Playing Catch-up (3/8/26, 3/17/26, 3/23/26)

I swear, all I have to do is blink and I get behind on posting. The truth is, though, that I hate opening my laptop at home. It's so old and slow that I get frustrated waiting for it to wake up and get moving, so I just wait until I've got extra time at work to post (shhhh, don't tell anyone).

Anyway, the Bionic Cowgirl comes down for Sunday dinner each week, then stays at Nebalee's so she can spend some time with her, too. And, as I've mentioned, I always have a project for us to do. One of Mom's friends said that Mom's love language is "acts of service", and they're so right. We all benefit from it, but I've been extra lucky for the past few years, with her help building Whimsy and helping out with Maggie. So far this year, the focus has been on getting the garden started. Later in the spring, we'll go back to working on Whimsy, who needs a new coat of paint and I've got to frame in a few of her windows that I'd left hinged to be able to open them. In two years, the only time they've been opened is when the wind does it, so it's time to just frame them in.

Sorry, I'll get back on track. I built Maggie as a potting shed, to house the amazing potting bench that L.E. gifted me. At the beginning of March, the Bionic Cowgirl and I put that potting bench to work starting seeds. Last year, and the year before, our seed starting didn't go very well, so I was determined to be successful this year. I bought trays with domes, fancy organic starting soil, and grow lights. I plugged in an oil heater and put it on a timer, so the temps wouldn't drop overnight. Our seeds are more spoiled than any other being on our place, they'd better grow!

Leeks and bell peppers

Once the seeds were nestled in their boxes under their grow lights, we put up a utility shelf. I have lots of cool things in the Magical Potting Shed, but most of the actual business of potting is hidden away in the potting bench. Having a utility shelf within easy reach to hold everything we use every day was a no-brainer, so Mom helped me get it put up.

With the seeds planted, and the shelf up, I put Mom to work spray painting the cinder blocks I chose to use for flower boxes. She painted them a metallic silver, then we filled them with potting soil. Now, we just have to wait a couple more weeks to plant the sweet peas in them.

The book nook was meant for living in Maggie, but she gets so dusty that I knew I needed to protect the nook in some way. Jay suggested an acrylic display box, which was brilliant! Unfortunately, I could not find one that was only the size of the book nook, but book nooks are designed to live on bookshelves between books, so I went to 2nd and Charles and found a set of Harry Potter books to live in the display case along with the little nook.

At first, I was a little surprised with myself that I'd go buy books just for display - books are for reading! - then, I justified it by reminding myself I could read the books. It's possible to just open the door of the display case and just pull a book out to read. Eventually, the Gremlin will be old enough that I can start reading these to him.

Mom and I had a good day's work that afternoon. The following Sunday, we headed to Moab for the sentencing, so Sunday dinner looked a little different. It was late when I got home on Monday, so I waited until Tuesday morning to go check on our seeds. The leeks were supposed to emerge at about ten days, and they did!

Look at my babies!

I've watched them pretty carefully over the last week or so, and only about half have come up. It's a good thing I use "black thumb math" when planting, and plant double what I think I need, just in case this happens. Yesterday, I moved the leeks out from under the dome, because they were almost getting tall enough to touch it. Now, they're in a different window, still under grow lights, and they'd better keep growing!

I need to thin them, but I don't wanna.

L.E. and I started our tomato seeds a few days ago, so now it's their turn to get to growing. 

Book Nook - A Lesson in Patience (2/21/26 - 2/28/26)

For Christmas 2024, Junior and Mrs Junior got me a book nook for the Magical Potting Shed. At the time, Maggie wasn't ready for decorating. She had external walls, but no interior walls or space for me to display a book nook, so my Christmas gift sat and sat.

A little Magic House book nook for the Magical Potting Shed.

Once Maggie's interior walls were finished and I started decorating, I finally bit the bullet and pulled out the project. They always look so cool when I see pictures of them, and I didn't think they could be that complicated. Boy, was I wrong.

I unpacked everything, looked at the instructions, and almost put it all away. 

