe.