Tiffany and David

Day 2 of Vacation - in Which Boys are Manly and Girls Just Generally Act Like Idiots

2012-01-30T08:35:00.001-10:00

It's Monday. No witty things come out of my mouth on a Monday. It is reserved exclusively for sarcasm.

So, more pics only with a few captions. Let's not lie to each other - you only want to see the pictures anyway.

DAY 2 - Boys and Girls on their own day....for the most part

Court and I ready to head out, seeing the boys off

That's right - Morris, who owns the place, offered to take them out fishing

Out on the water...

A seal, in case you are wondering what the heck this is. I think they almost got run over by a cargo ship right after this, but there are no pictures...only a somewhat scary video.

Driving - why does everyone always stand up when driving a boat? I mean, there's a seat there and everything.

Oooh, looks like dinner

YUM. I will be eating you later, Mr. Salmon

David figures out how to make his catch look more impressive....by using perspective in 2D. He showed me this pic first and I was all impressed for about 5 seconds.

Paul got one too!

GIRLS TRIP

Court and I on the way....we completely did an illegal U-turn to take this pic

We spent the day hiking at Olympic National Park

During one of our many photo op stops....Look at that land cruiser! I mean, Crown Vic. Sexy.

Reflection...


Sister. So happy out in nature. So unlike when she was 13, and sat down on a trail that we were hiking and starting screaming, " it's just rocks and trees and dirt!" We had to leave her there. And none of us will let her forget it.

Attempting to look casual

Attempting to be the opposite of casual

It's catching, apparently.

We hiked the Sol Duc falls trail

Posing - all I'm really good for on these trips, as far as Court's concerned

Court and I acting out the story on how the nearby natural hot springs were made. First two completing dragons started fighting.....

They were evenly matched, and after months of fighting, they cried in exhaustion (?) and gave up. Voila, hot springs. Some tourists arrived in the middle of us taking these pictures, and they were certainly disturbed by our shenanigans.

Actually entering the valley

Court and I at a look out spot for migrating salmon

Still waiting....where are you salmon!?

Courtney offering encouragement to the salmon to jump the falls

See that tiny thing?! It's a salmon! Jumping! You have no idea how hard it is to capture that. Kudos, Court!

I have no idea why I decided to model the Crown Vic, but David laughed so hard when he saw it I had to include it.

Finally actually hiking

These falls are actually really large

In which I spend 15 minutes playing with shutter speed so the water looks cool

Ditto

Hiking back

Meeting the boys back at the lodge - they are feeling very manly, I can tell.

We all rushed out to try to have a quick hike of the ridge together before it got dark

Up at the top

The bebes

David rocks at arm shots

What is happening here? I have no idea

David has obviously said something to displease me that he thinks is hysterical/witty

I forgive quickly

Beautiful flowers! You are now going to have to suffer through my attempts at taking a pretty macro shot

Yep...don't worry, there's more later

Court REALLY likes being outdoors

Here's another - although it's a fail

Sisters!

I'm not sure what these flowers are///

How it's supposed to look on a clear day

Going for a quick hike, mainly bc David ran off with the keys and we have no choice. No flashlights? No problem, we'll just stagger along and hope we don't fall off the steep trail.

I'm noticing Court constantly looks like she is about to take off in pictures

Up on the ridge at sunset

The ridge

Court and Paul

Yay! I like outdoors too!

Starving - maybe that's why I'm making that face...all mental functions have fled.

After dinner we go roast marshmallow in the saloon

Mmm, sugar

Paul is too tired to eat

Court takes care of it

The bebes is barely awake


Night everyone!

Vacation! Like, a Real One.

2012-01-25T08:58:00.000-10:00

People, David and I took this vacation back in SEPTEMBER, 2011.

I don't know what the phrase 'in a timely manner' means.

So, screw it. Pictures only. Besides, if I have to attempt to write something clever, it would probably be another 3 months or something. I think I'm going to let the pictures do the talking and just worry about some captions.

At least until the very end, in which case there was MAYHEM that deserves a story. Which of course needs some serious gesturing, but you can't see those.

Also, Court gave me her pics of the trip, of which there were 2,500!!! Those took a while to go through.

Set up: 10 day vacation with my sis, Courtney, and her husband, Paul, to Oregon/Canada

I am not a morning person - the current time on this photo was 4 AM bc my sister is crazy and has to be at the airport with enough time to spare just in case we have to walk the whole way.

I am waking up and scaring people with my no-makeup status

Opposite of waking up - cot time.

David's turn on the cot. Paul is jealous

Bro Love Cot Snuggle

This is proof that my sister is crazy - she took 5 PHOTOS of this plane insert bc we thought it was mildly humorous.

Me, correctly mocking Court for the future masses of pictures I know will be taken - this is as we got to the airport in OR.

First stop - Sequim! Really cute small town, sadly also really close to Forks, so there was Twilight crap EVERYWHERE.

We stayed at maybe the sweetest, neatest B&B ever, run by the cutest couple. You'll see.

Walking the ground from the parking area

Cute personal touches everywhere.

Main house and garden

This is where we stayed - the Tack Room! It was awesome, SMELLED FAINTLY LIKE LEATHER, I loved it.

Our room upstairs. We had the whole little building to ourselves.

Side View of the main house from their wildflower beds

I might have gotten a little crazy with taking too many pictures myself, maybe Court was rubbing off on me. But the place was so pretty!

This is the outdoor dining area - complete with a BBQ grill and anything you'll need to cook out.

Court and Paul stayed in another building, and they had actually been there before, so the owners wrote them a little welcome note.

Love this half door.

That little building is actually the bathroom - too cute!

Bathroom.

Hanging out in the hammock by our place.

They built all the structures on the property themselves - this was a quaint outdoor chapel

The Saloon is really a place to hang out, play games. The boys found some axes and manly things...heaven help us.

Love the facial expressions

I guess that wore them out

Inside - later we found out that little stove can turn the place into a sauna

There was a great old-timey Victrola that still worked - plays records from like the 30s. Boys decided an impromptu dance party was in order.

Looking out across the grounds

Boys put those axes to work for that night's bonfire

A real barn! Which means.....

PONIES!! Yes, please!

I had to pet them, naturally.

There were fresh flowers from their wildflower gardens EVERYWHERE

Another view of the pavilion - love the hanging windows

Lavender growing nearby

They also had a veggie garden, with lots of blueberries!

While wandering, we found an apple tree...with apples

You know we picked and ate those.

I feel like my mom would like this sign

One of the few pics with a ranch dogs in it - she is actually trained to hunt cougars, and has a broken nose from a fight with one back in the day. Crazy. My dogs are scared of possums.

The boys continue to capture their childhood innocence

You have just GOT to zoom in on this pic to see their faces. Priceless.

Who knows what I am doing here.

Here, Paul and I are pretending to be neighbors.

Court's place

Aww, love this pic

Setting up for dinner

Trying out the chairs around the firepit

Another view of the grounds

Heading in to 'town' to hit up the local market for dinner stuff

Court showing off our ridiculously large salmon filet

Cooking ensued

So did eating

Again, what am I doing? I find myself asking this question often.

So pretty when lit up at night.


The owners joined as that night around a campfire to tell stories. It was good times.

It Begins....Gardening 2012

2012-01-12T12:45:00.000-10:00

Yes, it is that time…already.

Last year we had no idea what we are doing, and so we started our tomato seeds late and paid forit the rest of the season – by the time most of the plants matured, it was sohot none of the blooms could set and give us fruit.

Not this year!

DIRT. Kinda important. Organic!

