Garden Update

Look at this… I promised a garden update today, and you’re getting a garden update today. Whether you like it or not. Well, I suppose if you didn’t like it you probaby wouldn’t have even clicked through or scrolled down or whatever it is you did to land your sorry browser here. Hopefully it’s not terribly painful for you.

So, then! Garden. In the summer, much of my routine involves something with the garden (usually thinking about it, but, on occasion, actually going out and doing things in it.) I usually wander out first thing in the morning, sip my coffee hot tea and check the rain gauge.

Then I peruse the various plantings to see what has been decimated by deer/rabbits/racoons/blight/insects. Anything that’s left, I take a picture of.

For example, we had grand designs on a bean teepee for the girls to play in this summer. The deer had other ideas. Mostly their ideas were some variation on “mmm… these bean plants sure are tasty!” Two days after we saw gorgeous leaves unfold from the newly-sprouted beans, they were mercilessly mowed down by the evil deer. Surprisingly, we have had new leaves pop out of the old stalks. So perhaps all is not lost.

But our teepee is still rather bare, and forlorn. I do hope we have some luck with it or the girls may just be too traumatized to ever want to garden again. With me, anyway.

Behind the teepee, there are a pair of lilies about to bloom:

This is very exciting, because they came up last year but did not bloom at all, and I nearly dug them up but decided to wait another season. I’m so very glad I did.

In the veggie patch, the garlic is completely trampled by the damn deer. All the foliage has yellowed and is starting to die. I dug up a few bulbs and they are smallish, but still serviceable. We will let them cure a bit and see if they are tasty. I sure hope so. That was a lot of frigging garlic.

The tomatoes seem to be thriving, however. Here is our fancy Florida Weave:

The plants in the foreground are in one weave that goes left-to-right. The remaining plants are in three woven rows going away from the camera. Basically, a weave is a cheap way of tying up a whole bunch of damn tomatoes at once. And since we have a whole bunch of damn tomatoes, it seemed like an interesting thing to try out. I will probably have to give the Florida Weave a post of its own since it’s rather complicated and right now I am really to tired to think about how to describe it. Google it if you simply can’t wait. I won’t be offended.

We also have some adorable cucumbers in flower:

These are “Straight Eights”, and supposed to be good for pickling. S5 picked them out herself.

Speaking of garden pests, would you believe how many mosquitoes were out this morning at 7AM 8AM 9:42AM? Lots, let me tell you.

Meanwhile, up on the deck, the nasturtiums are threatening to take over their little planter box.

The flowers have already been plucked twice for vinegar. Now I just pick them to keep the plant looking good, but it’s growing like crazy. Boy, does it smell good, though.

I’m growing lots of basil this year, adding two other varieties to “Sweet” and “Thai”: “Genovese” and “Anise”. The Genovese is much shorter than the other basils so far, but very vibrant:

It also smells darn good.

Meanwhile, there are a few other visitors to the yard that are actually welcome (unlike the damn deer, and raccoons, and rabbits, and mosquitoes). Can you spot our newest guest in this pic?

Here’s a hint:

See her yet? Here’s Baby Robin, who is just learning to fly:

I wonder if I can teach her to scare away the damn deer.

Hanging On

Well, I am dangerously close to missing the posting deadline for today, but I think I’ll squeak in under the wire.  Just trying to keep you on your toes, you know; mix it up a bit.  Whatever.

So yesterday I brilliantly suggested some additions (or subtractions) to my routine that might do me some good, things like reducing my caffeine intake and getting up at a more “normal” hour, etcetera.  I would like to happily report that I have made progress on all fronts.

First of all, I did not have ANY coffee today.  You heard me: not a single drop.  And now I have a raging headache from the caffeine withdrawal, but it’s all good.  Drinking some green tea has helped.  Slightly.  The important thing to note here is that I was able to go an entire 24 or some-such hours without coffee.  I mention this first, because to my way of thinking, all of the following accomplishments are instantly like 1000% more amazing when you consider that I did them all decaffeinated.

