Friday, March 13, 2009

Winter Strikes Back

It was beautiful and warm enough outside to melt ice earlier this week, and suddenly it's like -20° Celsius today. At least the sun's still shining.

We went out in the yard like a couple of twits this afternoon and laid a big tarp down over some of the snow-covered lawn, and then weighted it down at the corners with big rocks. Then we went back inside after a job well done.

Makes no sense, right? Here's out theory: we want to plant a vegetable garden this spring, and we don't feel like having to dig up lots and lots of fresh healthy grass growth to do it. We are guessing that the tarp will keep the growth of new grass to a minimum, and therefore keep our digging efforts to a minimum as well.

We are also going to start some of our seeds indoors this weekend. Have I mentioned that it was like minus 20° Celsius today? Optimism. Yup.

Now that we've moved into this house, for the very first time ever, we receive weekly sales flyers at our door. When we lived in Toronto the only door to our second-floor apartment over the jewelry store owned by the Mafia exited to the back alley where the crack heads hung out, so no flyers there. Ever since then we've mostly lived in crappy basement apartments with shameful, hidden doors that nobody would have known to deliver flyers to. There was one exception when we lived in an actual house near the ocean in Victoria, but the house was actually surrounded on all sides by a parking lot and on commercial property, so we couldn't even put garbage out on collection day. Seriously.

Where was I? Oh, the flyers. All the sales start on Fridays and go 'til the following Thursday. We rarely get the flyers on Friday. Usually they're delivered on Saturday or Monday. (Even if he's late, he won't do it on Sunday. Jerk.)

When the flyers are late, Mark turns into a crotchety old man and peers out the window every hour, hissing "where are my weekly sales flyers!" until they finally appear. I don't consider us big consumers; I have no idea why the lateness of the flyers bothers him so much.

One small note: we changed the site around a little. I hope you enjoy it. I did it just for you.

4 comments:

Sophie said...

Hi Julie,

You don't know me, but Kim B. and I are very close and she "thinks" she's my boss at OFF, go figure. She's told me a lot about you and keeps mentioning your blog. I've been reading it for a while, and signed up to follow it this morning.
It seems we have a lot in common, being animal nuts (I have 3 dogs, a cat, chickens and peafowl), moving away from city life to find a home out here, and apparently from your latest post, an attraction to weekly flyers. lol. We never used to get them either.
Anyhow, this has turned more into an email than a comment, but I figured I should introduce myself properly. ;)

Anonymous said...

Hey Julie, not to dash your hopes for planting early, but when Emily and I planted gardens while we were in Wolfville, it was generally the first part of May to mid May before we were able to get anything in the ground. Of course it all depends on how wet the spring is. By May, we found the ground had dried out enough to be able to work with the soil.

Happy Planting!!

Oh and this is for Sophie.....Could you please tell Kim B. that she needs to learn how to use a telephone!! Ha Ha. :-)

k- said...

Nanny is the same way with flyers. Although ours generally show up three days before the sales start.

Now, I say this with the utmost love and respect for you guys and I'm only commenting because I care, but the font on your new banner is making my eyes bleed. It is never acceptable to mix upper and lower case letters like that. And your drop shadow is killing me. It would be cool if the banner font were a rusty colour pulled from the hills in the photo. It's a nice accent colour. Your picture is nice, but needs to be sharpened. And that green divider with the x pattern should probably go. That said I do like the addition of the 'picture of the moment' and your blog description on the sidebar. Also I love your blog and I am a negligent blogger at best.

Did I mention I love you guys?

k-

Julie said...

Big comments from everyone!

Hi Sophie! We've heard of you from KB! Thanks for the email-caliber post & glad you like reading our blog.

Hi Dennis! We're actually planning at least 6 weeks of nursery growth for our early veggies, so I think we're not too far ahead of schedule (although I'm getting quite eager for spring). We have NO IDEA what the condition of our yard & soil is. Should be interesting.

Kristie - remain calm! All of your complaints are about things we either actively like or don't care about at all. If you want to make us a masthead as a present, I will put it up. Otherwise, don't be too upset - this one is not permanent & I plan on doing new ones every now and again.

Julie