Monday, April 11, 2011

Monday Morning Retrospective - Random Bullet List Edition

How was everyone's weekend?  I hope all of you got a lot done outside, or had a lot of fun, or both!  Here's a bullet-list recap of my weekend.

  • Drove Kat to her mom's on Saturday morning and tricked myself into coming back home to do yard work instead of going to neighborhood-wide garage sales.  How?  By wearing my grubby, soil-covered, grass-stained gardening clothes instead of something presentable.

  • Read how to build a layered, no-weed garden bed, then built one, for strawberries.


     
  • Have eaten about this much asparagus four times so far this season.  Selfishly glad I don't have to share the small bounty with Shane.  (Kat doesn't like it; eats only her obligatory one bite each time I serve it.)

     
  • Noticed that each time I eat asparagus, I feel mildly euphoric afterward.  Here and here explain why this may not be all in my head.

  • Replanted some of the brassica seedlings (cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi and broccoli) that survived the snow, but did not survive a surprise frost last week or the scratchings and diggings of a stray cat.


     
  • Added a blueberry bush and replaced two each of blackberry and raspberry bushes.
     
  • Mowed the yard.  I don't mind, but I'm not used to it.  Seems to have hurt my hands the most for some reason.
     
  • Could almost literally watch the garden seedlings grow during the two days of temps in the 80s.

  • Endured this sound throughout Saturday night and Sunday until about noon.  It's an Eastern American toad and it was in the concrete runoff ditch that borders our property.  Concrete runoff ditches amplify sounds.  Either that, or the toad had a megaphone.
     
  • Slept in on Sunday to the crazy-late hour of 9:00 a.m.

And here's what's ahead for this week:

  • Take truck to muffler shop to have catalytic converter replaced.
     
  • Spend hours on the phone trying to decide if Shane is coming home with his boss this weekend, only to turn around and drive back to Garden City next Wednesday without the boss, who's going on vacation -OR- if I'm going to drive our truck to Garden City this Friday and take the Amtrak* back next Monday, leaving the truck there with Shane.  As they say...it's complicated. And will likely change half a dozen times before the weekend gets here.

  • More lawn and garden work outside.  Now that all the first-round veggies are in, I can focus on cleanup and maybe flowering plants and landscaping.
     
  • The usual in-the-house work.
     
  • Watch craigslist for more cinder blocks for the strawberry bed.


    What's on the schedule for you and your family this week?

    **********

    *Here's a breakdown of travel options.  Amtrak is probably the best value for me in terms of both time and money, but I haven't made a final decision yet.  I had no idea a one-way car rental was so expensive.

    Amtrak - 8 hours travel time - $70
    Greyhound - 10+ hours travel time - $84
    Commuter plane to Denver, then commercial flight to Kansas City - 4.5 hours travel time - $211
    One-way car rental from Garden City to Kansas City - 8-24 hours travel time, at my own pace - $344 plus fuel

    5 comments:

    McVal said...

    Brilliant no weed garden!!! I've GOT to try that sometime.
    I love asparagus and strawberries. We used to punish my son by serving him asparagus everynight until he turned in an assignment.

    Melynda@Scratch Made Food! said...

    Love that strawberry bed! I need to do that here, thanks.

    Alea Milham said...

    I love how you made your strawberry bed! Such a great idea, now I am trying to figure out where I could implement that idea on my property.

    slugmama said...

    I'd go with the Amtrak plan too, as long as there are no crazy muslim women sitting in the aisle ranting and raving....long story....lol

    Sheila said...

    Very nice looking garden areas. Oh how I wish we had planted asparagus when we first moved here.
    I'd go with Amtrak too--price and time wise it seems to be the best option. Besides, I road on a train with my dad when I was about 4 and I've wanted to ride a train again ever since!! Take care.