1.  I took my vitamin first thing this morning (instead of making/drinking coffee, and instead of checking email.)

2. It did not rain a drop last night, but I checked the rain gauge dutifully nonetheless.  And I also recorded my Zero Rainfall on CoCoRahs.  Rah, rah, rah.

3.  Not only did I do some stretches last night, but I did more already tonight.  Hey, it was that, or make a pot of half-caff.

4.  Oh, boy, did I move around tonight.  I went to a coaches’ clinic for our community soccer program.  S5, now that she is 5, is eligible to play soccer, so we signed her up.  Somehow, in the signing up process, I got talked into being an assistant coach.  They assured me it was nothing too physical, nothing that I really had to know how to play soccer for (which I don’t)- that was the head coach’s job.  Boy, did I get snowed.  Something should have clued me in when they said “wear shorts and bring water to the clinic”.  For THREE HOURS we ran around, kicking and passing and receiving and shooting and learning how to stop the ball without your hands, such as with your thigh (hard to get that part up in the air) or your chest (I only quit nursing a few months ago, can you give me a break already?) or your HEAD (omg does that hurt with a full-on caffeine-withdrawal headache).  Yeah.  So I think I’ve done all the moving around I need to do until perhaps August.  Of 2015.

5.  Eat better went well – except for the half-ounce of chocolate taken to ease the caffeine headache.  I had cereal and tea for breakfast, a lovely salad and some leftover boiled potatoes for lunch, and another lovely salad for dinner.  And even though I felt perfectly justified in eating a snack after the grueling soccer torture session, I refrained.  Had tea instead, (and that’s when I took my dose of chocolate, but shhhhh) and now I am going to bed, so that this remains a good day.

Tomorrow: garden updates.

Cheers!

On The Bright Side

Alright, so I’ve spent the first week of NaBloPoMo groaning about schedules, snarking about my lack thereof, and generally being ridiculous with regards to the subject of routine. If I’m going to expend energy on this writing exercise, I might as well try to make some good come out of it. Therefore, I going to focus on the positive things I’m [slowly, painfully] incorporating into to my every-day.

1. Take a vitamin. Since pregnancy, I have had a B-vitamin deficiency, particularly B-12; this is interesting because I’m not a real vegetarian, and B-12 is rampant in animal-based foods. Unfortunately, cheese does not count as a source of B vitamins, however. So I’m sunk.

2. Check the rain gauge. I joined CoCoRahs a few months ago and we finally set up our rain gauge this weekend. I’m supposed to check it every morning around 7:00 AM. That is going to be really, really funny.

3. Do stretches at night. My body feels old. My neck hurts, my back has a little bit of arthritis in it, my knees are starting to feel like they’re made of broken glass, and my joints sound like bubble wrap when I move. So before bed, I do some stretches. And I have to admit that, while remembering to do them is sometimes a problem, they feel very, very good, and I sleep better afterwards. Why is it that things that make us feel better (like exercise, for example) are so hard to stick to?

4. Move around more. My mom gave me one of those pedometers and tried telling me about some 10,000 steps a day bullshit that she’s been following . Okay, fine. So I wore the pedometer for a couple of days and realized that I took approximately 2,000 steps each day (and that was after going for a walk). I was very depressed and put the pedometer on a shelf. But it looks at me every time I walk by (which is obviously not very often). So I really need to find a new battery for it and at least make an effort to increase my step count. To be fair, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen doing cooking/cleaning sorts of things, so I am on my feet–but not actually taking steps. But it certainly couldn’t hurt matters to walk more.

5. Eat better. I actually eat fairly well compared to some. I don’t drink soda, we don’t keep candy or donuts or chips in the house, I avoid things like french fries and breaded fish sticks and tempura with no difficulty. My problems have more to do with quantity and timing. I tend to eat most of my calories late, late, late at night (in front of the computer). This is probably a result of not eating any/many calories during the day, and drinking too much coffee, and not moving around very much. It’s scary how interrelated all these issues seem to be.

