The gardening year begins...

Sprout soon little peppers!

I’ll be heading out to the house at the end of the month to get the garden ready, but the first step is to start the seeds.  This year, I’ll try a variety of vegetables (mostly traditional, regional crops) to see how they survive with little attention.  However, the main crop will be chile.  I’ve started about 250 seeds and the hope is that they will be ready to transplant at the beginning of May when I go out again.  These little seeds have no idea what adventures await them!

Bottlecap Update

The gift of caps - who can refuse?

The caps keep rolling in!  This project seems to have taken on a lot of inertia; people just love to give me their caps.  I work at the library and strangers bring me bags of caps.  We've even had a sackfull in the bookdrop.  A friend's cousin from out of state recently sent a box (see above) with over 2400 caps - amazing! 

The current total is just over 12,000.  I haven't done anything to restrict or select for certain colors or brands, so I have quite a selection of designs.  I have favorites and I'm hoping I get some more of the brighter colors in the next few months. Surprisingly, there aren't as many of the big brands as one would expect.  It seems that the people who are donating like specific brands or drink a diversity of beers.  All the better for me! 

The current color breakdown is as follows:
Greens                       944
Golds                         516
Gold w/ red center       512
Blacks                      1092
Blues                       4380
Silvers                       252
Whites                     2269
Reds                        1515
Yellow/Orange             551

Now that the end of the collection is in sight (I'll collect through the end of May), I have to get more serious about final design options.  The goal is to post at least three possibilities in the next few weeks and have everyone who has donated at least one cap, vote for the pattern they like the most.  Stay tuned...