Another day and the news is still scary

This time it is our local news
I live in some of Wisconsin's finest farmland but up here some farmers are not going to be able to afford farming this year because of the cost of Diesel gas Some agricultural government supervisor fellow (you can see how informed I am) came on and said that "farmers will just have to be more frugal this year"

I found that comment so damn funny !! since when have Midwestern farmers been known for their wasteful spending ways??

that comment just cracked me up

my other concern is for the weather our temperature this morning was 18 degrees F brrrrrrrrrr cold frost on the grass and on my car now being melted off by the sun that is trying really really hard to thaw northern WI the trees are budding so everyone with allergies(my entire family) is suffering right down to the baby poor QT goopy eyes drippy nose the works (yes it is seasonal allergies not a cold I can tell the difference)

I really need to make QT some more diapers I have about 8 which definitely helps make cloth diapering more convenient but because they are all in ones (AIO) they do not dry quickly

I know I mentioned that our dryer's heating element died and well Dave and I just have not bothered to get it fixed because it is spring and I don't mind line drying during spring summer and early fall. our weather took a turn for the colder and wetter last week so I bought an indoor clothes dryer Such a nifty contraption I put this thing up and with the help of some clothes hangers and the wood stove my clothes are nice and dry and they actually come out less wrinkly than if I used my dryer

pretty cool

WELL I did check into the prices for a tea plant because the cost of coffee being INSANE I found a few things
first I would need a tea plant that is at least 3 years old before being able to harvest off it
OK no problem
I found one
for 50$ now I like tea but I don't know if I can keep a tropical plant alive in my house(during the winter our house gets pretty chilly especially if the fire goes out) so I will have to think on that purchase but I like my morning cup of hot something coffee or hot tea gotta have it

I found some lovely banana plants mini trees I so want one of those it grows a bunch of bananas and then once you harvest will produce more COOL and then of course the Mandarin orange mini trees and the lemon trees and lime trees

WHY you may ask is Sue thinking about getting all these tropical trees? things that are not even CLOSE to native to this area of the world
well I have several reasons for this desire

first I like houseplants but I have always hated the useless house plants like the ones my mom grew I can't stand cacti or the assorted poisonous ivy plants or the fussy pretty plants like orchids yes they are stunning and very pretty but to me they are as useless as silk vines I can get the same "look" without the fuss with fake plants

I LOVE the idea of having these indoor fruit plants especially the ever bearing ones anyone with kids who are fruit nuts like mine will understand this the cost of oranges and other fruits is going up and up to me it makes sense to invest in a good plant and care for it

it will clean the air of our home and add beauty AND give us fruit

what more could a mommy want?

besides a geodesic dome greenhouse attached to her southern facing living room?
yes
another fantasy of mine is to have my own dome made of glass to fill with water features and plants if you are curious where this hair brained scheme came from I grew up in Milwaukee WI and one of my mother's favorite things was gardening and one of her favorite places to visit was the Mitchell Park Domes here is a link to the site http://www.county.milwaukee.gov/MitchellParkConserva10116.htm

They do not have pictures that do this place justice but it is such a neat place to visit and see I love the tropical dome and the show dome the best but they are truly a wonder and even as a kid I dreamed of having my own Dome!

We will be ordering our chickens this week !! I am so excited I look forward to having chickens again it has been a while but I love keeping chickens . Friends of ours also will join us in keeping some pigs so we are looking for pigs to buy.

I know I know it is not ecologically friendly to have meat animals but we are meat eaters in this house and there is only so much I can do to curb this habit of ours we have cut back quite a bit but we are not going to be vegetarians

now if I could grow a good crop of nuts up here my kids would be thrilled I bought some cashews the other day and well they did not last as long as I hoped
Zach especially just gobbled them up
guess I should buy nuts more often

Every night at dinner I remind the boys that we will be doing A LOT of work in the garden this summer and that work starts NOW I also remind them that not all of that work will be as much fun as planting seeds some of it will be tending to the plants some of it will be moving big heavy things some of it will be building the raised beds (which Dave sees no point to doing a raised bed garden) and some of it will be mundane things like making sure the rain barrels have water in them and weeding ...which I hope will be minimal with the garden plan I have

Oh and I am annoyed I contacted a company about doing a rain catching system just to see what it would cost to have our house hooked up to something where we have an underground cistern that would collect our rainwater and that water could be used to flush the toilets and wash the clothes etc that was over a week ago and they have no contacted me back

of course I did not save the page I found as a favorite and I cannot find it ..but I have not had the time to do a very thorough search