6. Drink less coffee. I almost didn’t write this down. What would my life be without coffee?? (It would be very decaffeinated, sluggish and dull, that’s what it would be.) But I have to face facts, and one of them is that coffee, caffeine, and the accompanying buttload (I mean that literally) of sugar I stir into my cups are causing some problems. Like, oh, I don’t know, a vitamin B deficiency. Sleep problems. Sluggishness around 2 o’clock. Etcetera.

And now I am thoroughly morose about the prospect of giving up (or at least cutting back on) coffee while trying to get up at 7:00 to check the damn rain gauge AND shuffle my feet 10,000 times a day. Fortunately, it’s already July 6 so I don’t have to worry about keeping up pretenses terribly much longer.

New To The Neighborhood

Last year, we had some nice, friendly new neighbors move in.

They were very pleasant to have around, until the kids knocked their house down (by accident) (mostly) and they abruptly moved away. But that’s not important here.

What is important here is that we once again have new neighbors. Unfortunately, they’re not the chirpy songsters from last year. This family is a bit… well, they’re a bit odd. They sleep all day and carouse about all night. They leave garbage everywhere and scare the bejeebus out of my cat, who is fond of a little nocturnal cavorting herself in the summertime.

They are very annoying, truth be told. And the worst part is that they are incredibly stinking cute.

Cute or not, however, these neighbors are NOT going to get the welcome wagon.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you raccoons have got to go.  Sorry, guys!!

PS  I’m five for five, all you naysaers of doom.

When The Chips Are Down, Let Them Lie

Even though I am usually motivated by naysayers who tell me I can’t or shouldn’t do something, the number of people who have basically said that my chances of meeting the NaBloPoMo challenge are about as good as a snowflake in a sauna is rather disturbing.

I realize that my lack of appreciation for the early morning hours, my inability to go to bed at a “reasonable*” time, and my complete disdain for anything resembling a sched*cough-cough*ule are probably, aside from things having to do with my children, the most-blogged topics here at MotherMe. But geez, people. Can’t you give me a little bit of credit? Can’t you give me some moral support?

Actually, please don’t do that. I really need your cajoling and your ridicule to get me through the tough times. Honest.

*There are many definitions for “reasonable”. It’s a personal preference sort of thing.

By the way, this is a holiday in the U.S., and yet I’m still posting. I’ll never tell you that I figured out WordPress’s schmancy little schedule-ahead button. Nope. Never.

With Alarming Regularity

While routine (*shudder*) is not my forté, there are a few things I do on a regular basis and at a regular time.

1. Every morning, before I do pretty much anything else, I make coffee.

2. Every morning, before I do pretty much anything else (but after I make coffee), I turn on my computer and check email/blogs/waste a really dumb amount of time, while drinking my coffee.

3. Once a week, on Thursdays at 1:00 PM, I drive out to a farm to pick up my CSA box. (I sometimes stop for coffee along the way, but not always.)

I think there is some tooth-brushing that you might be able to throw in there as well, but the timing is always different so it really can’t count as routine.

This is the first year for us belonging to a CSA. I looked into doing one last year, but couldn’t find one within a reasonable distance. In fact, the one we ended up joining is brand-new. It’s a group of Amish farmers who call themselves “Growers and Grocers.” I think that’s such a cute name. They are working with our favorite farmers, the ones we get all of our meats from, to develop and operate their CSA as some of their… er… brethren have done elsewhere.

Yesterday was CSA day, and I just finished entering the box contents into my little food journal. Yeah, you heard me: I have a food journal. It’s a little notebook where I write handy bits of information, such as the name of the place where we picked blueberries last year, and how many quarts we got, and how much they were a pound, and how many jars of jam came out of it. I write down useful measurements, like the fact that a 4-quart box of hand-picked strawberries ($8.50) gives you about 13 cups of hulled and sliced berries, which in turn makes about 5 half-pint jars of strawberry syrup. I also put recipes in there, which was very useful when we made four different batches of apple butter from about nine different types of apples last year, and I was able to identify the right recipe/apple combination so that we can make it again this fall. So don’t mock. Nerdiness can be very, very tasty.

