So far, I’ve been doing more musing than packing. We leave tomorrow to visit two training centers run by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). Amigo is applying to attend one of these centers for job training. We’ve planned the trip with lots of down time – for many reasons.

• Ease the travel stress in general
• Remove danger of missing appointments due to flight schedules
• Allow time for fun and exploration – find some of Amigo’s favorite stadiums!
• Let the trip feel more like vacation instead of just a fact-finding trip.
• Take advantage of opportunity for Amigo to experience his first train trip
• Enjoy some together time as a family

Today’s challenge: complete the to-do list. It’s lengthy. Post Office, bank, laundry, packing, type itinerary in print and Braille – and finally, pack.

And after the to-do list reaches Ta-Dah! status, I will think about how to blog this journey. A few years ago we drove to Nova Scotia, and I created a post of all the daily coffee experiences. That could be fun, but it’s been done. Daily scenery might be interesting, especially since we’re going to Minneapolis and Denver. Big city! Mountains! So here we go: a list of possibilities for blogging the upcoming fact-finding and vacation trip.

• The Daily Coffee
• Scenery (including good views and bad, parking lots, stadiums, and mountains)
• Thoughts for each day: inspirational and otherwise
• Highlights and lowlights (oh, that’s a little too obvious)
• New adventures – along the lines of our flat tire in Nova Scotia
• Meals! What we’re eating, what we’re not. This would be especially fun on the train home from Denver.
• Transportation! I keep mentioning the train ride. We’re flying to Minneapolis, then flying to Denver, and taking Amtrak home. In between, we need to get around in the cities themselves. Light rail, buses, cabs – we’ll see.

Readers, weigh in, please. Let me know what would convert Compost Happens into a temporary travel blog. Leave a message at the tone – I mean, please leave a comment! This inquiring mind needs ideas.

As summer goes on, I develop a Farmers’ Market habit and much, much more. This post originally came up last June. Enjoy!

Note to Self;
Never leave gardening gloves on top of the rain barrel. You’re just asking for them to get soaked. Then again, maybe it’s like a rain dance; put the gloves on the rain barrel, and the rain will come. Try it during the next dry spell.

Interesting ideas encountered under a search for “tomato fertilizer”

• Combine eggshells and human hair in a base of coffee grounds.
• Fertilize before planting.
• Fertilize after planting.
• Mulch with organic matter.
• Add fish emulsion or compost tea to the soil.
• Mix wood ash or bone ash into the soil.

What’s a gardener to do? Ah, readers, you know me. I always have a response or comment or just a smart remark. Define “smart” any way you wish, peoples. Let’s try that list again.

• Combine eggshells and human hair in a base of coffee grounds. I have all of these in abundance, but can I bear to save the potentially smelly mix indoors? Will it attract that *$#! raccoon if I store it outside?
• Fertilize before planting. Well, I did prep the soil for better drainage. 
• Fertilize after planting. I can do this. Might be worth a try.
• Mulch with organic matter. I used most of the available “organic matter” in prepping the soil. I could get more from the brush dump if I’m ambitious.
• Add fish emulsion or compost tea to the soil. Fish? Nope. No fish innards in our humble home where the men fish strictly catch and release. Compost tea? Now that I can make! The plants will drink, er, soak it up happily.
• Mix wood ash or bone ash into the soil. I prefer to add the fireplace waste to the compost itself, where it balances the pH of the organic matter. Did you like how I worked in the formal terms? 

Dilbert creator Scott Adams accompanied that title with a drawing of cubicle dweller slash IT worker holding a sledgehammer and overlooking the destruction of a desktop computer. In real life, teachers in a virtual school sometimes get caught without Internet service. What do virtual teachers do when the network is down? Simple.

We clean.

wiping the coffee stains from the desk

cleaning around the multiple cords that connect me with my students

We file and organize papers.

Ta-dah! basket (as opposed to the To Do file)

Last, but never least, we load up on refills from the communal coffeepot.

refreshing beverage and WSRA mug

And then, when the system is up and running and we can address our bulging inboxes, we   get back to work. All is calm, all is well.

In March, I found seeds. Some were a year old, some even older, so I wasn’t sure if they’d grow. With that uncertainty in mind, I planted them all. 

too many tomatoes and peppers

You guessed it. Almost every single seed produced a seedling. I even had to transplant the tomatoes into larger containers in mid-April because they were overcrowded. Last year, a late blizzard took down my starters. This season, I have many – some would say too many. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Chuck, you can say “I told you so!”

 

plan ahead

I did what I do – what teachers do, anyway. I took inventory of my seedlings and planned for the use of the garden space. I thought I could plant all the tomatoes in the triangle and plant all the peppers in the plot behind the garage, the area that last year was home to lettuces. Then I realized the tomatoes would need support. Supports? Both singular and plural, you grammar-loving sorts.

Of course I don’t have enough. With creative use of the square cage, I can contain and support the Large Red Cherry tomato plants. No comments from the peanut gallery, please, I recognized the oxymoron. i did. I have straight supports that will do for the Beefsteak variety when combined with gentle tie-ups made from old tee shirts. My favorites, the red spirals that stand about six feet tall, are in limited supply. As far as I can tell, Fleet Farm no longer carries them. The Bonny Best will climb what I have, and the yellow pear tomatoes will have to make do with the V-shaped stands.

cages, old and semi-useless

I still have several old wire tomato cages. These are too short to be of much use in the multi-tomato zone because my tomato plants usually grow quite a bit taller than the wires. I might, however, use these to help keep the pepper plants contained.

Oh, were you looking for my usual election reference? Check out the little purple notebook next to the clipboard above. The “I Voted” sticker was my exit sticker from the recall primary. 

So there you have it, readers. Tune in tomorrow for the next installment in Daisy’s Garden Takes Shape.