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

Book Review ~ The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

There's one sure fire way to make a book a best-seller.  Ban it.  Ban it, then have numerous articles floating around the webs, and then people like me, who aren't up on the newest reads, who never would've stumbled across the book ever, then HAVE to buy the book, immediately.

True story.

So I read an article about this book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, and how parents were having it banned from a School Library, and how a group of teens started buying the books to give out, and there were cops involved, and free books, and angry parents.  Apparently the book was riddled with colorful subjects that parents weren't ready for their kids to read.

The book is really about a boy growing up on an Indian reservation, life as a teen, and throwing in the twist of going to school outside of the reservation.   Through candid words, and cartoons (the main character, Junior, was an aspiring artist), the writer takes you through illness, addictions, bullies, death, friendship, poverty, racism, life in a reservation, love, and life in general.

So is the book ban worthy?  Let's put it this way, I would not want my 8 year-old son to pick it up.  For now.  In a year or two, or three, heck yes.  The writing was wonderfully done, the story was captivating, moving, and should be read... just not by immature children.  There's talk of serious addiction, deaths, masturbation, but these are real life things that every child will have to face, and the way this book faces these issues is perfect.  So let's not ban it, but let's put it on the shelf away from the elementary kids... if you're asking me.

And no one's asking me if I think they should ban the book, but you may asking me if it's worth your time to pick it up.  And yes, yes you should read this book.  Especially in the age of poor writing and prose dominating the book store shelves.  And hey, every adult should be able to indulge in a book with cartoons every once in awhile.  ;)

Have you read any good books lately?  Did you pick up, "True Diary"?  What did you think?

~Emily


ps.  I bought this book with my own cash, and was not paid in any way for my review or my opinions.  

~May in a Glimpse~

I know they say, "April showers bring May flowers", but I think it goes more along the lines of  "Funky April weather brings May showers, and tons, TONS of bugs."

And by bugs I mean Inchworms.  Billions of them.  On plants, in the air, in your hair.  Everywhere.

And the damage they've been doing is awful.  Every tree is covered in half chewed leaves, and rolled up cocoons.  Which makes me thankful that my flowering plants are starting late this year from the winter, or I'd be spending every waking moment picking the gross things off.

And I promise that's the last of the worm pictures for now.  I just have never seen so many of them, and I'm hoping this isn't a sign on how the rest of the insect world will be doing this year.  If it is someone best be buying me a whole flock of Guineas and Ducks.  And then they better hire someone to take care of them too.  (Just in case that someone is reading this, and thinks I need a whole flock of anything right now.  ;p  )

May had been so full of rain that I didn't reach any of my gardening goals.  We were just excited for the few times we were able to get outside in between the storms.

Even Penny was excited.  But don't get me started on her.  She's been filling my days with getting tangled and stuck, or just plain out yelling, because a certain man around here has her so spoiled, that she's getting hard to enjoy.  But back to the garden....

Somewhere out there we have Zukes, and Cukes, Pumpkins and Squash.  Radish, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, Spinach (which never does well for me).  There's kale, loofah, chard, sunflowers, popcorn, and two Raspberry bushes.  The only thing we bought this year were the two raspberry bushes, and a flat of tomato plants.

I don't really have any great expectations for success this year.  I'm doing everything against the books.  My seeds are all over two years of age, and stored completely the wrong way.  I'm not really companion planting anything, and I'm by no means following the right planting schedule.  It's all fly by your seat gardening, knowing that next year, with all the added compost, and care of the soil from this year, it's going to be ten times easier to work with.

And hopefully soon, with some extremely creative budgeting, I'll get some sort of fence up around everything so I don't have to plant ten times the normal amount to count for losses due to animals and small children.

It's amazing how much a small toddler foot can wipe out in a second.  (And don't you love the black eye?  This child has no grace.  She managed this injury while sitting in a parked trailer.)

For June we already have tons scheduled around here.  I'm gutting both children's rooms, repainting, scrubbing, the works, all while trying to finish everything outside too, ohhh and there's knitting too.

Time to get back out there!

How's your spring going?

~Emily

~April in the Garden~

I have this little plan in my head to do a wrap-up at the end of each month.  Maybe week by week photographs of the garden in progress.  Even if it still only looks like this:

Which I do suppose is actually a lot of progress compared to past years, where I'd still be digging out rocks, and making compost heaps, and constantly burning out snakes.  There's just not quite the progress that I would like to see.  I'd like to see a fence there.  And hay, and mulch, and my compost bins moved...  but at least there's these:

Things are growing.  And thank you God for radishes that pop up in the blink of an eye and make you think there's hope after all.  And thank you even more for the super seeds I have that survived 2 years of storage, in a ziploc bag, under my desk.  That's a garden on a budget for you.  Nope we don't have any tomatoes, but I do have this odd mix of loofa seeds from three years back we can plant.  ;p

And heck, if it all fails, at least there's one little girl, who refuses to leave the ponytail in her hair, who has had a dang good time in her mud holes.  You know, for the whole five minutes I can get her to sit down.  And she's only there to see if the berries (that we have yet to plant) have grown.

So there's some hope in that there dirt.  And the memories are already sprouting up.

And spiders.  They're popping up too.  Everywhere.  Still better than snakes or snow.

How's your garden growing?

~Emily