I’m sure* you’re wondering what we got in our CSA box this week.

*Actually, I am not sure of this at all. In fact, I could very well be talking to myself at this point. But I’ll write it down for posterity’s sake.

Here it is, all freshly picked and crisp and tasty.

I even picked out a few bugs that woke up to discover their homes had migrated about fifteen miles southwest. Yeah, it’s that fresh.

Mrs. B also gave me a cute little recipe card. On one side is a recipe for zucchini casserole, which uses 3 cups of shredded zucchini (check) and a small onion (check), plus cheese and eggs and other things, and it also calls for a cup of baking mix, the recipe for which she put on the other side of the card. Such a nice little touch.

I am slightly alarmed that the three things I do with absolute regularity all involve food and/or coffee.

Theme Music

So the theme for this month’s NaBloPoMo nonsense (NaBloPoMoNo?) is “Routine”.

Oh, that’s fresh. That’s just…. just fantastic. Me, write about routine?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Alright, I’ll make an effort to be a little more serious about this exercise. I mean, it is like exercise, right? It’s good for you, but not so much fun to do; it hurts while you’re doing it, but you sort of feel better once you’ve showered and had some protein. Just like exercise.

Yeah, I don’t do that so much, either.

NaBloPhooey

I signed up for NaBloPoMo once.  It was a lunatic idea then, and I’m pretty sure this time is nothing different.  But then my “friend” (and I’m going to use that term very loosely here) decided to commit to another month of posts.  (As if we didn’t learn anything the first time around.)  Of course, there is nothing worse than trying to sit idly on your thumbs and be totally slackerette when someone you know is all up and jogging around the blogosphere.  It’s damn annoying, to be honest.  Some “friend”.  Nyah.

So, fine.  Whatever.  I’ll try another thirty days of blog posts.  Oh, wait… this is July.  Oh, for crying out loud… why July?  Why couldn’t it be February??  What were you thinking, O “Friend” of mine????

(That was a rhetorical question.  This is a rhetorical blog.)

(But I’m still going to try to pull thirty more posts out of my butt by the end of the month.)

Just A Little Neighborly Chat

We live in an older suburban neighborhood, and many of our neighbors are older folks.  A lot of them have been here for thirty, forty years, some even more. I like old people. They are so much fun to talk to; there’s something so pure and innocent about conversations with people from my grandparents’ generation.  So naturally, when the neighbor catty-corner behind us (an elderly widower in his eighties) started waving at us over the fence a few years ago, I waved back. Last year, we started chatting casually, then regularly. He’s got a lovely garden, and since we’re the only two on the block to grow any vegetables, it was only natural that we’d start talking even more.  Last fall, I gave him three wheelbarrows full of sheep manure and a jar of apple butter, after he gave the girls peonies from his prize hedge and me a sackful of lettuces.  We have a nice, friendly, neighborly rapport.  In fact, he rather enjoys gossiping about the other neighbors, particuarly the one whose property adjoins both of ours.

Rose*, next-door to me and directly behind Mr. L, is a bit kooky, to say it kindly, and on this occasion, Mr. L launched into a little rant about just how odd she really was. Apparently, Rose – single, in her late 50s or early 60s- is a little loose (elderly-speak for “slutty”), because she “came on to” her neighbor-to-the-rear one summer afternoon (translation: she propositioned him by inviting him over for a bottle of wine in the afternoon).  But then our conversation ended abruptly when Mr. L, after completely dismissing any notion of drinking a glass of anything with Rose, turned to me and said something along the lines of “you can come on to me anytime“. I laughed, smiled kindly, and instantly remembered a very important indoor task that had to be taken care of promptly.

