....and now i dont know what to write.

thought i might have found emily lockhart on facebook, with the name emily mclean or somethin like that.

eric and i planted a bunch of stuff. round 1 failed in the salad containers, egg cartons, and toilet paper rolls. They didnt sprout at all and were drying out too fast, and yet also growing mold. Actually one egg carton sprouted a few tatsoi. We moved the carton to the greenhouse. It did well at first, but dried out so quickly and now is all shriveled and dead. We planted a bunch of others inside the old tree containers. a few of those have sprouted, but for the most part we are not having anywhere near the luck we anticipated.
what could be wrong? how do we deal with the dryness?
we put plastic wrap over teh cartons today, to raise the humidity hoping to get the seeds sprouting.

started doin surveys again for money, god it sucks.
tryin to get into a healthy lifestyle now too but..
just started playin ffxi again

im stoned on crappy weed and im tired as hell.
oh yeah, the swine flu outbreak. man, its spreading like wildfire.
i like that i live in the boonies.
large populations are disasterous.
i got to thinking - maybe this is the beginning of the end. maybe 2012, thats when a new beginning happens after a period of 'cleansing'. so really, the end is now. damn, we are two years behind schedule on our stawbale house.

Preparing to Plant

The beds are all built now in the greenhouse, and Eric ran up to alamosa with the trailer to get a ton of dirt at a time, because our calculations seemed to be way off (we were estimating over a grand for the soil), so we took the guy from the dirt place's advice - start with a ton, see how much it fills. To fill all the beds in the greenhouse, it took us 2 tons, with a couple extra wheelbarrows from a third ton. The extra goes into our coldframes, helps inoculate our compost pile, and will be mixed into our topsoil for our large outdoor fenced in garden (we are just prepping it this year, doing a 1-time till to break up the compacted soil and get out the large rocks, mixing in compost, and planting a thick cover crop to further improve and loosen the soil, of rye, oats, and 3 types of clovers, and a handful of spare wildflower seeds we have.)

We accepted the bid for the septic, for $3750 including all labor from RMS Utilities in Alamosa. I read up on the literature they sent us, it was actually pretty interesting. They use environmentally friendly materials, and the leech field is meant to conserve as much water as possible. Ultimately I think we will be happier with septic. Carrying out buckets full of poop and trying to clean them outside in the middle of winter doesnt sound like too much fun.
I still think composting toilets are awesome tho, and we will use it in our outhouse we are building this summer, using old wood pallets gotten for free from La Jara Trading Post (they just burn them unless we grab em).

We went through all our seeds and organized them by type, then chose which ones we wanted to plant this year. I started a few already in trays. Well, we dont have any trays and cant really afford them, so made use of what we got - old cornplastic salad containers, cardboard egg cartons, sprout cartons, berry cartons, empty toilet paper rolls, etc. I put them on the cheap folding wood tables and right up against the windowsill, but its not getting too much light. The kale in the 5 gallon bucket is ready to be eaten too. And also in a 3-gallon bucket, I started some yacon tubers that a friend in amsterdam sent me.

Heres a rough outline of whats what .. (pardon the bad editing, but just for reference ..)

TOMATOES

Hanging

Moms Tomato – Variety

Moms Tomato – Medium

Moms Tomato – Big

Tomato – Early Red Stupice

*Moms – 2yrs

Outside

Amazon Chocolate Tomato

Black Plum

Greenhouse

Pink Floyd

Absinthe

Jack White

Amish Paste

Hungarian Heart

LETTUCE AND GREENS

*Totsoi

*Mache

*Mizuna MG

Forellenchus

Yugslavian Red

Mizuna Mustard Green

Mervelle Des Saisons

Lollo Rossa

Bronze Arrowhead

Crisp Mint Romaine

Flame Lettuce

Outside

Thai Green Lettuce

Strawberry Spinach

Osaka Purple Mustard Greens

Bau Sin Mustard greens

Viroflay Spinach (Out in summer/fall, Greenhouse in winter)

Broadstem Green Chard (Out in summer/fall, Greenhouse in winter)

Dinosaur kale (Out in summer/fall, Greenhouse in winter)

True Siberian Kale (Out in summer/fall, Greenhouse in winter)

China Choy Chinese Cabbage (Out in summer/fall, Greenhouse in winter)

Calabrese Broccoli (Out in summer/fall, Greenhouse in winter)

PEPPERS

Sweet Chocolate (Out and In)

Quadrato Asti Giallo

Buran

Alma Paprika

HERBS

Garlic Chives (outside and inside – plant with carrots, tomatoes, brassicas, mustards)

Cilantro Long Standing (inside)

Greek Oregano (In and Out- with broccoli cabbages cucumbers)

Bee Balm (Outside, with tomatoes)

Sweet Genovesa Basil (tomatoes and peppers)

