Sunburn

I keep thinking I am going to get more done on the weekends. Then the weekend gets here and our gigantic extended family wants to swim cook out, exchange kids, and generally act like families on the weekend. In the meantime, my garden has gotten totally out of control. What did get put in got put in late and what is in and growing well is covered up in weeds. I have such high hopes for my garden every year, but there never seems to be enough time to make it pretty.

This weekend was no different. Friday I think, I will get up early tomorrow and work in the garden until it gets hot. Then I will come back inside eat a great lunch and take a two hour nap. After I wake from my nap, I will wait until it cools off in the evening and go back outside and work again until it is too dark to see. Sunday, I will do the same thing. Then I get this nagging feeling that I am forgetting something. The something is a recruitment meeting for our master gardener group. Crap. I spend Saturday morning talking to a few people who are interested in becoming master gardeners. I really enjoyed this, but I didn't get anything done in my own garden.

When I arrived home a cousin was here visiting. The next thing I know one of my boys is going with him. I still have to plant some hibiscus in another person's garden. Okay, nothing gets done in my garden.

Sunday morning, I get up before dawn and type an agenda. I went back to bed because it was too dark to work outside. At 10:00 the phone wakes me. It is a cousin, "We are on our way over to go swimming. Do you want us to bring the watermelon?" Here we go, pack up everybody and head to the pool. Still thinking, I can get a lot done this evening. At least something done this evening. We come home in the early afternoon. It is too hot to work outside so I will wait until 6:00 or 7:00. Over the next hour, I develop the sunburn of the decade. Nothing takes the energy and motivation out of me like a sunburn.

I will go outside here in a few minutes, but I don't expect to get much done. I hurt and I am tired. I am going to try to get out of my garden what I need out of it. Peace, quiet, calm, nurture, the smell of dirt and herbs. The goal is not to get something done. The goal is just to be there.

Do you know what is really relaxing? Watching a teenage boy mow the lawn for you.

Baby Bunny Update

The bunnies are almost a week old now. It looks like they are going to make it. We can tell that two are white and one is brown and white, like mom. Don't know if the white babies will be albino or not. Eyes are still closed, fur is growing in, and movement is taking off. Two are spoken for. We only have one who needs a home and I think Sister#2 will cave in and take it. Pictures as soon as they are furry and mobile.

Can Snakes Get Hiccups?

Yesterday was the last day of school. There are five teenagers passed out in one room and the little guys fell asleep in their floor. We had our annual sleep over/cook out/play loud music until mom yells "QUIT IT" party last night. I went to bed at midnight and left Manly Man to handle the chaos. I seem to remember him making it to bed at about 4:00 am. The party goers were much bigger this year. They also ate more.

Since school is out I will have far less laundry. The boys will wear t-shirts and shorts. No more school uniforms and no more blue jeans. Even better, no more sock matching. That's right ourfriendben, no more socks. Yeah. Oh, I forgot, there will still be soccer socks, and baseball socks, and tennis socks, crap.

Summer activities will include baseball, indoor soccer, swimming, and maybe tennis. There will also be a lot of sleeping late and making them help me in the garden. One of them lost an expensive book and now owes me eleven hours of labor to pay me back.

While playing with my site meter, I found that someone from Kathmandu has visited my blog. Cool, right?

Monkey question of the day: Can snakes get the hiccups? Does anyone know?

Karma and Morning Glories

I have been gardening most of my life. As I have said before, I was introduced to gardening by our grandfather, Daddy Jake. I used to spend spring break with my grandparents on their ranch. If you have ever visited a farm/ranch in March, you know it is one busy place with gardens going in, lambs being born, cattle to be worked. It was a lot of work. I loved following Daddy Jake around while he put in the vegetable plot. My love of gardening started right there in central Texas.

Although I have been gardening a long time, I have made some monster mistakes along the way. The mistake I make every year is over planting. Crowding is just something I cannot seem to avoid or learn from. Morning glories are another one of my weaknesses. I love morning glories. My favorite is heavenly blue, although Grandpa Ott’s purple is a real beauty. We have some that come back every year that are a different pink. I think there must have been some cross pollination between the Ott’s and something else.

