Working in Dirt

It has been a good, long while since I've dug in the dirt.  I had a little bit of an herb garden (wow… I typed 'harden' for 'garden'… it's been that sort of a week) last year, but with the exception of the rosemary, it didn't do very well.  Part of the reason is the spot where there is a ready-made garden is just too shady and moist for most herbs.  They like the heat and the dry a lot more than a lot of other plants, ya know?  So when they died, I didn't bother to replace them.  I just pulled them up and sighed and said, "Maybe next year."

It's next year now.  After the herb debacle, I got on Ye Olde Interwebs and hunted down some good shade garden plans.  After looking through so many my head was starting to spin, I ran across this one (and no, Better Homes & Gardens doesn't know I exist, so don't consider this an endorsement):  Cold-Climate Shade Garden Plan.  There were two reasons that I liked this plan.  #1 was that it looked like it was ready-made to fit the space that I had.  #2 was PERENNIALS.  I {heart} perennials.  Anything that will come back season after season without being repurchased and replanted makes my black-thumbed gardening heart sing.

The only thing that caught my attention, as I'm sure it caught some of yours, was that the garden said it was a 'cold-climate' garden.  But I looked closer and most of the plants were hardy to Zone 8 or 9.  I live in Zone 7.  The only one that might have been a bit iffy was the plant right down in front, lady's mantle.  I just shrugged and mentally (and now physically) swapped it out for Roman chamomile.  Every other plant had at least one version that would work quite well around here, and I suspected I could find most of the plants at a local nursery.

So today that is exactly what I did.  The kids and I piled into the car and went plant shopping.  I didn't exactly stick with the original garden plan, but it's close.  The kids begged for a few plants of their own, too, and I'll take a few pictures of those in the coming days.  Doodlebug was especially keen, and he even requested (and got) a curry plant, among others.  My hands reeked for hours after touching that thing.

Anyway, we got home, and I dug right in.  It was a beautiful afternoon, around 85 degrees, and it's supposed to rain this weekend, which makes it a perfect time to plant.  I picked up three bags of potting soil and already had a couple bags of mulch on hand, as well as some plant food, so I went to town digging up soil, moving rocks (in the photo below, you can see the rocks behind the drainpipe… they used to be smack dab in the middle of the garden), adding potting mix, planting, feeding/watering, and mulching.  It felt so good to get a little bit dirty, and now I have a very nice garden to show for it:

How it will fare, of course, remains to be seen, but I have some lavender, chamomile, geraniums, hostas, astilbes, bleeding hearts, and snapdragons (which aren't very good perennials but were too pretty to pass up).

I have a garden again.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of Random Thoughts.  Hope you're all having a lovely day.

--- Last night I went to my photography class while the kids and Oz went to a swim meet.  I left last and got home first.  As I walked through the house flipping on lights and putting things away, I realized I don't have many years left until coming home by myself at 8:30 p.m. won't be unheard of.  The kids will have jobs, friends, a car.  Then they'll move out.  It made my heart ache a little.

--- The photography class is fun.  The teacher has been teaching it for years, and while he has a vague outline of what he wants to cover in each class, he flies by the seat of his pants on actual class content.  This means that when we understand (or seem to understand) a concept, he digs deeper, and if we get stuck, he can stop and show us examples and ask questions until we get it.  I appreciate that.  For one thing, it shows true knowledge of his topic.  For another, it means the class isn't dry and boring.  Finally, it means that he understands the actual definition of the word 'beginner' and doesn't expect spectacular photos straight out of the gate, which is good, because I haven't an artsy bone in my body.

--- We've suffered some setbacks in our 12-week program.  M1 has suddenly decided that he wants to be a grown-up, not the little kid that he cried about not being last week, but apparently 'being a grown-up' means, in his world, that he can tell Oz and me anything and we'll instantly believe it, no matter how far-fetched it sounds.  We call this "making a hippo-rat," because he read something the other day about a scientist who lived a couple hundred years ago who thought hippos were extra-large rodents, and I used it as an illustration to inform M1 that just because you BELIEVE something to be true or WANT it to be true, it doesn't MAKE it true.  Evidence is evidence, bucko.  We've had lots of hippo-rats wandering our house lately; I think we're finally nipping them in the bud.  I hope this phase is short-lived.

