Oh my garden!

Oh my garden! If it’s not one thing, it’s something else. It finally warmed up this weekend and I noticed some considerable growth in the zucchini plants, the potatoes, and the squash/pumpkins. I have developed an infestation of cucumber beetles which are ravaging my vine plants. I have been following the advice of another unhappy gardener and vacuuming them off the plants early in the morning and right before dark. The beetles have succeeded in destroying the majority of my cucumber plants, most of my watermelons and several zucchini. It seems that there is not really a good way to get rid of them, no sprays or dusts, so hopefully removing them will help.
With all this water, my peas are doing well, but the bean plants are not taking off like I had hoped. The tomatoes and peppers that are in the lower part of the garden seem to be doing well. The older tomato plants are starting to get blossoms, as are the peppers. The young tomatoes were planted just before it began to rain, and rain, and rain and therefore have not taken off yet. With these new tomatoes we tried a different method of planting, burying the entire plant up to the top to promote healthier root growth. We’ll see how it turns out.
I have been weeding the onions, garlic, and carrots to no avail. More than once I have accidentally eliminated a plant that I wanted to keep, so I will stick to light weeding and they will have to fend for themselves. Other than those areas, which cannot be turned or hoed, the weeds in the garden are not too bad. Compared to last year, with our fresh barnyard dirt, I cannot complain.
I estimate that my garden is at least 3 weeks behind last years. We came home from the weekend of July 4th last year to zucchinis and a scattered tomato. This year the zuke plants are just bigger than a sheet of paper. Hopefully, now that it is warming up outside things will start to take off. The forecast says 80’s for the week. If that holds out things might start to perk up!

Sunshine Day...

Monday April 26th
Sunny shine! I love this weather. I am one of those people who would be completely and totally satisfied with 65 and sunny for 365 days a year. Perhaps there is somewhere else I could move to find this climate, but I haven’t heard of it yet. I’m a bit bummed today because I am at work and my husband is home. However, after speaking to him on the phone this afternoon and hearing about the great projects he has going……I’m better off at work. He has been wanting to prep the truck for our camper for a few weeks now and apparently today was the day. When I called him he stated that the truck was “in pieces”. Now, to most people, this would probably escape their notice, however, to my trained ears, this statement had the same tone as a fire alarm. He has a brand new truck, you see. That, combined with his crazy need to take things apart and rebuild them, made me very happy to be at work. It may sound mild. You are thinking, oh what is the big deal, I know. But you have never met my husband. You see, if I take something apart (and I generally go to any length to keep things together and avoid the following situations) I will put it back together as quickly as possible, in the most logical order I see. I will exclude parts that I deem unnecessary and hope that it works. I am not a perfectionist by any means. My husband, on the other hand, will set and reset, glue and re-glue, sand and re-sand, get it all done and find it one millimeter off center, and take it apart and start over. He will repeat this process until he is completely satisfied that the resulting product could not be any better. He has no need for food or water, sleep or conversation. He loses all track of time and space and heaven help the person who tries to remind him of those things. For example, as I sit here writing this quick note, he texts me that it is 2:45pm and he has just finished this job that he began at 11:00am. He states that the second tie down did not fit properly, so he had to “mill out a hole and grind the bottom”. Whatever that means, it reaffirms my belief that being at work is a slightly better deal today. In some of my classes we have discussed personality traits. Doug and I are as opposite in some things as two people can be, but exactly the same in many many others. Funny how that works. Another good example of that would be if you asked us both to put together a chair from the pieces in the box (true story). Doug would get out a tape measure, clamps, wood glue, and newspaper. I would ram the pieces together with whatever utensil was the closest. I believe at the time it was a screwdriver. Mine would be put together faster, possible slightly crooked, with at least one piece upside down or backwards. Doug would still be gluing the third piece in. He would later proceed to take my chair completely apart, begin from the beginning, and put it back together. Lucky for me I am married to my best friend and I am more than happy to let him take the lead on gluing chairs together. Anyway, had I been home today I am sure that I would have somehow been involved in the destruction and subsequent reconstruction of our truck. I feel like it probably went better without me and that there will be more 60 degree days to enjoy.

