Is it any wonder why I'm obsessed with seed catalogs?

So, I don't even know what we're up to now... we got at least 28" over the weekend, and we probably will have another 18" by the end of the day. The city has completely shut down and all you can do is sit in the house and wonder when it will stop. We haven't gone out to dig anything yet, it's still snowing too hard to bother yet. I just don't know where it's all going to go! Apparently downtown they have started dumping snow in the harbor because there's no place else to put it. All streets are pretty much one lane, traffic is horrible, I'm not sure how this is all going to get cleaned up. Its also so sad what a beating the trees are taking in all this. There are trees and branches down all over the city. The snow took out a big red pine tree up the street, and has taken out quite a few large branches from Mary and Jason's white pine next door. Too bad it hasn't taken out the neighbor's black walnut tree, but three's still time to hope.

On a positive note, it has given me some time to just shut myself in the house and read and do other stuff. It's a little hard to be stuck in the house with a toddler all week, but at least we had one day out yesterday. I did make it in to work for a few hours, and Olive was able to get to Daycare.

I am still reading Urban Homesteading and totally loving it. Of course, a lot of the stuff they can do is much easier to facilitate in Southern California, but there are still some good ideas. I'm definitely going to set up rain barrels this summer for the eaves troughs, and I think I am going to install soaker hoses in my raised beds. I've also decided to divert the condensate line from the AC unit out to a barrel of some sort to use on the garden. It's amazing how much water that can pump out when the AC is going all day in the summer.

I'm really excited to see if my solar attic fan is going to make an impact when it gets hot again...(whenever that is) I hope so. I'm just trying to do everything I realistically can to lighten my environmental footprint. Sure, I'd like to go start an organic farm and live off-grid, but I'm not sure that's really practical for us right now. So in the meantime, I am just trying to do everything I can within reason. Did I mention my paper shredder? I ordered one, and now I am composting all the non-shiny paper and junkmail from around the house. Sometimes I'll bring stuff home from the office too. So far the worms love it, and I thin kit makes a nice "brown layer" of compost which also helps to deter Randy the Rat. If I had some spare money, I'd love to install solar hot water, but that's not cheap. And since the future of my employment is somewhat questionable, I'm hesitant to make a huge investment if we end up having to move somewhere.

The tomato seedlings are doing great!