I was intimidated and overwhelmed by the project. But you know the only way to eat an elephant, right? One bite at a time. So I took my first bite. I'd put on the TV for some background noise, and it took me:

• An episode of Eric Dane's "My Last Words"
• The movie "Bohemian Rhapsody"
• s1e1 of The Walking Dead
• 3/4 of s1e2 of The Walking Dead

to get one wall done.

It is cute, but so labor intensive.

One wall complete, and time to call it a night.

I put it away to work on the following weekend, in which I stayed up entirely too late to finish, but finish I did!

Mr. Boomerang giving my wiring work
a bit of a cat scan.

Finishing the project took a few hours, but went faster than the first weekend I worked on it. The wiring of the lights needed the most focus, but I managed to get it completed. And, honestly? Once I figured out how to interpret the Chinese-to-English instructions and pictographs, it was smooth sailing.

As overwhelmed and frustrated as I was to start eating this elephant, it was worth it in the end and it will look amazing in Maggie.

Pre-Spring Readiness (2/28/26 - 3/1/26)

The last few days of February were so lovely, and, as you know, I'm definitely feeling the spring bug. There were a couple of things that I wanted to get done while I had time and the weather was nice. With plans to start our seeds tomorrow, I had to get the pass-thru drilled for the extension cord. Additionally, I wanted to finish building and installing my flower boxes.

I've never drilled a big hole in a wall before, so it took me some time and research to figure out what I needed and gather it all. I bought the hole borer/cup-thingy, but didn't realize I needed the guide drill as well. Then, I realized that the wall that I needed to cut through was thicker than my drilly-hole-makey thing, so I decided to get a long drill bit to drill a pilot hole all the way through so I could make sure that the holes I drilled from each side would line up.

In theory, it was a good idea. In practice, well, it would have been a great idea if I'd drilled my pilot hole exactly parallel to the ground, but I failed to do so. I drilled the first hole from the outside of the building to the inside, as far as I could, then I handed off the drill to Jay to drill from the inside to the outside.

I'd managed to drill my pilot hole straight through at enough of an angle that the holes were off by ... a bit. Jay took after it again, and was able to connect the two holes. The result was that the outside hole was bigger than the inside one. Oops. Never fear! GunDiva is a do-er, as we well know, so I found the little crescent moon shaped piece of wall and wood glued it back into place, making the holes mostly match in size.

Then, I took a bit of PVC pipe and threaded it through the hole, creating the pass-thru. Jay caulked around the pipe on both sizes to keep it in place.

Inside Maggie.

Outside. You can see where I glued the piece
in place. I'll hit it with some more paint, and
it'll be less noticeable.

Now, when we need power to the Magical Potting Shed, we can remove the caps and run an extension hose through to provide power.

With that done, I set about building the flower boxes out of scrap wood we had laying around. Using scrap wood means that the flower boxes won't be identical, but they'll be close enough. Really, once the flowers are in and growing, it won't matter if the boxes match or not. They're approximately 40"x40" each, and I'm already panicking that they won't be big enough to grow all the flowers I bought. lol.

I also 'planted' my birdcage trellises, and secured them to Maggie's outer wall, in an effort to keep the winds from relocating them to the corn field south of us.

I laid a couple layers of cardboard down as weed barrier, and will fill the boxes with fertilizer and garden soil in the next couple of weeks. The school desk will get refinished and painted shimmery black to match the plant stands on the left, but I'll paint the metal legs silver, so it won't be quite such a black hole. L.E. likes to sit on that chair, so I'll put a flagstone stepping stone in there as a step/foot rest between the flowers.