Projects

I never know what to write when I actually sit down to accomplish something. Do I write about my family, who are always entertaining? Or my personal love story, starring my absolutely gift from God husband? How about a book about my dad, who is ever inspiring? Or my great grandparents, who were weathered, rural, and lived well into their eighties? How does one choose what to write about? There are so many days where I think to myself, I need a project. Really Erin? Have you looked around? Your house was built sometime before 1925 and you think you need a project? Paint, plaster, clean for God’s sake. Right. Obviously, someone as busy as me does not have time to empty out and scrub the kitchen cupboards. Projects are different. My husband would entirely agree. He believes that my “projects” are black holes where great ideas go to never be seen or heard from again. Projects are not things so simple as cleaning out the cabinets or accomplishing a scrubbed down bathroom. That would be too easy, and too clean. Normally, when I decide to start a project, I get about ½ to ¾ of the way through before I become distracted and take up something else. For example, I had these great maple chairs that my grandmother gave me for my teensy tiny apartment in college. She had painted them pink and when they arrived at my house, I coated them in 17 coats of black paint. Unfortunately, I didn’t sand them first and so they dried tacky and I eventually peeled off much of the paint. When I moved in with my boyfriend-now-husband, I decided that they needed to be sanded down and refinished. My husband, being the ever handy carpenter type, provided me with a hand sander and tools. He was even kind enough to give me a respirator mask. Unfortunately, as is his usual style, he provided little to no instruction assuming that his brilliant wife would already know how to do this. Ha. After finishing one chair my hands were so sore I couldn’t grip a pencil for a week. When I took up the second chair about a month later, my husband was kind enough to mention that I was doing it all wrong. He then showed me the proper way to sand. Who would have thought that you have to go at the pace of a slug? Seriously, I do not have time for that. So, after finding out that it was much more intricate and time consuming than I had first thought, I burned the chairs. Don’t tell grandma.

What a beautiful weekend...

What a busy, beautiful weekend we have had. It was very relaxing and I was able to get a lot accomplished. I almost feel like it is the calm before the busy storm of summer! The highlight of our weekend was getting our new adopted dog Maisie. Maisie is a puppy from Middlebranch Labs (www.middlebranchlabs.com) and she is a black lab. So far, she fits right in and Griffin does not seem to care whether she is here or not.

Maisie is very nosy and she likes to investigate everything, but she is also scared of her own shadow (and the big rock by the driveway) so she makes me laugh constantly. Yesterday, she managed to turn over the entire bin of dog food in the garage without spilling it, not once, but twice. Today, she snuck into the garage and got into the garbage. When my sister told me that Maisie was like her mom, Icis, I should have remembered how much trouble Icis can get into!

But, overall, she's very sweet and she likes to make Doug and I happy. If we raise our voices at her at all she panics, and she likes to be praised. My dad gave me the run down on her skills and we have been working on sit and stay, along with fetch. She has no and here down pretty well. I think she will be just fine here with us.

Yesterday Doug and I took the boat out fishing and caught a handful of bluegills. They were delicious and it was nice to find a quiet little lake around here that we can go to whenever we choose. It was a beautiful day to be on the lake and I am so glad we took the time to go. Today we were lazy. We slept in and did a little yard work/work at the baseball field and then just hung out.

Anyway, I am thinking about baking a cheesecake tonight so I am off to find a good recipe....

Monday, Monday...

One day down in this very busy week! Tonight I finished up the majority of my homework for my online class and now have only final projects left to do. Hooray for my first grad class being almost done! Time absolutely flew. Last day of this class is May 27th and summer classes start the following Monday. I took two classes for the summer. The books for those two classes total over $450.00 new!!! I almost cried. I went on Amazon though and I can get some of them somewhat cheaper. I think it will still be $300.00. What a crime. I temporarily forgot how nice we had it at UWSP where our books were included.

Anyway, Doug had a baseball game tonight and they won 15-1. Tomorrow night is a home game for JV and then Thursday they face their only conference loss with a home game against Peshtigo. I think he will be relieved when Thursday is over.

I am posting some pictures of my tulips - I love spring flowers! Also, our pear tree has beautiful blossoms on it right now. I am crossing my fingers that they don't freeze.

Busy Busy Busy

I can't believe how busy we are! Doug is flying around like a chicken with his head cut off. His electric car class will race tomorrow night and Saturday morning in Appleton. They are excited for the race and more excited to be done. They have been working early before school and until nine or later after school. Along with that, he's had baseball. I have been working hard on my first grad class and trying to get a garden going. I love spring and my tulips are finally blooming! They are gorgeous. I will have to put a picture up later. Doug thinks I am crazy because I already have all the plants bought for the garden and I am keeping a notebook about what is planted and when so that when September comes around I can remember exactly what things are! I think I am also going to try to learn about canning in case we have a successful garden.
All kinds of busy, mother's day, Sarah's shower, Memorial Day, summer is coming too quickly. I will try to keep writing as often as I can, my goal is going to be once a week so we'll see.

Roof Kitty

So, in case you were wondering, if you open an upstairs window with no screen to let in fresh air and start reading your homework, your cat will jump out the window. Yes, the cat did jump out the window, four feet down onto the roof of the garage. I had no idea and until he started meowing loudly, I didn't even realize he was around.

Four feet down is no big deal, four feet up on a pitch, that's a little different. As I was panicking/laughing/calling Doug, he arrived home. Funny scene I'm sure, me with half my body out the upstairs window, kitty wandering around on the roof. Smart as ever, he walks in the house, opens the kitchen window at roof level, and pulls the cat back in the house.

Moral of the story, screens are going in tomorrow :)