Happy New Year!

January 1, 2025

I wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Wow! It is hard to believe that 2024 is done! I’ll have to get used to writing and typing 2025. This always takes me a while.

Last week, Bruce complained the tall garden beds hid the short garden beds. He also mentioned that if we wanted to move them, now would be the time. After much discussion, we decided to move the garden beds.

On Sunday (December 29), we measured and then remeasured the starting point of the beds. We marked the starting point with yellow flags. This worked well, as we could move the beds in line with the flags. We moved each bed and positioned it properly. I dug under the bed edges to level them enough to keep them from rocking.

Bruce started cutting the three foot chicken wire into 8’4” (or slightly longer) lengths to place inside the garden beds. We are putting two pieces of chicken wire at the bottom of the beds in hopes of keeping rabbits from getting in from the bottom. The chicken wire goes up the sides of the beds to the bottom of the braces.

I placed cardboard over the chicken wire to kill off the grass and weeds at the bottom of the beds.

We are going to put leaves in the beds to add some additional organic material.

On Monday (December 30), we decided to tackle the first tall garden bed. I dug around the edges until it was more level and didn’t pick up anymore when I leaned on the “corners”. It is not perfectly level, which I hope won’t come back and bite us.

Bruce cut two chicken wire lengths for me and I placed them at the bottom of the tall bed.

I cut cardboard boxes to fit and lined the bottom of the bed, over the chicken wire.

In the meantime, Bruce hooked up the cart to the zero turn mower and loaded the cart with rotten cut logs we had found on the property.

We placed the logs under the braces in the garden bed. The next load of wood required the chainsaw to make them fit. These branches and fallen trees weren’t as rotten. We got several more loads of branches to fill in the spaces.

We loaded up the cart with leaves and Bruce brought the cart over. We dumped the leaves into the tall garden bed. This was repeated until the logs were completely covered.

The leaves should settle between the logs.

The bed just needs some compost, topsoil and mulch once the plants start growing. I’ll be using the leaves as mulch.

It was very windy here on the last day of the year. We had planned to do more work outside, but with the high winds, we spent most of day inside.

I spent some time cleaning house; I had gotten a bit behind due to spending most of my time doing yard work. I love the fact that I have a machine to wash dishes while I do other cleaning.

I still wish I had a robot vacuum. I would have it vacuum every day. The Dyson vacuum with the wood floor attachment has a green light to show just how dusty our wood floors are. This means I can’t just stop vacuuming one room, since I can see how dusty the floors are. Bruce will get in on the act as well. He’ll go to vacuum up some dirt he brought in on his boots and just keep going since he can actually see how dirty the floor is. The floors look clean, but with the vacuum’s light on them, the dust shows up.

Bruce was able to get Nox her yearly veterinary appointment for January 7.

Bruce also finished installing the last keypad deadbolt. The back door to the garage is now able to be secured easily and from the outside as well as the inside.

For dinner, I fried oysters. I used the French bread I had in the freezer from Grateful Bread in Golden, CO to make oyster po’boys. (With a shatteringly crisp crust and a lovely texture inside, the French bread from Grateful Bread is the best French bread I’ve found outside of New Orleans.) I made a tartar sauce with some horseradish in it. I fried some French fries as well. We had a salad to lighten up all that fried food.

Around 8:30 PM, we heard a loud boom. Bruce went outside and realized we could watch a professional fireworks show from our backyard. The fireworks were to the northwest.

We put our jackets on to keep off the wind. Standing in our backyard, we enjoyed a lovely fireworks show. It went until just after 9:00 PM. Luckily, Nox slept through it.

We stayed up until midnight and went to bed. The main reason we stayed up was to allow all that fried food to settle. Bruce has GERD and fried food causes him problems. He normally will only eat fried food occasionally and at lunch.

This morning, the wind has stopped howling around the house and yard. The wind has blown in colder weather. The high today is predicted to be 48 degrees F.

I am not sure what we are going to do today other than have black-eyed peas for luck (or for silver) and greens for paper money. l’ll also be making cornbread to go with the peas and greens. I’ll serve some country ham as well.

Happy New Year!