The Green Beast Bit Aries

Our first hard freeze was looming last week, so it was time to bring in all the tender crops. Two days prior, I'd cut all the squash and cucumbers; the day before all the chiles, peppers, and eggplants. As I snipped apart tomato plants and hauled tubful after tubful of green tomatoes up to the house, Aries was busy clear-cutting the stripped-clean plants and hauling loads up to the chipper/shredder.

After a break for lunch, he started processing everything for the compost pile. I was down by the garden shed - organizing the cages and trellises for storage, coiling up soaker hoses. Faintly, I heard Aries calling me from up near the house. I poked my head around the shed to see what he wanted. "Get up here! You have to drive me to the emergency room," he yelled down.

I thought he was kidding, and replied, "Yeah, right."

"No!" he said, "I really mean it! I caught my hand in the shredder! Get up here!!"

I ran. He was holding the fingers of his left hand with his right. At least, there was no spurting blood. I grabbed a clean washcloth for his hand, closed up the house (it was threatening rain), and grabbed my purse and keys. The hospital is about five miles away, on the other edge of town. It took me maybe 10 minutes to drive, and they got him into an emergency room right away. I settled in and waited, for hours, as they x-rayed and stitched him up, updated his tetanus immunization plus gave him two massive doses of antibiotics (those two shots, one in each arm, were the only things that brought tears to his eyes) and finally sent us home with prescriptions for pain-killers and more antibiotics.

He's reasonable lucky, albeit in quite a bit of pain. He was sweeping the shredded pile away from beneath the bottom screen, using a piece of board. There's a rounded guard piece there, with nickle-sized holes for the material to fall through. The holes are also just big enough, that when his grip on the board slipped, to let the tip of his middle finger on his left hand slip through. In an instant, it shredded his fingertip, shattering the bone into pieces. Fortunately, it didn't penetrate deep enough to damage the joint. Right now, he has 20 stitches and his hand in a cast, but it looks like the bones will knit back together.

We're ok financially. He has pretty good insurance coverage through work, and we have enough liquid savings to pay the deductibles and emergency room co-pays. His bosses are looking to see if they have any modified light-duty position he could do, but it's not likely. So we're now in the waiting period before his medical leave of absence gets approved. It's looking like he'll be out of work for 6 - 8 weeks.

I have to tie his shoes for him each morning, but since it was his non-dominant hand he's managing ok for the most part. I've had to take over the firewood hauling, and putting the garden to bed. Aries just finished up with the antibiotics, and is cutting back on the pain-killers. He's not the type to just sit around though, so being so restricted in his actions is really getting to him. Plus, I know he's berating himself for getting into such a fix in the first place.

So, could this accident have been prevented? He's always so careful around machinery - wears safety glasses, heavy boots, tucks in his shirt, but hates wearing gloves. In this case, gloves might have been enough to have been stopped by the size of the holes. As I said, it was threatening to rain that afternoon, so he wanted to get everything finished up before it started - maybe he was rushing the job a bit. He'd sprained a couple of fingers on his right hand at work the week before, so he's been using his non-dominant hand more instead. The lack of coordination in his left might have been a factor. We'll make it through this. It's a shock, but not a disaster.

This Year's Corn Patch

I really need to get better organized with my garden seed storage - not the actual storing of the seeds, but seed expiration dates. I know some of my seeds are too old. I find it hard to just throw them out, though. I also have seeds that I grew once or twice, and then they never seem to make the cut again when it comes to plotting out my growing space.

Time to sit down and clear things out. Sowing seeds that no longer germinate just wastes time, and my growing season is short enough as it is. Hanging on to seeds I'll probably never plant is silly too. Time to whittle my seed storage box down to what I know I like, will grow here, and then keep up with it.

What brought on this rant is the sorry state of this year's corn patch. Wanting to spread the harvest out over many weeks, I have packets of seeds with varying maturity dates - plant once and harvest in succession. But this also means only planting a few of each type each year, so some of those packets are getting up in years. Some, this year, didn't germinate at all; others were down to less than 30%. Luckily, I track what is where (or should be, anyway), so I do know which packets to toss out for the birds.

I think I was able to salvage my corn harvest for this year, though. I've been trying to move more and more to saving my own seeds, so have been giving various non-hybrid varieties a trial or two in my garden. Hometown Seeds has a prepared package of emergency "survival seeds" - a packet designed to store in your freezer, with enough seeds for 3-4 seasons worth, or enough to get an entire block of neighbors growing their own fresh food (a good idea, in my mind - if things really did deteriorate to a genuine emergency state, I don't think I'd want to have the only food source in sight). I've seen other survival seed packages listed online, but I live in a rather rigorous growing environment. Just because something grows well in the Great Plains or Florida doesn't mean I'll get a crop from it. But Hometown Seeds is in Utah - the same Great Basin, high-desert, environment as my home. If things do well for them, they should be good here too.

So, one of my corn rows was their Golden Bantam 8 variety. Those seeds are great! Every one of them popped right up (however, growing well is only half the trial - they have to pass the taste test too). And since I'm used to the lower germination rates of other seed sources, I'd planted too many of them. Corn, being a grass-type plant, can take transplanting though, so that's what I did. I dug out every other GB8 plant and moved it over to fill in the gaps in three other rows.

