Progress continues at Terra Nova Gardens. I discovered by talking with a neighbor in the area that the tree that was cut down is actually a Mulberry tree and not a cotton wood. The tree is now all cut into chunks. Some need to be split before being stacked.Â
I had time to stake out some of the garden beds and dig one before the snow began. It ended up being only a light dusting and was gone by the next day. It appears that this land has been the recipient of dumping for some years. I have found many vine roots, rocks, chunks of concrete, carpet, and car parts. That’s just in the first 4 foot by 8 foot garden bed. In another spot, I found a sizable chunk of concrete that will possibly need to be dug out and broken up. There’s many other assets to be recycled on the property such as old tires, big rocks, and four inch trees that could be used for rustic fence rails.
I truly feel like a land owner now. My first tax assessment came in the mail yesterday. I paid the whole $10.74 for the year. Ah, yeah, I could have paid just the first half year of taxes but I thought, “I’ll just be a big spender and pay the whole thing at once.”
Finally all the parts for the seed starting station have been bought and assembly began. With only a few interruptions from Bradley, the station was completed. Now the timer will be plugged into wall socket where the extension cord is plugged. I’ve heard there needs to be a little wind on the growing plants to make the stems strong instead of spindly and leggy so I will get a small clip on fan to provide the gentle wind.  The seed starting station is not too fancy, didn’t cost much, is adjustable, and can easily be expanded. The lighting is two 4-foot shop florescent lights with four sunlight bulbs. I wanted a four bulb fixture but really $30 was a bit much so I bought two 2-bulb lights at $9 each. It works just as good maybe better. I’ll put an old towel under the heat mat to help it work a little better. These shelves are three foot in length. I could have bought four foot shelves but it would have been a little tight to get to the furnace so I decided to purchase a six foot shelf and cut it in half, which was cheaper anyway, giving an extra foot for furnace maintenance.
Granny blessed Bradley with the most awesome Christmas present. Well that’s according to him anyway. This is a LegoKreoMegatron Transformer. There’s 346 parts with an instruction book of 105 steps to assemble the awesome Transformer. The above picture is two hours into the construction at step number 25. Below is five hours into the assembly with the completion of step 68. Woo hoo over half finished. I expect another 3 or 4 hours of pure grand pop and grandson bliss. Well, actually it is kind of fun seeing his excitement as he assembles Megatron. It’s team work. I find the parts and Bradley assembles them. Actually he’s pretty good at it. He’s much faster at assembling than old grand pop is at finding the parts.
The weather is finally getting colder, well, for a couple days at least. Back in the 40s by the weekend. I should be able to do some more surface clearing at Terra Nova Gardens by next week. Yesterday was a volunteer day at a local non profit organization. Plugging some floor holes where water pipes used to go to the steam radiators before the hot air furnace retrofit happened was the task of the day. Today is just a coast day.
Have a great day and I’ll catch up with ya later.