Jan 4^th I was putting these bad boys into theirtransient homes before they move into the garden. Last year we had no idea what the crud wewere doing, and have come a long way since then. We also discovered North haven Gardens, THEBEST GARDENING CENTER EVER, and they have helped us quite a bit. They have possiblythe most knowledgeable people ever on staff, and they all are more than happy totalk to you for as long as you’d like. One time a very nice lady walked around with us for 40 minutes, justgiving us tips.

Moisten the dirt well, like a wrung out sponge, with warm water before filling pots. Yes, that is the same pot I make my soups in. Don't judge me.


My boring, Home Depot Burpee varieties.

Seeds, getting ready for lift-off!I put around 3 per pot, use the end of a pen to make holes 1/4 inch deep and lightly cover with moist soil.

Last year, we got started and there was so much to do and learn, and seed catalouges are HUGE and very scary. So we went went to out local HD and picked stuff out that bc it was already weeded down to varieties that do well in our area.

This year, seed catalogues are still scary but we have NHG to go to now, and they have all kinds of fun things to choose from. We actually have issues narrowing it down. We went with a purple variety, a pink brandywine, and yellow, cuz - color! I admit I was imagining a very pretty bruchetta for some party. Or myself on a Friday night. Whichever.

My new, fun heirloom varieties!

Secret Weapon - Heat Mat

Seed Incubation! No light, but lots of good heat and covered to retain both heat and moisture.

Ok, these are more heirlooms but not tomatoes, I admit it. But do you SEE that melon on the left?! I'm so excited, I could care less what it tastes like - I just want to see it growing in the garden.

Anyway, Changes this year:

- - No dumb peat pots. I hate those things. Rootsgrown into them so you can’t remove it, but they rarely truly break through thepot, and they aren’t dissolving, either. We found lots of remnants when we ripped out the summer stuff to makeway for fall. We use plastic pots from plants we bought at Lowe’s andtransplanted.

- - No peat pellets, either. They offer nothing except structure for thenewbie plants. We prefer a seed-startermix, preferably organic.

- - Heat Mat – this keeps those little guys warm andtricks them into thinking it’s spring and they should sprout. I planted the seeds and they had germinatedand grown after just 3 days. The packagesays 7-10 days. Crazy.

- - Fun heirloom varieties this year

- - This year I'm keeping a journal, bc after all the work last year, I have no idea what we planted when and what we tried, and what worked...etc. I'm all proud of myself, envisioning a library of yearly gardening knowledge, my future children fighting over them when I'm too old to continue. But there will probably be food replicators just like Star Trek by then.

- - We’re actually doing this on time

So yeah, LOTS OF TOMATOES. Considering David doesn’t really likefresh tomatoes, this is really just a gift to me. And all of you too, if you livenearby and I can bring myself to share, cuz fresh tomatoes are just so, sogood.

Dirt under the fingernails in January. It's gonna be a good year.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-07T14:29:00.000-10:00


This year, we're doing Halloween right

A carload of pumpkins is always a good start.

David and I actually spent a lovely lunch break in the fall air roaming around, picking out pumpkins. Well, David roamed. I neurotically darted btwn the different piles of pumpkins, trying to ascertain which ones were The Best. Apparently, I have issues.

We had our community group over for a carving extravaganza. Mainly, I used it as an excuse to buy the large box of those Friday's potato skins and not feel guilty. Mmmm

The crew

Jon, carve master

Katie's first pumpkin carving! What?!


Jon #2 - the craftsman

Jon actually required GRAPH PAPER to figure out his design. Seriously. I was very interested to see what was going to happen here.

Sexy pumpkin carving

This is what happens when I ask David to pose

Still at work


Jon #1 did two pumpkins

The Reveal!

Mine - I couldn't top the greatness of last year's pumpkin

Jon #2 - graph paper pumpkin

Jon #1's #1

Katie's

Jon #1's #2 - my favorite

The group

I totally made everyone pose

A few weeks after that - we went to a GREAT Halloween party, which produced this little marvel: The Hillbilly Pirate Cake.

Seriously.

I owed him for being awesome, and pompously told him to pick any theme and I would make him a cake. In the future, I will be more careful when I say things like this.

The cake with the Hillbilly Pirate captain himself.

Another thing I LOVED about his party, was that it was My Kind of People, meaning the nerd percentage was pretty high. This meant that 5 whole people actually knew who I was! I was so excited, especially after toiling with my mom (read: she did it all herself after the first night) to make the perfect jacket from the series.

Do you know who I am? Are you super cool?

Shazam! Nailed it!

I am Kaylie from Firefly/Serenity. Love that series! If you are even slightly nerdy, you need to go watch it immediately.

Shame on you, Matt and Kelly, for not having seen it. You lost some serious cred.

OF COURSE I made David dress up to match.

Kaylie's match in the series is Simon, who is a doctor. It was hysterical, becuase away from me, David looks like That Guy Who Didn't Have A Costume. David actually described himself as 'Douchebag Doctor'.

So, throughout the evening, I would point out David, describe who I had made him dress up as, and got lots of, "Ohh!!" from people, who originally probably thought he really was dressed up as a jerky doctor. It was humorous, and led me to promise that he could have a costume that could stand on its own next year.

It was a good party. So good, even David stayed up til around 3 in the morning. There may or may not have been some attempts by yours truly to play Rock Band for the first time in the wee hours of morning.

The results of this were apparently so entertaining that David, the next day, expressed some desire to buy the game just to watch me try to play it.

I blame whatever that smoking green stuff was that Kelly made me drink. :)

A few days later, actual Halloween occured, and Mom came over to help me hand out candy to the kiddies.

The house:

Entry

Scary ghost!

Spooky Walkway

Front Door

BOO!

More Door Action

Made Koa a costume while waiting on Trick or Treators. He actually wore this for hours without complaint.

Mom with her doggie helpers. Koa was so great - whenever the doorbell rang, he would wander over to the front door and stand there and let kids pet him like it was no big deal.

The only issue was his eyeholes kept slipping - I definitely heard the 'thump' of him running into a wall a couple of times.

I never noticed how very furry this bat is.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

My Brain is Trying to Kill Me

2011-11-04T05:24:00.000-10:00

Sometimes when I'm doing something mundane, like washing my hair, I kind of zone out for a while, and when I come to I realize I'm in the middle of a conversation with myself in my head. Does this happen to anyone else, or do I need to start looking into serious pharmaceuticals?!

This also happens to me a lot at red lights. Except usually, at those, my mind delights in dredging up mortifying moments from my past and replaying them for my horrified entertainment. Like the time, newly married and still very shy, I went to get the mail and came back into the apt, only to see that David had redecorated the entryway in my absence (and it was ugly). I don't remember the exact words that I started yelling, but it was probably unpleasant with a side note of profanity. At this, 3 extremely good-looking guys (of course they were good-looking) walked out of the bedrooms to stare at me. I HAD WALKED INTO THE WRONG APT AND STARTED CURSING AT ITS OCCUPANTS. I probably made some noise not unlike 'glark' and backed my profanic butt out of there as quickly as possible.

And for the next two years, proceeded to take extremely ridiculous measures to make sure I never ran into them again.

Another favorite is the time I met David's borderline-genius father for the first time. "Remember how you slammed your head, unintentionally, into not one, but three different objects in the room?!" my brain screams. " Ha ha! You cretin!"

My life is pretty blessed right now - I have a great husband, enjoy my job, we have our health, and we're slowly turning our house into our home.

So it's going to be a real shocker to everyone one day when this happens to me at a red light and I lose the will to live and roll into the intersection.

