All Before 7am

I'm not sure if everyone who lives in the more rural parts of their towns deal with these things... or if it's just me.  I get that when you have more animals, and more things going on, that you'll have, in general, more to deal with.  But...

So I get up, way too early this morning, which wakes up the dogs.  Half a sleep, I shuffle downstairs to feed them, then shuffle back up to make the coffee while they eat.

We have a friendly little bird, who HAS to keep a nest above our basement porch lights, every year.  We've tried taking down her nest, and putting other objects up there every year to keep her away... and she won't give up.  So we've resorted to keeping a chair under her nest, so babies won't go splat, and we check to make sure they're all safe before we let out the dogs.

As routine dictates, I head out the upstairs door, to check on the baby birds before I let out the dogs... and I see one hopping across the driveway, followed be another one, and another one...  "HUN, the babies are hopping all over!"  Because, weird, right?  He yells back, let them be, maybe they're big enough, and leaves for work.

It's now 5:15 am, and it's dark, and I continue to the basement door.  And I see a dead baby on the ground.  I walk over it, to get to the door, to grab something to pick it up with... and BAM I walk right into a thick spider web, with a big friggen spider dangling in my face.  I'm doing the web dance, while looking for a stick to remove the big spider from my path, batting at him, trying to clear the way, when I look up towards the nest....

And a thick, icky, SNAKE tail waves back at me.  (insert all sorts of heart attacks, and skin jumping, and not so nice words here)  And I run inside.

My poor dogs had to wait 2 hours for me to gain enough confidence to go back outside to potty them.  The snake was gone... but not forgotten.  *shivers*

All before 7am.  So honestly, this sort of thing is common right?  I'm not the only one?  No?  At least tell me that finding a snake above your head while battling a spider is some sort of good luck right?

Help.....  ;)

June ~ Garden Update

The days of June have been going like this:

It's raining.

It's not raining, but there's five billion things to do.

It's raining.

And I think we had three really nice days, without rain or a billion things to do... but I seem to have forgotten my camera on all three of those days.  So this month's update is minus the billions of pictures I meant to take.

Harvest Count:  A Gallon bag of Radishes, and a Bushel of Carrots.  (Oh and 2 heads of lettuce that were watched a day too long and bolted)

So we were finally able to pick the carrots.  My toddler had been staring those suckers down since the day we planted them, waiting, holding her breath for the moment they'd be ready to pick.  AND OH MY GOODNESS was she excited.  Until she bit into one.  And then she promptly tossed it to the goat.  And yelled something about how rabbits could eat such yucky things.  Meanwhile my boy had half of the carrots eaten already.  

The carrots were a sort of Danver's Half Longs.  We have hard clay soil, and these are supposed to be the best type for dense dirt.  Considering that my seeds were 2 years old, and planted all wrong, almost all carrots were edible, and looked like carrots.  The goat gladly ate all the underdeveloped carrots.  

So then I had this great idea that I'd photograph the kids, with the plants... a whole height comparison thing.  But after 20 shots, this is the only one where they were both standing still, and straight.  It's the whole rain thing.  Their energy levels are busting over the damn sort-of-speak.

And we even have tomatoes growing this year!  Which is only because my Chickens all think that they're going to hatch an egg, and won't leave the coop long enough to discover said tomatoes.  Thank you people at the hardware store for selling ample amounts of cheap tomato plants... I still miss my heirlooms.  Next year there will be a HUGE seed order!

The weeds have been loving this weather, and I'm no where near done removing all the sod from the garden area.  And it's a non-ending battle... "Do I rip out more grass, or do I weed?"  So progress seems small.  Until you actually compare the few pics you have taken.

First Week of June:

This Week:

I just can't wait for next season, when all that green stuff is plucked, and rotted, and all making awesome healthy dirt.  And I don't have to break my back digging up all of that sod again!  Oh the plans that I have!

How's June treating your garden?

~Emily