--- I looked in M2's drawers last night when I discovered a roll of paper towels under her bed and put them away under her sink and discovered several other things, which led to several other things where those were supposed to go, which led to... you get the idea.  She burst into tears when I asked her what had happened.  She loves to organize things, but she's 'organized' herself into chaos.  She has everything crammed into drawers and almost nothing in her closet, and she doesn't know where anything is any more.  So she and I are going to spend the week going through her room and putting things in one place, where they shall (hopefully) remain.  My first clue that I needed to do this came when she got a sewing box for her birthday and promptly announced that she was going to take everything out of it and put it in various places because "that's where they need to be organized."  Um, no, dear.  Items like needles and pins and scissors stay in the sewing box.  That's what it's for.

--- I would like to get outside and dig up the garden and transfer the surviving herbs (I have the hardest time hardening plants off without killing them, but I've only lost four out of the 11 I started with, so that's really good for me!!) into actual soil, but it keeps raining.  I'm not whining about that - not at all - but it's still frustrating.  I don't like moving items from one day's to-do list to the next... to the next... to the next.  The rain has also been bringing colder temperatures with it, so today it's only supposed to get up to about 45 degrees.  I don't want the rain to stop, but I would like warm spring rains instead of cold winter ones if you please, Mother Nature.

Because It's Warm Today

It's in the 60s outside this weekend.  I sat outside in short sleeves, reading a book and listening to music, and didn't freeze.  The kids played outside for hours.  And when I walked around the house, I felt a tug.  And I knew... it was time to plant.

Obviously the weather isn't going to stay warm.  But I knew when we moved in that I wanted to have a healing/herb garden this spring.  I still haven't worked out how I'm going to have a vegetable garden since our back yard is so steeply sloped (I suspect I'll have to do some terracing and don't want to try to figure that one out/spend the cash to do it yet), but I can do herbs.  I planned out the garden spaces, ordered the seeds, and really hadn't planned to plant quite yet.  Still, yesterday I realized that if it takes a couple months for the plants to germinate and get big enough for transplanting, it's probably time.  Technically they say that April 1-15 is our planting time for outdoor plants, but I have a feeling that March will be better.  I go with my instincts when it comes to gardening, and in this drought and with the hot, hot summers we've had the last two years, I think earlier is better if I want any sort of yield.

So I planted the seeds, and now I wait.

The container on the left holds my aloe plants.  My poor, poor aloe plants have been through the wringer.  Originally I had a dozen little plants in that container, but the cat has dumped them out of various window ledges a couple of times.  I'm amazed that I still have two, and I'm hopeful that they will continue to grow.  If not, I guess I start over.

It may be January, and we could have snow again before all is said and done, but spring isn't too far away.  It'll be here before I know it!

Back To It!

Today was our first day back after a week off.  We have another week off coming up in a month, and then several breaks over the holidays, so I can officially say that we've survived our longest continuous stint of school for the entire school year.

The kids were ready to get back into the swing of things, too.

They finished up building a K'Nex chainsaw for science.  It hadn't worked the way the directions had said it would, so M1 put on his engineer's thinking cap and figure out another way to make it work.

Shortly after this photo was taken, he hauled the chainsaw to his room to see if he could engineer it to fit with one of his K'Nex robot motors.  So far he hasn't had success, but I suspect he'll keep trying.  If not, he's asked if we can buy some of the other kids that come with motors... like this one, because it's $115.  I told him to ask Santa.

M2 threw a giant fit during the making of this self-portrait before finally deeming it good enough to show others.  Despite her self-disparaging words, she amazes me with her artistic ability.  I could not have drawn that at her age; quite frankly, I'm not sure I could draw/paint that well now.

The kids are currently outside clearing out one of the garden spaces that I want to use for herbs and other healing plants next spring.  For the record, I didn't ask them to do this.  M2 pulled out the rake and trowel and begged to go digging and asked where she could dig.  M1 chugged down some herbal tea and then joined in.

These are the days I can't imagine not being a mom and not having them home.  What would I do all day if I didn't get to be constantly amazed at the creativity and initiative of my kids?

Things That Make You Go AWWWWW...

When we decided to put the house on the market, Oz, the kids and I went up to a nearby greenhouse to pick out a hanging plant for our front porch.  We liked several baskets, but in the end I settled on some beautiful pink double impatiens.  We hung them up, and for a while they did great.  

At this point, though, due to time, the length of the plant roots, and the heat, the whole thing needs to be repotted.