For Rent: One Bedroom Birdhouse

2011-10-06T04:38:00.001-10:00

August 2011

I love my local library. There is just so much information waiting to be taken home and loved, much like a puppy at the pet store just without all the bodily function surprises.

So! On such a trip while looking for info on gardening and patios, we ended up taking home a few books on building your own birdhouse. One was pretty straightforward, but the other was like Home For the Distinguishing Fowl. Some of them looked nicer than my house.

After an evening with David of planning ornate birdhouses, I did some actual research (I am finally learning - do all the research FIRST) and found out that hey, birds hate that. Here's the condensed skinny on getting a bird to actually live in something you make:

''Make it rough and look like a natural dwelling because bright colors aren't so good at hiding from predators that want to eat their babies, and birds won't live in it which kind of defeats the point''

So, sadness. We decided to dial down the birdy McMansion and make a birdy McHomeless shelter instead.

There is probably some lesson on humility and our materialistic society in here somewhere, but I am too busy picking out fabric for some new drapes to find it.

Step One:

Planning. Like, perhaps you should get the plans before you buy the wood, so your wife doesn't get all naggy and inform you that your wood is incorrectly sized and inferior.

I have a triangle, and I'm not afraid to use it

Step 2:

Go back to Home We Own Your Soul Depot for more wood

Step 3:

Cut things. Preferably not your own limbs.

Ba-zam! Conquering Fears, caught on film.

Step 4:

Put the pieces together to make sure they all fit

It looks like we tore up some floorboards to make this thing

Step 5:

Come up with Ghettofied Version, since the original plans are not working out because someone bought lumber that was too thick. Ahem.

Showing off the drainage holes and vents cut in the top side pieces

Step 6:

Re-cut select pieces

The one feature worthy of the McMansion house - David cut these ledges into the front of the board leading to the entrance to make it easier for the babies to crawl out on their own for the first time

Step 7:

Assemble. Buy a nail gun and just go crazy. That's what we did, anyway. And by we, I mean David because I am even more terrified of the nail gun than I am of the miter saw. Those things could misfire and shoot me in the eye, and then I would lurch blindly around the house, squeezing the trigger in agony AND THEN OH MY GOSH I SHOT MY DOG.

So.

I left it to David.

Gahh. The Internet has taught me to be frightened of many things

Step 7:

Get a bit of some kind for your drill that makes holes in wood and make an entrance in the door. Ours was 1 1/2 inches, which allow of many different types of birds. Be sure to check online or in a book to make sure what size your selected species of birds prefers.

In retrospect, the best place to do this was probably not the kitchen floor.
Sometimes we get excited and things have to happen IMMEDIATELY.
We have no time for this 'proper planning' drivel

Step 8:

Nail down anything that is loose. Or, if you are Lily, attempt to defend against the nail gun and compressor with vicious barking and physical attacks. I don't think she liked the noise. I was sure she was going to get herself a nail through the lip, or even worse, make David shoot himself in the leg/arm.

This was my job - making sure Lily did not become an accessory on the birdhouse

Step 9:

Be proud of self and show off to everyone.

TA -DA!

David removing the pins on the side that hold the door in place so he can show off the inside

Hi little birdy ladder!

Completed. The entrance is made double-thick as a deterrent to possible predators. I guess they see the deep hole and give up? Dunno, but any chance that I don't have to come out one day and see little dead baby birdies I will take.

Attack of the Cucumbers

2011-10-03T07:24:00.000-10:00

August 2011

THEY JUST KEEP COMING.

Cucumber husbandry is pretty easy, once you get the vines going. In the beginning, our sad little plants were attacked first by hail (crushed) and then aphids. At first the seeds were carefully selected for being 'burpless' among other attributes, and carefully labelled in the garden.

Well.

That didn't last long. We had several casualties, which resulted in us driving to Lowes and grabbing plants more or less at random from the shelves to transplant. So now I have no idea what's what, which is unfortunate for next year's planning, bc its basically back to square one.

We are growing our stuff organically, which usually means nasty smelling things like fish emulsion and blood meal sometimes litter our patio. But more than anything, I sometimes have vicious daydreams of buying the most chemical-rich insecticide that I can and just nuking every thing in there.

Our cucumbers were being decimated by aphids. For some reason, the idea of a multitude of tiny insects targeting my plant an sucking the life out of it fills me with an unholy rage. In the spirit of organics, we decided to head over to Calloway's and pick up a container of ladybugs to take care of our little problem.

Now, the package says they have a special food/bedding that makes them want to stay on your plants and not fly away. To this, I would like to say: Ha ha, you cretin.

They hung around for a little over 24 hours, but after that it was sayonara.

After trying a multitude of organic pest control options - Neem Oil, Orange oil, biological control (ladybugs), as well as companion plants, we finally found one that works great - Spinosad. If you have a garden, go get you some. Immediately.

Ninja cucumber hiding in the grass

Anyway, that brings us to now, and cucumber husbandry and proliferation.

After watching our cucumbers make little babies that promptly would turn yellow and fall off, I hit the internet.

Apparently, all the butterfly/bee friendly plants I've spread around the yard aren't doing their jobs, because I found out that they were all dropping off because they weren't being pollinated. So, guess how I spend a few mornings a week?

If you said, 'You crawl around hand-pollinating each flower with a tiny paintbrush' then you have come to understand the level of insanity I have stooped to regarding this garden.

So, really, it's my own fault that I have approximately a million inedible cucumbers.

Yes, you heard me right. Inedible. So imagine our faces as we lovingly sliced our first cucumber - so juicy and crisp, still warm from the sun – at put it into our mouths.

And promptly lunged for the sink so we could spit it out.

Turns out, extreme heat is not so good for cucumbers. The plant becomes ‘stressed’ much like you or I during tax season, and decides to punish us by becoming horribly bitter.

It’s awful. Yet I can’t stop pollinating the things. It's a possibility that I might have issues. One of them is that we have several different breeds (is this the right word?) of vines, and every now and then, one of them produces a cucumber that is edible. So, I can’t throw them away, because WHAT IF!? But on the other hand, the only way to tell is to taste-test them, and it is unpleasant.

I usually approach this problem by placing them in the crisper, letting them get wrinkly, and then putting them in the compost pile. You’d be surprised how fast truly fresh produce goes bad.

So, I couldn’t help myself when my mom came over one day and I explained my problem to her. So we steeled ourselves, opened my crisper, and began to weed out the nasty ones.

This consisted on slicing off a piece, and tentatively touching my tongue to it. I know in about five seconds if it is nasty, and somehow it spreads to my entire mouth, making it feel powdery and locking up my jaw. I can't really describe it. To my everlasting entertainment, mom couldn’t quite grasp this process, and instead insisted on chewing up each piece. I blame her old-lady taste buds, because she could never tell right away. She’d have a bite and say, “This is good!” To which I would continue to stare at her until the nauseated expression came over her face and she would spit out her pieces quickly, to the sound of my gales of laughter.

In the end, only 2 cucumbers out of this bunch proved edible. Although the hilarity was almost worth all the work.

Apparently there are types of cucumbers that are bred to be 'non-bitter'. You can bet I will be getting those next year.

Random Garden Shots

2011-10-03T05:25:00.002-10:00

I was looking at my blog posts, and realized I never posted this one - Ah, back when things were green....

From Random Points in Time This Summer

Something is up with our carrots. I was mildly disturbed when I started trying to pull these up, but then I remembered that I had to transplant these since they were unable to germinate in our new soil, and it is really hard to get a root he size of a hair strand to replant board-straight. Thus, we got some crazy-looking carrots once those twisty roots started growing up and filling out.

