My Winter Garden

Pine Mountain

It is the second week of January. Last weeks big storm has finally left. The sun is out but it is still cold outside with all the snow on the ground. On days like this after I finish my morning chores in the barn, I come back to the house and go into my greenhouse.

Greenhouse

My green house is attached to the house on the southeast corner of the house. My green house is 16 feet x 12 feet and is 8.8 feet at the peak. That is 4.87 meters x 3.66 meters and is 2.68 meters at the peak for those of you on the metric system. It is made of aluminum frame and polycarbonate panels and is called the Juliana Gardener. I purchased it from http://www.greenhouses.com/ for $5000. The sun warms it in the daytime and if it gets too hot I can open the four roof vents. At nightime I have a gas furnace and 4 fans that evenly distribute the heat. I am lucky that my ranch has its own oil and gas well so the heat is essentially free. There is nothing like tending your own garden in a 75 degree farenheit /24 C room when it is 10 degrees F /-12 C outside. I am able to grow more than enough tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, corn, onions, spinach,beets and beans to keep myself in fresh vegetables year around. I even grow a few strawberries. If I have more than I can use I sell it to the restaurant at the ski lodge.

Doctor Squeekers

My companion Doctor Squeakers joins me. Doctor Squeakers is a 4 year old African Grey parrot. He enjoys walking up and down the newly cultivated rows looking for bugs and worms. How he received the title doctor is a story for another time. The Grey parrots are the smartest of the birds and they have the intelligence of an average 5 year old child. He likes to say, "Pretty plants" and "Time to work" as he wanders up and down the rows. Eventually he goes over to his dish and starts munching on peanuts in the shell that I put out for him. I usually spend a couple of hours a day tending my indoor garden because I find it a nice way to relax. I also enjoy the fresh produce. As soon as I harvest one section of my garden I replant it with something else. That way I am ready to harvest something almost every week.

Lunch

Soon the morning is over and I go into the house for lunch. Squeakers rides on my shoulder and I put him on his perch by the fireplace. I have been neglectful of the fire this morning and it has burned out. I am lazy so I get an artificial pine mountain log from the cabinet and pile real logs on top of it. The artificial log catches right away and soon has the real logs burning with a nice cheery fire in no time. I go to the kitchen and make lunch. I have chicken soup, a salad from my own garden, and my sample coffee of the day, Chocolate Covered Cherry. This coffee available from http://www.coffeefool.com/ is a rich melt in your mouth dessert style coffee. One cup is just not enough you always have to have that second cup.
Lunch is over now so I go to my desk by the fireplace and pay some bills online with my laptop computer. I work on a few of my Internet websites and check my click bank earnings. I have made several thousand dollars for this pay period. Click bank pays me twice a month. Soon it is evening. I watch a movie on my satellite receiver equipped TV then another day is done. I put Squeakers in his cage and go to bed. Well that is all that is new on Pine Mountain this week come back next week and I will tell you another part of life on Pine Mountain.