I had intended to build smaller flower boxes out of old pallets around the base of the archway for the sweet peas, but saw a better (read: easier/lazier) idea online to use cinderblocks turned so that the holes are facing upward. Just fill the holes with soil and plant. We just happen to have a few old cinderblocks laying around the property that I can use for the project.

~~~~~

Last weekend, I feel like I got a lot accomplished, but I still wasn't quite ready to start seeds tomorrow. Last night, after circus, I headed out to Maggie to get the radiant heater and timer set up. The pass-thru worked perfectly! Tonight, after work, I'll go mount the surge protector outlet on the wall, so that we'll have a secure place to plug in our supplemental grow lights. There's also a bit of rearranging that needs to be done, but that will take 30 seconds to do.

The solar light chandelier that I made last summer lit up the space beautifully, and the radiant heater made it so cozy in there. I had to get some soil packed up for my sister, and as I was doing so, I was reflecting on how lovely, and, yes, magical, Maggie is.

Tomorrow afternoon, L.E. and I are going to get some seeds started and I can't wait to work in this cozy little spot.

More Spring Pretending (2/16/26)

When I ordered the flowers that I wanted from the "Goth Garden Bundle", I looked at flower heights, because I didn't want them to grow too tall. 

The seeds arrived and I went through them, reading the sowing instructions and plant heights to start planning out the flower beds. Well, one of the packages of flower seeds I ordered was Beaujolais Sweet Peas. Only then did I realize I misread the heights as 7-8 inches. In actuality, they grow 7-8 feet. 

I had already scrounged around and used all of the cattle panels and t-posts on the property, so since Mom was down with the truck last week to deliver the bunk beds, I asked her to stop by Tractor Supply to pick up a hog panel and some t-posts to build another trellis/archway.

Mom dropped me and my supplies off, then had to run off to meet Junior. Usually, I have Jay come help me when I'm putting up an archway, because I never really put any thought into doing it myself. I had run across a FB reel of an old guy demonstrating how to do it solo, and put my do-er pants on. 

Could I have waited until the weekend when Jay was home to help? Of course. 

Did I want my arch trellis put up Right Now? Of course. 

After watching the old farmer do it on his reel a couple of weeks prior, I decided I could do it my own self.

So I did.

Three quarters of the way complete, 
I needed a break.

Using the t-post driver while holding being backed into the hog panel to keep it out of the way was a lot more difficult than I'd anticipated. But I'm stubborn, and I wanted it done. After a short break, I got back at it, and got the fourth t-post driven and secured the panel to the posts with wire.

The posts on the left are not at all square.
I don't care :)

Now, I have to build the flower boxes to go around the base of the trellis and build the flower boxes that will be in front of Maggie. I left 40" between the trellis and the flower boxes, to match the spacing between Whimsy's tomato boxes and her trellises. It's enough room to walk between the trellis and box, but not so distant that it seems disconnected. I also was careful to make sure there was enough room between the front of the trellis and the barn (out of frame) to the right for a truck and trailer to drive through (the Bionic Cowgirl thought of that). It might be tight-ish, but it's doable.

Pretending It's Spring (2/8/26)

The weather is feeling much more like April than February, and we haven't had a winter to speak of, so it's been really hard to fight off the itch to start planting. Sunday was in the 60s, and I needed to go play in the potting shed.

I secured the roof a couple of weekends ago (as secure as it can be until Autobot and Co. come to seal it and put in a ceiling), and I've been itching to do some decorating, so that's what I did. I putzed around in Maggie, and had a grand old time. I've been squirreling away decor for a while, and I wanted to get it put up.

Back in December, I think, I saw an ad from Botanical Interests for their "Goth Garden Bundle" and it spoke to me. By the time I decided I needed it, the bundle itself was sold out, so I looked at their list of flowers, and individually ordered the ones I wanted for Maggie's flower beds. Not that she has flower beds, but by God she's getting two - one on each side of her door. I took a look at the stands in front of one of her windows and decided that if she was going to have a goth flower garden, then those needed to be black. But not just black, shimmery black. After all, Maggie is the Magical Potting Shed.

I forgot true "before" pictures, so here's the "oops I've already painted