Now, I didn’t really think Mr. L was serious, and I didn’t take offense (though I have to admit at being slightly weirded out). He knows I’m married; in fact, DH once helped him get his tractor unstuck from a root, and on another occasion helped him move a railroad tie across his backyard. Men bond when they work on things together. To think that Mr. L (who is 84, by the way) was hitting on me was just preposterous. But then, so was his little comment.

I didn’t think much of it, though.  I did mention it to DH just because it was so strange. He chuckled, and then we started talking about Rose and laughing because the thought of her coming on to Mr. L  was even more hysterical than the thought of Mr. L coming on to me. And so all was forgotten, until this morning.

We had quite a rainstorm last night, so Mr. L and I were both out early, surveying our gardens,  wincing at wilted lettuces and toppled tomatoes and trying to tidy things up before more rain comes this weekend.  I saw him over the fence and decided to see how his veggies had fared with the deluge.  So I slogged through Rose’s rear yard (a brushy mess and one of Mr. L’s pet peeves), and said hello, and he and I had a very nice talk about what had survived the storm and what had not.  And then, as our conversations often do, talk turned to Rose and her current escapades.  We talked about her daughter, who is in her early thirties and a looker (except he used the very modern hot, which seemed comical).  And then somehow, talk turned to age, and all the things that happen when you enter the twilight years.

“Don’t get old,” Mr. L admonished me.  I laughed, because it’s such a cute play on words, and just about every elderly person I’ve ever talked with has said it just like that.  “I mean it,” he went on.  “You have to keep active, or you won’t be able to do anything when you get to be my age.”  He explained how he had discovered some arthritis in his back, but immediately started going to physical therapy, and now he was able to bend down to tie his shoes again.  “Of course,” he said, rather wistfully, “some things you just can’t do anything about as you get older.  Some things just go limp, if you know what I mean…”

Oh, I hope I have no idea what you are talking about, Mr. L.  I laughed again, a little uncomfortably.  Exactly where was this conversation going??

“…but then you just have to improvise,” he concluded.

Did he just say that out loud?

I must have had a very strange look on my face at this point, and was really at a loss for words (what does one say, exactly, after that sort of comment from a man fifty years your senior? I ask you), because at that point Mr. L brought up our conversation from earlier this spring, the one where he sort of suggested that I should come on to him (were I so inclined).  I had rather believed at the time that he was just making a risque little joke, but now there was talk of limpness and improvisation and hot neighbors’ daughters and I really just did not know what to make of it all.  Maybe he sensed that his joke had gone awry, or maybe he decided that his advances (if that was, indeed what he was doing) were not being well-received, but in either case he tried to put me at ease by explaining himself a little more plainly.

“I can’t remember exactly the phrase,” he said, “but afterwards, I thought maybe you got the impression I was asking you for sex. “

Oh, good lord.  I thought your generation didn’t talk about sex?  I thought you didn’t even know what that word was, for chrissakes.

“Ah, no,” I stammered, “no, I didn’t take it that way at all.”  Not really, anyway.

“Because that’s not what I meant, you know.”

Wait a minute.  Are you trying to say that you don’t want to have sex with me?  Why do I suddenly feel insulted?

“I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

Yeah… I think we’ll stick to talking about tomatoes from now on.

*not her real name, but damn close

I Wasn’t In The Market, But If You Insist…

When I was pregnant with O3, and only had S-then-1, I drove a really cool four-door Jeep Cherokee. It had a little suspension lift and modest off-road tires, a roof rack that conveniently carried our skis and kayaks, four-wheel drive (which I used often, baby) and a nifty trailer hitch. I drove that truck for about 7 years. I loved that truck. But when we found out baby #2 was on the way, we knew it was time to look for something a little more family-oriented, especially since only one carseat could fit on the back bench.

A few months before O was born, we sold the Jeep and bought a minivan. The quintessential now-you’re-really-a-parent purchase, I quickly learned why it’s the vehicle of choice for many American families. With large, sliding doors and a foldaway rear seat, I could easily maneuver squirmy bitty bodies into carseats and haul home the groceries without breaking a sweat.

