Earlier this week I went to start veggies and flowers for the library's community garden

What's growing on with you all?

[Image description: one white and tan buff orpington and two black and white barred rock chickens inspect my work in the raised bed/sunken pathways garden]

Dorothy, Sophia, and Lucille had fun helping me turn over the beds and made sure the compost and soil were well mixed

[Image description: a small bird I caught in the garage earlier and released outside]

I had opened the door for them but they went to the other side and started trying to go through a closed window, luckily they let me help them back outside

Edit: my friend who goes birding says it is probably a Phoebe, a group of insect eating birds

I think I need to split my tomatoes today.

What's growing on with you all?

Phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space edition

We've got thirty, maybe forty pots looking like this, with true leaves starting to appear on a bunch of the starts - only a few of the pots have any duplicate plantings. There's two pots of chamomile (pictured) and a few other herbs like sage and lavender.

We're also growing wheat for the first time, which is pretty exciting. I've done up a few dozen plugs for the bird yard, which will be fenced this first year to protect them til they go to seed, and have a row in the vegetable patch that I'm thinking of using for seed saving purposes. If anyone's grown grains before I'm interested to hear your wisdom.

What's growing on with you all?

I accidentally let some of the Anethum get way too leggy, whoops. They're still pretty freshly germinated, so a little breeze from a fan should fix things and they should straighten up some and get a little stronger. It wasn't a big dill.

What's growing on with you all?

[Image description: A picture of plants being hand watered with a caption that reads I make them planties wet. Mark this NSFWSP - Not safe for water sensitive plants

[Image description: a largish cardboard box containing around a hundred packets of vegetable seeds]

Our library is hosting a seed swap tomorrow and, well, we're friends with folks whose family runs a local business, where they have one of those vegetable seed stands on display. All it took was asking if they had any seeds they would like to donate for the event and seed library and they gave us scores of seeds. My wife and I organized them this evening and I'll be bringing them to the swap, then sticking whatever's left in the seed library.

I'm really excited about how many folks in our town this might provide some measure of relief and security - in addition to the seed swap attendees, the library also grows veggies in the plot out back for donation to the local food pantry and involves kids from the nearby schools for some of the garden projects.

If your library runs programs like this (or other local community support groups do), I'd really encourage you to volunteer even just

[Image description: a photo of Lacinato kale seedlings germinating together in a pot]

I have more space to start plants this year, but it's still very worth it for us to conserve space where we can. To that end, we're starting several species in a "mob grow" style with many many seedlings in each pot rather than individual smaller cell trays. Once they're of a size for transplanting we'll be able to tease them all apart either for planting in the gardens or repotting for sales or donation.

h/t to Bobby over at Small Scale Permaculture (yt link) for convincing me to try this out with more species.

It's been pretty warm the past few days, so patches of gardens and the lawn are finally starting to emerge from the snow. That said, it's still a little cool outside for anything but plants that require cold stratification so we've set up some folding tables in one of the sunnier rooms to get the more sensitive plants started.

It's bittersweet, starting so many plants in the open - our cat Maeko, who passed away last year, was an unapologetic seedling murderer so while I love getting to start more plants it's kind of reopened the wound. I'll probably end up killing a few seedlings in her name.

The other new wrinkle to our early season work is Juniper, our six month old who is very interested in everything I'm doing, so we're involving her with skills-appropriate tasks.

What's growing on with you all?

After many weeks of low key worry, the state finally got back to us and confirmed that we're licensed to sell plants for another year! This time around there are additional compliance agreements (and fees) that are required but I'm very hopeful about this season. Next step is getting accepted to some new markets we're looking to attend, maybe a festival or two. Now I just need to have the weather play nice so I can be on time for spring shipping and inspections.

Someone gave us a setup for doing puree storage for our almost six month old, so we're looking to add more veggies to the plots for making our own baby food - I would love some suggestions for some veg with interesting colors for her to experience. I've got a carrot medley waiting for the snow to melt, and some awesome purple potatoes, but would love some more ideas!

What's growing on with you all?

[Image description: an Australian shepherd sits in the pathway through the snow I dug for him. The snow is up to his shoulder on one side and far higher on the other.]

We got almost a foot of snow overnight, adding to the 5 or so inches that had already fallen this past week. Poor Sudo couldn't get anywhere without hopping like a gazelle so potties were next to impossible

This past Tuesday I took our daughter to help organize the seed library, and she was floored by the opportunity to pull apart the seeds from a giant sunflower (she's 4.5 months old). We swapped and categorized a bunch of plants, from annual flowers to veggies and native perennials. I took home some loofah seeds and won't lie - I'm pretty excited to grow them this year.

We're getting snow today so I've been continuing to split and store seeds for our own purposes, with an extra envelope of each to bring to the library. There's a grow tent in the garage that's probably going to be the overflow space for some of our hardier indoor plants so I can devote the grow closet in our hallway to seedlings and starts in the next week.

What's growing on with you all?

Are you planning big changes, or minor tweaks to a working system? Are there new-to-you plants you're excited to try your hand at? Let's share our dreams and goals and inspire each other!

This is possibly my favorite collection of christmas renditions, and is the first set of christmas songs our three month old heard (tonight we'll be listening to Dick Leibert at Radio City circa 1973)

Total runtime is 19m05s

One of the country's largest health insurers has reversed its decision to no longer pay for anesthesia care in certain states if the surgery or procedure goes beyond a particular time limit. The original move by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, which would have started next year, alarmed doctors and policymakers.

Anthem had said that starting in February it would use metrics — known as Physician Work Time values — from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to "target the number of minutes reported for anesthesia services." "Claims submitted with reported time above the established number of minutes will only pay up to the CMS established amount," it said in a note to New York providers earlier this week.

That would have left patients to shoulder the out-of-pocket costs, which could range from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

[Image description: our fifteen year old Russian Blue cat, Maeko, lays on a matching couch with her head on a sunflower pillow]

This is Maeko, our old gray lady in the house. She's fifteen this year, which I know is a huge accomplishment. She's a little curmudgeon who's never liked anyone but my wife and I, and we joked that she would be around as long as Palpatine (the hate keeps her strong). But she's really starting to show some of those signs, and someone keeps cutting onions around here.

She probably wouldn't like any of you, but send some scritches her way if you would.

Hey folks, just sharing a video I made (<4 minutes long) during my time transplanting blueberries yesterday. If you decide to watch, thanks!