Not quite enough, though. I still had two almost empty rows. But while grocery shopping the other evening, I checked out the little seed stand there. I found a packet of Trinity Hybrid - at 64 days, the shortest days-to-harvest I could find. I got them in the ground night before last (with lots of protection from hungry birds until they get up and growing). I'm hoping, with the hot days now, that they'll be up in no time . Our first frosts can come anytime after mid-September, but will sometimes hold off until early October. So maybe, just maybe, they'll have just enough time to set a crop.

First Crocus Blooms

Look what was outside my window, after last night's snow had melted away - Spring's first crocus, cheerily opening up protected from marauding chickens by the wire laid down over the herb bed. After things had dried out a bit more this afternoon, the dog and I got out for a walk in the sun.

Thursday, February 19, was also my scheduled day to write for the Simple Green Frugal Co-op blog, so I spent the morning getting that together and online. I say it "was" my day, because the blog was originally set up in Australia and this morning was already tomorrow there. I found it frustrating at first, trying to time my postings correctly, until I found this colorful little real-time website. The Sun Clock option is pretty cool too. Anyway, after thinking about the recent wildfires in Australia I thought I'd write about preparing to evacuate in an emergency wildfire situation. We've gotten that dreaded knock on our door twice, had to leave once, and watched a few more times as flames covered our hillsides. So I do know a bit about the numb brainlock that can strike at such a time, and why it's best to have things written out and prepared ahead of time.

Winter Driving Emergencies

I check in on what's happening with Annette, over at the Ward House quite often. She wrote about being unexpectedly stranded by the weather recently, and about how unprepared they were. Luckily, friends lived nearby, but she asked about what she should have had in the car to be more prepared for a winter emergency. I've had a lot of experience driving alone over snowy mountain passes, so I responded with what is currently in my car. I thought maybe others could benefit from hearing what I keep in my car for winter driving emergencies, so I'm expanding my comment into this post. Maybe this will spark some ideas of what to stash in your own winter vehicle.

Behind my driver's seat I keep a rolled-up fleece blanket, a roll of paper towels (to clean off spattered headlights and windows), a big bottle of water (mainly for cleaning spatters too, but drinkable in an emergency), an ice scraper and a snow brush. Underneath the seat are an umbrella, a billed hat, and old but still usable wiper blades. In the glove box I keep a flashlight and extra batteries, spare glasses, and sunglasses. I always have my purse, with sunscreen and chapstick.

In the trunk is a box holding an old pair of felt-pack boots (the rubber uppers are held together with duct tape, but they'll work in an emergency) stuffed with a billed cap, knit hat, gloves, knee-high wool socks and a couple of kerchiefs, plus an old down army-surplus mummy sleeping bag liner and some candles and matches in a tin can. There's also a small folding military-type shovel. I can get to these items from inside the car by folding down the back seat if necessary. To keep the box (and other stuff) from sliding back and forth in my trunk, I put down a couple strips of no-slide drawer liners. The rest of the trunk is empty most of the time, eliminating excess weight to increase fuel efficiency.

The bottom of my trunk lifts up, allowing access to a small compartment that holds the spare tire (it's one of those weeny wheels, not a full-size spare). I've managed to fit quite a bit of emergency supplies into that compartment. Wrapped around the tire are a tow rope, a set of jumper cables, and tire cables (there isn't enough clearance in my wheel wells for chains). Tucked in alongside and over the top are half a bag of kitty litter, a mechanic's jumpsuit, a small towel, an old jean jacket, and a big plastic hooded poncho to either wear or put down on the ground while putting the cables on. Over where the jack is stored is enough room for a survival knife. Things I really should have, but don’t, are a cell phone and those reflective stand-up triangles (or flares, but I prefer re-usable items).

A few more words about using tire chains (or cables): when you have to put them on, it's guaranteed to be sloppy, cold, and wet out. If you know ahead of time that you'll have to be putting chains on up ahead, it's better to put them on while you're still in the parking garage. If that's not possible, get as far off the travel lane someplace you're still able to get back on the road. Having some kind of plastic to kneel on can help keep you from getting soaked. Here in the Sierras, there are often guys that can get your chains on and off for you - but they only take cash, so carry a couple of tens or twenties. Chains need to be tightened with a rubber ring with hooks on it. That rubber can degrade and crack apart over time, so check each winter to see if you need to replace those.

Try to drive on the "top half" of your tank. Cold weather can increase condensation inside a near-empty gas tank, causing problems, and you don't want to be worrying about running out of gas while you wait for an accident up ahead to be cleared. If you do end up stranded out on the open road, it's better to stay in your car - tie a kerchief to the antenna to signal that there's someone inside. Try to stay as dry as possible. If you're running the engine (preferably only periodically) to stay warm, make sure the tailpipe isn't blocked with snow. Tragically, three young Squaw Valley employees died near here a couple of days ago, in their snowed-in car, from carbon monoxide poisoning. Check the road and weather conditions before you leave, let someone know where you're going, and again when you arrive. Being prepared may help prevent a tragedy.