The first time I planted morning glories was along the fence in my first vegetable garden. My dad had a peach tree a few feet from this fence. My morning glories grew right up off of the fence and into the peach tree. Dad wanted to pull them out. I had a fit and fell in it, so the vines stayed in the tree. Did I mention that I was 13 and a real teenage drama queen?

This was the same garden that our Great Dane, Missy, decided to jump around in on a fine afternoon. Ever tried to stop a 100 pound Great Dane from dancing on your squash? Good times. That same dog had thirteen puppies a few months later. Karma paid her back.

Ok, here is the real rookie mistake I made about four years ago. I was out for a walk and came across a really pretty blue morning glory growing on a fence out in the middle of nowhere. I really liked this little blue morning glory, so I gathered some seeds and brought them home with me. I dutifully scattered them along the fence of my vegetable garden, just like I had done with the heavenly blues that grew into the peach tree in my first garden. That’s right; I intentionally planted wild morning glories in my tiny garden. I didn’t know. I really had no idea that they would try to take over the universe. I did not know that they make a bazillion seeds and these seeds spread everywhere. So now, every year for months and months, I try to get rid of all the wild blue morning glories. Looks like Karma paid back that teenage drama queen.

My Garden After The Storms

Yesterday we had thunderstorms all day. I did not put my rain gages out, so I don't know how much rainfall we had, but the ground is saturated. I was grateful for the timing of these storms as I had just sewn some seeds. I planted corn, beans, and squash in the Three Sisters style as well as purple hulled cow peas.

I went outside this morning to check and see what had gone on overnight and discovered a lot of seedlings. Some were from the seeds I had planted but most were wild morning glories. That's right, WILD MORNING GLORIES-CRAP. I am going to be really busy taking care of this problem or they will take over the garden in just a few days. These morning glories are my fault, but that's another story.

I am always amazed at how green and lush my garden looks after storms. I always thought that rainwater was just way better for the plants than city water. However, after doing a little reading, I found another reason why plants may thrive after a thunderstorm. Air is 78% nitrogen. Lightning fixes some of this nitrogen. The fixed nitrogen is dissolved in the rain and falls to earth. This "fixed" nitrogen is in a form the plants can use. Pretty cool.


BTW we have baby bunnies again. I kind of let the subject go before, because the first litter did not make it. First time rabbit mom's are not usually successful. This litter is four days old and mom is doing a good job. Mario is again banished to the dog kennel. Starr is much happier with him out of the hutch. I can't imagine why.

I am Going to Put Their Weenies to Shame

I got the call. Will you bring beans to the cookout? My family is going to have a pot luck Memorial Day party. The meat course is hot dogs-cricket chirps. Apparently, wedding dress shopping is more important than, say, brisket.

Do I go to the store, buy a couple of cans of baked beans, and call it a day? NOOOO. I buy four cans of pork-n-beans and add BBQ sauce, molasses, spicy brown mustard, onions, garlic, balsamic vinegar, bacon, and about a pound of brown sugar. These beans are dessert.

The sour dough bread is rising on the counter. I fed the starter last night and left it out to make a sponge. The kitchen smells like yeast, yum. I have tried to teach someone how to make this bread. No one will learn, sad. The tricks are honey and kneading with a very soft hand. Grandpa M taught me how to knead bread when I was a little girl. He just couldn't stand by and watch me pound on the bread dough like it had done something bad.

Baby Monkey is home alone with me today. He had to come home from a sleepover last night because of an earache. Poor Baby Monkey, first a wasp sting and then an earache. He can't win. We are enjoying the day together. He found some ripe blackberries earlier and we are going to make cobbler.

Eat your heart out other sisters. I AM the cook.

Just so you know, the other sisters could care less about competitive cooking. All they care about is the bread. Well, eating the bread not making it.

Wedding News.

Here is Baby Sister beginning to look for a dress. She had five of us there with her "helping." She didn't kill anyone or cry. Very brave girl.

Here is Baby Monkey yesterday. It was the first day of swimming for the cousins. Somehow he was stung by a wasp on the lip. He is fine, but it hurt a lot.

An hour or so later, he was jumping with an uncle and a baby cousin.