08:46 – Barbara has been gone for four days, and Colin and I are continuing to make do. We finished re-watching Jericho again last night. I continue to be impressed by the tight writing. It ran for only 30 episodes from 2006 to 2008, but I’m surprised it made it on the air at all.
I’m still running bottle labels and making up reagents in preparation for making up more chemical bags when Barbara returns. We’re down to only six bottle of Barfoed reagent for biology kits, so I made up a gallon of the stuff yesterday. It’s basically a 0.33 molar solution of copper(II) acetate in 1% acetic acid, which at room temperature is very close to being saturated. Today, I’ll make up several other long shelf-life reagents that we’re short of.
We also have several large trash bags full of 2-liter Coke bottles. I’m sure Barbara will be happy to learn that I have plans for a bunch of those bottles. I’m going to cut off the tops and turn them into planting pots that we’ll use out on the deck.
The next time Al and Frances come up, he’s going to bring his roto-tiller along. I’d like to get a small garden area tilled, maybe 20×30 feet. I don’t intend to plant much if anything there this year, but I’d like to get it tilled up so that we can introduce soil amendments this year and allow them to break down and improve the soil in preparation for actual planting next spring.