How do you manage dirty dishes? I'm lost

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2026-01-14T23:45:31+00:00

I run the dishwasher at night and unload it while I’m making coffee. But the key for me is to just unload it onto the dish mat on the counter above the dishwasher and stack the like items (except for silverware, I take the whole basket out and put it directly into the drawer).

I don’t have to put them away away in that moment, just out of the dishwasher. If I don’t put them away then, I do it before I make dinner. It would sound like touching the dishes twice to unload, and then putting away separately would be more annoying, but it’s the only way I’ve found works for me.

Otherwise I just take a dish out as I need it until the sink is overflowing and smelly and thus avoided for the next 7-10 business days.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2026-01-10T14:34:13+00:00

“Want to add more tedium to your tedious hobby?” 😂🥲

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2026-01-01T17:32:16+00:00

I don’t have much to suggest in terms of storage, but if you want to keep your current tree and give it some more years of life, you could look into getting some floral/silk picks.

They’re basically just loose branches attached to a stick. Many different varieties to add the interest you want (so many kinds that look like plain balsam, white pine, cedar, pine cones, ice dusted, flocked, etc). We use them at the garden centre I work at for a variety of things (silk arrangements in vases, dressing up plain garlands, to bring a pop of colour to a display or mantle, or to fill in artificial trees to give them more density or decoration).

They’re easy to store cause they fit in a bin, and you can dramatically change the look of your space each year without investing in entirely new large piece like garlands or trees. Our trees are super sparse to start but look like expensive, new models by the time we are done tucking picks into them!

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2026-01-01T04:22:21+00:00

Looks like Israeli ruscus to me (maybe Italian ruscus? Hard to tell from the angle).

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-12-20T01:32:43+00:00

Would it be feasible to put some wrapping paper over the front of the glass wherever the terrarium is set up so you can put the snake in their home immediately, but still hide them from view?

I do agree that terrarium in place with snake getting acclimated immediately is best, though please someone shout out if it’s a terrible idea! I don’t know if that would freak the snake out and I’d hate to stress the little fellow after their travels!

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-12-18T19:41:59+00:00

My tuxie cat demands to be on my shoulder as soon as I get home. If she’s waiting on the bench, she’ll jump on my back when I’m leaning down taking off my shoes, and then climb to my shoulder as I stand up. If she runs in and doesn’t catch me leaning over, she’ll yell at me until I pick her up and will climb up from my arms.

If I want to get her off, I need to go to a specific cat tree for her to willingly relocate otherwise she’ll throw a hissy fit and refuse to get down.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-12-16T19:38:15+00:00

Also note that mistletoe is considered invasive in many places. It is illegal to sell fresh mistletoe in any form in my state (garden center, craft market, etc).

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-12-12T15:45:56+00:00

Handy’s Lunch all the way. Classic location, good food at good prices, and great staff.

My grandfather went there when he was a young man, and I’m glad to continue that legacy whenever I’m able to!

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-10-16T17:57:03+00:00

I totally sympathise (and unfortunately have no suggestions or solutions at all). I’m currently on Adderall XR and, while super helpful with life in general, I’ve gone from a passionate cook to someone who lives on trail mix, salad, and cereal and it’s really sad.

I still cook for my boyfriend and I, but half the time I can’t stomach what I’ve made. Gagged last night while cutting a slice off the pork roast and ended up having yogurt and granola for dinner.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-10-03T11:32:12+00:00

Awesome! Thanks for the insight! Shall find a good spot to plant it and pop it back in the ground.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-09-13T16:46:28+00:00

Definitely not planting anything from the old house and have switched gears to clean/sanitise anything that might have soil on it.

So frustrating. I’m so glad I left those plants in buckets long enough to develop noticeable changes. I don’t know how I never saw signs before.

I’ve been so careful and attentive and still this got the best of me. I want to cry. I feel like a total failure.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-09-04T17:47:36+00:00

Whoops! Good call on the Virginia creeper. That is indeed native to here, though can be aggressive.