Also, they are so hairy! Ugh.

I don't think I will be transplanting carrots every again. A lot of them were so twisty they snapped off in the dirt when I tried to pull them up. Live and learn!

TOMATOES. I LOVE THEE.

I think that David thinks our tomato plants don't produce very well, but the truth is that they rarely make it inside the house. In fact, they rarely survive for longer than 5 seconds off the vine. It's usually after I've eaten a plant's worth, seeds dribbling down my chin, that I feel like a rabid dog who won't share, then there's the shame, and then I make myself take them inside to eat later. Or perhaps, go crazy and actually share them with people.

Eh, who am I kidding. Not my tomatoes!

Giant cucumber

I was beyond amazed when I came outside one day and noticed that this tiny plant (snap pea? I can't even remember) made a bean that was about as big as the whole plant. I'm glad we took this, because a few days later this plant was murdered by hail. Damn you, elements!

Actually, it was the death/mauling of most of our plants, as well as the non-stop rain that was rotting what had managed to stay alive, that made us install the supports you see below. When it's too rainy or cold, we plan on draping the plants with plastic to protect them. Once we actually start getting things we can actually eat, we are going to cover them with nets to protect against those thieving squirrels, those unappreciative jerks. They always take just one bite to assure you have to throw out all your hard work. Someone should teach them about environmental waste and upcycling.

Ok, deep breaths. Squirrels have been eating my tomatoes, and I might have some rage issues.

The garden with supports. The heat-loving stuff is really starting to grow. I think next year I'm going to do a weekly garden picture update. Could be fun.

Our tomato plants are about as tall as I am. It's crazy. As you can see, we are going to have to build a taller support cage to contain their awesomeness.

Production Commences

2011-09-29T07:03:00.000-10:00

April/May 2011

IT'S ALIIIIIIVE......

Look at this! It's as bigger than my head

Well, our lettuce is anyway. Everything else is still recovering from transplant shock.

I would say lettuce is my favorite to grow. That might be because it's the only thing doing well right now, but also I love that I always can have a salad without worrying that it might have gotten old and slimy in my fridge drawer.

You know what? I'm hungry right now

Mmmm salad

June 2011

Ok, the lettuce has pooped out, but the tomatoes are now stealing the show.

We have 1 Big Boy, 1 Better Girl, and 3 'Sweet 100' cherry tomato plants, the latter of which are producing like crazy. David has no idea, because I go out there right after work and eat all I can and then bring the few leftovers into the house.

I won't forget my first taste of a home-grown tomato. I kind of expected any type of produce we grew in the garden to taste like rainbows. It should be beyond amazing, right?! Well, in most cases it just tastes like food. I've since learned that the main difference is in the nutrition it will have, based on your soil and fertilizer. But still.

David and I recently listened to an author speak about the mass-production of tomatoes on NPR the other day. He, like most non-industrialized foodies, was very passionate about his subject, going into long discourses about how most tomatoes are grown in sand in FL, which imparts absolutely no nutrition to the fruits. Furthermore, they are picked very green and then sprayed with ethylene to force them to turn red. He referred to the whole process as something like, 'the prostitution of the tomato', and then told us to only eat tomatoes produced in summer and fall. I snorted. I don't care where it came from, I am not having a tomato-less existence for 6 months out of the year.

Our first 'larger' tomato. I am choosing to ignore that is is freakishly small

But when I bit into that little sphere of deliciousness that spoke to me of days drenched in sunshine, I understood. It was full of flavor, both savory and slightly sweet, with a complexity I was not expecting. If you have a small plot of land that gets decent sun, stick a tomato plant in it. If you want to start from seed, you'll need to do it indoors and start in January. We were a little late because I had no idea, and so our production on the other two plants was kind of low. Once it gets stupid-hot the blooms no longer set and turn into tomatoes. We have several tomatoes that just stopped growing. The fruits have been tiny and on the vine for months with no progression.

Mid-June 2011

Berries! Our blackberry and raspberry bushes are hanging in there. I was told not to expect any fruit the first year as they are getting established, so I was pleasantly surprised to pick these little gems. I am not sure what is up with that midget strawberry, but it helped with the continuity of the picture.

Mmm, future raspberries. My plant is the 'everbearing' variety, which supposedly produced fruit for the entire growing season, instead of one giant harvest in June, like traditional raspberries. Gotta love genetic Frankensteins. Although it did attempt to make fruit over several months, I did notice that it was more productive in June.

July
I know jack about carrots. For some reason, I expected them to just put up a little sign when they were ready, saying, "Hey! We're ready to be picked now!" Not unlike the signs in Wily E Coyote cartoons.

That being said, I wandered over to their corner of the garden one day and thought, Huh, I wonder if these are rotting in the ground or something.

So I pulled a few up.

Looks like a carrot - they are a lot hairier than I was expecting.

I have plenty of memories picking carrots in my grandads garden, and they were always carrot-like and yummy. Ours kind of look like deformed Yeti fingers, and the taste is not what I remember either.
I think I need to read up on how to care for carrots next year, how to tell when to pick them and also not actively deform them. But that's for another post.

Late July/August

It is now stupid hot, and the garden is doing good not to be spontaneously combusting in this heat.

The tomatoes have entered some kind of stasis, strawberries are in hibernation, cucumbers are producing inedible plants, and the poblano plant gave up the ghost, which surprised me. I thought these things were supposed to love hot weather!?

BUT the vine-type plants are coming into their own.

After looking pitiful and doing absolutely nothing for months, our watermelons and cantaloupe have started growing like weeds and are taking over their beds. It used to look pretty stupid, one watermelon plant approx. 4 inches in diameter in a bed all by itself, but it has almost filled the whole bed up now.

7:45 am usually finds me in my nightgown crouching down between the vines with a paintbrush, trying to differentiate between the female and male flowers so I can pollinate them and hopefully end up with some fruit. This bout of weirdness finally paid off:

Baby Cantaloupe!

THE NEXT DAY: Holy crap, these things grow fast.

I love checking on this little guy - he grows so much each day it's fun to watch. Although, strangely, cantaloupes start out looking suspiciously like a watermelon! lots of people have been asking if we mixed up the seeds. Only time will tell!

So that's what's happening in the garden right now. We are basically just sitting back and seeing what happens, planning for next year when things like trellises become an obvious necessity to corral all the unruly vines spilling out of the beds and taking over our lawn.

Baby Plants

2011-09-27T04:31:00.002-10:00

Late April 2011

Holy Crap! It's Happened! There are actually plants in the garden. I think David considers that everything is spaced too far apart, but I was pretty firm about it, and I waited until physical labor wore him out to the point where he was complacent. I did not read 20 seed packets and make notes and measurements and actually utilize graph paper for nothing, buster. We shall see how this all pans out.

Although I must admit, it looks pretty sparse at the moment.

Ta-da!

Sha-zam! Check out all that mulch. Something crazy like 15 huge bags of it. TIRED. AGAIN.

Bed #1 - this is probably our sunniest bed, so I planted (counter-clockwise) tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, and our peppers - bell and poblano.

Butterfly garden! Pollinate my stuff, bugs. Get on it.

Bed #3: 4 (why did I do this?) different types of cucumbers on the end closest to us, different carrots and pole beans at the other end.

Bed #2: Starting on end closest to us and going clockwise: zucchini and squash, strawberry plants, blackberry, raspberry, and snap peas.

