I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Our Life So Far
We have done a lot of thinking and discussing and planning and doing since last week when we realized that with the extra expenses, we are going to run out of money sooner than later and we will need a bit more income.
We first considered that I would need to get a job. However, there are a few dilemmas: Such as the fact that EJ works nights and I’d work days which means we likely wouldn’t see each other much. Also, it’s been 20 years since I last had a job and my job skills are now outdated. I’d probably have to get a job working in a store, which is very nightmarish for an introvert. I’d get a job anyway to help out, but winter is coming and only two of our three cars is four-wheel drive and handles the snow well and I don’t want either of us put at risk. I was discouraged by all this.
But then I talked to my friend and we began to plot about ways that we could both make money from our homes. She has ideas for herself and we discussed that I could always sell some of my books on Amazon. None of the books we love, of course, but I have others that I pick up at yard sales and thrift shops to read and I could get rid of my not-favorites. My friend also suggested that I open an on-line store at Etsy. I would rather make items and give them away as gifts than sell them. I know nothing about pricing, or how to set up a digital store, or how to mail items, or anything. However, this option would allow me to be home to take care of my family AND I wouldn’t have to drive through deep snow AND although I will need time to get set up, once I got started I could potentially earn more money than I could at a part-time minimum wage job. EJ is also pondering things he could sell at our “store.” So I can learn what I have to learn to accomplish as many goals as I can.
I have spent my time in the last week considering items that I can crochet and sell, finding patterns, and making the items to see how they turn out and to give myself a beginning inventory. I haven’t crocheted anything since JJ was a preschooler–I kept busy homeschooling, scrapbooking, and writing. I no longer have a supply of yarn so I bought/ordered yarn to get me started. I was surprised at the many varieties of yarns that didn’t exist before. I need different types, sizes, and colors so I have a good selection for my digital store.
All that has taken up hours of my days.
A new store–similar to Wal-mart–opened on Thursday relatively close to us. JJ and I went there on Friday because I wanted to check out their yarn supply and buy a few skeins to get me started on projects. The store is a competitor of the store JJ works at. He walked into the beautiful, large store with a greater selection than his store has and said, “My store is so screwed.” He likes his job, but he’s been looking into getting a new job.
The Taurid meteorite shower has been going on this month. This particular meteorite shower tends to send a lot of fireballs our way. Every time I take Danny outside at night, I look up to see if I can spot any. I saw only one–EJ was with me this weekend when we saw one streak across the sky. Pretty cool. JJ went out with me last night. We didn’t see any fireballs, but we did see eyes in the forest. We couldn’t tell what it was. We know there are a lot of deer on our property. I haven’t seen a deer in a couple of months, but whenever I walk down to get the mail, I see many, many deer prints all along the driveway, just out of sight of the house. There are some prints that are large and very deep which EJ says indicates it’s a big buck.
The weather this month has been unseasonably warm and very nice but tomorrow night we are supposed to get high winds that could cause downed trees and power outages. It looks on the weather maps as if the center of the storm is headed straight for us. Oh, joy!
EJ came home from work early yesterday because he wasn’t feeling well. He still wasn’t feeling great today, but because the warm weather isn’t going to last forever, he climbed up on the roof of the house this afternoon to caulk around the skylights to make sure they are weather proof. He is scared of heights, but unlike our old house, our new house is only one story and he is able to climb up there without too much difficulty. When EJ was safely back to the ground, he changed the oil in the suburban.
I didn’t want to have EJ working on the roof alone in case he fell, so while he was up there working, I stayed outside within view. I figured EJ was pretty safe just lying up there, so Danny and I wandered into the forest a bit. The bare trees allowed me to see EJ without difficulty. At the end of our walk, just a short distance from the edge of the forest, I saw a couple of fallen trees that looked as if they had recently been ripped open by claws. There were wood chips on the ground near the logs. I know that many animals–including deer and bears–rub against or claw standing trees, but I don’t know of animals that claw fallen logs. I took photos and sent them to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to see if they could tell me what sort of animal would do that. Bear? Cougar?
I learned this week about Coywolves, which are a hybrid species between coyotes and wolves. They are bigger than coyotes, smaller than wolves, and are very intelligent. They are thought to have first appeared in Canada in the early 1990s, but have been spreading–even making their homes in large cities. I googled to see if there are any in Michigan and learned that they were sighted in February 2015 in a nearby county in Northern Michigan.
I am beginning to wonder whose eyes JJ and I saw looking at us from the forest last night.
I Love To Go A Gardening 
So be careful of those eyes. Also good luck with that “store” you are setting up. Have fun crocheting. I love doing that now and again.
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