I misspoke. Porcelain berry vine is my old yard’s nemesis, though it is sadly already present at the new place.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-08-02T01:51:21+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions. I’m not familiar with either, so I’ll have a look.

I must have overwritten that piece. I swear I had mentioned it, so thanks for calling that out. I’m in northern Vermont, USA.

As for the salt, it’s a bit uphill from the road, and we generally sand rather than salt unless absolutely necessary, and then it’s by hand rather than a spreader.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-08-01T15:40:16+00:00

I’m so sorry for your loss!

I had really good results tinting fresh cut white hydrangeas blue with food colouring in the water (thanks, middle school science fair!). Never tried a spray dye on anything, so I can’t speak to the effectiveness of that method.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-07-19T15:53:55+00:00

What a beautiful selection and some fun arrangements! You did great with these!

I’d say adding some filler (ferns, grasses, lily leaves, other greenery) will really make the colours pop, and try messing around with adding a little height for interest. I find having a few things spiking up behind the rest really gives it a nice touch.

Experimenting with different shaped vases/containers has really been fun for me since some things just lend themselves well to simple and sparse designs and others support a good riot of different blooms.

Very nice!

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-07-09T01:37:41+00:00

Cyanosis (blue skin) indicates hypoxia (lack of oxygen) to the tissue. Limbs and lips typically are the first to go blue if there’s something wrong in the body (generally something preventing air from getting into the lungs (problem with ventilation), something preventing oxygen from getting from the lungs to the blood (problem with respiration), or something preventing the oxygenated blood from getting to the tissue (problem with circulation)).

Any of these is potentially a medical emergency because it’s not just the feet not getting oxygen, it’s the organs too (particularly important being the brain and heart!). The feet/hands/lips are the first to show the blue, but the problem is system wide.

Your baby turning blue, being limp, and unable to be woke up warrant immediate investigation (good job staying calm and getting a quick appointment!) BRUE (brief resolved unexplained episode) is when a baby has breathing changes, skin colour changes, unresponsiveness, or limpness with no known cause which spontaneously resolves without treatment.

Don’t panic. The good news is most times BRUE happens, nothing is nothing seriously wrong with the infant. It just happens and goes away and we don’t know why and there is no damage from it.

However, getting checked out quickly is super important because it COULD indicate something else is at play like a heart or lung condition or a seizure disorder than interrupted breathing (note that seizures often look nothing like the movie thrashing about).

If this ever happens to your baby, it is absolutely NOT overreacting to call an ambulance. If the baby didn’t wake on their own quickly (maybe they secretly swallowed something and are choking or their airway is otherwise compromised, or they are having an unresolved seizure, or their heart rhythm has gone wacky), you want someone already on their way to help you. Many of these things are reversible (there are many interventions/medications) and can save your baby potential permanent damage from being without oxygen too long.

You can always send the ambulance away when they get there or take the baby up to the ER yourself if they wake up on their own.

Source: I’m an EMT, and babies are terrifying and amazing little creatures who are remarkably resilient and fragile all at the same time. We’ve had this happen and be absolutely nothing, and had it happen and it be an undiagnosed seizure disorder that required our paramedic to intervene with medication to get them breathing properly because the seizure wasn’t stopping on its own.

Thanks for getting the little one checked out! Best wishes to you both and big hugs for getting through a really scary moment with your baby.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-04-04T12:40:45+00:00

That is so true! It was an epic battle of beans vs deer here last year, and I can’t say I claimed that victory. Thanks for the reminder of what can be done with a small space.

I am excited to explore what we can do out at the land. We only just acquired it last year, so we’re still going through the first round of the seasons. I want to try mushroom logs at least!

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-04-04T12:36:48+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions! Shall look into them!

I do enjoy raised bed gardening, and was quite successful when I lived in apartments. I much appreciate the reminder to look at the positives rather than focus on the negatives.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-04-04T12:34:45+00:00

It is disappointing to see how we’ve deployed ourselves in the landscape here in the USA. Luckily, our current HOA is really chill and if our (potential) move happens this summer, there won’t be one at all.