one" picture.

The iridescent coating doesn't show in pictures, but
it's really cool in real life.

Last night, I had to put some cardboard in Maggie, and just stopped and stared at the new paint on the plant stands. I really do love them.

My friend Amanda gave me a little garden gnome a couple of years ago for Whimsy, but Whimsy's so blowy that I knew he'd disappear, so I kept him in Maggie. When my work friends and I put on Maggie's roof, one of my friend's son built my gnome a little home in the wall. I had Autobot and Co. build his house into the wall when they insulated and put up the inner walls. One of the things that I've wanted to do was to dress up my little gnome's home (Clancy's his name, after my young friend who built the gnome home).

The dollhouse door I bought was a bit too tall,
so Jay helped me disguise the fact by adding
decorative bark and moss.

I'm not sure why the trim didn't fit around the door
once we'd placed it, since it fit perfectly when I pieced
it together in the house. <shrug>

If you look closely, you'll see my little gnome
is well-read, with a bookshelf full of books.

A bit of sparkly blue "Unicorn Spit" gel stain
makes Clancy the Gnome's house pop.

It looks pretty dark in Clancy's house, so I have some battery-operated fairy lights on order that will help make it look less cave-like. 

With Clancy's house done, and the plant stands outside drying, I got to hanging things I've been saving. One is a mirror that I asked Mrs. Deejo to make for me when I started building Maggie. In case you can't read the mirror, it says:

I made it through my Fuck Off Forties

And I'm halfway through my Feral Fifties

Heading into the Sea Witch Sixties

Swamp Queen Seventies

Eat Me Eighties, and the

Naughty Nineties

The future is looking bright, kids.

I've had that mirror wrapped in it's bubble mailer, hidden in the potting bench since we brought the potting bench up from L.E.'s basement and it feels good to have it framed and hanging.

L.E. framed this puzzle for my birthday last year, said
she thought it would go perfectly in Maggie, and she was right.

Ashinator and I went to on a mother/daughter date
where we painted Tairn and Andarna from Fourth Wing.

Jay gave me the little Potting Shed sign when I started building
Maggie. Candelabra was taking up too much space on the
bench, so I threw up a quick corner shelf for it.

A friend gave me the shelf, that I then painted purple. I got
the dragon for Christmas, and he'll go in with the flowers this spring.
The gaudy wine glass thing was picked up at Goodwill because
it makes me smile.

My Amanda gave me this amethyst geode.

My Harry Potter mini-verse potions also make me smile.

After I was done puttering around, I just sat in Maggie and enjoyed the peace. I love being surrounded by things that remind me of people I love, and by putting little pieces that they've given me into Maggie, it certainly makes her feel magical.

And Then, the Wind Came

I was so excited to have the Magical Potting Shed done enough to start decorating, and playing in. And then, we had a "wind event". Wind isn't new to our area, we get our share. Sustained, high winds, though, that's out of the norm. The wind was a sustained 25-35 mph, with gusts double that.

We live north of Greeley, out on the plains.
I'm fairly certain that our gusts were stronger.

Unfortunately, I did have to leave the house on Friday (dang it!). I really didn't want to, because it was so gross out, but I had a private lesson to teach and money overrides my displeasure over wind. When I pulled into the driveway, I was dismayed to see part of Maggie's roof flapping in the wind.

I took video, but for some reason can't get it to upload. I wasn't going to mess with the metal panels while the wind was whipping, and decided I'd deal with it once everything calmed down.

Mom came over on Sunday, which was still kind of cold and breezy. I had no desire to go look at the destruction of the roof, so I told her, "as long as it doesn't snow Maggie will be fine until tomorrow, when it's supposed to warm up." 

That seemed like a safe thing to say, since we haven't had any snow since December 20, and that was a joke. It barely counted as snow. Prior to that, our last snow was December 3. So what if my weather app was calling for snow? Weather apps are always wrong, and we've been unbelievably dry.

I woke up to this ...

It would figure that the one time I'm counting on the weather app to be wrong, it got it right. Well, a broken clock is right twice a day, as they say.

Luckily, it was just a dusting, and by the time Mom came over to help with the roof, the sun was out and most of the snow had melted. We bundled up and headed out. I thought it was going to take both of us to wrestle the panels back to where they belong.

