Random things....

P got her first skinned knee on Monday. She was playing while I worked on weeding the front of the house and she ran to show me something and fell. It is kind of strange how children can just fall without any type of hole or something random laying on the ground in their way. Their bodies get ahead of their thought process or something. Anyhow, we took her inside and cleaned out the wound and put a Dora band-aid on it. She like the idea of having a band-aid on - as if it was an accessorie to her outift or something.

Ethan continues to be a little sweet dollbaby. He loves to be fussed with - I think that is one of my favorite things about him. I think it is because he is getting a bit of the limelight for a change instead of his big sister. It seems he is always the one just hanging out while I tend to or play with P. She is pretty demanding most of the time, and he just hangs out and watches. When he gets attention he just beams and you just want to eat him up.
He is fun to play with...

P and I have been picking from the garden lately. Just peas and green beans. We have a plethora of green beans, but the peas aren't doing so well because they don't like TGBT or the soil or something. A few peas came on and we pick and eat them right out of the shell. We pretend we are going on a treasure hunt to find fresh green booty. P like to pick the green beans with me. It is super cute to watch her find one and then pull it, almost pulling the whole plant out of the ground. yikes! She also helps me snap the ends off...well, her interpretation of snapping, which is just breaking apart the bean.
My dad mentioned he and mom had already been eating tomatoes off their plants and how good they are this year. I went over to their house and their tomato plants are unreal - totally loaded with fruit. My tomato plants are georgous to look at, but they don't have many tomatoes on them. They look like they should be dripping with juicy red goodness, but it seems the plant has been feeding itself and not its fruit. So, I had three big billowy tomato plants that needed to be cut back in order for the fruit to come on and grow. My dad said to cut the branches and leaves around where the fruit is growing or where you see the little yellow flowers. I went out with my Fiskars and cut away. I can't believe how much excess girth those plants had! I should have done it a while ago. Oh well, I am still learning this gardening business.
I love that tv show The Office. My friend Jocelyn sent me a message:
"So, do people tell you that you look just like that girl from the office...not Pam...the other one that used to be Jim Halpert's girlfriend. Now she's on another show. Anyway, whenever I see her I think of you...and some of the things that she does in the Office remind me of you especially! What do you think?" That girl is Rashida Jones. Maybe a bit? She is adorable, so if Joc thinks I look like her I'll take it in a minute.

Oh....and not to forget....I finally found her Tinker Bell toothbrush....

Gardening

I am thoroughly enjoying my garden. I never knew how peaceful and stress relieveing it could be to pull weeds, water, and watch vegetable plants grow. P and I get excited to go out everyday and look at the fruits of our labor...and fruits are indeed starting to grow from all of our loving care! We have peas on the vine, green bean flowers that are really pretty to just look at, crazy tall tomato plants, baby banana peppers poking their way out and some full herb plants (they'd be more full if I didn't keep picking from them!).

The peas are so much fun. They are viney plants that grow quickly from seed, and once they start growing they vine out on the ground and start twining their tendrils around neighboring plants or whatever they can reach. I should have built the pea trellis when the plants first came out of the ground so they had something to help support them as they grew. But, since I waited until they were vining out in the garden, they were unwanted houseguests to the pepper and green bean plants, wrapping their little spiney arms around them hoping to stay for good. But, I came in and broke their little grasps and managed to train them to stay in their OWN part of the garden and grow up their little home I like to call the "TGBT" or The Great Bamboo Trellis. The flowers which are turning into the peapods came out a couple of weeks ago and some have turned into full on vegetables! I can't wait to pick them!


The green beans are doing well, too. There are a ton of little pretty purple and white flowers in AREA GB. We should have some nice martian spears (Is that what Lola calls them?). Take a look at the pretty flowers....awwee...



Even though those recent thunderstorms scared the bejeezees out of us and I was *this* close to getting the babies up and going downstairs, the rain was good to my garden. Obviously, the plants loved the sky water and I looked out on the garden at 2am (when the tornado sirens were going off for the 100th time - it was stuck, so I heard) and the plants were reaching to the sky. It was cool to see. I really don't know how much longer I can keep my tomato plants caged in before they start rebelling and having little red and yellow babies, and it would be the banana peppers' faults because, well, you can get my drift when you look at the phalicness of the budding banana.

Tomatoes:


B Peppers:


My next step is to figure out how to keep critters out of the garden. I have seen the dread pirate OWL and hubby keeps trying to talk me into putting down blood meal. I can't go there, though, especially with dogs. One, I just don't like the name of it "blood meal," like who makes a meal out of blood...I shouldn't ask that question openly. Two, from others' experiences, if you have dogs they dig and dig and dig some more to try to find what is making the blood so they can have a meal. gross. So, I am looking to other solutions. If you have some, please post them, or agree with some of these so I know what to do. Here are some ideas I read about:

-Vinegar soaked rags on sticks placed around the garden. Supposed to deter small critters (squirrels, chipmunks, rats - if you have rats you may want to just clean up your garbage first) and I believe racoons, too.
-A crazy owl-type-scarecrow thing
-Human hair
-coffee grounds
-cayenne pepper mix (really don't want to go there b/c of child prodding at the leaves and potential for hurt eyes and mouth)
-moth balls? but won't that be toxic to the food you eat?
-blood meal.....but as I mentioned, waayyyy last resort if even a resort at all.
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