Iceburg dead ahead, Captain

Hello everyone,
First a blog change.

Well, I am trying to change the look of the blog, and I will say, that I will have to work at it.  I did change the name of the blog, as this is the way I look at things through my eyes, whether good or bad, because of the place where I live, it can go either way, so it is through my eyes that life will proceed, and hopefully as best as it possibly can.

I am trying to find interesting photos of my area, since I live in a 3rd world trailer park, with 3rd world inhabitants, I do not have beautiful fields, or beautiful trees, or a beautiful area, period, so I have been taking short walks around the neighborhood to find things that may be alright to use on the blog, again, through my eyes. And also, it is winter here, and it is very brown, and snowy, and COLD, so I am limited to the day, what it brings as far as a nice day, or a blizzard., or anything in between.

Well, its going to be a COLD weekend and week ahead here,  colder than the last blast we had, and as usual, snow, though I really don't know how MUCH, but we are to have very bitter cold, with lows into the -20 below, and that's not with windchill either, folks, so if we have wind, it will be just downright cold. And I think I heard that the highs for daytime would be like single digits, 1,or 4 above. WOW.  Well this time of year, this is our cold period, we have had high 30's and yesterday it was 45* so it was for us, nice, but now its going to be cold again, and a time when you do not go out at all, or you will freeze body parts off that are exposed. So I think that potato soup is on the menu, and just hunker down and plan garden space and seed purchases.  I was going to dig out some of my cold frame pipes but I think that I will just wait until this cold crap gets out of its system and hopefully the end of this month or February, I can start doing that, and show everyone how I do my simple cold frames and hoop house covers.

Have been getting seed catalogs, and I think that like everyone else, I want to try some different seeds for my area, I am in Zone 5, not sure if its a or b, but some things do ok, and some things don't.  Then the next year, the seeds that didn't do good, do great and the ones that performed great, pizzled out.  Ah, the joys of farm'in.  I do know that I am planning on trying to utilize my space better, I wish I could spend money on good raised beds, and a better set up, but when you just do not have the funds to do so, you have to either recycle or use other methods for raised beds from things that you can recycle.  But its fun to find things that you can use until you can work a plan for a better set-up.

We have a new homeless shelter that was built here last fall, and they put a call out for help and information on how to put up a green house or hoop house.  I went over to the shelter yesterday and took some old seed catalogs, and a book that helped me start out in my cold frame adventures, it was Eliot Coleman's 4 season gardening book.  I gleaned everything that I wanted from it, and I feel that books need to be shared and someone else use it, so I took that over to the director.  The shelter wants to put this greenhouse up for several reasons, first, it will help feed the residents and second, it will help instill work ethic and hope for them and give job skills, and a chance to start over. They want to start a booth at the Farmer's Market to sell their produce also to help residents earn job skills and work with the public.  The director asked if he could call me for help, and I told him, I can help to a point, with my physical limitations, I can't work like a mule and help put up the greenhouse, but I can start seeds, transplant, and hoe, and do little things, but it will have to be up to  the males of the town to  tug and pull a greenhouse frame up and lay the plastic.  I have also been looking into starting a fund raiser for them to help them get seeds. I haven't done a fund raiser for many years, so if anyone has an idea for fund raising, or helping a non profit get seeds for their project, please contact me and possibly give me some ideas.
This homeless shelter was very badly needed here in town, and the sad part of it is, we have a huge number of homeless families here in this small community, and many are hungry, and go without.  This community has a bad side to it, and for its smallness, it harbors a lot of ills that a huge urban area have.  I have theories on this, as this community does not pay a living wage at all, it is way below minimum wage, and some have to work 3-4 jobs to make ends meet, and still it does not help pay the horrid rents that landlords charge here, for dumps that I would not let a dog live in.  I have several trailers here where I live, and the one has cockroaches in it, and mice and the stupid landlord rents it for $550 a month.  This guy is a slum lord anyway, and anytime I can tell people not to rent it, I do, especially families who have kids, who may have asthma or a immunity issue with their health, as cockroach poop is deadly to asthmatics.  Boy, ain't I a stinker.......I love being a pain in the butt sometimes, especially with people like this landlord, he deserves everything he gets, and its usually bad, what goes around, comes around, buddy.

Well, I had better get going, have a few things to do today before our weather gets here, I do not plan on going out anytime soon.  I wish everyone a wonderful weekend, where ever you are, and a great week ahead.  Send me some warm air and sunshine, please.  I wilting...wilting.....

Take care all.