I climbed up onto the potting bench, lifted the tin panel, and the poly one slid right back into place. It is cracked a bit, but the crack is well under the tin panel. It took a whopping two seconds to fix. I should have done it on Sunday.

I thought I had anchored the panels to the cross beam, but obviously hadn't. When I took the time to think about it, I realized that I'd placed it on my "to-do" list and forgotten about it. When we first placed the panels, the metal ones had such a huge overhang that we couldn't reach the cross beam until they got trimmed down. When Chief did trim the panels down, I plain forgot about climbing back up there to secure them.

With the cold and snow still being on the roof, I again chose not to drag the ladder out to fight with securing the panel to the cross beam, and suspect I might regret it in the future. My plan was to do it this weekend, but we've got some really cold temps coming. After all of this unseasonably warm weather this winter, now it gets too cold to work outside.

Maggie's Complete (ish)

I finally threw in the towel and admitted to myself that I was never going to get around to putting in Maggie's insulation and putting up the walls, so I hired Autobot and her S.O. to finish it up. They finished placing the insulation and covered it with OSB. Not the prettiest of wall choices, I'll admit, but cheap.

Since Maggie is supposed to also double as a guest room on occasion, it'll be much nicer now that she's insulated. There's just enough room for a twin-sized blow up, or a camping cot in there, so I'm looking forward to sleep overs with Mav when he's old enough to want to spend the night with Lola. When we start our seeds this spring, a little oil heater plugged in at night should keep the seedlings nice and warm.

Mom came down this past Sunday and helped me paint and organize. It definitely is more fun to "play house" with someone else. When she was sweeping out all of the dirt and sawdust, I told her that it felt like we were playing Boxcar Children.

There is an art to sweeping, and Mom
has mastered it.* The floor was clean enough
to eat from when she was done.

It took us a good couple of hours to finish painting and organizing, but it was fun. Now all that's left is the fun decorating-type stuff.

My Amanda gave me my little gnome, and my
young friend built him a house. When 
Autobot and Co. were putting up the walls, I
asked them to cut his house into the walls.

Yes, I know the tines should face inward for the
Gremlin's garden tools, but they don't fit the hooks
that way, plus access is currently blocked by the chalkboard.

The candelabra will go up on a shelf, once I get one built.
The antique recipe box on the right stores all of our seeds.
We built the potting shed around that amazing cabinet that
is now our potting bench.

Various planting/maintenance implements on the
little cart. Yes, that's a vase full of bones from the yard.

While I love the small bit of light let in by the 'skylights', I'll likely end up insulating the ceiling, in which case, they'll be covered up. Maybe. Autobot and Co. might be able to frame it somehow so that I still get a tiny bit of light.

Everything else that needs done really is the fun decorating stuff. I've asked Jay to paint a 'home' around the gnome's opening. My SIL, Mrs. Deejo, made me a really fun mirror that needs framed and hung, L.E. gifted me the perfect framed puzzle for Maggie, and there are just a ton of other small little things I want to do.

I'm so thrilled that I was able to get Maggie built, and she truly lives up to her Magical Potting Shed name.

*I have a very similar picture of Mom sweeping out the shop when Bill ran the electric to it. 

My Brain is Tired, Plus Pretty Pictures

Mid-October, I got a call from my boss. Our safety guy had been poached, I mean, borrowed, by another plant and would be out until at least the end of the year. Would I be interested in helping out here and there with the safety needs at our plant? My answer, was, of course, absolutely! I love, love my job in the lab, but we'd been fairly slow and I was starting to feel stagnant. Helping out in safety would engage my brain and keep me busy.

Holy cow, did my brain get engaged! I only had a few hours with our safety guy to go over things I needed to know to lead the weekly safety trainings and entering things into the corporate sites. When I say they poached, I mean, borrowed, him they did so very quickly. He learned he needed to be at the other plant, in another state the following Tuesday. I got the call asking for help on Thursday evening, which left Friday for me to get up to speed.

I've been exhausted since. Of course it wasn't just the two things I was tasked to do. After a couple of weeks, when I had gotten the hang of what I thought I'd be doing, a few more things got added on, and then the corporate people learned my name and next thing I know, about 75% of my day is safety and the rest in the lab. Thank goodness, my lab coworker can pick up my slack.

