Right?! It was a little nerve-racking, but I HAD to do it, because that sucker hurt, and I could see it right there.
The one book that had two watchers did end up in a small bidding war... $13.52 was the final price. One other book will sell at $0.99, the rest will be relisted before the end of the month. Still, not bad for books that I basically got for free.
Mom took the boys for overnight, so the BF and I are going to go out to eat tonight. I was really hoping to take the kayak out and do a little fishing and see what kind of wild foods I could get ahold of, but the rain is just too close, and it's raining on and off. It wouldn't be bad, but that kayak is difficult to get on the car when everything is soaked. I'm going to make sure that we get to try cattails this year. They're supposed to taste like broccoli, and there's no shortage of cattails around here, so I really want to give it a shot. Nothing like harvesting some cattails while out there enjoying myself and not having to pay for broccoli for awhile!
A third book had sold with 4 seconds left in the auction.
Brother and I haven't done anything further with that plot... Can't get him to come help with it anymore, and the drive is too much for me to take care of it by myself. So, the boyfriend offered up a spot here for me to garden in. It's smaller, but it's a decent size spot for our needs. He even talked to the guy who babysits the inmates while they mow our yard and such, and he's going to bring them over to rip out this monstrosity of a bush (that gives me hives if I touch it) out of the back of the spot, giving me more room, PLUS they're going to be dropping the rototiller off AND they're pulling all of the sod off the top of that area so I can get started. He said they'd have rototilled it as well, but he figured he can at least do that much, since they're basically doing everything else to get it ready, lol. So, hopefully they can get that done soon, but I don't know with rain scheduled for the next week and a half. I'm going to peek around, send some emails and such, and see if I can do some bartering with any of the greenhouses around here. Plus, I need to hit auction to see if I can find some decent starts for a decent price. It sucks, since we've got such a late start on everything, but gosh darn it, I WILL have something edible out of that garden, even if it's a rabbit!
I also got my first batch of button quail eggs today. 35+ eggs ended up being 50 eggs. I hope I hatch out a good number of tuxes, pies and whites. I'll have a much better chance at selling them if I get a lot more of those.
AAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG! I kept checking on my incubator, trying to put the new button quail eggs into it. It was always in the same position with each check. After a few hours of this, I figured it was broken and started doing some research. $60 (NOT including shipping) for a new turner motor. Just great... I have two more packages of button quail eggs coming, plus 11 pekin duck eggs and 132 other eggs in there, not to mention the 50 button quail eggs that were waiting to go in. So, I decided to do some more research on how to keep these eggs from going bad and BYC to the rescue... There's a little switch on it (I had thought it was the on/off switch) that runs the turner. Down for auto turn, level for off and up for manual turning. I pushed up and hear a little motor going, and thought I was breaking it, lol. Here, it's "manual" but not the manual I was thinking... It turns it, but does it electronically. So, after leveling this thing out so I could put some eggs in it (would've saved me a few hours on more than one occasion if I had known this sooner) and popped it back into autoturn (can't hurt, right?) and that baby started working on it's own again! So, now, not only are these eggs all ok (hopefully), but now I know how to load and access my eggs without waiting forever and a half to catch the silly thing in the level position! I'm so excited. $60 and a LOT of time saved, all by playing with a toggle switch.
This is the big ass bush that was in my garden area. Inmates: 1, Bush: 0. I wish I had gotten a before photo of this bush, it was taller than the garage! I felt bad because I was just watching everything, but these things break me out in hives, so I just helped with grabbing tools as they needed them. It took a good two hours just to get it broken free, which included lopping branches off, using the chain saw to whack it down to the nub, then digging around and axing at the roots. In the end though, that sucker is broken free, and they'll be coming back after lunch to finish off the job and take the monstrosity of a bush "nub" away.
I'll have to post later to add pics of the finished plot. I still want to get some kind of border for it, then fill it with better soil/compost. They found a bottle from 1927 as well, but it's only worth $7, lol. Still, very, very neat little glass antiseptic applicator bottle.
ETA: Garden is 15' x 26', so that should give us some room to play in. I don't know how much production we can get going, but we certainly won't have to worry about peppers, that's for sure. I have to do more research on some of the other things, such as beets, watermelon and such.
Even though I'm just talking to myself (and Denim Deb, poor gal! lol)...
I went ahead and got some compost. I filled the back of my car for the cost of a blister and gas to get there and back ($1.85). I want to get at least two more loads though, and there might be one more load up there. Not sure when they replenish the compost either. :/
Compost in my car
Opened the hatch to show another view (and for ease of removal, lol)
And ALL that dirt covered this...
So, yeah, I still need to get a good bit more, but hey, it's a really good start for about an hour's worth of work (getting and spreading the compost, everything else took all damn day... That stump didn't want to come out!!!)
Not sure what it's called, but it was an evergreen thing, looks like hemlock trees but in bush form. I like to call them "those big pain in the ass bushes out there". Whatever moron landscaped this place put them EVERYWHERE! There are some in the back that are nice, because they are a good windbreak, but planting them randomly in the yard and up against the house was pure stupidity. I'd have loved to ask them to rip all those fn things out!!! Can you tell that I hate those things with a passion?!
ETA: I did end up going back for a second load. Only enough to fill up 3/4 of my car this time, but someone was dropping off three MASSIVE bushes of hostas for someone to take for free, so I gobbled them up. She was excited that someone was there to take them right away. I've been looking for something cheap to put around the front of the house, because the only thing we have are those stupid bushes that I hate, and they look stupid, so I wanted something that looked nicer. I like the price of free.