Mrs Burns Lemon Basic (tomatoes and peppers)

Catnip (repels aphids, mice, assorted bugs)

Red Core Chantenay Carrots – Outside

Plum Purple Radish – Inside first set, Outside after

Chioggia Beet (inside and out)

Cousa Squash – Outside

Summer Crookneck Squash -Outside

Table Queen Squash – Outside

Cucurbita Pepo (Squash) Var. giroumontia, var wauszquestia

Early Silverline Melon – Outline

Absinthe Muskmelon Mix – Outside

Yellow Orange and White Watermelon Mix - Outside

True Lemon Cucumber - Inside and Out

Armenian Cucumber – Inside and Out

Egyptian Walking Onions – Outside

Long Red Florence Onion – Mostly Out, few In

Austrian Brown Onion – Mostly Out, few in

Eva’s Burgundy Lettuce Seeds (Winter Greenhouse)

Evas Ground Cherry (outside, nonbed)

Hornings Farm Ground Cherry (outside, nonbed)

Jefferonian Alpine Strawberry Mix (inside and out)

Goldan Bantam Improved Corn (outside)

Various Corn Mixes (outside)

Dwarf Gray Sugar Pea (in and outside)

Sugar Snap (in and out)

Broad Windsor Fava (out)

Good Mother Stallard Bean (outside, 3 sisters)

Im angry and jealous I suppose. Both at my brother. I want him to leave. I dont want him to be a part of my dream. I called him yesterday from Alamosa and was telling him about the baby chickens and ducks I saw in Big R, they were so adorable! As soon as I said that the first thing he said was "You cant have one." Like wtf? First of all, Im not stupid enough to buy one right off the bat without something set up for it. Second of all, this is MY project, MY dream. and hes my brother. he cant tell me what i can and cant do. If I want a chicken, I can get a chicken. I dont need his permission.
Im also jealous because all my friends just talk to him. No one gives a fuck about me. He makes all these posts on facebook and they sound like shit I used to write. I mean, its good. I just feel like he takes everything from me. Everything I care about, everything Im good at, he steals away and flaunts it in front of people and gets all the attention. None of my friends talk to me anymore. They only call me if they cant get in touch with him.
I feel so left out and hurt.
I want to change myself so this shit doesnt bother me. But how?
What do I want?
I want to be better than him at something.
I want to have recognition for what Im good at.
I want to have freedom to do as I please and live my life dream freely.
I want to be cared about by people.

How do I accomplish this?
-Practice. Focus on what Im good at. Even if he does them too. Writing and photography. Write weekly at a minimum. Try to blog one, and do one creative. Start editing my pictures, get a high quality printer. Im good at research and organization. Put those skills to work for the land, develop comprehensive spreadsheets of information. Practice didgeridoo. Become more proficient with technology and computers.

-Learn new skills. Learn photoshop. Learn viola. Re-learn to paint. Get trained in something unique that Eric doesnt have like EMT Training. Read alot and take notes (
to help me remember and pay attention). Get certified in permaculture. Move towards goals of being a wilderness ranger, a herbalist(focus on wild native plants), and also towards being a consultant for sustainable living and design. Learn knitting and sewing, make my own clothes.

- Promotion. Clean photos up and get a few bests, try to sell them in Alamosa or get them up around town in Antonito. Make my blog public. Advertise it. Post pics and writings on facebook and myspace. Stay involved in the community, go to town meetings and spread my knowledge of sustainable techniques. Try to get hired by the county. Practice positive thinking.

- Freedom. Spend more time outside alone, hiking and camping. Volunteer some time, once a month at the homeless or animal shelter. Go to college, make some friends, even just acquaintences, jsut some other people that I can be around besides Eric that dont have any ties to him. Call my old friends once in a while. Dont just listen to them and patiently wait to get off the phone, take initiative and tell them about what Im doing, get excited and share myself.
Meditate, develop peace of mind and compassion. Develop passion, become obsessed with things so that I become meticulously knowledgeable or good at them. Have lots of new life experience, experience many things so I have a wealth of stories, try to do some of them seperate from Eric. Go exploring on my own every now and then, just drive around randomly, take pictures.

Relationships - Lose weight!! People will treat me with more respect, sad but true. I know im not ugly so i might be able to get a lover too. Ill be more confident and outgoing when Im comfortable with how I look. Again, positive thinking. Reach out to old friends. Go to a different college than eric and try to meet people seperately from him. Be involved in the community. Pursue my relationships in BARC, even tho they are all alot older than me.

What makes me unique? Unique from Eric?
Im more introspective, tho he is alot too. Im more sensitive and more caring. I inspire him to do everything he does, but then he just takes over and does it better. Fuck I dont know. Nothing :(. No I cant say that, I need to be proud of who I am. But what? How?