Powerless

There is nothing like trying circumstances to make things happen.  And as if the situation we find ourselves in right now isn’t trying enough, the step down to level 3 has meant the power company has gone back to work.  Ordinarily this really doesn’t concern me, however they have been doing maintenance work to replace all the power poles in our area.  This has meant every couple of weeks they would switch the power off for a day.  And now they are back at work, they switched the power off today to replace a nearby pole.  I’m sure I will be thankful for it when a dodgy old pole doesn’t fall down in a storm, but right now it is a bit of an inconvenience.

Without power we obviously don’t have lights and anything you’d plug into a socket but are also without water as our water is drawn from the tank to the house via an electric pump.  And we also don’t have internet or phone.  This is a bit of a problem for Hubby the Un-Gardener and the kids.  Hubby the Un-Gardener is trying to bring our business back to life and help others who are in the unfortunate position of finding themselves in need of a job.  Another shameless plug for the great work Hubby the Un-Gardener does getting people back on their feet – if you need a quality CV to help find work then pop along to CV.CO.NZ.  We’ve been writing CVs for over 10 years and have written CVs for people from all over the world.     Anyway – that can’t happen without electricity and the kids can’t do internet school either.

So, Hubby the Un-Gardener took the kids off to a safe place in town that didn’t burst any bubbles and left me home by myself.  I can’t remember the last time I was truly alone.  Well to be honest not completely alone as I had Jasper the Dog and Fennel the Cat and while they don’t quite get on like best buddies, they will tolerate each other if it means they can both be with me in the garden.

And the garden was the best place for me as it doesn’t need power – just a bit of will power as I’ve been procrastinating of late and should have put my winter seedlings in a few days ago.  I’m not sure while I’ve been procrastinating, but it could have something to do with the weather.  It has been cold, rainy, windy and a tad stormy.   If you have a choice between being warm and dry in the office doing computer related gardening, or cold and wet in the garden getting dirty, one of these options is always more preferable.  Except for today when there was no choice.  It was get cold, wet and dirty or get bored.

Having said that there was plenty to do in the dome to keep me busy.  I knew I had seedlings to transplant but I never expected it would take a full 5 hours of pottering about.  I didn’t push myself, initially because I didn’t want to run out of things to do while powerless, and towards the end because it was a little tiring standing on a concrete floor for 5 hours.

But I gardened well and at the end of the day when the power came back on all of the seedlings that could have been transplanted found themselves in new, larger pots and even got a soak in seaweed tonic to help them settle in.  The nature of the seedlings has shifted slightly from the normal.  There were the usual cool season vegetables and those ended up in two groups.  The best of them were planted into the garden and the rest ended up in paper cups so they can find new homes once I’m satisfied the good ones have settled into the garden.  Then it will be like leaving a foundling child – all my little green babies, on someone’s doorstep and hope they will be taken in and given love.

But it wasn’t just the veggies seedlings, which is just as well as I would have been bored well before lunchtime.   I have my tree lupin plantation coming along nicely.   These will either form the backbone of my mulch program or become nursery plants for the windbreak I want to grow.   This is also coming along nicely as I had loads of flax seedlings that needed transplanting as well.

But there is also a significant number of flower seedlings.  When I was going through my seed collection to find the veggies that could be sown in autumn I strayed into the flower section and thought to myself ‘why not.’  So now I have a load of plants I need to find out more about in order to get the most out of them.  Ordinarily the flowers don’t fair so well in the spring as I have enough on my hands dealing with the edibles and that often means many of them don’t actually make it into the garden.   Or get close to it.  I have a lovely Thai Silk California Poppy doing really well at the moment, but only because its roots found away through the pot and into the soil it was sitting on!

Not a bad day, all things considered.  And now for a hearty soup for dinner to warm the cockles!

Come again soon – with the luxury of electricity who knows what will happen.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)

#MakeMayCount