Another week gone

I haven't blogged in a week, so you know it must be spring. I am soooooo busy at work, and then when I get home I am either sooooo busy outside or (Boo-urns!) sooooo busy in the house that blogging falls off the radar.

We had a fabulous Outside Day today, I enjoyed it so much that I thanked Son and Husbandly One for this "real" Mother's Day. Son and I purchased and then planted peppermint, red onions, and a total of five varieties of tomatoes in the vegetable garden. (which, by the way, is just an impressive way of saying "five tomato plants that were different". ) We then did a quick weeding on the other beds...I really must say that weeding in raised beds is the simplest thing it the world, we literally weeded everything in less than ten minutes. Of course, I did manage to impale the soft, fleshy, sensitive part of my palm on one of the Kitty Sticks, and it still hurts like hell seven hours later. If they are as effective on cats as they are on me, then I will have no problems with my felines crappng in my veggies.

At that point Husbandly One joined us in the backyard. We did a very LATE spring cleanup, we pruned the trees, and then Husbandly One mowed the backyard juuuuuuust before the epic rain started.

After an hour the rain stopped and we were able to attack the front yard. Much pruning of trees occurred, and then Husbandly One decided to dig a new flower bed under the coniferous-tree-which-has-no-name. Okay, it probably HAS a name, but to me all coniferous trees are "pine trees" and umm, even I know this particular tree isn't a pine. But whatever.

So he wants to dig a new circular bed. And tear up lawn to do it. He starts in with the shovel, big bladefuls of turf being turned over.

Time for this important commercial break: I have no interest in flowers. Sure, I plant flowers around the front of the house, but that is mostly just to keep the neighbours from hating me, I do it to "be normal". I'd much rather have my lovely, lovely vegetables, which are far more beautiful in my eyes. So TRUST me, I have zero interest in yet another flower bed.

But but but but but remember that Husbandly One, all on his own, decided to dig up some of the stupid front lawn so that I could replant that space with something better. Our lawn is now smaller and I had nothing to do with it! Major victory!!!!

.....so now I have to go buy shade plants for the new bed. I don't want the dumb thing, but I DO want what it symbolizes: less useless grass in the world! More plants and flowers and bees and creepy crawlies and everything delightful in the world!

I didn't expect to get that thrown at me on top of all the other work I already have. But I will take it gladly.

Ugh, the garden

Today I managed to plant the front flower beds. You know, those completely useless but decorative beds in the front that somehow make Husbandly One decide I can have total freedom in the back.

In the vegetable garden, I planted some beans and some asparagus peas. Never did get around to planting any lettuce, and I suspect it is now too late. But I also menioned to Husbandly One that I suuuuure would appreciate just ONE more vegetable bed, if he was willing to build it and sacrifice just a few more feet of lawn....and so far it seems like he is willing!

If I haven't made this clear before, let me do so now: I think maintaining a lawn is stupid. What does anyone get out of a lawn, except work?? It serves NO purpose, except to divide your house from the street, right? Well, lots of OTHER, productive things could serve that purpose just as well.

I missed American Idol

because I went to see John Fogerty in concert. I win.

It actually turned sunny today (finally!!) so if the weather holds I will try to get some stuff planted tomorrow after work. And, ugh, weed my flower bed. Sad story about that flower bed. See, I have worked on it for five years, this will be my sixth planting. And over those five years, I babied that thing, I nurtured it, fed it compost, expanded it, fed it some more compost and hugs and kisses and unicorns and rainbows.

Then last spring I went completely off my rocker and planted a wildflower assortment from seed. Oh, I suppose it looked okay, but here's the problem: I couldn't tell what was a weed and what was a flower, so I essentially didn't weed it all summer. I pulled absolutely everything out in the fall, but the damage was done. This spring, my previously lovely bed is rampant with green life that I did NOT plant. Quite frankly, that one stupid decision has put me back to square one, I undid all the good I had achieved. Never, never again.

This year, I will again be planting my annuals from seed (soon, I hope!) but only three varieties and in rows so that I can tell what belongs in the garden and what needs to be yanked.

Because we all need a bit of Train Wreck in our lives

I give you this

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

My usual habit with a blog that is New To Me is to go back to the beginning and read forward. Not required in this case., reading backwards to the beginning somehow works just as well. And believe me, you WILL read back to the beginning.

Enjoy!

Rain Day

The weather today was icky, just as predicted, so nothing got planted in the garden. Just as well, because I really did need at least today to recover from yesterday's marathon.

Son and I have a major weakness for pretzel rolls which we buy at a German bakery here in town. I found a recipe for them a few weeks ago, and so today we rolled up our sleeves and made them. Delish! We ate far more than can be considered healthy, mind you, but that's what rainy days are for.

We also christened the new dehydrator by slicing up a few kiwis and a few bananas...and then (not so) patiently waited for them to be done. We did not enjoy the kiwi at ALL and actually threw them out. The bananas, on the other hand, are sublime. So much more true banana flavour than the ones you buy in bulk. We plan to make oatmeal with some of them tomorrow morning, and I am already salivating, thinking about the other delicious fruit concoctions we will undoubtedly come up with in the weeks to come.

The next dehydrator project we plan to do together is jerky. YUM

Small step by incredibly small step, I am learning how to be more self sufficient. And I dig it.

Now if I could only get my beans planted....

I just can't

It is 5:37 pm, I have been working outside since 9am this morning...and yet I haven't planted a single thing. I created two new raised vegetable beds in the back, and I "double dug" a new flower bed in the front, out of our INCREDIBLY heavy clay soil. And though there are still a few hours of daylight left? And though it is now supposed to rain for the next two days?

I just can't.

Whimper.