Bed #4: This one is kind of shady, so I'm not sure what we are going to do with it mid-summer. Right now since it's cool, it is full of different kinds of lettuce. Butterhead, gourmet greens mix, green loose leaf, and something else. Oh yeah! Two different types of spinach, one of which is not actually spinach, but will grow in warm weather. I completely forgot about them, because the spinach was a total fail. It wouldn't even germinate in our indoor grow area in most cases, and when we took the few that did outside, they did absolutely nothing. I am kind of baffled. I think we might have gotten a bad batch of seeds? So dissappointed.

David's herb bed. I stole a big spot for another raspberry bush, but there's also several kinds of mint, oregano, 4 types of basil, chives, lavender, sages, parsley, cilantro....David decked that business out. You can also see we finally replanted that rosemary bush I randomly put in the middle of the lawn when we moved in. It was right where the garden was going, so we had to move it.

David planted tulip bulbs on the end to cap it off and make it pretty, but those eventually got ripped up and we planted more herbs. We are kind of over bulbs. We went absolutely insane and bought something like 100+ different bulbs in the fall of '10. Costco is a dangerous place, people.

Naturally, we planted exactly 0 of them over the winter like you're supposed to, but since they were in the garage they were somehow still viable in the early spring when I finally actually put them in the ground. They spouted, were very pretty for a few weeks, then became ugly. I'm not sure I can put up with ugly for 350 days just for 15 days of pretty.

So! Plants! Oh, how does our garden grow.

Houston, We Have Dirt. Lots of It.

2011-09-12T06:57:00.002-10:00

Say hello to the most expensive pile of dirt I have ever had the joy of purchasing.

Granted, it is like the Rolls-Royce of dirt. It is specially formulated for vegetable plants, and has all sorts of stuff like compost, slate, decomposed granite, and some random clay pieces that smell like sewer. I don't know what they are, but apparently they are awesome.

Our backyard is not easily accessible, so things destined for that area usually spend some time in the driveway area of the house. Thank goodness our neighbor, Harold, is pretty laid-back about the fact we frequently destroy/dump things in the shared strip between our houses. I figure it is a fair trade-off, as I have to see him walk around his backyard with his shirt off on a regular basis.

We really need a taller fence.

This is my attempt at taking an artsy shot of me shoveling dirt that is apparently full of gold flakes. Sigh.

Ok, I want you to look carefully at the inside of each of the beds. WE DUG THEM OUT. We removed all the cruddy dirt at least a foot down in each of the beds. MORE DIGGING. ARRGGGG THE HORROR.

So, it was awful. Ahem. These plants had better grow like crazy.

So, lots of trips with the wheelbarrow to the front yard and back. After filling this one bed, I had to go to work, and David finished up. He came up with the great idea to use an old board we had in the garage as a ramp for the wheelbarrow so we didn't damage our beds. Of course this did not even occur to me, as I was too busy being proud of myself for using towels to lessen the damage. David is more intelligent than me. This is not news to anyone.

Here David's finishing up. As you can see, we've lined the bottom of the bed with newspapers to help with any weed seeds that might take a stab at life. Over time they will break down.

I would say this was the easiest part of the entire process. Of course, that might be because it was magically finished while I was at work.

We started running the hose on the beds trying to get them to compact some, because turns out we might have overestimated it a bit on the dirt. Whoops!

The bebes, tired after all his hard work

To finish it off, we spread cedar mulch on the ground between the beds and capped off the walkways with some fake stone pavers in an attempt to contain it. Several months later, and it is still working really well. We've had several hard rains, and all the cedar mulch has stayed in place. This might be because the garden was well-leveled, not that you will ever hear me say so in public.

Finished! Halleluiah!

Koa is worn out just watching us work.

What is this, you might say? Well, we had extra boards and dirt, so......herb garden. David is mainly the master of the herb garden, picking out the plants and tending them. I felt bad, because we have a short, empty bed next to our kitchen, and David wanted to build a narrow, tall, tiered garden which would have looked amazing, but I threw a fit because it did not get very much sun, and I wanted things to thrive so I can eat them on a regular basis. He gave in, and I felt bad for crushing his dreams.

But I really like it where it is now.

Digging to China

2011-08-05T05:01:00.001-10:00

He's happy now - give him an hour

Ok, so, the garden forms are made. Spring is approaching, so perhaps we should actually install these suckers. It's pretty self-explanatory. Again, David did almost all of the hard work. I took these pictures before heading off to my shift at the restaurant.

We rented a tiller, and loosened up the soil. Any by 'we' I mean David.

I eventually learned that it works by burying a hook in the back of the machine to keep it tilling up the surface. Guess how hard this is to do with clay? Very.

Dirt. I love it and hate it

Then he leveled it out, bc our backyard is on a slant towards the house. I now understand this is pretty bad for your foundation. Great.

Leveling. This became a theme

Sexy Leveling

Then is snowed, WTH, and so we had to wait for it to thaw.

We can see the dirt again! Time to put these puppies in the ground. Thus began a several-months long stint where I was digging in the yard weekly, due to several outdoor projects. I was very grumpy for quite some time. I was almost glad when it started getting too hot to do anything outside.

David, hiking up his pants in anticipation

He is feeling very happy and fulfilled with the fruits of his labor. I am feeling like I need a Cape Cod to make it through the rest of the day

Oh, I freaking hate Texas soil. It's 80% clay and 100% impossible for me to dig in. Also, even though the ground was marked where the posts went in, you would be surprised how hard it is to dig 2 feet deep holes that all line up. It never worked. There were 6 posts per bed, which became 24 holes to dig. It might have well been 24,000 for me. I worked the entire time with David, and I dug about 5 of those holes.

Someone needs to hit the gym! (me)

Babe, I am so glad you are such a hard worker. Because I poop out.

Also, David has this annoying habit of doing things well the first time. It is easy to appreciate now, long after the fact as I'm enjoying well-placed, level beds with no weird watering problems.

But at the time, when David broke out the LEVELER it quickly got to the point where I started plotting to fling said leveler into the neighbor's bushes.

''IT'S CLOSE ENOUGH'' - I should make myself a T-shirt

Does this happen to anyone else? I am forever finding/hearing things that make me say "I want to put that on a T-shirt'. Which, of course, I never do and promptly forget. I feel like I could be wealthy on catchy (ok, probably uber-nerdy) t-shirts sold on the internet. I need to make a file or something.

Not gonna lie, I really REALLY hated this part. Anytime I have to dig in the backyard I get surly. It's so....unsatisfying. The work I put in per shovel stroke compared with what actually is removed generally makes me angry. So after I have just about killed myself to dig a big hole for a support only to find out that the hole needs to be moved over 4 inches makes me want to go terrorize the neighbor's dog.

As you can see, they eventually all got in the ground, and I didn't get a divorce or anything.

And then it snowed again. What the heck is going on!? At the time, I hoped this meant we would have a (relatively) mild summer. Bwha ha ha! Cretin.

Center garden not sealed or installed yet

David was so pumped up about the impending end of the project he went ahead and finished building the center butterfly garden bed. I installed that one myself, mainly because the supports on this one were like 5 inches long with a diameter of 2". My kind of digging.

YESSSS. It's all coming together.

So pretty.

How We Did It:

A shit-ton of digging. Use a leveler at your own risk. According to my calculations, it would make a great blunt weapon.

The Manifestation of Our First Big Idea

2011-08-05T05:00:00.002-10:00

Jan 2011

So, we started planning our first real project - building a garden. Honestly, I started obsessively researching garden stuff, and what types of seeds to buy way beforehand, because I have no patience and want to do everything NOW. If I had my way, a weekend would consist of painting a room, planting an entire bed, and installing crown molding throughout the house.

