Busy, busy, busy

Well, it's getting closer, and it's been packing time up here in Orillia.  More to follow on all of that excitement, but I saw this video, and wow, it's something important to watch and learn about....

Hellmann’s - It’s Time for Real from CRUSH on Vimeo.

The Plot Thickens.....

Well, now, here we are planning for the house, getting ready for the big crop to start, and guess what happens this morning?!?  Mikey gets a lay-off notice; yup, that's right, a lay-off.  Curses!!!

Why a lay-off?  Well, my job is, and has been for almost 3 years, teaching adult vocational courses.  99% of the students that I have gotten have been through the WSIB (Worker Safety Insurance Board) LMR (Labour Market Reentry) program.  This program is meant to take workers that have been injured in a job, and that are unable to continue their line of work, retrain them for a new career path, and then assist them in getting starting on that path; usually through a job placement program.  This program has been managed by third party companies that run different social work programs (eg. March of Dimes).  About a year and a half ago, WSIB decided that this was not working and they were going to take direct control over the program and it's daily running.  So, after that decision, can anybody guess how many students WSIB has released in that time frame?  Anybody?  Yes, you guess right, none!  NONE!!

Well, as you can guess, as the students have trickled down to nothing, many of the centres have started closing down.  And finally, the day came that I got the ol' lay-off notice.  Well, luckily, I had been expecting something of the sort (although it happened a lot sooner than I thought it would).  I have been putting my resume out for a couple of weeks to any jobs that I am even remotely qualified for (sure, I could a CNC lathe, why not??).

Unfortunately, as one might imagine, Orillia is not the best of cities to go and find a lucrative job in, and that has been very evident in my search over the past month or two.  Most jobs that are available I am overqualified for, and of course, never hear from them.  I talked to an employment counselor a while ago, and do you know what her advice was about my resume?  "Take your university degree off.  It's too intimidating to many of the employers in the city."  What??  Take off the degree?  Yup, that's right, take it off.  The wife of one of Thamara's colleagues at the university moved down to be with her husband, and has been looking for a job for over a month, and she has had zero call-backs.  She was a higher-up in the Lakehead Thunder Bay campus, and she can't find a single job right now.  Argh!!!

But, as luck would have it, I have been interviewed and offered a job.  It is only a part-time position, and is a very entry-level position, but it is a job.  Oh, and it's back in retail.  Oh, and it's at the Future Shop.  Alright, well, it's little bit cool because of all the fun merchandise, and yes, I do get an employee discount.  So, regardless, I have a job again.  It means it is back to working on the weekends, but at least I have something

Yay, retail!!

House, Part Deux

Another busy week planning out things with/for the house, and dealing with all the of financial/realty world.  How (cough, cough), exciting.....  It's a necessary evil, of course.

The one thing that we have done is plan out the expected renovations.  And, wow, are we getting excited to get things going!  Here is the layout for the house right now (click on the pictures to make them bigger):

So, as you can see, a large bedroom, big open kitchen/living room.  And, then in the middle is the "bedroom", but with no window, it's not a "bedroom," so it's the office.  And off to the side is the nice big garage that will become the rest of the living space.

So, now, here is the renovations that we are planning (and hoping the bank likes too!).  We are adding a nice, large bathroom with a great corner shower.  Then we are adding a nice size bedroom, and a bit smaller bedroom (but, still quite comfortable!).  As well, we are putting in a front entrance closet, a storage closet, and a linen closet off of the bathroom. Then the next big plan is to rip out the wall separating the kitchen from the extra room, and put in a kitchen island.  That extra room would then become our dining room.  Oh, and we are going to put an entry from the kitchen into the hallway.  It's going to be great!  And both of us are looking forward to going and picking out all the furnishings!  (insert quote from "Old School" here about the Home Depot and big day planned for tomorrow....)

Now, it's just more of the waiting game and negotiating with the banks over everything!  This will be a long two months to wait!!

Plants: Day 42

Okay, so now the bigger of the tomato seedlings have a nice, new home, and we've got some empty space on the shelf.  Well, what would we do about that, except plant more!!