At this exact moment,I couldn't care LESS if I ever harvest a vegetable. I couldn't care less about the thyme seedlings I bought yesterday, which are now languishing in my craft room. I couldn't care less about all the seeds that aren't tucked in to fertile earth.

All of my garlic is up, looks strong, and needs to by mulched. I COULDN'T CARE LESS.

I am exhausted, I am filthy, I smell like sheep shit. I cut my finger pretty badly, although I no longer remember how.

At this exact moment, gardening is STUPID, and if I ever get my hands on the person who told me this was a good idea....uh. wait.

I am going to hit the shower now, the people I live with will be happier because of it. I hate every single wretched thing about gardening.



And I really hope it doesn't rain tomorrow, so I can go out and do it again.

T minus 20 minutes

until the season finale of Lost. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

In other news, I finally caved and called a geek about my laptop. I haven't been able to call my internet time my own for the two weeks that I have been borrowing Husbandly One's laptop while he was trying heavens knows what to get my computer up and running again. I know it involved him randomly changing a bunch of my system settings in a blind attempt to solve...who knows. (Let this be a lesson to you: a Hubandly one with "some" computer knowledge can be a dangerous thing indeed.) Anyway, I called the nice geek man (he has been helping my mum for over ten years now) and his immediate reaction based on my description of the problem is that I have a simple over-heating issue that he can solve in under 20 minutes.

Umm, great, but once you're done that? Can you check all my settings?

And so it begins

This afternoon, Son and I planted the first of my three vegetable garden beds. I didn't do an exact count, but I can tell you we planted an obscene amount of peas, along with some carrots. In one of my containers we also planted some spring garlic, and basil in another. I may pull out the basil, though, and relocate it to the front flower bed....hey, I am TOTALLY making this stuff up as I go.

I still have soooooo much to plant, but I have nothing to plant the in! Husbandly One and I had bought bags and bags of compost, vermiculite, peat moss, etc, hoping I had done the math right and could fill my three beds. Well, apparently I should never be far from a calculator, because we were only able to fill the one bed. Crap. So back to the garden centre we must go tomorrow.

I used both Paul's intensive method for these peas, and his "kitty deterrant", which essentially means I shoved brochette skewers in to the soil every few inches, just close enough together for their pointy ends to (hopefully) keep my cat from crapping all over my bed. We shall see!

Who's Paul? Check out his amazing blog at www.apaetoday.blogspot.com . I will add him to my logroll as soon as my computer is 100% functional again. But so far, in 2009? Dude is totally my inspiration.... it doesn't hurt that we are in different gardening zones, and he started his garden about a month ago. If he discovers problems with the intensive planning experiment, I can still course correct. Score.

Still here!

Gah, I am having soooo many computer issues. First my laptop died, then our internet crapped out totally and I couldn't use Husbandly One's laptop, either. I am slowly limping my way back to connectivity...

random thoughts:

Did NO gardening last weekend due to horrid weather. Weather has continued sucky since then, but I have high hopes for getting some seriously dirty fingernails on Mother's Day.

Have been working on some needlework projects like a mad woman. It seems to have replace scrapbooking in my heart for now. Which is totally okay, sooner or later scrapbooking will rear its ugly addictive head again and I will go back to it. But I'm not going to feel guilty about my lack of interest in it for now. And let's all hpe that Husbandly One never realizes how many thousands of dollars of scrapbooking supplies are in my craft room going un-used.

We went to the funeral for my step-father's brother yesterday. It was a very sad, unexpected death, but a very positive moving service, and a "good" time was had by all. Now, you know I don't think funerals are a good time, but you also know that weddings and funerals are the only time everyone gets together, right? So it was a nice time in that I got to see my extended family on my step father's side. Anyway, Husbandly One and I sat down in our seats about 20 minutes before the service started, and within 5 minutes he was rubbing his hands together, "Wow Irma, it's cold in here. Why don't they turn up the heat?" Umm, because there's a dead guy in the room??? Moron.

So, the plans for my summer are official: in addition to the usual busy summer stuff, we are catering for 35,000 to 50,000 people at the BonJovi concert in June, and for 70,000 to 100,000 for the AC/DC concert in August. Guess which one scares the crap out of me.

On a related note, tonight Husbandly One and I went to Costco and bought THIRTY 10x10 foot tents, it all rang it at $9152.66 . We need those tents to create our "food andbeverage ticket" selling booths at the concerts....in past years we have rented them, and the rental bill was about $10,000. For ONE concert. So even if we only get two concerts out of these tents, we still saved the company $11,000 over the space of one summer. But seriously? Dude had better put his damn expense report in TOMORROW.

And that's all I've got for now. Over the past few days, a hundred things to write about have entered my head....but now that I have an opportunity to update, they have all walked straight out of my head. I'm just glad to be back.

Remember Ashley MacIsaac?

No?

Oh come on, you do remember. Ten years ago, he was considered one of the greatest fiddlers of our time. He was a huge star in Canada, thiiiiiiiis close to being an international superstar.

And then, in the space of thirty seconds, he destroyed his entire career. Intoxicated by his own fame, he seemingly felt he was invincible and could say anything to the press and still be loved and admired. He was very, very wrong. When people mention him today, the music is completely forgotten, only the scandal remains.

I went to an Ashley MacIsaac concert tonight. In my Mum's church, only about 200 people in attendance. And I wondered how it must feel to him, to know that he could have taken the world by storm but instead is stuck playing concerts in churches. I felt sad for him.

But then? Then he started to play. I stopped feeling sorry for him and instead felt sorry for you and me. Sorry that we missed these years of his incredible genius.

So PLEASE, check your newspaper or his website to see if he is playing in a church or community centre near you. And PLEASE go. I promise you it's worth it.