My husband is looking a little green (as in ‘ill’) at the thought of the work to come. I’m of course stoked by the possibilities and creative joy of creating a home for our family.

But that is yet to come. Right now we’re living in a very small rental house (840 sq. feet). Points for having a small footprint, but I’m also starting to feel like a rat in a very small cage. We are tripping over each other all the time and there isn’t really an option to have friends and their kids over.

Winnipeg houses though are hard to come by. Very low inventory and probably the strongest housing market in North America are making the process very difficult. It may be a long winter in a rental until I can start dreaming of my own garden again!

It all started in March when I sent my husband out to run an errand. He had taken the family cow and met an odd man on the road along the way. Rather than get some cash for said cow, he exchanged the beast for some magic seeds…and thus began the quest.  Well, I guess it really began once I received my seed order from West Coast Seeds. I’m hedging my bets that actually getting seeds from a place that understands the coastal climate, will give me a leg up. (I never did like that cow, anyway).

In early April I started a few plants from seeds which have since grown into lovely plants in our downstairs, light-infested, ‘greenhouse’. Of course, I still hadn’t actually figured out where to put the plants which will undoubtedly need a lot of room.

5 cubic metres is a lot of dirt to shovel!

Enter a delivery of earth from our local mud supplier. The pile of dirt (who know how much 5 cubic metres was!?) arrived and we’ve been shoveling it ever since.

With garden beds completed in late May, the question became when to plant out the pumpkin plants. I think I should have done this long ago as each passing day means that these plants don’t get that loving natural environment in which to thrive.  But with the soggy season still upon us, the quest to transplant becomes more urgent. I’ve taken a leap and put a few plants out…leaving the rest for a time when there isn’t another two months of downpours in the forecast.

Any idea when that might be?!

Also could’ve been the fact that we dropped the temperature in our house a few degrees and put lights on timers. It was remarkably easy to save the energy…and hugely rewarding to get the cheque in the mail!

I recently read this stat on the David Suzuki Foundation home page:

A recent study by Cambridge University’s Institute of Manufacturing found that washing and drying accounts for 60 per cent of the energy associated with a single piece of clothing. Over its lifetime, a T-shirt can send up to nine pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. Try hanging your clothes on a line to dry and make sure the next time you purchase a washer that it’s a new Energy Star model.