Too Much, Not Enough

I had planned today to have a focus on harvesting carrots. We have been picking them to use in meals the last couple of weeks and I have had the feeling that it was time to get them up before they started splitting. It's just that today turned into a day of too much and not enough. Too many things to do, not enough time to do them.

I started off well enough. I went to Lowe's and got some duct tape to complete the cold frame covers (the inside edges are formed by folding over extra plastic that will gather water if they aren't sealed). I also got some supplies to redo our main floor bathroom (wallpaper, a faucet, a light fixture). I figured I would be able to get it all done. I should have known from the beginning, you cannot do three tasks on one Saturday.

I got the first task done in 10 minutes. I used blue duct tape to match the tape used to set the grommets and the cold frame cover was done.

I went out and picked carrots, getting a little fewer than half into the bucket before it started to rain. It was still only 9:30. I was feeling pretty good.

I sorted the carrots into six piles. There are the ones with two legs. They get their own group to hang with. I don't know what I am going to do with them. Then there were the split ones. There were only about 8 of those. They are in a place of shame next to the toaster. Then there were the very large, the moderately large (mostly slender), the very slender, those of overall moderate size, and then the small. Kathy and I started with the small ones, vacuum packing them with the FoodSaver 2440.

I disconnected the light fixture, the old faucet and the sink from the wall. Then I hit my snag. One of the nuts that held the faucet to the sink came of without a hitch. But the second and third nuts were corroded. I tried to get them off, sprayed them with liquid wrench, but they wouldn't budge. I had Jeff try. No luck. I got a different penetrating spray. No luck. I had Bobby Dean come over with a chisel. Bad luck or good luck depending on your point of view. The pounding didn't loosen the nuts and cracked the porcelain sink.

After that, I retreated back to the bathroom and primed the walls while Kathy thought. Then I went outside and picked the rest of the carrots while Kathy searched for a solution. The good luck part of breaking the old sink was that she really didn't like a pedestal sink anyway. It was not sufficient for her needs, I think.

We ended up buying a vanity to replace the former. She found a deal. The new one will hide the floor boards that have been discolored from some ancient water leak and has a granite top. Well below market price because it was sold through a furniture discount place where we have bought things before.

By then, it was 5:30. That's much too late to work on plumbing or wallpaper. So I retreated to storing more carrots. I am leaving the two legged ones as is for a while. I worked up from smallest to all but the largest, packaging them for storage appropriately. The small ones were packaged for the refrigerator and kept with their skins and their trimmed tops (half an inch of green). The long slender ones were peeled, lost their tops, and were blanched and frozen. The moderately large ones were peeled and cut into thirds (about two inch pieces), blanched and frozen. I haven't done the large ones yet, but the plan is to peel them and then use the Cuisine Art to cut them into little round pieces and freeze them.

I have done a rough calculation based on how much we have stored. We don't have enough carrots to last a full year. I planted a 4' x 8' section of a raised bed. It produced about 30 pounds of carrots; 25 pounds picked today and 5 pounds picked before today. We don't eat carrots everyday, but even eating them once a week, that is not enough for our family. Next year, I will need to expand the planting to a full 4' x 12' bed. Then we should have sufficient for our need.

In the middle of this, though, there was yet another distraction. Somehow, the condensation drain line for the air conditioner in the attic broke. Two pieces separated. The result has been that the corner of the ceiling in our bedroom has been damp. Well, damp turned into dripping wet. So, I needed to return yet again to the store and get some PVC glue. I have a ceiling to patch sometime in the future.

And I didn't get to the Anaheim peppers I had picked earlier in the week.