Reality is not my specialty.

One day we randomly decided to go into a Lowes, and stumbled upon Deal of Greatness. Apparently, the lumber guys had a whole bunch of nice cedar boards that were not perfect, and they wanted to get rid of them. If we took the whole stack, they would sell them to us for $5 a board instead of the normal $30. Um, yes please! I tired not to be too giddy and probably failed miserably - I more than likely looked like I forgot to take my anti-psychotics for the day.

More to the point, this series of events led to the photo below:

The yard before Garden of Greatness

If you squint, you can see sticks poking out of the ground: this was our way of trying to envision/measure the future garden. It was also a really bad plan, because Koa is extremely fond of sticks and kept creeping in and absconding with them. After a few minutes, there would be one or two forlorn sticks poking up out of the ground.

Getting ready to do Something Manly

So, cutting. I am mortally afraid that I will have an attack of clumsiness and cut off body parts while operating anything that involves sharp edges and electricity, so I left this one to David.

I believe this is the inaugural use of the miter saw, as well as the stand he got for Christmas (thanks mom!) so that he could finally actually use the saw.

This actually takes longer than you'd think, and so I have lots of unnecessary pictures of David in Deep Concentration.

After a while I started to have boards to play with. SO much better than hard to see, quickly disappearing sticks.

You can see that rosemary bush is still in the middle of the yard. I put it there when we moved in because there was this odd hole in the yard that was full of sand. As far as I know, not a whole lot can grow in sand. So I dug it out and filled in the hole with some nice dirt from Home We Own Your Paycheck Depot. Then I thought about what a waste of some very nice dirt, so I transplanted our one plant that made the move with us. David thought I was crazy, but luckily, he was indulgent.
One completed bed! It is upside down right now. At the time I was proud how sturdy those supports looked. Later, I cursed them.

But that's another post.

After they were put together, I made my contribution of sanding the whole thing down and coating the outside with polyurethane. This was completely unnecessary, but it definitely helped with aesthetics.

Those of you eating our produce, don't worry - I didn't paint the inside.

Three little piggies! Ah ah ah! (in the voice of the Count from Sesame Street)

The dogs decided to help in the form of LICKING THE DANGEROUS CHEMICALS OFF THE BOARDS. Sigh. I spend a lot of time lunging around, trying to spray them in the mouth with a hose and praying they wouldn't sprout an extra tail or something.

So, construction complete. From drawing the plans to scale to letting the sealant dry, this took approx. 3 weeks.

Of course, it was like 2 months until we actually got around to putting them in the ground.

For those who are interested, here was our plan of action for planning a garden bed:

- Watch your backyard during the summer (the light changes drastically in the winter) and locate the absolute sunniest part of your lawn. Nothing is more important - plants just won't produce without 6-8 hours of sun at the very least. I ended up spending one Saturday taking pictures of the backyard every hour to note how the sun moves across it.

- Draw a to scale your backyard using graph paper and plot out the size and design of your garden. The local library will be your good friend for design ideas and construction.

- Plan your cuts. Each of our garden beds were 8 x 4 x 6 x 2 x 2. This way, we only had to make a few cuts per board with no waste. (our boards were each 10' long)

- Buy materials. We used:

cedar boards - they supposedly help with insects, mainly termites. Heaven knows we still needed to use insecticide. Or maybe we just don't realize how bad it could be. We used 10'x8"x1" for the main boards, and 4x4s for supports at the joints.
decking screws made especially not to rust. You can go crazy-style with much more sturdy fastenings, like bolts, but we thought this might be a tad unnecessary. It seems to be holding up well so far.
Minwax semi-gloss polyurethane - use a natural-bristle brush, and wear gloves!!

-Measure and cut

-Repeat appox a billion times

- To build a very sturdy bed, have the 4x4s extend about a foot past the base of the bed. To do this, build the bed upside down on a flat surface.

-Be sure to pre-drill the holes where the screws will go.

- Make prodigious use of an electric drill and screw the boards together.

- Ta-da! Flip over, sand and give 2 coats of polyurethane, on the outside of the bed only.

The end. Now all you have to do is install it, digging until your arm muscles mutiny.

I Swear We Aren't Growing Marijuana , Officer

2011-08-04T11:55:00.014-10:00

Feb 2011

As a lot of you guys know, since for several months I was talking about nothing else, one of the reasons we were excited about having a home was owning a backyard. It is now over a year later, and our main room still has no furniture, but we can't be bothered because we're still playing in the backyard.

Our first big realized project was installing a garden, which lead to this moment - taking the lives of many plants into my hands. This is very scary for the plants, because I kill everything I touch. Luckily my partner in crime is much more plant-savvy.

The dirt we ended up buying in bulk for the garden is made to continue to break down and nurture the plants for at least 5 years, and the dirt guy said we would not want to plant seeds directly into the bed because something something something it is bad.

Sadly, this often happens to me. My brain fixates on the take-away, but instantaneously forgets the actual reason why. In this case, I vaguely recall it has something to do with the dirt compounds that are newly breaking down leech something (water? nutrients?) out of seeds and they won't germinate well. Possibly. This brain shortage tends to make me look like an idiot on a regular basis.

Anyway, this led to us needing to start all of our extensively planned garden indoors. We don't get any direct sunlight due to extensive tree cover, so this was a slight issue which we chose to gloss over for the moment.

So! Starting seeds indoors! For those of you who could are less and just want to look at the pretty picture, I've placed any actual informative info at the end of the post.

Filling the cells after mixing and moistening the soil - it should resemble a wrung-out sponge.

Fill the cells. I usually put three seeds in each one, to make sure something takes. I will thin them out later. Just barely scratch the surface, place the seed, and lightly cover with the mix. Most seeds like to be 1-2 mm deep. Be sure to check each packet.

LABEL THEM. I cannot stress the importance of this. It is especially vital to see how things progress thought the season so you can plan for next year. David is very into this whole process, and I have not seen him this excited since the first time he went snorkeling. One side effect is that he planted a tray and had only a foggy idea of what was planted where. This made for interesting guesses later, since all seedlings look almost exactly alike.

THE HATED PEAT POTS

I did tomatoes on the first round, and they had to suffer my ignorance. These plants have already spouted, and grown what is called their first 'true leaves'. When a plant comes up, it will always have a pair of leaves called cotyledons, which are usually oval and smooth. It is hard to tell what a seedling is until it produces it's true leaves, which take on the unique characteristics of the plants. At this point, you need to start supplying nutrients if your potting mix does not have any.

Week 1: Wow, is that fuschia

David got online and ordered a grow light for our little plants, whose arrival I was informed of when I pulled up to the house after work late one night to discover aliens were landing in our upper story of our home.

He wasn't sure where to put it, so he had set it up in the bathroom at the front of the house. This caused violently fuchsia lights to stream out of every window in the upper story. It looked like Halloween had come several months early at our house.

Week 2: I felt the need to document David's love of the seedlings. It was really cute to see him so energized by the process. He could come in from work and go directly to the seedlings.

Eventually we moved the operation to an unused alcove in our office. I think it used to have a TV for the little girl who lived in that room before us, but we never knew what to do with it. It was a perfect solution, and the awful light was not terribly visible from the street.

This did NOT happen before we got a visit from the police.

Oh yes.

It happened while I was going to school, working late hours and sometimes could barely remember my name. So, basically, after my shift ended at 1 am I just kind of forgot about the whole thing and didn't tell David.