I'm not going to do it.  And when we move, the plant will stay.

Why?

This was the view inside our plant a few weeks ago.  Three perfect little eggs in a perfect little house finch nest.

A week after that, there were five eggs.

Earlier this week, Oz went to check and found this:

The little baby thought Oz was Mama Bird that had come back with food.  I love having the babies on our front porch!  I'm going to miss them dreadfully when we go, though, because I won't get to see them fledge.

Still... photos are better than nothing.  Be safe and grow strong, Little Ones!

It's Official

The garden is giving up its ghost.  It's been too stinkin' dry and too bloody hot for too dang long.  The cucumbers are turning yellow.  The tomato leaves are curling.  The green bean plants are being devoured by grasshoppers who think the shade of the cucumber and squash leaves are a safe haven, except they're wrong because the squash and cucumber leaves are being devoured by the squash beetles.  The herbs are drying where they sit.  The watermelon plants are the only things still truly alive, and even that's subject to some debate.

In other words, the war is over.  The heat has won.  The brown flag of botanical surrender is waving.

*sigh*

One Step Forward...

We're missing a chicken.  I suspect it jumped the fence and was caught by a dog, though that's only a theory.  Anyway, now we're down to 10.  I guess natural selection is one way of culling the herd before it happens deliberately next year, but yeesh.  I'm praying that the kids don't find remnants somewhere. 

M2 is in a mixed manic state, and I think both of us are about to come unhinged.  One minute she's bouncing off the walls and singing and dancing and repeating herself 20 times in 10 minutes... and the next she's begging for validation and telling me that she's not really my child and I don't love her and she should just go off and die somewhere.  I'm doing the best I can to work with her, but I'm not ashamed to admit that there's a glass of wine next to me right now.  M1 is trying to be patient with her, too, but he's also at his limit.  He gratefully escaped to his room today.

The lawn mower is on the fritz.  Oz thought that the blades were the problem, so he replaced them, but it's still shaking like crazy and making about twice as much noise as usual.  This is especially troublesome since apparently our back yard is infested with chiggers and hasn't had a proper mowing in more than two weeks thanks to our hectic travel schedule.

-----

The good news:

M1 and M2 both started summer swimming lessons today.  M1 scored the swim team coach as his teacher.  He has had this man as a sub previously and just thinks he's the best, so he's thrilled to have him again as a real teacher.  I like him, too, and it'll be good for M1 to see how he likes working with a real coach if he's serious about joining the swim team next year.  M2 surprised me.  She was initially placed in advanced level 1 and was almost instantly moved up to advanced level 2.  She's extremely proud of herself, and I'm proud of her, too.

I made a roast chicken for dinner tonight, complete with veggies and rolls and cappuccino chunky chocolate frozen yogurt cones for dessert.  I successfully deboned the chicken after dinner was over, gave the wishbone to Oz and M1 (M2 wanted nothing to do with touching chicken bones and even insisted that I remove the meat from her drumstick before she'd eat it), and now have homemade stock simmering on the stove.  The best part is that it's flavored with herbs from the garden.

And speaking of the garden, now that I've put down the newspaper and straw around all the plants (thanks so much for the idea, Elisabeth!), it's growing great guns.  I pulled the first bush tomato off a plant tonight along with two yellow grape tomatoes.  Cucumbers are coming up like crazy, there are a few butternut squash already coming along, and there's a watermelon bigger than Oz's fist - huge compared to the half-dollar-size melon that I left on Thursday!

It's about to storm now, so I'm going to go cross-stitch while we have power and satellite reception.  Hope your weeks are going well!

A Beautiful Weekend

I love beautiful weekends. They remind me of the quote from "Anne of Avonlea" by Lucy Maud Montgomery: "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."

The weekend was lovely. It was cool, especially for May, with highs only in the low 70s, so yard work was the name of the game. The kids and I weeded the garden to within an inch of its rhizomatous life. As soon as the *real* plants are tall enough, I'll mulch and hope not to weed again for a long, LONG time. The ground looks so smooth and dark and warm, I can almost imagine the plants sighing with happiness and spreading their roots out underground.

Oz mowed and weedeated (is that a word??) and started removing stumps from some shrubs we'd cut down until he realized that his brother still had his Sawzall. So instead he cleared out the brush pile that had been sitting in the corner of our yard for a couple of years. It had doubled as a wild rabbit warren from time to time, but the pile was infested with barbed wire, so it really was a hazard.

