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greenstormWell, here we go. Just like that we've tipped over from the dark time into the time of growing light. I don't plan these things but I do observe them, and the observance itself is a celebration. This weekend has been a confluence of returnings:
I separated my first African violet pups yesterday, and planted my first tray of microgreens. My goal is to plant one tray per week for the next couple months, until snowfree or so. And of course when I went in to separate the pups from the leaves I found, instead of the two I was expecting, about six on the one leaf. Potting my sixty leaves up over the next year or so will require a lot of pots.
The geese are starting to pair off for mating, which means I need to get them separated out real quick now before they form inappropriate connections. It's actually pretty adorable: the females hang out in the water, flirting by being extra-splashy and crouching a little low and holding out their wings. I need to figure out who gets to have babies and whose eggs get eaten (pilgrim, embden, roman, brown Chinese, saddleback). I have 3 goose enclosures that will work for this, I think. I might be able to rig a 4th. I need to decide if I can let the goose family nest beside my back door again this year.
It's light now by the end of doing chores, if not full light then at least there's enough light to see by, and I suspect there'll be enough light to see by when I get home after work too. Soon there will be enough light on either side of the workday for me to actually do things without a flashlight.
We did get hit with a surprise -22 last night after a warm couple weeks. The animals seemed fine but I'm sad I didn't get a chance to bed them out with deep hay for the night. It's already warming up again though.
I had a lovely weekend date with Tucker; for a relationship that has more than weekly contact I really need some special events every year. We'd got to a kink conference last month but with how things worked out we didn't really have time to connect and rehash afterwards. We made time to get in to a music festival in town for a couple days, had a nice dinner out, listened to some really good performers, and finally got some time to just focus on each other. That was nourishing, loving, and much-needed. Now when he wanders off for a couple months this spring I'll have that reservoir to draw on.
Also had a nice talk with Josh; I guess it's relationship spring too a little? I guess it takes 3 or so years for me to start to trust someone, and we're into 5 years now I guess. For someone who didn't start out to be poly we've settled into quite a comfortable dynamic. I always tend to assume that if someone is not proven poly in their past they'll trade up the first time it becomes inconvenient. When that doesn't happen a couple times I'm much more at ease.
It's hard now to think of the time I've spent tolerating relationships where I couldn't speak freely about my partners without a tantrum from someone, where folks didn't work towards making their own lives or their relationships better (by their own definitions of better, even!), where folks felt a need to control my actions and my body, where folks were too trapped in their own experiences to even understand that I was having a different one, where folks were so lacking self-knowledge that they were even in denial about their lack of self-knowledge on a subject. That's one of the reasons I'm reluctant to engage in new relationships even though I am starting to have the time and space. My bar is so high now, and a high bar is a thing to celebrate.
The sun is shining in my window at work. The temperature has risen twelve degrees already, from -22 to -10. Imbolc isn't spring; it's the evidence-based belief that spring really will come to exist so we should get ready and start planning.
I separated my first African violet pups yesterday, and planted my first tray of microgreens. My goal is to plant one tray per week for the next couple months, until snowfree or so. And of course when I went in to separate the pups from the leaves I found, instead of the two I was expecting, about six on the one leaf. Potting my sixty leaves up over the next year or so will require a lot of pots.
The geese are starting to pair off for mating, which means I need to get them separated out real quick now before they form inappropriate connections. It's actually pretty adorable: the females hang out in the water, flirting by being extra-splashy and crouching a little low and holding out their wings. I need to figure out who gets to have babies and whose eggs get eaten (pilgrim, embden, roman, brown Chinese, saddleback). I have 3 goose enclosures that will work for this, I think. I might be able to rig a 4th. I need to decide if I can let the goose family nest beside my back door again this year.
It's light now by the end of doing chores, if not full light then at least there's enough light to see by, and I suspect there'll be enough light to see by when I get home after work too. Soon there will be enough light on either side of the workday for me to actually do things without a flashlight.
We did get hit with a surprise -22 last night after a warm couple weeks. The animals seemed fine but I'm sad I didn't get a chance to bed them out with deep hay for the night. It's already warming up again though.
I had a lovely weekend date with Tucker; for a relationship that has more than weekly contact I really need some special events every year. We'd got to a kink conference last month but with how things worked out we didn't really have time to connect and rehash afterwards. We made time to get in to a music festival in town for a couple days, had a nice dinner out, listened to some really good performers, and finally got some time to just focus on each other. That was nourishing, loving, and much-needed. Now when he wanders off for a couple months this spring I'll have that reservoir to draw on.
Also had a nice talk with Josh; I guess it's relationship spring too a little? I guess it takes 3 or so years for me to start to trust someone, and we're into 5 years now I guess. For someone who didn't start out to be poly we've settled into quite a comfortable dynamic. I always tend to assume that if someone is not proven poly in their past they'll trade up the first time it becomes inconvenient. When that doesn't happen a couple times I'm much more at ease.
It's hard now to think of the time I've spent tolerating relationships where I couldn't speak freely about my partners without a tantrum from someone, where folks didn't work towards making their own lives or their relationships better (by their own definitions of better, even!), where folks felt a need to control my actions and my body, where folks were too trapped in their own experiences to even understand that I was having a different one, where folks were so lacking self-knowledge that they were even in denial about their lack of self-knowledge on a subject. That's one of the reasons I'm reluctant to engage in new relationships even though I am starting to have the time and space. My bar is so high now, and a high bar is a thing to celebrate.
The sun is shining in my window at work. The temperature has risen twelve degrees already, from -22 to -10. Imbolc isn't spring; it's the evidence-based belief that spring really will come to exist so we should get ready and start planning.