The next batch is made up of a couple of different veggies; no more just boring tomatoes, here!  We started cucumbers, zucchini, green onions, and basil.  We are about 4 weeks out from the outdoors-planting date, so that is the time frame to get all of these going.  As well, you can see in the picture below, we have switched back to using the toliet paper rolls, but with a slight change; we cut them in half and use them that way.  They are a lot easier to manage, and they don't have any mildew/mould/dampness problem that was happening with the bigger tubes.  As well, we found them a lot easier to transplant than the full tube.

So, everything seemed to be going fine, until Thamara opened up the zucchini package, "What is this?  These aren't zucchini seeds?  They're way to big; they're more like pumpkin seeds!!"  And, as time will tell, it looks like we are not going to be growing any zucchini, but rather a couple of pumpkins.....hmmm....

Plants: Day 41

Even with all of the excitement over the offer on the house and all, we still have the responsibility of getting our urban-garden going.  Plants do not wait!!!

In the past couple of weeks, we have been transferring more and more seedlings from their seed starting homes to bigger pots to let them grow and expand their wonderful root systems.  As time has gone on, the first batch of seed transfers are now big enough to get transplanted into their final homes.  You might have noticed, but throughout this process we have been researching the heck out of everything; it's always nicer to learn from everybody else's mistakes before yours!

The main thing that we have learned about tomatoes is that they are not a fan of wet and dry cycles; so water once every couple of days does not produce the best tomatoes.  Well, how do we provide water for them on a consistent, as-they-need-it type of schedule?  Well, that is where the idea of self-watering containers come in.  Now, don't confuse the idea of self-watering, with self-regulating containers (like I did at first....).  We still have to put water into the containers on an almost daily basis (especially once the hot, humid weather starts), but what these devices do is to provide water as they plants use them.  How, you ask?  How much would this amazing device cost, you ask?

Three letters: DIY (Do-It-Yourself!).  Thamara found a brewing place in town that was willing to sell us 5-gallon buckets for $1 a piece; sweet!!  And, so it was time to start the process of  creating some self-watering containers.  The following pictures will show the basic requirements we started off with for the containers.

First, a wick to let the water up to the dirt

All of the needed material

A pipe to transport water to the well

Next, a false bottom with two holes

So, that is a complete one-bucket self-watering container.  You then fill it with potting mix (pre-moistened), and you're all set to go with planting the seedlings into the buckets.  Again, with tomato plants, we bury the seedling past the first set of leaves.  Then we add a bit of fertilizer, and bam!, a self-watering tomato planter.  Lots of room for the roots to grow, and the plants can draw water up through the soil form the well under it.  You just keep adding water through the pipe, and it keeps drinking as it needs it.

The setup so far....it's getting a little crowded.....

Why the big Delay??

So, okay, you might be asking, why has there been such a silence our end here?  Well, the past month has been a crazy, hectic, crazy month of planning and organizing a major life-step:

Thamara and I have decided to purchase our first home!!  (insert stunned silence, then thunderous applause...)

Isn't it amazing!!!








Okay, seriously, we did, though.  That picture is the garden shed on the property.  Hahaha, sorry, I couldn't help it.

That is a picture the front of the house.  It is an amazing, cute, house that is newer, and is sitting on a great little piece of property that is just short of 2.5 acres.  We are really quite excited about the adventure of going into house ownership together!  Here's a couple more of the front of the house (just click on them to make them bigger):

So, it's a great, well-build house that right now is a perfect size for the two of us to start with.  It is beautifully laid out with a nice open concept kitchen/living room, and a nice big master bedroom.  The main living space has absolutely amazing wide-planking wood floors, and the kitchen has an great new cork floor.  That is something to see!  There is even a fantastic garden door off of the master bedroom that has a little "deck" for enjoying the sunlight/peace that is out there.  It was a perfect combination of house/property that we were looking for to get out into the rural area outside of Orillia (you wouldn't believe the cost of property tax in Orillia!!).  For the price ranges that we were looking for, this house was the perfect find.

