Sprouting Seeds and Fishing for Pigs

Right now my living room is not just a living room. It is also a staging zone for dozens of little seeds and plants that are waiting for a frost free month to go outside. Right now, I have two kinds of peppers, three kinds of heirloom tomatoes, red cabbage, and leeks in seed trays. Everything but the leeks has a few seedlings up. The leeks are actually late. I misread the package, and never growing them before, didn't realize I should have started them in February. Oh well, we will see if they will do alright anyways. With the garden being tilled now...I will probably start carrots, spinach, and lettuce this week.


My son is surprisingly unhelpful with seeds. Plants he loves. You give him a plant, especially a bulb, and he will water it until it drowns. I have to watch him with watering cans. He is very protective of his plants, deadheading and removing dead bits of leaves. I ask him if he wants to help plant seeds inside though, and it's "No thanks, I'm going to play". Maybe seeds are boring. They are tiny, and usually beige or black, and he can think of many more things he would rather do than than stick little specks in toilet paper tubes.

He was very excited about twine, I might add. On a recent trip to the store, I bought some twine for my garden. He practically got down on his knees and begged me for some of his own. I relented, as long as he promised not to tie anything up without asking me. His first task was to 'fish' for guinea pigs.

Edith the pig is intrigued.

Perhaps just a little taste...
Dang...it got away again. "I'm not that stupid," she seems to say.
My son decided it would be more fun to play fishing with stuffed animals.

Tomorrow we are going to retrieve my compost bin from my old house. I couldn't take it when we moved in November. It was filled with uncomposted leaves and yard clippings. I didn't know where I'd put it in the new yard, and we had so many things to move anyway. After the winter, it will be more decayed, and I am taking a bunch of 5 gallon buckets to fill up and put in my van. The house belongs to his family, and they didn't have a problem with me keeping it there over the winter. I also hope to get my daffodils. That was something I couldn't get in the fall either, and I will transplant them into pots and bring them home. Here's to hoping that compost getting will be a lot less eventful (and painful) than garden tilling.

Tilling the Garden...or, Why I Feel like I Got Run Over By a Truck

My guy says he feels like someone beat him up. I feel that way too. I even look that way, because of the half dollar size bruises on the front of my thighs, (just the size of the tiller handles). The tilling experience ended well, but was a nightmare throughout. Let's see, how did it all start?

Thursday: Gardenmom considers having to drive to Nevada to get a tiller first thing Saturday morning, and fight with other would-be tillers. Hmmmm...she decides to rent one from Home Depot. However, the Iowa One Call people have not yet shown up to mark the lines...so all may be in vain.

Friday: Gardenmom spends the day worrying about whether the Iowa One Call guy will show up before it is time to go to the Home Depot. A call home reveals this HAS happened. Gardenmom goes with her son to Home Depot and proceeds to rent a tiller. This seems to be a good idea because: 1) It is cheaper than the hardware store in Nevada 2) I have to be in Des Moines anyway on Friday because of work, and 3) I have to come back to Des Moines on Saturday to drop off my son. The two older dudes working in the tool rental section tell me that I can only rent smaller tillers because the bigger ones won't fit in my van. They recommend one that seems an adequate size. To make sure, I ask one, "This is fine to till up a garden right?" He says, "Yeah...should be plenty." So we take the tiller home.

Saturday: Gardenmom wakes up excitedly in anticipation of tilling day. I tell my son that it is like Christmas for mommy, and he just shakes his head and grins like I'm stupid. My guy gets up to do the tilling. This is his job I have decided. It is how he will show his love for me, by using his manly strength to push the tiller around the yard. And he will make up for not helping me with the dishes for the last 6 months. We get out to the yard and he starts her up. The tines start spinning and he lowers it into the ground. And nothing happens. The tines circulate against the ground like it is giving it a nice massage. The worst it is doing is making little pencil lines in the dirt and fluffing up dead grass. My guy makes several unhelpful comments about the tiller's lack of male parts and shuts it off.

