Any dog named Julie has got to be a great dog anyway! But she sounds like one of those "human" dogs that you may come across once in a lifetime. Had a dog like that once...it's pretty rare. Lucky you!
Wow... I knew this was probably coming at some point, but I thought it would hit closer to fall/winter just based on the ebb and flow of this business. My boss just informed me that starting next week, my hours are being cut. This will definately be a life changer and we were making plans for this eventuality but it just came more sudden than expected.
I've been looking ahead toward a career change so if I can fill the gap to get me through until I start school this summer or fall, we should be okay. I never finished college thinking I was smart enough to get by without it but considering that owning my own business didn't quite go the way I thought it would, I'm facing reality and realizing that anything I want to do requires those 2 letters after my name.
I know we will both look back on this as a good thing because it is forcing me to jump when I was just teetering on the edge yesterday. I am looking at going into information assurance because I was in forensics before I quit and I think taking the forensics into the computer arena would be a little bit better fit for me.
I imagine this is how I would feel if I just jumped out of a plane and my parachute hadn't opened up yet... I know it will but still scary.
Since my hours got cut at my ft job, I've applied for a job in the garden center at Home Depot. Maybe not my first choice in employers but at least there would be fresh air and sunshine! I'm still waiting to hear on when they'll start adding hours for that department...
In other news, I have a date on Sunday!!!
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To go get horse manure!!!
For compost. For the garden, in case Spring actually decides to arrive!
I'm so excited!
MyT Man, our neighbor and I are going to load up 55 gallon barrels in the back of his truck(because he doesn't want to get the bed dirty!) and the back of my Subaru and we're going to meet his BIL. Then MyT Man is "treating" us to breakfast at some greasy spoon along the way. Yup, me, 1 good ole country boy, and two old codgers. Then off to some other guy's place to load up and then head home.
Do you ever wake up in the morning and know it is going to be a great day? I'm off today and there is sunshine in the forecast I'm feeling really motivated so I thought I'd share my to do list to help keep me accountable.
Post hose reel, framing books, workout stuff, table/chairs on CL
Build frames for all of our raised beds
Figure final cubic footage & price peat moss/vermiculite
clean off patio
put together greenhouse
start plants
Look at redoing chicken pen
Oh, guess what! Thursday we got 6 eggs from 6 hens for the first time! 3 of the hens were from our babies hatched in late August.
So I was right, it was a great day today! The sun felt so good on my face! I got my listings for things to sell done and have already sold my framing books for $100!!!
I got my garden beds laid out but not put together yet. MyT Man gets home in a few minutes and I want his imput on the locations before I finish up. Got my greenhouse put together. Not the most sturdy thing in the world but I think it will work. Got the patio cleaned off so it looks nice and tidy.
Going to kick back with a cappuccino and some old Little Rascals episodes that I picked up at the library today.
Weekend Report: went and got 50 5gal buckets full of compost. It was senior day at UK and the Cats played at noon so neither of the guys wanted breakfast, they wanted to hustle and get home to watch the game so it didn't turn out to be such an adventure.
Finished up the garden boxes. We ended up with 3 boxes that average 16 feet long by 4 feet wide so essentially 6 of the "square foot" gardens. Then I hauled the compost and got that in. Priced out the peat moss and vermiculite to make the "special dirt mix" and it's going to be over $300. Okay, that's some mighty special dirt. We kicked it around and our budget allows for us to finish filling them so we can get to planting with a mix of top soil and other types of compost. It may not be as fancy and may need more watering, but as far as I know, veggies have been growing for eons in dirt so we'll just have to skip the more expensive ingredients and hope for the best.
In other news, MyT Man was out in the back yard helping me finish up the boxes on Sunday afternoon and was getting so frustrated, he said the chickens have got to go! We'd been debating different ways of keeping them out of the garden this year. We didn't want to do a fence around the garden because it's a pain for him to move it if he wants to go out and weed or water. So we had talked about building a tractor and moving them around the yard or building them a separate run to keep them in instead of letting them free range the back yard. Both of those options were going to require quite a reworking of our current situation and with having to get another job and trying to go back to school, it all just seemed like too much. I was very sad but at the same time, felt like he was right in this being the best answer for our situation right now.
So, listed them on CL and they went to their new farm yesterday. Took apart part of their coop and turning it into a compost pile which will work out great. Would have finished it except the battery ran out on the drill.
Still need to figure out how I'm going to support our 7 grapevines that we planted last year so I can get that done next weekend...