Our minivan, which is now three years old to us (but 11 years old on paper), runs well, but there are a lot of little things wrong with it. Most of them are just annoying, like the rear brake adjustor that squeals for no apparent reason (even after it’s been taken apart three times and tweaked and oiled and who knows what else). Some of the flaws are cosmetic, like the lemonade I spilled in the back hatch and which seeped into a strange and hidden crevasse of carpet and then promptly turned to a staining mildew, until it was discovered months later (too late, of course). A few things are actually broken, like the busted passenger sliding door-handle, or the tape deck that is now a jukebox (literally: the kids put all the coins from the coin organizer into the tape slot). (And, yes, my van is old enough to have a tape slot.)

Still, I hadn’t considered looking for another van, not yet. I had pretty much planned to drive this van until it croaked, figuratively or literally. But then my mom called to say that she and her husband were thinking of doing the patriotic thing and buying a new car. DH and I rolled our eyes at each other when we heard this. Her van is a 2005; mine is a 1999. Why she thought I would be sympathetic to the idea was beyond me.

But then she asked us if we were interested in buying her old van. Here was something we hadn’t even considered. And while it seemed silly at first, the idea grew on us, and we carelessly poked around at prices and values and Consumer Reports reviews and the like. But in the end, we decided that the blue book value (our price, should we accept) was a fair deal, but not a good deal, and with DH having some of his work hours cut back it seemed frivolous. We thanked my mom for asking us, but declined.

This morning, at approximately 9:32 AM, my mom called to say that they had found a new van and were going to purchase it. They had planned to trade in her 2005 van, but she wanted to check again to see if we were interested in it before they did. The price to us this time around was significantly less than blue book value, since she was now going by what the dealer was offering them for their trade. I told her DH and I would discuss it and said I would call her back.

At approximately 10:15, we called her back to ask a few questions about maintenance issues, logistics of getting it up here from Florida, etc. We said we would discuss some more. I asked her when she needed to know for sure. “Oh,” she said casually, “DH will be back around noon and we’re headed over to the dealership then.”

Well, shoot.

Normally I would just refuse to make any sort of decision like this in such a ridiculously short amount of time. But this deal was thousands of dollars less than a comparable van would sell for. Not only that, but we knew the history of the van (seeing as it’s my mother’s and all). We’ve driven the van. We know more about it than any other used vehicle we might look at. And our current van is in pretty sad shape, even though it runs well. We waffled. We wavered. We discussed. We ate breakfast.

Finally, at noon, I called her back to say we were interested. If things worked out on her end, we would like to do it. She said she would let us know after she talked with her DH, the bank and the dealership.

I didn’t think very much about it this afternoon, to be honest. We went on some errands, did some chores, started dinner. Then at 5:30 my mom called to say we were the proud owners of a 2005 Chrysler Town & Country.

Hoo boy.

So I asked her how she wanted to handle getting the van up here. I figured they would drive it up in August, when they were already planning to visit anyway. “Oh,” she said casually, “I’m leaving Saturday morning to drive it up there.”

Well, shoot.

So my mom is coming in on Sunday at some point to bring me my new van, which is very exciting, albeit very sudden and spur-of-the-moment. The girls are very excited about buying Nana’s van, because, well, because it’s Nana’s, and anything that belongs to or belonged to Nana or has anything to do with Nana whatsoever is extremely exciting for them in any case.

I have already promised DH I would not spill any lemonade ANYWHERE, and the children have been banned from using markers or stickers in the new vehicle (seeing as there is evidence of both markers and stickers in quite a few places in the old van, this seemed prudent). I find it amusing and sweet that hubby is more concerned with me trashing the inside of the van than he is with me wrecking the outside of it. That says something very significant about our relationship, I’m sure.

Oh- and to my friend L, if you are reading this and wondering whether or not I cut-and-paste most of this blog post from my earlier email, the answer is yes, and while it has been edited for content and privacy the truth is I was just too damn lazy to retype the whole thing after writing it once already, so sorry about all that. But you get what you pay for, ya know?