Saturday (Part 2): Everyone piles in the van and speeds to Nevada. I then proceed to rent the much HUGER tiller from the hardware store. This one definately possesses the parts my guy was mentioning earlier. We put this in the van and speed back home. Now...over an hour later, we are out in the yard again...ready to start tilling again... This one definately works, but tearing up new sod takes a long time. After 2 or more hours, we are only through half the size I wanted. My guy is getting ready to quit because he has to get ready for work. I am about ready to cry, because I have already paid to rent TWO tillers, neither of which finished the work in the time I had. So, even though I did not want to have to do this, I am forced to till. I didn't think I was strong enough to run the thing. I manage to hold on to it enough to keep it in the ground and from running away, but I cannot push it forward. This is where the large bruises come in. I figured out I had enough leg and back strength to haul the thing backward to move it, instead of pushing it. I do this for about an hour, and get almost all of the area I wanted done.

This is the pansy tiller.

Saturday (Part 3): Now, the race begins. I super-speed-wash both tillers with the hose, trying to fend off my son who wants to spray it, too. I finish just in time to have my guy help me load both of them into the back of my van. Take THAT, stupid Home Depot guy. I speed back to Nevada, to drop off tiller number 2. Then, I speed down to Des Moines, to drop off tiller number 1. There is a different older dude working today, who fortunately possesses more common sense than the previous dudes. After I explain what happened, he offers to refund my money. Thanks cool Home Depot guy! Then, I drop my son off with his dad, and race back home again to do a whole bunch of other stuff.

What is the moral of this story? Maybe, Tim Allen said it best..."(Insert male hooting noise) MORE POWER!...." Or...maybe don't ever try to do anything to save time, because something undoubtedly will get screwed up and you will spend even MORE time than originally planned. Whatever it is...all I know is that I have my garden, and that I can't raise my arms above my waist.

Spring Has Sprung!

A lone tulip, peeking out of the ground. I didn't know if I would get ANY tulips this year, because of having to move my entire garden. I did not intentionally bring any along, I was in too much of a hurry to dig in the dirt for bulbs. But....I think a few snuck along with all the irises. It is only the fourth week of March, and things are growing. That is SO exciting, because last year, winter seemed to drag on and on until May. Then the summer didn't get very hot, and nothing seemed to grow. The early and continued warmth so far this year is such a blessing.

I was also very worried abou how much of my garden would survive, considering I was moving it rapidly in late October. It is so encourgaing to see so many things started. The irises are starting to send up little green poky triangles. I believe this above is savory...it could be tarragon, too. The oregano has 3 or 4 clusters of leaves (see below)...that is one of my favorites because last year it went so crazy. I am new enough to gardening that I still love when something reseeds itself and I find it in other places in the garden, or it goes under the bricks and cement and shows up in other flower beds. I love anything I plant that mass produces itself.

In the shade bed, I found astilbe, lady's mantle, hydrangea, and of course my hellebore growing. Correction, the hellebore is blooming. In other gardening news, I assembled my new hose cart. It remains to be seen whether I will like it or not. First of all, it took several hours to put together. (Granted, I took a few brownie and beverage breaks during that) Then,

while trying to put the hose onto the cart, I noticed that you really have to put some weight onto it to keep it from flipping it over while you reel it in. I finally got the hose on, but I can't get the end of their hose to match up with the spicket coming off of the house. I'm going to have to have my guy look at it, I might need an adaptor.

I think it is two females. I thought the cart might be helpful, because I have a lot of hose, and the wheels allow the house to be moved around from place to place. I have spickets on the front and back of my house (it is built into the side of a hill) and flower beds on all sides. Now I shouldn't have to drag the hose around the house...I should be able to unhook the cart and wheel it around to the other side. It also keeps the hose neat, and when it is wintertime, I can just drain out the hose and wheel it into the garage. No more big piles of hose next to the house.

So, we will see. I am sure there will still be swearing and throwing of the hose, nonetheless. I am just happy to be outdoors and messing with the hose, right now.

Me and All My Boys...At the Zoo

These are my boys. At least some of them. The front two are my nephews...my son is center, and my brother is the big bald one. We had a family visit this week, which culminated in a trip to the zoo in Omaha on Friday. Unfortunately, the weather guy must have been on drugs recently, because it was supposed to be partly sunny or clear, and almost 60 degrees. What we got was very cloudy, looking like it was going to rain, very windy, and maybe 50 if we were lucky. We had fun though...in spite of the weather.

My nephews had not been to the Omaha zoo before...maybe once, but they were very young. The older will be four this summer, and the younger turned two last fall. My son has been to the zoo several times, he remembered several of his favorite places. All the boys were very excited to see the animals.