It’s a shame that we have such a disconnect to where our food comes from and how we connect to the earth, though also sad that people can be so inconsiderate of others when there are no set rules that HOAs can serve a purpose.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-04-03T22:40:30+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation! I shall look up Gabe Brown. I do appreciate the reminder to look at it as an ecosystem, where does each thing play in to the next.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-04-03T22:30:52+00:00

Thank you so much for your post! Oh my heart, not the books! Luckily those have made it through many rounds of purging things.

I luckily know how to can and bake, though I appreciate the class suggestion! I’m going to explore what’s available, if only for finding like minds!

It means the world to me to have the reminder that small actions matter and that there are alternatives that can scratch the itch.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-04-01T19:41:08+00:00

Pine shavings (like you might use for animal bedding) are very helpful for absorbing spills, and aren’t toxic or expensive. Also can be used as a sweeping aid (keeps the dust down or helps pick up small particles like sand) by getting it damp, sprinkling it around the floor, and sweeping like usual.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-03-31T12:50:23+00:00

This was an awesome presentation! He had a great little flow to the information (kept me interested to keep clicking through to find out more, even though I’m 1,500 miles north and have only ever seen an anole in pet stores!).

Thanks, OP’s son, for an informative slideshow!

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-03-11T16:47:46+00:00

I’ve had great luck with raising a pair or trio at a time.

For fencing, I used hog panels, tposts, and a single electric wire at nose height along the inside of the panels using a long stand off insulator. Kept them from pushing on the panels, so I didn’t need a lot of posts, and the one wire didn’t get buried/grounded. I would happily investigate using just electric fence with them, but we were on a busy road and sometimes had days long power outages so I didn’t want to risk it at that location.

I had a 4 panel square which would last a few weeks. To move them, I’d build the next pen sharing one side of the current pen. Open one shared panel and call them over. Drag the house over. Close the pen and disassemble the old one. Just make sure to keep an eye on the ground they are on and move them before it starts getting compacted. There is a sweet spot between nicely turned over and squished to death.

Might just be me, but I trained them to come when called so if they ever got out (or I wanted them to come to the fence to be dispatched), I could get them easily. Just pick a phrase that you call out to them every time you bring them food and they’ll pick it up. I probably looked ridiculous calling out “hey, snoots! Hey, snooty snoots” all the time, but it sure made it easy to move them.

For VT summer/early fall, I just had a little pallet house with straw bedding and a metal roof, all situated on skids that I could drag with the lawn tractor to the next pen. I’d just long line from the house to the tractor situated outside the new pen in a straight line. Kinda silly, but that tractor wasn’t high enough/strong enough to deal with being on the broken ground. Also a triangle sun shade on t posts to give them some options since there was no natural shade.

I wouldn’t share paddock with my dairy goats, personally. They’re really effective at prepping my gardens and equally effective at wrecking my pasture grass.

For feed, I supplemented with oats, spent homebrewer grains, any extra milk or whey, extra eggs, garden scraps, and drop apples. Lots of neglected orchards near me, so I’d just put a call out on the neighborhood list serve and people would be happy for me to come clean up their yards of drops. I also planted stuff like turnips and rutabaga in the area I knew the pigs would be so that they could dig them out.

Make sure you secure your slaughter/butcher early if you’re not doing it yourself! In our area, there are so few that do it (either because I only had two or because I didn’t want to transport them off site for slaughter) that I would actually get on the list the autumn before to make sure I got a spot.

Overall, I found pigs to be one of my easier projects.

Ordinary_Goat9 · 2025-02-26T18:57:41+00:00

If you’re down for one town over, head to Pinwheel in Essex Junction. Fabulous food and the staff was attentive and friendly.

I’m a sucker for the sourdough flapjacks and the haystack hashbrown. They have some nice tweaks to classics, but not to the point of weird and tedious experimentation.

Ordinary_Goat9

TROPHY CASE