The horses were gone for the weekend, and we took a family jaunt down to the back of the property to check on all the blackberry bushes. One of them has been completely choked by honeysuckle, but several others are starting to produce, and I'm excited to see what the yield will be this year. The kids found a couple of passionfruit plants, and M1 ran to the pond to check for tadpoles - none yet.

On Sunday we ordered pizza for lunch - something we NEVER do - and sat around watching NASCAR until it was time to go to a birthday party where all the kids got along marvelously and there were no major issues at all. M2 had a blast playing with all the girls, and M1 enjoyed the fact that he wasn't pressured to play with anyone. In fact, for a good chunk of the party he sat next to the fence and played games on Oz's phone. But it was a great party and both kids came home exhausted and happy!

Yesterday was good, too. M1 took a nap to try to get rid of the last of the cold virus he's been fighting. M2 came home a tad worked up but snapped herself out of it by going outside and spending time on her bike and cleaning up parts of the garage since Daddy hadn't done that yet and she felt it needed to be done. My mother-in-law came over to visit and borrow our printer, and when she left, she offered to take one of the dogs home with her so that he could be groomed for summer. I got her a leash and promised to come get him later this week.

Today I went to the dentist, got my rear in gear and cleaned the house - M1 helped without being bribed! - and fixed a fantabulous dinner of grilled beef (I seriously love my two-sided cast iron griddle and highly recommend them to anyone who has a gas stove) with cucumber raita, tabouli, whole wheat rolls, and Waldorf salad. I even took the kids to the book fair!

I'll admit that there have been a few kinks this evening and M2 is very worried about the dog at the moment, as he's run away from my MIL's house and may not return, but that's how life works sometimes. Murphy's Law and all that. I refuse to let it ruin my week, though. Sometimes bad things happen, but it's all about perspective. I plan to have a good week anyway!

Blessed

Six years ago today, I gave birth to one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

It's hard to believe that she was born six years ago. SIX. How did I get so lucky as to have one wonderful child, let alone two?

Because this guy is equally wonderful.

I may not be a "churchy person," as M1 so eloquently put it, but I am still a very blessed person.

Today is a perfect example.

First, M2 waited patiently for everyone to get up before asking to open her gifts. She was so happy and grateful for what she got, even there weren't any "big" gifts. I'll have a proper birthday post tomorrow. M2 then asked what we were doing today and was very enthusiastic about going to see M1 at his swimming lesson, even though I know that she desperately wishes it was June so she could have swimming lessons, too, and attending his lesson meant that she wouldn't get to have a "home day" for her birthday.

After the swimming lesson, we went to the mall to pick up another gift for her (I wanted her to be present when we bought it). M1 wandered around the store and found something he wanted to get for his sister. It came out that he was very upset that he hadn't been able to buy her a gift. How sweet is that? Oz took him through the mall, and M1 found this:

He wanted to give that to her because she loves art and she's one of his best friends. *I* almost cried when he gave it to her, and she gave him a huge hug in thanks. They really are close for siblings who are so different in so many ways. I never was close to my sister as a child (my fault), and it's heartwarming.

After M1 presented his gift, both kids wanted to go outside. A few minutes later, they came back in and told me they had started getting the garden ready for me. Garden? Honestly, I had given up the idea of having a garden this year because it wasn't fenced and I knew marauding poultry would eat anything I planted. But the kids were weeding it and digging up the soil and getting everything ready to be planted. Even Oz fell under their spell.

I now have chicken wire running around my garden, and it's nearly all dug out.

My heart is so full of love for my amazing family. I can only hope that I can live up to the standards they're setting. How else can I deserve to be called "Mom?"

The rest of yesterday

While I was canning everything in sight yesterday, you may well wonder what I did with my children. It's not like I can just lock them in their rooms and leave them there for a whole day. That idea just scares me because I don't want to know what would happen behind those closed doors, and I really wouldn't want to open the doors and find out. Plus, I imagine the Powers That Be frown upon children being neglected in their rooms for an entire day while their mother sings variations on "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in the kitchen while stuffing sliced cucumbers into jars and dumping boiling vinegar over them.

Don't ask.

