Notes For Me ( and You)

Cold and windy, cold and windy – the broken record weather forecast continues as we near the end of the month. Everyone seems to have had enough of the winter, especially if it is not going to give us some serious snow. Time to move on to spring.

Spring for the older boys means lacrosse season. This week is the last week of pre-season training before the try outs and selection process which takes place next week. Although there is no pressure on the boys – Alex is assured of a varisty place, and Peter needs to be on the JV team rather than get an early promotion to Varsity – they are both rightly concerned about being really ready, so much so that Peter went to practice yesterday even though he was really full of the cold and should not have been out running in the sub-zero weather.

A few other home repair tasks, both here and at the in-laws, occupied my time this weekend, so no more progress on the cold frame. Maybe by next blog time ?

I started on a quick project to build a small portable cold frame to start and/or harden off plants in the veg garden. The size (3 x 4) was determined by the dimensions of a piece of twin wall polycarbonate that we had left over from the solar projects we did in earlier years. The side walls are cedar so they will not need much treatment to last a while in the garden.

Here are the pieces all cut out ready for assembly. These are cut from  1″ x 8″

Cold Frame Sides

again sizes dictated more by available material than any preset design. The sides and back were held together by straps and glue.

Cold frame back panel

All the parts are now together, and next time I will assemble the box and start on the frame for the polycarb sheet.

Today is one of the days that we all have off, kind of a useless day in the middle of February. It is cold and raw outside, not the kind of day to encourage much in the way of yard work. Maybe some internet gardening would suit better – I already ordered some special potatoes, maybe some other seeds and plants could be considered.

However first of all I do have to get out and set up a soccer scrimmage over at the school. I have two new players coming by to try out for Jake’s team – and of course they are evaluating me and the team. We have just enough players at present – 13 or 14 – but this year there will be more than a few Saturdays when several of the boys will have conflicts due to Bar Mitsvahs, so adding a couple new players to bring us up to 16 would be just fine.

Our indoor team won a close game, coming from 0-2 down to win 4-3, leapfrogging over our opposition into first place. In fact the only game we have lost remains somewhat of a mystery since that team has not won another game and in fact forfeited their last game, presumably due to a lack of players.

Alex and Nancy are off today up to Westminster, MD to visit McDaniel College on a special day for potential students . He has been accepted there, in fact into their special honors program, and offered a generous scholarship. He probably won’t pick it, but is  worth a second look ( He and I went there already back in December).

Peter had been away all weekend on a ski trip so the house has been quiet – Alex tends to be out anyway !

It was probably one of the few areas of car maintenance that I had not tried – tire repair. But today I am happy to report I successfully plugged my first tire! Saved maybe $10-$20, but it was so very convenient. The van has had a slow leak for a week or so, and today the weather was nice enough to work outside. I had watched the gas station kid fix our last flat, and went out the next week and bought a set of plugs and the necessary device to stick the plugs in, so I was ready. So far so good!

On the sporting front, Alex’s basketball team ( coached by Nancy) won again, and Jake’s soccer team (coached by me) edged out a victory 7-6. However on Friday, Jake’s basketball team lost. Peter plays tomorrow.

Tonight Nancy and I went out for dinner and to see “Milk” which was quite good.

The Washington Post has a nice article on the swimming scene in the Maryland, DC and Northern Virginia area. Jake is up against some tough competition.

Warmer weather returns this weekend so I hope to get outside and take care of some overdue car maintenance including an oil change on the truck and taking a look at a slow leak on one of the van’s tires.

I am also going to try to decide whether to expand the vegetable garden space this year, possibly to grow some garlic and onions. However I may wait one more year with what I have got, especially as we will be gone for almost three weeks mid summer.

Here is a link to a farming blog which provides a frequently updated look at a small Vermont farm. I have been following along with them and their cheese making for a while now, and actually ordered some cheese making supplies – but so far have not actually done anything !

So far Alex has heard from three of the nine schools and so far he has been offered a place at each of these three. However two of those were schools he was very well qualified for. So hearing from these safety schools was nice, but no surprise. The third one, the University of Maryland, was one he was on target for so it was not a surprise but still very nice to get accepted.

This is supposedly the peak year for undergraduate applications as this year’s class is expected to be the crest of a wave generated by the baby boomer generation.