Xiaoniu 小妞

This week marks the first time I’ve ever seen the gas around here breach the $4 mark. It was on the news that some stations in the area upped their price over $4 earlier in the week. Now, a few days later all of the gas stations near us are over $4. One station was at $4.05 yesterday and went up to $4.09 today! Filling up hurts, therefore, I usually wait until I’m down near a half tank. That way I only put in about $40. I dread the day I fill up from empty.

Food is going up like crazy too. White rice is something we buy every so often and we’re always on the lookout for a good price. Long gone are the days where we could get a twenty pound bag for $8.50 or even $9.50. I remember being shocked to see it go over $10 (this happened about one year ago). Today I found one Asian market that had the rice we like for $16 a bag. I picked up three twenty pound bags (it’s not all for us). If I was to buy the same rice at the store we usually go to it would cost us over $23. It’s hard to believe that it has gone up so much in price.

I read that Wal-Mart and other big stores in California have gone as far as restricting the amount of rice that each customer can purchase. The prices are going up everywhere and there are fear of hoarders buying up rice like crazy. Not to mention the most expensive rice is the long grain variety. The US grown medium grain (which is what we’ve always bought) is supposed to be the cheaper alternative. Maybe now it is, but in the past it was the premium choice. Go figure.

I’m looking forward to sampling the first vegetables that come out of our garden. With prices so high growing our own veggies looks to be a decent cost savings. The plants that we started with are doing well. The strawberries are growing well as are the tomato, pepper and Japanese eggplant plants. The scallions and spinach that Sue started from seed are germinating. Today she just planted the other tomato plants we started form seed. The peppers that were sown are taking their sweet time to germinate.

The only thing that hasn’t gone well are the chives. They’ve were sown over a week ago, but haven’t shown any sign of life. I’m hoping they spring to life. They’re far too good not to have fresh out of the garden.

Spread throughout some of the plants are specific herbs. I believe there is basil, some kind of oregano and a type of sage. Not to mention some marigolds. These were added so that we could have some fresh herbs, but also because they are supposed to be good insect repellents for the plants we have. So far so good.

The grass that I planted about two weeks ago is grown well in spots. It takes at least 10 days for anything to germinate and it is very slow going even after that. I think that in a few weeks I should have plenty out there to mow. For now I have nice large areas of dark dirt with a sprinkling of new grass and lots of weeds.

We put down plenty of stuff for the yard this year. This is the worst year for the lawn. it looks awful. The stuff we put down has done a decent job on the weeds and reviving what grass is left, but I still have plenty of areas that has no growth. Now that I’m sure my thumb is more green than black I’ll be putting down more seed. And I hope to have the time (and funds) to over seed the whole yard this autumn. That will improve things the most.

Water is another thing. Rain has been limited lately and the pump is just about done. So, watering the entire lawn is impossible. Watering just the areas with new seeds is time consuming and annoying. After doing lots of research and learning a lot about wells in general, wells in our area and how to correctly install a new one I’m confident that I’ll be able to replace mine on my own. I’m sure I’ll run into some problem, but I think I can make my way through it. I just hope I don’t have to replace the well point. I can’t image what it would take to get the old one out and pound a new one in. We shall see.