I’m going to start right here by apologizing.  I haven’t written an article that isn’t a wrap-up since Week 10 and I didn’t even get to a wrap-up article last week.  There’s a reason for missing so much writing, but I’ll warn you that it’s not terribly exciting.  All that being said, let’s see what’s been going on at the Suburban Steader Homestead.

This Week’s Milestones

This Has Been The Winter Of Illness

It feels like I’ve been telling you I’m sick for the last three or four weekly wrap-ups.  Unfortunately, nothing has really changed.  I felt good after our snowboard trip to New England and even during my folks visit the following weekend.  After that, my health went downhill again.  Last weekend, I woke up on Saturday with chills, cough, aches, pains, and a 102F fever.  That lasted until mid-afternoon on Monday.

Yeah, that was fun.  The good news is that the fever broke and the chills and sweats stopped with it.  The aches and pains subsided and I felt halfway decent.  Well, that is with the exception of a cough.  Oh, the cough.  This thing is so nasty that sometimes I can’t catch my breath and once I even started to see black come in from the sides because I was essentially passing out.

My doctor is great, but it’s virtually impossible to get into her office.  I was able to go to a walk-in clinic this weekend.  They ruled out walking pneumonia with a few chest x-rays and have prescribed me an inhaler for bronchitis.  Hoping I’m on the road to recovery…

By the way, one of the only things that have helped me is good ole bourbon!

Gardening Has Slowed, But Not Stalled

The weather here has been really shitty – please excuse the language – and hasn’t allowed me to even harden off some of the stuff I’m growing.  It’s caused me to delay planting other items due to how much room I’m consuming with material that should be planted in my beds outside at this point.

That being said, everything inside is growing well.

The broccoli, lettuce, and onions all need to be hardened off and planted outside.  That should free up some room to plant additional plants like basil, cilantro, and cucumbers.

Oh, one quick update – I did get germination in some of my eggplant and sage.  It seems like they just have a longer germination period than others.  That makes me pretty happy!

Blog Work

As I alluded to previously, blog work has been quite slow.  Between illness, work and home, I have had very limited time to write.  I’m also an assistant coach on my daughter’s lacrosse team so I’m spending a lot of time there.

My goal is to get back to writing next week but, to be perfectly honest, I can’t guarantee it.  I haven’t even found time to edit guest posts recently so I can’t guarantee anything at this point.

Next Week’s Goals

Next week’s goals are relatively simple.  First and foremost, get better.  I’m nothing without my health.  Second, I want to get some of my crops planted outside.  I think the weather should cooperate.  Finally, I need to get the blog back in order with some articles.  Fortunately, writing this article reminded me of just how quickly I can turn out an article if I actually just sit down and do it.

So, thank you for your patience.  I appreciate knowing that folks understand that this blog isn’t run as a full-time job but rather as a side-effort to help teach folks.  Sometimes “life” gets in the way of what we want to be doing.

Thanks for reading!

Dan

Founder/Owner at Suburban Steader

I am a middle-age guy with a wife, two young kids and a crazy dog. We live on Long Island, NY and had an interesting experience with Hurricane Sandy. That experience led me towards the self-sufficiency movement and eventually led to the founding of SuburbanSteader.com. I aim to provide suburbanites with the confidence and know-how to become more self-reliant by providing content on topics such as gardening, personal health, financial responsibility, cooking, self-preparedness and self-protection.