Anyway, so I didn't just leave them in their rooms. Besides anything else, they had their last swimming lessons at 10:30. Oz had taken the day (and today) off to get ready for Sunday's bash, so I designated him the Keeper of the Children for the day, and he took them to their swimming lessons. By the time they got home after lessons, lunch, and errands, they were beyond excited. First, M1 had been told that he gets to stay in Level 3 this fall when he starts lessons again during the school year. Since he was technically only supposed to be in Advanced Level 2, this is exciting. He's very happy to get to "skip" a level (and, quite frankly, so is my bank account).

M2 was the bigger surprise. In two weeks - eight days - of lessons, she completed all of Level 1!! For a girl who wouldn't let water get in her ears a few weeks ago, this is a massive step forward. Of course, there's a down side. When the woman running the program was talking to Oz about M2, she said, "You'll have to watch her, though. She thinks she's invincible."

Well, yes. That much we already knew. Good to know other people see it, too. Very reassuring.

Oz did bring them home, as mentioned, with their progress cards and the photos he was apparently suckered into buying, and the kids played for a while so I could finish up what I was doing in the kitchen. They did rest for a while, too, because both of them had been promised that they could stay up late for Very Special Evenings.

M1 got to go to his first baseball game last night. Apparently he had a BLAST. Oz took him, and they also took my mother-in-law and my youngest brother-in-law. That meant there were three adults to entertain Aspie boy. It's a good ratio. He also consumed everything he could talk Daddy into - I believe this consisted of two glasses of pop, nachos, a Sno-cone, and Dippin' Dots. His favorite thing? The nachos. Like mother, like son. When they got back to the house around 11 p.m., the first words I heard from the boy weren't, "I loved the game, Mom, and our team won!" No, that would be way too predictable. His first words to me were, "Mom, you were right. Stadium nachos are the best." I love raising a foodie, even if he does have to have a little fake cheese now and then to make his world a better place. Our team did win, though, 6-2, and there were several home runs which of course makes it even better. Oh, and it wasn't 9000 degrees outside, which meant sitting outdoors for hours was something that could be accomplished without complaining.

He had enough adrenaline pumping that when Oz and I finally headed to bed about 12:30 a.m., he was still reading in his room. I confiscated the lamp, and he was sacked out cold within 20 minutes. I know because I accidentally closed a cat in his room and the scratching on the door brought me back down the hall 20 minutes after the aforementioned lamp confiscation.

M2 had her own special evening. My friend Mary came over and brought her sewing kit so that she could teach M2 how to sew, because M2 had spent the last two days attempting to make a pillow with fabric scraps, paper, and a stapler. The fabric scraps came from my mother who is one tiny little hop-step away from the show "Hoarders" and who decided to give some of her beloved scraps to my daughter so she could start her own collection. Luckily M2 doesn't develop emotional attachments to fabric and has cut apart several pieces for various uses. She's got a few pieces left that could make very nice items, though, and Mary had agreed to help M2 sew a pillow because I am challenged (and left-handed) when it comes to sewing. Cross-stitch? Sure! Sewing? Oh heck no. And Mary has the patience of a saint.

Here's a short little video of her starting to teach M2 how to sew. She had already explained how to thread a needle (and given M2 a tapestry needle to practice on, which M2 got down pat first try) and how much thread to use and about pincushions and fabric shears, so now it was time to sit down and actually sew. This was on some practice fabric, but M2 actually did make her own little pillow. She got it about 3/4 done last night and finished it up today and has been carrying it around with her everywhere. She even wanted to bring it outside while we were working today. I told her it would be much safer indoors. She's a little seamstress in the making. She really is my sister in miniature. It's kinda scary. Anyway, here's the video:

The fruits of my labor

Let me say, first of all, that I am grateful to whoever invented central air conditioning. This day would not have been possible without them. Every time I can food in the middle of summer, I gain a new-found respect for being able to stand over something that's blowing cold air directly at me.

My day did NOT go as planned. I woke up at 9, for a start. I guess the kids had decided to sleep in, because M2 had only come in about 10 minutes before asking me if it was time to get up. Most of the time she asks this, it's about 6:45 and my answer is, "mmfffh??" and then she repeats herself, and then I look at my phone and mumble something along the lines of, "Make your bed, change your clothes, and I'll be up in a bit. Go back to your room." It's usually less coherant than that, but she knows the routine.

So I got a "late" start. By 10 a.m., my kitchen looked like this:

In other words, I had things organized but not a speck done unless you count hauling out ingredients and sorting "mini" cucumbers by size - medium and gargantuan.