I think their favorite was the aquarium. They were impressed with the sharks, manta rays, and jelly fish. I could my brother's temper was getting short by the end of the day though. He was trying to wrangle two boys under the age of 4 for several hours in very crowded settings. No thanks. I will take my single 5 year old.

Lunchtime was fun. We wanted to eat at the tree top restaurant, the only 'indoor' cafe at the zoo. Since it was threatening rain, we opted for this choice. Unfortunately, there was a very long line. A very, very, very long line. We were excited to make it out of the hallway and into the actual cafe, only to find out that there were many zig-zags of those fence things. We were trying to keep all those little boys quiet for about 45 minutes until we got up to the food. It wasn't too terrible, price-wise. My son and I spent about 20 bucks for lunch.

We also had Christmas in March. We were supposed to go down for Christmas, but they all had the flu. We brought their Christmas presents (which I had neglected to wrap). I put them under the Christmas colored blanket, said, "Close your eyes", and they got to pull it off. Much more exciting than wrapping paper. We also made our traditional Christmas family dish, "The Tray". You might not think that sounds very exciting, but my brother and I look forward to it every year. My mother made a big traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, but for Christmas we would have crackers, dip, snacks, deviled eggs, and fried oysters. It is not a Christmas for us now, without the cream cheese tray.

My son wants nothing to do with the tray. My ex husband caused quite the hullabaloo the first Christmas he spent with our family, by going down to the kitchen Christmas eve after everyone was asleep, assuming the tray was 'leftovers', and eating a third of it. My father and brother nearly killed him. Luckily, my current guy doesn't care for it, so there is much more for me!

We have plans to get together will all the kids, including the older ones, this summer. We would also like to meet up in Nebraska and go camping. We only get to meet up a few times a year, but it is important to us to have our kids feel like a family, and know each other.

Nothing Better Than a Clean Pig...

After a while, the guinea pigs start to, well...stink. When I announce to my son that it is time to give the pigs, as we call them, a bath, he is jubilant. "I want to help, I want to help!" he chants. The funniest part is putting them in the tub and watching them swim. Oh, you didn't know guinea pigs could swim? Well, let me tell you, guinea pigs are FINE swimmers. I did not realize this until I accidentally discovered a youtube video of swimming guinea pigs. Of course I immediately had to try this out on my own.

Here you can see a small sample in this video. It is hilarious. The pig at first tries to resist. They stand up and up on their tippy-toes, straining their noses up out of the water. I never fill the water past their mouths, I don't want them to accidentally drown. Usually, you have to remove them from their safe standing spot and push them into the deeper end. Then, they swim like little otters. My son LOVES this. He jumps up and down and claps.

Next comes the soap. We scrub them all up. Their little undersides get very dingy from sitting in their pine bedding all the time. They pretend like they don't enjoy the bath, but I know better. After that we rinse, and then drain the tub. They stand there looking pathetic as the water drains away. The part they really like is the blow drying. Unfortunately, this takes quite a while.

They stand there and half shut their eyes, purring blissfully in the warm air. My son helps, but I have to make sure he doesn't hold the dryer too long in one spot. We don't want any skin burns. Something else you have to watch out for is the shake. Like a dog, they will shake off the water after they get out of the bath. This will spray anyone within 4 feet with pig water.

They are SO nice to cuddle after they are all blowdried. They smell great and are very soft.

On another note, we had a great day out. This was my first day of spring break, so my son and I went and did a bunch of fun stuff. We went to Ames, did our recycling, had lunch, played Lunar Mini Golf. He was really excited. Everything is painted dayglo colors and there are no lights except blacklights. Very cool. It was a little expensive, but you can play up to three times for one visit. We don't keep score, we just keep going until we finish each hole.

http://www.glowminigolf.com/

After that we hit the video games. We drove some motorcycles and shot some bad guys. I think we disgusted the tweens that were trying to hang out in there and look bored. They looked irritated and left. Imagine that, someone actually playing the video games.

Another cool thing we discovered today is the indoor farmers market in ames. It is year round, and has a really good selection of free-range, organic, horomone-free meat and eggs. They also have honey, lotions, soaps, and in season, mushrooms and greens. We bought some towels and a cool canning apron, since we were stocked up on meat and eggs. The people in there were really nice. I plan on going back when there is some produce going.

http://www.localharvest.org/blog/19239/

Check it out. We are trying to go more and more local as we can. Anyways, the weather is going to be beautiful the next few days, so hopefully, I can get out in the yard.