I learned last week that our safety guy is now going to be out of state until June, and he may choose not to return to our plant, which potentially leaves his position open. It's become pretty clear that I'm being groomed for his position, and for the most part, I'm game. The hardest part for me, if I took over his position, is that I'd have to leave the lab. I love the lab. I've poured my heart and soul into getting it running smoothly and efficiently. The thought of leaving the lab hurts my heart, even though I'd be given a chance to grow. 

It's a quandary.

On top of learning all I can about the safety side of things (and there is soooooooo much), I'm working on a book project. What little brain power I have left at the end of the week is spent sitting in front of my computer on Saturday morning trying to break down complex concepts into easy-to-digest coherent sentences. It's slow going. I'd like to complete a chapter a month, and have the book to the publisher by July. NaNoWriMo this ain't. Besides not having the dedicated time to sit and write for hours, like I did during NaNo, my 'spoons' are lacking by the time I get home at night.

It's no wonder, then, that in the evenings I'm doing low-brain activities. I've crocheted hats for the cats, yes I did, and am working on a few little amigurumi as gifts for the girls for this upcoming baking weekend. I'd better get a move on the last one! I only have tonight and tomorrow night to complete it.

Growing up, I was not a kid who played dress up. At all. I thought it was silly. But now, in my Feral Fifties, I'm having a great time dressing up the horses, the cats, and the outbuildings. I managed to get the Christmas decorations up for Whimsy and Maggie the day before the weather turned to crap.

The Magical Potting Shed (Maggie) in her Christmas clothes.

The Whimsical Treehouse (Whimsy)
with her Christmas colors on.

As I was standing on the stepladder, trying to get everything hung, I was feeling so grateful for my aerial classes, which have given me the confidence and strength to do things like this. (I was even more thankful for my aerial classes as the Bionic Cowgirl and I were building Whimsy! There was a lot of climbing, balancing, and strength required that came directly from my circus classes.)

The day after getting the decorations up, I woke up to hoar frost coating everything. I absolutely love looking at hoar frost, but don't love that in order for it to show up, humidity and cold are required.

Thanks to a tip from my tattoo artist, I was able to get a good close-up of the frost. She takes pictures of all of her tattoo work, and told me last time she uses the 2x setting on her phone's camera for better detail. I am by no means a photographer, but when I wanted to take a picture of the frost coating the red bulb, I remembered her telling me that and gave it a try. I love the results.

It didn't look like much from the
outside, but inside looking out
was gorgeous.

Two days after the hoar frost, the snow came. I have to leave for work before the sun comes up, and with these stupid shorter days, it's dark when I get home, so I asked L.E. to take 'first snow' pictures for me.

Though the outsides were decorated, I hadn't completed decorating the insides yet. There's not a ton that goes in each, just a small Christmas tree and a few decorations. Whimsy's decorations haven't changed much from last year: a tree, stockings for her and Maggie, and this year's addition, a chicken ornament for Mary Kathryn, Queen of the Retirement Home.

I'd hoped the lights would show
up better in the dark, but this is 
what I ended up with.

Maggie got no Christmas love last year, so all of her decorations, inside and out, are new. Since Maggie is named after Dame Maggie Smith, of Hogwarts fame, I tried to lean into the Harry Potter theme with floating candles. Jay helped me hang them, and I enjoyed turning them on with my remote-control wand.

She looks so warm and cozy from the outside.

The floating candles make me smile.

From the inside, looking out.

Eventually, Maggie's walls will be insulated and finished. I had the entire north wall insulated, but hadn't gotten around to hanging the OSB on that wall and the upper insulation blew down. I've hired Autobot and her boyfriend to do the finish work for me later this month. Right now, Maggie has become a catch-all, and I need to be able to hang shelves and organize her. She's also supposed to be our "guest house", so I need to get her warm and sealed up.

Baking Weekend is just two days away, so I hope to have some lovely updates from that to write about, and I'm hoping that my full brain will start to adjust to the new job so I have the energy to continue to blog.