08/25/13

I was able to spend most of Friday evening outside working. I got the lawn sweeper out, and collected grass clippings from the recently mowed from yard. While I was at it I also collected some clippings from along the side of the road, because the highway department had mowed fairly recently. Once this was finished I started hauling the clippings to the garden, and spread them over an area with nothing planted. I didn't get to finish, because I had to move onto the next task before dark, but I think the clippings I have might be enough for what I need.

I stopped mulching to get the truck ready for grocery shopping the next day. This involved loading our large storage container into the bed of the truck, during which I discovered a wasp nest that I had to deal with. Fortunately I didn't get stung, although I'm really not sure why. I also loaded a couple of coolers into the bed of the truck and strapped everything down. Andrea helped to clean out the cab of the truck. By the time we finished it was nearly dark, and I needed to do some things inside.

We got up early Saturday morning, got dressed, gathered a few things, and drove out to town for breakfast. The last time we were there for dinner the lady mentioned that she hadn't seen us at breakfast in a while and urged us to come back in, so we thought we'd oblige. After breakfast we headed to Lancaster, for a tour of Pike Valley Farm. We were actually a few minutes late getting there, but thankfully others were too, so we didn't miss the start of the tour.

After the farm tour, we drove on into Nicholasville and stopped by the Lexington Container Company. We looked around, but only bought the one item we had gone after, a 3.5 gallon pail with Gamma Seal lid. We plan to keep the pail in the kitchen, and empty cooking water and water used to clean vegetables into it. This will allow us to add that water to the compost. I don't normally add moisture to the compost, other than urine, but I like the idea of adding the water from the kitchen since it contains starches and bits of organic matter that would otherwise go to waste.

We grabbed lunch after leaving the container store, then went to Good Foods Market to stock up on groceries. This past weekend was one of the quarterly Owner Discount Days Events, so we received a discount on our purchase. We had also special ordered a few items in full case quantities, on which we received a further discount.

We made a few more stops after Good Foods, including dropping by to visit a friend for  a few minutes. It was nearly dark by the time we made it back home, and was completely dark by the time I had the truck unloaded. Needless to say, we didn't accomplish anything else on Saturday.

We both woke today not feeling well. Both my allergies and acid reflux were bothering me, which makes me think that maybe I forgot to take my medicine on Saturday. I napped around the first part of the day, and as just generally lazy. Up in the day we rode over to the garden, so I could take out the compost and Andrea could pick tomatoes. While there I picked a couple ears of corn that had been damaged by pests. I didn't do much else the rest of the day, but Andrea accomplished some tasks inside.