Plans

Been a pretty good month so far - almost all the snow is gone - and we've started working the garden ground - its not quite ready to plant - its frozen too many nights - but at least the ground has been worked for when we *are* ready.

Jack and Anna are still talking more or less behind my back, but I finally found out what they're talking about.  Jack pulled me aside earlier this week and told me she wants to get her little sister out of Bottineau.  She's almost old enough to be 'married' off - and Anna doesn't want her to be.  I'm not sure where she's supposed to stay exactly if we do get her out of there - Anna's been living in our old storage area but thats not really a proper room.  I suppose they could share though.  If her sister is as good a worker as she is, it'd work out - I think.  Might be a tight year or two but we could get production up to cover them.

From what Jack said, we're going to try to get her out when we go into town this spring.  He's got a couple ideas but he has to bring the neighbors - specifically the Odegaard's in on it.  Makes sense, since they'll be going into town with us.  He hasn't told me *how* this is supposed to work though.

I'm a little worried, honestly.

So I don't think about it too much, I've been pouring myself into figuring out this glass idea.  The first stepping stone is building a kiln that can handle the temperature. We can get soda and lime... I just don't know that I can get it in the amounts I'm going to need. and I won't know till we try if the sand  on the river banks is mostly quartz or not.  I'm also not sure what I'm going to use to melt the glass since the heat required is so high that any metal container we could fabricate would melt before the quartz would - even if we can get the soda and lime.

I found the plans for a simple kilt online built with mud bricks though - and I've been working on that when my other chores allow.  Its cold, wet work - but its not too hard.  There isn't much clay up here, but I've found a couple deposits and have been mixing that into my mud.  It might be possible to make a container out of the clay... but I'm not sure.  Good Ceramics require a lot of ingredients I don't know that I'll be able to make.

Jack thinks I'd be better off collecting old poly and melting that - and he's probably not wrong but if I can come up with a way to make glass - even if its not as good as glass from back before the Fall, it could be a new source of barter for us.

I'm gonna do it.  I know I can.

Spring

Springtime is finally starting to roll in with a vengance. Our melt started properly in the first week of April and the ground is just about to the point where we can start getting ready for the first crop of the year.

Last weekend we got together with the Odegaards for a sorta 'spring feast'. Thier larder wasn't nearly as deep as ours and they'd been down to jerky and some preserves so they were quite pleased to have a big meal with us - we let them keep the leftovers. We then headed over to church on Sunday for the first spring service. It was good to streach the legs - see people we haven't seen in some time - and make a little joyful noise as Jack calls it.

He tends to lead in hymns - his voice is just that much better and stronger then the rest of ours.

I figured out what I'm going to do this summer. We tend to start our more suseptible plants in doors, but with more people to look after this year, having a proper green house might really help us along and let us get in a few crops that Jack only tries on *really* good years. Probably won't be in rotation this year - but I think I've got a good plan laid out.

Jack is a little questionable on where I'm going to get enough glass and lumber - I want to make this a real permanent structure - especially with the expansion of the livestock barn we're going to have to do - but I've got a plan. I'm going to make my own glass.

I did some looking up on the internet about it and I don't think its going to be easy... but I think with Brock's help I can get it done. Gonna require at least a couple trips to the river though. And a lot of heat. Jack says I need to run it through engineering first. I'm not quite sure what that means.

On a different note, I caught a snipet of Annabell and Jack talking recently. I'm still not sure about what all they're talking about, but Anna really wants to get someone, or someone's out of bottineau. It doesn't sound like Jack is *against* it so much as he's against going up against an armed militia who's been in control of an area for almost as long as he's been up here.

I see his point... but I hope we do something. Bottineau is bad news. I'm not really sure what we *could* do about it, but I think we should do something. We've got to go into Bottineau soon too - once the road gets a little better we'll hitch up one of the horses and go. But that might not be until May.