I felt vindicated by noon, though, when I had these beauties sitting on my counter.

Did I also mention I got two dozen pint jars for this project today? I thought I had overestimated the need for jars, but it turns out I had underestimated the bounty of my garden.

That's the last of the pint jars over there, with the rest of the cucumbers sitting forlornly on the counter. They're now back in the fridge to either be eaten fresh or bequeathed to friends. Any subsequent cucumbrage from my garden will also be sold, eaten fresh, or bequeathed.

It's the least I can do. With two dozen jars of pickles, I don't think *I* will be needing any more of them for a while.
Then I started on salsa.

OK, after I ran to the grocery store and got extra lids for the jars and gloves so I could handle jalapenos, I started on salsa.

Here's where all hell broke loose. I discovered that I am completely incapable of math calculation. As a teacher, I am ashamed. Six pints is the amount my salsa recipe makes. Last year, I made 12 half-pints. In my head, I calculated that to make 12 half-pints again this year (which was about enough to last us), I'd need to make two batches of salsa.

I was... in a word... WRONG. Very, very wrong.

But of course I didn't realize this until I already had every single tomato blanched and peeled.
I also had all the half-pint jars washed and ready. So I took my half-pint jars - 13 of them, anyway -

and filled them with salsa. I don't know why, but those two photos amuse me because it makes it look like all of a sudden the jars just magically filled themselves up with salsa, and that was SOOO not the case. It's not a hard recipe to make, but with all the chopping, blanching, peeling, etc., it is fairly time-consuming.

Then I canned tomatoes, which hadn't originally been on the agenda at all. At least I had the stuff to do THAT. Another store run might have done me in today. I'm very grateful to my children for not letting me make it down to Porter to get peaches. I will be doing that another day, though, and having a jam session. Get it? "Jam" session? Hahahahaaaa... OK lame.

But I will be making blackberry jam, peach preserves, and canning peach halves another day. I'm sure there will be more tomatos then, too.

The one problem I'm going to have?

I'm going to have to get more cans.

Garden update and Father's Day

So I have been *told* that there are folks out there who are missing Chicky Cam. Since we moved the chicks out to the outdoor coop, which isn't wired, it's been offline. Oz is working on that. He got an indoor/outdoor camera and is trying to get it set up, but he wants to bury an electrical conduit out to the coop. It wouldn't just be for the camera, though. It'd also be used to run a heater in the winter. Since the horses also have a water trough heater that runs during the winter, the electrical thing has been needed for some time. We just haven't done it.

But here's what the chicks look like.

They're big girls now! They're about a month old, weigh between 2 and 3 pounds (some may weigh a little more), and are just the most well-behaved birds a new chicken person could ask for. They even let me catch them for the most part.


OK, so they're also a bit sassy.

They'll eat out of your hand, though, so I can't object too much.

So long as they quit thinking my toes are edible.

The garden's not doing too badly, either. I've gotten probably five pounds of green beans out of it, four whole pieces of okra, half a dozen small yellow sweet peppers, and half a dozen bush tomatoes. And 9 pounds of cucumbers. Pickling time is getting close, and I picked the stuff up for that process today. I'm going to try to get myself down to Porter for peaches and make peach preserves and canned peaches the same day so that I don't have to overheat the house too often. Running the dishwasher, cooking the jam, and heating up and boiling the canning crock all day long takes a toll on the electric bill. The blackberries are almost in, too, so I'm hoping the tomatoes come in about the same time they do so I can do blackberry jam, canned tomatoes, and salsa simultaneously.

I might have a food preservation fetish. I still have frozen pumpkin from fall and last week's applesauce in my freezer.

Anyway, here's a shot of most of the garden.

The cucumbers have taken over their corner and are threatening to spill into the grass. There are hundreds and hundreds of flowers in there. I may wind up with more than I bargained for in terms of cucumbers, which is fine cause I'll just sell the extras. One can only use so many jars of pickles before getting a little overloaded with sodium. Mmmmmm high blood pressure in a jar....

My green bean plants still haven't started putting out climbers yet. I'm starting to wonder if they ever will. There are still flowers on the plants and I'm pulling out about 1-1/2 lbs. of green beans per week (so far), so I'm not terribly worried. They seem happy.

