Hey all… it’s Tuesday, the day we snoop through Noah’s diary. Why? Because we can. And because cartoon characters can’t sue for invasion of privacy.
Tuesday, January 27, 2026, noon: It’s the end of January and while it’s still cold and dreary outside (and about to get worse with the rain this week), the calendar insists spring is right around the corner.
We usually get our last frost in mid-March, so that means it’s time to start planting seeds and therefore pretty much every horizontal surface of the house is filled with trays and mats and growing lights.
And Ruth complains about the mess but also she likes the garden in the summer when we’re eating all of this free produce, so she really shouldn’t complain.
Plus, as I’ve pointed out many times over the years: if Ruth’s mother would let me put a greenhouse in our mutual backyard, the seeds would be out there. And it doesn’t have to be the kind of plain ramshackle plastic-sheeting-over-big-hoop-pipe-frame-ribs greenhouse Frank and I would be happy with; Agnes could go all out and get one of those expensive fancy Hartley greenhouses. But she insists there will be no greenhouse in her yard and me and Frank already ruined things by planting fruit trees, putting in veggie beds, and building our chicken coop and run.
Honestly, it’s kinda Frank’s fault. He grew up on a farm and always wanted to move back to a farm after retiring from politics, but Agnes wanted to stay here in Oak Bay with her snooty friends, and he never stands up to Agnes. I mean, the chickens were his idea, I just did all the research and legwork to make it happen when Agnes was away on her annual Vegas trip with her sisters.
Speaking of which, she’s leaving March 5 for 12 days. Me and Frank need to get together some time this week when Agnes is at the spa to finalize the game plan for that ramshackle hoop house.
I’ll get blamed for it, of course. But I think between me and Frank and Duke and Adam we can get things done. We lose a few days, of course, because we can’t start on Friday the 6th or Ruth will surely see it on the weekend and snitch to Agnes, so we have to wait til Monday the 9th. First day, Duke brings a rented sod lifter and we chop out a big chunk of grass and by the time I fetch Ursula from school, we should have the weed cloth down, planks outlining the edges, and maybe even some of the gravel base.
Tuesday we finish the gravel and put in the little rebar posts that the hoops will go over to keep them in place.
Both these days I need to make sure Ruth is distracted in the evenings and mornings but I think I can probably either bribe Ursula to help with that or get the both of them distracted somehow… maybe I can start a diversion by suggesting Ursula might be old enough to have a puppy… that usually makes all Hell break loose and the chaos and arguments will keep them both occupied for the whole week before I come in to put my foot down and say no dogs until Ursula’s 12 and willing to scoop the poop herself (so… no dogs ever).
Then on Wednesday we can put in the PVC pipe ribs because Ruth leaves for a 6:30am belly bootcamp class at her gym and goes straight to school from there, then it’s girls’ night where she drags Ursula to mall before dragging Ursula to ballet and the mother-daughter book club which Ursula also hates. They don’t usually get home til almost 8pm and sunset is at 7:13pm that day according to the solar chart, so Ruth won’t notice the greenhouse frame.
On Thursdays there’s some teacher meeting at 7:30am so Ruth will be gone at 6am to get her workout class in before school, so she won’t see the greenhouse frame Thursday morning, either. And we should be able to get the plastic on Thursday morning so by the time she gets home… oopsie, we have a greenhouse already.
Agnes will yell, but that’s fine, because Frank will leave a brochure for those fancy greenhouses out on the coffee table and Agnes will eventually phone the company and have them come and “fix” it by building a fancy greenhouse and making Frank pay for it and Frank will pretend to be pissed off at the cost and next year my seeds will be growing in the greenhouse and not the kitchen counters.
I, for one, would be quite fine with just the plain cheap hoop house, but it ain’t my money.
So in the end, everyone gets what they want: Frank and I get a greenhouse, Ruth gets the counters clear of seeds, Agnes gets to yell plus her friends will ooh and ahh over the fancy greenhouse.
Well, not everyone gets what they want, because Ursula won’t be getting a puppy, but then I don’t think she actually wants one or she would take more interest in playing with her cousins’ dogs. Or her big brother Duke’s hunting dogs.