Which apparently means it didn't happen. It didn't happen to the point where when one of our friends mentioned the story to David, he TOLD THEM I MADE IT UP.

We had a little chat after that one.

So, friend, whoever you are, I most definitely did NOT make this up and thank you for presenting the chance for David and I to have a lovely talk about having faith in your spouse, backing them up first and asking them questions later instead of the 'throw them under the bus' route.

I still don't think he believes me.

Still Week 1

In all honesty, it wasn't all that thrilling. Basically? They thought we had a grow operation in our home. Which we do, technically - only it's lettuce instead of marijuana. Our street gets patrolled pretty often, and I guess the cop thought there might be a chance we were really dumb criminals. He asked to come in and take a look around, to which I had no issue with. I showed him our grow area, and after poking around a bit for show, he left, clearly thinking there were some really weird people in the world. Specifically in our house.

But that was it. Life went on, and David continued to spend upwards of 20 minutes staring at the seedlings the instant he got home each night.

Cilantro! David's favorite herb, and my attempt at an artistic shot. You don't even want to know how many I had to delete.

Week 2: Seedlings, cover is permanently removed once they have germinated

UPDATE

Week 3

Growth! Plants are doing well, specifically tomatoes and lettuce. We started another batch of later-season veggies, including squash, zucchini, cantaloupe and a mix of flowers for our butterfly garden.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

Weirdly colored light.

You can see a small fan I picked up in Target towards the back. I read that a small breeze helps with circulation and encouraging the plant to grow thicker stems to deal with their future outdoor home.

Back to normal

After staring at the light for a second, the whole world is green for a few minutes. It's trippy, and the dogs really hate it. The grow room was also the 'we're at work get in the cage' room, and Lily would audibly whine when I turned it on before leaving.

UPDATE

Week 4? I really should have documented this better. Next year.

At this point there are no more veggies, and David and I have started growing lettuce and herbs indoor year-round. In this batch we have butterhead lettuce, red leaf, black seeded simpson, gourmet greens mix, thyme and basil.

I think we are going to try to have some of these going at all times. It quickly gets too hot to grow lettuce and leafy things in Texas. The heat causes them to bolt (send up seed stalks) too quickly, which makes the plant bitter. We really like wandering over and having hte option to snip off a leaf for a sandwich, so, why not. Seed is approx $1.00 for 8,000 seeds (at least that's what it seems like) so the cost is almost worth it, if you take out the expense of the grow light. It's a fixed expense! Or something.

Not gonna lie, gardening? Not cost effective. Only do this as a hobby, people.

Turkey basters? Work great as waterers

Here's what we've found works best for us - we've had several successive plantings by now.

Firstly, stock up on supplies:

Seed starter medium. Note I do not say 'soil' because it's usually not the best to start them in actual soil. Lots of starter kits have peat pellets, which we started out with and I quickly learned was stupid. Peat has absolutely no nutrition for your seedlings, so once they get going it quickly can stunt your plants if not careful. I prefer to use a seed starter mix, which can be mixed with potting soil, which helps provide nutrients for your plants after they germinate.
Something to start your seeds in. After first using the standard peat pots, i quickly learned to LOATHE them. I hate them with a firey passion. They are a pain in the booty, and the roots quickly become enmeshed with the pot, so you have to replant the whole thing in your garden, or rip out all those tender roots. We had to do with with a few plants, and digging them up later in the season after they were done producing showed that the peat never really borke down, and the roots became root-bound even though they were planted in the ground. Break down my ass. It took a while, but I finally found a plastic tray that not only gave me easily transplanted plant cells, but I can reuse over and over. Win.
Seeds. Be sure to read up on the variety that you are getting to make sure it is suited to your area. I tired to do this and still failed miserably sometimes.
Plant things according to package directions and LABEL THEM. I plant several seeds per cell so if one done' t germinate, you have backup. You will thin the seedlings out to one per cell later
A tented cover to go over the tray while the seeds are germinating. If you get a kit, it always comes with one of these. Place in warm area. We use the top of the fridge - or did, at first
Once germinated, good-bye cover, hello light. Make sure your plants are placed so they get at least 6-8 hrs of sunlight per day. We use technology to laugh at nature, and usually leave our light on for 12 hours a day.
Keep moist. Drying out = dead things. We used the turkey baster to water the delicate little things at first, but now we place them in a shallow tray and pour water into the bottom - the plant soaks it up as needed without damaging new growth. Don't add too much water - that equals rot.
When they get old enough, stick em outside.
This is like Cliffs Notes for Gardening. If the author was mentally disabled. I'm probably leaving something important out.

I'm Officially Intelligent, Finally

2011-08-04T09:29:00.008-10:00

May 2011

Look! On the stage! It's me, miraculously not falling down. Even more miraculously, finally getting my degree.

So I am finally a college graduate - I ended up with Biology and a Chemistry minor. I am a HUGE hit at parties. I can put the whole room to sleep in about 11 minutes.

At least I can finally hold my head high in the Dyer clan. They have never made me feel badly about weakening the gene pool, but they are all such darn overachievers, I am afraid if I don't do something like cure cancer, I am always going to be lost in the background.

That is a lot of people. Sorry, family! Since I have been upgraded to 'D' from my previous 'W' I had the joy of walking within the first five minutes, and then spent the rest of my time trying to locate my family. It took a while, but eventually I realized I just need to find my Dad - bless his heart, he's so tall with white hair, it's like looking for a giant q-tip.

I found them right away.

Love you Dad!
Mom is so proud!

It was a great excuse to make my sister drive down and spend the weekend with us.

Someday we are going to live next door again - I can't wait.

Family! My mom ran out after I walked to stage to get my party together. Bless that woman, it was not easy. My last final was on Friday, and then I walked the stage Sat. This means I had not cleaned my house in several weeks, and I was basically no help whatsoever.

Lots of people came to celebrate with me, although I don't think I actually took pictures of anyone. So, in place of those:

Since I am so old and don't really need Things anymore, I asked for flowers if anyone wanted to bring me a graduation present. Check out this haul! It was very exciting.

I used them to surround the birdbath my mom got me - Love it. When it came in the mail I was so excited I ran outside to put it together, and this happened:

Oh well, here's my favorite - a double-bloom hydrangea. I have to add something to the soil to turn it blue.

Plants!

So, now I can truly enter adulthood and go get rejected from a lot of job applications. It should be a fun time.

A Morning Walk

2011-08-04T09:13:00.003-10:00

May 2011

A very short drive south of Dallas yields some surprising tranquility at the Trinity River Audubon Center.

One morning David woke me up early on Saturday (what. are. you. thinking.) and I am glad I refrained from strangling him right then and there, because he took me for some much-needed relief from the city.

That said, the Audobon center is amazing. It's built well and very interactive, perfect for some rambunctious kids. Or if you want some solitude, you can wander among several beautiful trails.

Being 5 year olds ourselves, of course we did both, pushing all the buttons on the wildlife sounds exhibits, wandering by the outdoor fossil dig, and walking among the trails.

It is mainly marshland, and you will appreciate the raised trail as you try to spot all the different waterbirds. The picture above has a heron in it, if you squint. I am not skilled in photography. Usually I get over-excited and just start pressing the shutter button in any ol' random direction. Thank goodness for digital cameras. Delete!

Stop! I want to take a picture!

They have a structure with windows at all levels so you can go inside and watch all the birds without scaring them off.

Looking out

After soaking it in, we headed over for some amazing Cory cakes at Legal Grounds - man, I miss that place. If you're ever in Lakewood for breakfast, GO THERE. EAT THEM.