The tomatoes are happy, too. They've created their own little jungle. I am really, really liking the square cages that I got. I'll definitely replace all the round ones next year and am contemplating getting a few more now to use for stacking. These plants have already outgrown them! Yay! I hope to be completely inundated with tomatoes soon. I'm getting annoyed at having to buy tomato products (other than paste) at the store.

This is sort of an 'everything' shot. From the front, we have strawberries, rhubarb (that'd be the thing with the humongous leaves), herbs (basil growing wild everywhere which is fine cause I'll just make pesto and freeze it, rosemary, oregano, parsley), and then the lettuce that's starting to bolt and get bitter. Since I've never grown lettuce before, I'm just happy it's lasted this long. Here in a week or two I'll pull it out and let the ground rest before planting more lettuce in the fall. It did very well and I'm happy with it. We'll have to see about spinach. It didn't make it to the edible stage this time, but I suspect the heat had a lot to do with that. It was doing fine till the daily temps hit the mid-80s.

The huge thing in front here is the butternut squash plant. I've heard tell that I'm only now supposed to be planting this buuuut... oops?? It doesn't seem to be doing badly. There are about two dozen little squash on it, and we do love eating them, so I'm excited. I found a document on how to preserve it, too. I've also killed all the beetles I've seen on the plant this year, which might help matters a bit, and apparently butternut squash are more beetle-resistant than typical summer squash. I'll let you know.

Behind the squash are the peppers, peas, and okra. Peppers and okra are doing just fine, same as last year, but I have learned that peas don't like Oklahoma heat very much. They scorch pretty easily. I picked all the peas we got and yanked the plants out today and will try them again late August or early September along with more lettuce, spinach, peas, and radishes. They didn't take long to grow, so we'll see if I can manage to get a second crop. Can't hurt to try, right? If they don't make it, I'll try putting them in a shadier spot next year.

So that's the garden now!

The kids were down at Granny's (my mom's) house this weekend, so Oz got to have a nice, lazy, quiet day. I got some English banger sausage from the local farmer's market to see if he liked it (he did but said it still wasn't like 'home') and fed him that and mashed potatoes and the homegrown peas for dinner. Between that, the Jimmie Johnson NASCAR T-shirt from M1, the Chicago Bears NFL hoodie sweatshirt from M2, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Wii... I think he had a pretty good Father's Day. I hope all the other fathers out there did, too. What did you get for good old Dad? Do anything special? I'm always on the lookout for ideas, so I'd love to hear them!

Harvest time!

I got a HUGE surprise when I walked out to check the garden today. I found produce!

These were my first clue that things were ripe. I was bending down to check the peas (not quite ready yet, by the way, but getting there) and saw a flash of red in the middle of one of the plants. I grabbed it and saw another. Thorough investigation uncovered the third. The weight is measured in pounds and ounces, so that's 1 lb. 9 oz. of tomato there, and there are *lots* more on the plants just waiting to ripen.

I grabbed these next, because they were easy to see. The two in front are very, very teensy and the one in back isn't big, but ripe they were, so in they came. They are bell peppers, by the way, just orange and yellow varieties. I plan to pick some of them green when I get a few more tomatoes so I can make some of my own salsa again. The family has really enjoyed it over this last year.

Then I found these. I thought I'd find maybe half a dozen. I was not expecting this many. At all. I was using my shirt as a kind of apron to hold them. By the end, I had been wishing I'd stepped back into the house for the five whole seconds it would have taken to grab a bowl. Have I mentioned that the green bean plants haven't even STARTED to climb the trellis yet? I'm going to be rolling in green beans by this fall. Don't think we'll run out this year.


Finally, I figured since I'd already gotten that much, I'd poke through the cucumber plants to see what I could find. I found these babies. There are a few more that are almost ready and hundreds of flowers still on the vines. They are supposed to be small like this since they are pickling cucumbers, but I strongly suspect that if I'd left them, they'd get still larger. I want snacking pickles, though, so I picked them now.

I'm excited! Let the harvest begin!

Snapshots of summer

Summer vacation may only be a week in, but already our to-do list is overflowing. There is just no way we're getting it all done in two months.

Of course, we're going to TRY.

Meet Jo. Named for Josephine from "Little Women," this bird is my baby. I had thought that Sophia and all the other Rhode Island Reds were going to be the queens of the coop, but boy, was I wrong. The Plymouths have outdone everyone else. Last night when Oz went out to close up the coop (I was off performing evil deeds and hanging out with the girls), the Plymouths were all parked on the top perch while everyone else was still huddled up in the bedding below.

