Redeeming the Time

Are you familiar with the phrase, "Redeeming the time"?  We became familiar with it years ago during a season when I was mostly confined to bed.  It means finding something productive and useful you can do when circumstances seem to be conspiring against you.  It is not an easy task.  Cletus is much better at it than I am.  I tend to see bad weather as a good reason to curl up with a cup of coffee or cocoa and a new novel (let me know if you need a recommendation; my cousin just published his first and is hard at work on his second).  Not Cletus!

Give that man a few days of cold rain where he cannot get out and til or do the physical labor of the garden, and he is:

1. Finding books at the library on gardening and farmer's markets
2. Reading the books he has already found and deciding which ones he needs his own copy of
   
3. Watching videos done by people who have developed better ways of gardening
4. Making spreadsheets.  
5. Heck, he might even be planting seed in his work-room or shed!  

This past week we (meaning "he") discovered an entire library of videos on YouTube about BioIntensive Gardening.  This is interesting stuff done by John Jeavons and others about how to get the maximum yield with better, more sustainable methods, and being better stewards of what one has.

Lumber has been purchased and boards ripped to make seed starter/planters of the proper size and depth.

The tool shed has been cleaned (a never-ending process, rather like laundry), and grow lights have been hung at just the right height for seedlings.

Beds have been graphed out.

Yard sticks have been laid out on the floor of the great room so we can both have a concrete idea of how big to make the beds (that was mostly for my benefit; Cletus has this amazing ability to "see" something like that in his mind and rarely needs the concrete to figure it out). 

There are spreadsheets and spreadsheets.  What needs to be added to the soil, planting timing, what seeds we have and what remains to be ordered. He is currently working on another spreadsheet called Vegetable and Garden Crops: spacing, germination time, when to move to the bed, what to fertilize with, fruiting time, etc.  Trust me, the spreadsheets are intensive.

We do have some tomato plants popping up in his workroom and hopefully the freezes will be done by time to put them out. 

In his words, he is "nerding out" and seems to be enjoying it hugely.  It's such a relief for him to be able to devote his time to his passion and not be interrupted by that inconsequential nonsense known as "a job".  

I just read this post to him and he explained the math he did (and why) to come up with the row widths and lengths.  It really is interesting ~ if you like math ~ but it is more complex, and has more variables, than I am willing to write just now.  If you are interested I will turn him loose and have him write a post about that.  IF I can drag him away from the spreadsheets...