LG, I am open to a lifetime of cory cakes in return for endorsing your product.

If you're in Dallas and like the outdoors, plan a trip to the TRA. It's worth the short drive.

Trinity River Audubon Center
6500 S. Loop 12; Dallas, TX 75217

http://www.trinityriveraudubon.org

214-398-8722

Cottonwood Art Festival Makes Me Feel Like I'm Five Years Old

2011-08-04T08:50:00.004-10:00

In April(?) 2011.....

We have a great park located kind of close to us. It is a bit annoying, because it's beautiful and I enjoy visiting, but it's not quite far enough away to drive and not feel like a tool.

But it's a long walk

It takes around 2 months for me to forget how much I dislike walking several miles in my neighborhood before I think about what a good idea it would be to go to the park with the dogs.

In this particular instance, we walked down to Cottonwood for the annual art fair. I was expecting more of a local (read: lame) flavor, with grandma's quilts and Aunt Dorthea Jean's homemade jewelry. I was pleasantly surprised to see exhibit after exhibit with first-class art work, photography, and sculpture. It was crazy, and most people came in from out of state. Apparently this festival is kind of a big deal.

David walking among the tents

I don't really have any pictures, because artists get downright feisty if you approach their stuff with a camera. But we had a really great time, and I look forward to inviting people to go with us next year.

Resting by the pond

And now, a dumb photo montage:

Normal. Not scaring passerby Dogs cocking their heads to the side, as they are wont to do Me, thinking it would be funny, cocking my head to the side to imitate the dogs. Of course, they quit doing it, so I just look like I am mentally handicapped.

I had to distance myself from the situation.

Dog Days of Summer

2011-07-04T09:20:00.000-10:00

August 2010

Courtney and Paul were lured down to Dallas to check out the new house. Our dogs promptly welcomed Bear by finding her bed and claiming it for their own. Jerks.

Our dogs promptly welcomed Bear by finding her bed and claiming it for their own. Jerks.

Honestly, there is not a whole lot to do in Texas when it's over 100 degrees, so......

Oh yeah. Apparently, on the last day of summer, one of the local pools opens up to dogs with all proceeds benefiting the local animal shelter before they drain the pool for winter. Our dogs are huge weenies, and Koa had never seen water outside a bathtub, but we figured at least Bear would have fun.

Also, this happened over a year ago, and I don't remember anything else. So, guess what.

Excited doggies!Humans getting ready for some pool time

We had a lot of fun. There were free floating dog toys and frisbees, and a whole bunch of over-excited dogs. We enjoyed watching enthusiatic labs launch themselves into the deep end, sometime directly on top of their swimming owners.

Our dogs were another story.

Thank goodness this particular pool as an extreme graded entry (like a beach) or else we would never get Koa in. Lily eventually got over it and started jumping in when we called her, but at the end of the day David and I both had huge raspberries where Koa, in a fit of terror, raked us with his claws. Someday I hope he is no longer a huge pansy. That day is nowhere in sight.

As we were leaving, and ice cream truck pulled up which completed the bucolic scene. Yes, please!

Thank goodness we have pictures, otherwise I would never have any idea what we visited grandmom.
I do know there was skip-bo involved, and I'm pretty sure Courtney beat everyone's butts. I'll have to try to find that picture, for future reference.

Yay Martins! I know it is a sucky drive, but we always love spending time with you.

Back to the Future

2011-06-24T11:57:00.003-10:00

So! It’s been a year. Or two. Life is a lot more boring when you no longer live in paradise. Not that Texas isn’t paradise! Please put away your shotguns. Thank you.

Things have probably happened that would make good stories, but let’s not pretend – now that I am nearing 30, my mind is going and I don’t remember any of them. Quick update:

- We bought another dog
- We bought a house
- I started working as a waitress
- I stopped working as a waitress
- I finally graduated college with a Biology degree and Chem minor
- I got a big girl job at North American ENT, where I am currently enjoying wearing tailored shirts instead of bowling shirts.
- At some point I morphed into a 50 year old woman, who is now vastly concerned with the state of her garden, birds and butterflies, much more so that what is going on with domestic or foreign policy.
- Also, we now live at Home Depot and/or Lowes. Owning a home will do that to you.

And there you have it. I will probably be posting pics from the last year or two to remind myself of the horror of laying sod, our new puppy, as well as chronicling our descent into modern-day hippies, with our earth-loving ways and whatnot. We will probably be required to move to Oregon at some point where we can fit in with ‘our kind’ – this will probably happen when our elderly neighbors are driven to murder attempts due to the noise from our chickens. Although, I do draw the line at wearing hemp-related items.

Hopefully now that I am no longer actively putting us in a giant debt-hole and my weekends are free we will have some fun things to post from time to time too. If it gets too boring, we’ll have to go to some state where the ground isn’t flat and I have the chance to trip/twist my ankle/fall over some cliff somewhere.

Finally, I will subject you all to our home-related projects, which, somewhat sadly, will probably not be humorous because David’s usually in charge, and he does things right the first time – bloopers are pretty rare. I suppose that's a good thing. He does projects, I'll probably start back up with the food experiments.

All in all, I guess I’m going to have to start getting some intelligent insights to write down, now that I can’t rely on pure environmental entertainment. Drat.

In Which We Make Dirt (or Getting Smelly at Home)

2011-06-23T12:46:00.006-10:00

You all know my lovely husband – intelligent, focused, diligent and focused. Intensely focused. I cannot quite describe what happens when he locks upon an idea or project. The first time this happened, we ended up with a composter that can withstand tornadoes. Our 1950s house will be flattened, but that composter will be standing tall.

Truly, this is a great character trait to have in a husband – if he does something, I know he will do it well. Of course, if we happen to be working on a project together, eventually I will reach a point where it is Close Enough, but of course it never is, and then I am @#^% out of luck and become grumpy.

That's one of the reasons this picture is so funny - while using the circular saw he cut through the cord. Ha!

Aww, dejected David.

After buying the house, we began the descent into Homeowner Projects. And a very well-researched descent it is. Anyway, so, we’re making dirt now. This is step 1 of 3 to turn our place into the Dyer Homestead. Perhaps we’ll get a tax credit.

All finished! It is a dirt palace!

No more digression! To make that lovely compost as cheaply as possible, we used a real simple design – the sides were made with used pallets, and David constructed a lid. Driving around town became like a constant Easter egg hunt. We’d be all dressed up, and one of us would reach across the dash and cry, “Pallet!!’’ Which would cause the other person to swerve across sometimes 4 lanes of traffic so I could fight with a raccoon over a pallet THAT INSTANT, sometimes in my high heels. Apparently we were worried the pallet police were going to swoop in and snatch up those valuable heaps of lumber if we paid attention to things like street signs and driving laws. Pshaw. Those are for those chumps that pay over $100 for an inferior composter at Home Depot.

Gotta have access to all that black gold we'll be making.

So here it is. There is all kinds of support and metal hinges and what have you in that thing.

David’s actually made another one, since we discovered this fall that established neighborhoods have trees that import leaves from other dimensions to drop in our driveway. Our ‘hold’ pile was just as big as our first one.

Who knows when we actually will get compost – I am basically just dumping whatever kitchen (non-meat/fatty) scraps and lawn clippings I happen to have at the time. This is completely by-passing things I should be paying attention to, like nitrogen balance and keeping it moist, but dang, the hose is really far away. David tries, but it is moving kinda slow.

Multi-opening capabilities!

Hopefully someday soon I’ll get on here and be way too excited about making dirt, something that has been happening naturally for eons, but now apparently I’ve decided it needs my help.