As mentioned before, it is a perfect house for us right now.  But, in the future, it might prove to be a bit on the small side.  So, our "big picture" plan is to expand the livable space into the big two-car garage and add a more bedrooms and another bathroom into the house.  It will be a great project that will let us expand the house, and increase the value of it.  Why would we do it this way, instead of just looking for a bigger house?  Well, that is a great question?  First of course, looking at a particular price bracket, if you increase the size of the house, then you would obviously decrease the size of the land; and we wanted to have a little property.  Secondly, by buying smaller and expanding later, we decrease the financial shock that usually happens when you go into home ownership.  It not only allows us to grow gradually in space, but also in financial responsibility; we wanted to avoid the 'house-poor' syndrome where you buy a house, but can't enjoy life outside of it....

Plus, we have some big plans to get even more onto the sustainable life-track.  We are very, very excited for it, and we are even more excited for the possibilities of what the renovations could add to the already great house we'll have!!

More details to follow......

Plants: Day 21

Okay, so it's been a little while since the last post.  Lots to catch up on.  Let's get it going with a quick one here....

A week after the last starting of seeds, we were ready to transfer some of the bigger seedlings into some pots that would allow their roots to expand. As we researched and got ready, we discovered that when you are transferring tomato seedlings into a bigger pot, you are supposed to bury them up past the first couple sets of leaves.  This allows the plants to form a bigger root structure.  The leaves you buried will break apart, and the stem will grow roots out from those points.  So, even if you buy tomato seedlings from the local greenhouse, you should bury the plant deep enough to cover a couple of sets of leaves.

Plants: Day 14

Whoo-Hoo!

Everything is growing at a great pace here!  About half of the tomato plants have sprouted, and all of our peppers and eggplants have come out; there is a caveat though, we tried planting some seeds that Thamara had from hot peppers from a long, long time ago.  They haven't come out to play, yet......

Almost everybody is growing great!

The harvest potential is looking better and better!  In the next couple of weeks, we are going to have to transfer the pellets and rolls into their permanent homes.  Now, the container planning begins!



      

Our setup

Oh, and yes, those are egg shells on the shelf.  We are saving our egg shells to use as fertilizer for the plants when they get transplanted.  Egg shells are a great source of calcium for those little plants!

Plants: Day 12

Only 5 days!!!

Wow!  After only 5 days, we got our first tomato seedling!!  Crazy!  It seems that those pellets really do the trick.  On the other side, almost all of our seeds have sprouted and are growing healthy and strong.  Some of the little guys even have both seeds sprouting out.  Once we transplant them into their permanent homes, we will have to decide which of them is the strongest, and then cut out the weakling; there is no sympathy in the quest for container vegetables!  (I have a strong believe that Thamara might not be able to just callously cut them out; I think we will be replanting those seedlings....)

Peppers and Eggplants, oh my!

Grow little seedlings, grow!!

Can't wait for the harvest....yum.....

Plants: Day 10

The first one!!!!  This morning, we woke up and discovered that finally, one of our little seeds has grown up into a full-blown seedling.  Isn't that exciting!  We are on our way now.....

Plants: Day 7

Tomatoes!!

Well, not much action for the whole week in terms of growing and such.  We watered twice a day (after Thamara's suggestion that we were not watering enough), and kept them under the top light on the timer all day.

Fiber Pellets!

Let's see how the store bought product does...

So, Day 7 has rolled around and it is time to plant once again.  We are now 8 weeks out from our anticipated outdoor planting date, and it's time for the tomatoes to be planted!!  Now, I'm not much of a whole-tomato fan, but I love the tomato products: sauce, ketchup, you name it!  Which means that even I am excited about the tomato planting.  This week, since we are rookies and trying to experiment a little, we are using a different product than our toilet rolls.  We bought seed-starting pellets.  These are non-peat pellets that you use to get your seeds growing (as an aside: apparently, the method of harvesting peat is terribly destructive on the environment, so you should get away from using that if you have the choice.  Coconut coir is the same type of product, and is considering a renewable resource.).  We put water into the tray, let the pellets expand, and then put seeds into the little holes for the seeds.  Oh, and we labeled the rows so that we know which plants are which, because we have some fun plans for cherry tomatoes!