These girls are go-getters, and Jo is the leader of the pack. She runs to me every time she sees me (she's a bit of a greedy girl) and lets me pick her up and hold her without the slightest fuss. When someone else finds a bug, she's right there to steal it. She's stolen my heart, too, and I can't wait to see how big she gets. They're all getting huge!

My garden is getting big and full already, too. Here are a few images:


Tomatoes, obviously


Bell pepper changing colors

Blue Lake green beans (already!)


Tiny cucumber (meant to stay small, for pickling)

Peas


Baby butternut squash


Blackberries!

We went down the back of the pasture the other day to check and see how they were doing since I've seen a few farms about that are starting to advertise blackberries already. Traditionally mine aren't ready till about July 4, and that seems to be holding true again, but I had to check. So many baby berries!

And speaking of babies, look what mine can do! He learned to ride a bicycle today, too. It's been a big week. :)

They both enjoyed a good evening catching fireflies, too. I helped M2, but M1 caught a few on his own. Oz can't see very well in the twilight, but he caught a couple, too.

They loved watching their catches. I put some bug-food gel into the jars and let the kids keep them overnight, though M2 got herself worked into a tizzy about how they weren't free and could we please let them go so they wouldn't die, and so we DID, and then she cried because she didn't have them anymore. She's a walking catch-22.

We've also hit up the splash pad and the pool this last week. Didn't take pictures in the pool for obvious reasons, but watching them splash in the water on the first *real* day of summer vacation was a huge treat.

Let the good times roll!!!!

I can't decide... you help

I can't decide whether today is going well or not.

On the one hand, Oz re-stapled together M2's box springs so the cats can no longer climb in the bottom and consider it a hidey-hole.

BUT... that meant I had to wash sheets today, and while I don't mind throwing the sheets in the washer and then into the dryer, I *HATE* folding sheets. I am fully capable of doing it, I just don't want to. It a specific point of laziness/OCD-ness. There is no piece of furniture big enough to really hold the fitted sheets well, and unless the floor has been recently vacuumed (which... haha... it kinda hasn't), I don't want to put fresh, nice-smelling, clean sheets on the floor, so I wind up doing this weird contortionist dance in the middle of the living room to try to get them folded as nicely as possible so they can fit into my overly-stuffed linen closet in just the right way.

Then again... I love sleeping on clean sheets, especially if I also happen to wash my hair the same evening.

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I got the garden weeded.

The down side of that is that I might have been pretending that every weed was my boss. She's not popular with me right now. She is probably doing her best, but there are times "best" is just not good enough, and this is one of those times. And if she doesn't call me back by Wednesday afternoon, matters are going to have to escalate. I've been waiting for five months for things to get fixed. That's the hibernation period of many animals.

Consider me a grumpy mama bear coming out of her hole.

Then again... the garden looks much better than it did first thing this morning, and M1 got to feed the chicks all the crickets I unearthed. That caused him great delight.

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I called the pediatrician's office today to get copies of M1's vaccination list and a new script for an inhaler to take with him to camp later this summer, and I was reminded of how much I truly love my pediatrician and her entire staff. Things are already done. It took less than 15 minutes.

However, in this ENTIRE metropolitan area, population approximately 385,000 as of 2007, there is NO playgroup/social skills group for children of elementary school age who have been diagnosed with Asperger's. Nothing. In German, if you like, NICHTS. In Spanish, NADA. Absolutely NOTHING.

Teens and adolescents (ages 12+)? Yes. Children who are pre-elementary (ages 3-6)? Yes. Elementary school kids? See previous rant-filled paragraph. I had really been hoping that the group that advertised itself as a group for "children and adolescents" would be the place for him to go, since it meets monthly, but apparently the word children is used to describe tweens. The lady did at least acknowledge the shortcoming, but come ON, folks... ages 7-12 get nothing?? These are formative years, when the kids neeeeeed to work on social skills. And I can assure you that an Asperger's child is getting very, very little help in the way of social skills in a school setting, unless you count being teased and being the odd one out as 'social skills' training. Which, obviously, I don't.

The only good thing that has come out of this is that I ate the last of the strawberry-rhubarb pie and the last of the vanilla-with-strawberries-in-it ice cream for lunch today.

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I'm a tad frustrated today.

Makes me want to do THIS:

and not come out. Thank heaven for cute children. :)