The little pellet tray also had a cover for it, which we learned helps to hold in the moisture and is good for little seeds to get started, so we then put a plastic cover over our other tray of eggplants and peppers.  Now we wait and see what we get.....

Put the seeds in!

Mini-greenhouse!

Plants: Day 1

The first three plantings.

Alright, so now that the seed growing shelves are all ready to go, it was time to plant seeds!  We are looking to do our outdoor planting on the May 24th weekend; the usual date around here to ensure that we have no more frost nights.  So, on March 20th, we were 9 weeks out from our planting date; at 9 weeks, we were looking to start our peppers and our eggplants.  We have one type of eggplant, and three types of peppers that we are looking to grow.




In the spirit of sustainability, how are we going to start our seeds and grow our plants?  Well, we found a great little tip for seed starting: used toilet paper rolls!  Yup, that's right, plant the seeds in the toilet paper rolls, and then when it's time to transplant them, just pop the whole thing right into their new pot.  The roll degrades into the soil, and the plant doesn't get the usual "transplant shock."  Win-win!

Nikko's a little confused.....

Putting the dirt in the toilet rolls.

The seeds getting their new homes!

Finished product.

Ah...light.....

Yay, planties!!

Green Thumb?

Wow, so it has been a very long time since an update.  What has been going on?  Well, a lot of reading, planning,  prepping, and looking after our little seedlings!

Old shelving + sale lights = cheap seed starter!

After a couple of abandoned ideas, we finally got the design down for our little seed-growing setup.  I found some shop lights on sale at Canadian Tire (1/2 price!!), and then we did our research to make sure that we got the right bulbs for growing plants.  Let me tell you though, when you go looking and talking to people about trying to set up some grow lights, you get a lot of funny looks!  I think some people didn't believe me when I told them it was for a container vegetable garden; "sure, for 'just' vegetables."  Using some old, cheap Ikea shelving (lucky I didn't throw them out!), we assembled a shelving unit to hold the seeds and lights.

Getting the timer and lights all ready to go.

The next step was getting the lights going on a timer and finding out when and how long to have the lights on.  Looking for a timer was surprisingly tough.  Finding a timer that had two grounded outlets proved to be a bit of a challenge!  Crazy!    So, got the timer, plugged the lights in, and bingo, automatic light!  We've got them running about 14 hours a day right now; from 6:00am until 8:00pm.  And with the fact that they are fluorescent lights, you'd be surprised how little energy they use up!  It's amazing that they run all day like that, and at the end of the day, you can touch them, and they're barely hot!  Good stuff!

The finished product.

Good Times

Okay, so I didn't do a very good job of updating this week; I was down and out with a nasty stomach flu. It was not a pretty sight!

Anyhoo, last weekend was a lot of fun! All of our prep time was well worth it. And all of my worry over two dogs in a little apartment was for nothing! They both behaved quite splendidly! Nothing broken, no running around; it's all good...

 
Little Jonah was a great guest to have and (we believe) had a good time exploring a new place. He was even awesome when we went to a restaurant on Sunday night and his nap schedule was all messed up that day. What a polite little man! He's obviously got a great example from his two parents. Way to go Megan and Jer!!

Since I will spare anybody the details of the stomach flu, there isn't much else to say about the past week....

We were getting the two dogs confused all weekend....

Getting Ready!

Currently, we are in the midst of getting ready for some exciting visitors!  Megan, Jeremy, Jonah, and Wembley are all coming up to visit us.  Yes, that's right, we will have 4 adults, 1 adorable baby (see Smooshie-Face post below), and 2 adult dogs in our little apartment!  It is going to be an exciting weekend to say the least!!  We are definitely looking forward to it!  We are baking up a storm to get ready!

This week was relatively uneventful; nothing too big happened.  So, in light of this, I thought that I would list some of the more interesting books I have read lately: