the wilds of my back yard

as usual, we're spending the morning in our back yard. we wake up, we eat breakfast, we get dressed. or not. today he preferred to play with no undies - just an undershirt. since it's my own back yard and my neighbors (both sides and the back yard neighbor) are all non-weirdo women, i say "nakie? ok. why not?" so, we go out. we swing, timmy chases louie, ike chases timmy and louie, rosie lounges on the shelf beneath the barbeque grill. we have a wonderful, peaceful time in our back yard until it's time for lunch and nap. then we do it all again in the afternoon. (see? it's not my fault the dishes from last night are unwashed and the family room is unvacuumed.)

something i most enjoy about being out here? the bird songs, the rustling of the leaves overhead, the squirrel chatter. something i don't enjoy? about a week ago, louie realized his life's dream and caught a squirrel. they sit on the tree branches or roof top scolding the doggies and laughing their furry little butts off as the doggies are jumping and screaming and unable to come near them.  i guess the fat little terrorist wasn't paying attention, b/c louie crept up on him and snatched the hairs right off his tail. (squirrels are not nearly as cute with no tail hair - they look like huge mice. i'll never look at another squirrel the same again.) tim came out and made louie let him go, but he may have been injured b/c the next morning as i'm reading in my lounge chair, i saw louie proudly prancing to and fro with a tail-hairless squirrel in his mouth. i'm sure i woke up every day-sleeper in the city as i screamed for tim to come out and take care of it.

aaaaaaaanyway, in the early morning or late afternoon we sometimes see our neighbor's (wild) rabbits crossing from her back yard to our back yard neighbor's back yard. they are not disturbed in the least by louie's and rosie's scream-barking fits. they know there is a fence between them.

one little guy this morning, however? not so lucky. no fence. timmy first noticed louie's strange bark - i was gazing up through the leaves of a maple tree to the teeny bits of blue sky above, so the bark didn't quite enter my consciousness. after running to the patio to investigate, he called me over to see the surprise louie and rosie found.

a toad! a scared and peeing toad. i am sad to say louie and rosie flitted to and fro on the patio, dodging and dancing around the toad like mohammed ali, striking with lightening speed to him (her?) up the toad in their mouths and toss him into the air.

now, i have no desire at any time to pick up a toad. but i couldn't just let louie and rosie play with him until he expired, could i? so, i grabbed timmy's john deere hat to scoop him up without the doggies knowing what i'd done and carried him to the sand box. where he'd be safe. but not unbothered.

see how he's just covered in sand? yeah. timmy poured sand onto him. many times. and it stuck - maybe because of all that pee or dog slobber? he hopped away from the sand box several times (see the blue aquarium-like glow in the second picture? that's the morning sun shining through our kiddie pool.) but i dutifully carried him back. (shudder. i deserve a medal.)

timmy eventually got bored with the toad, but you know, the whole time he was being bothered first by the doggies and then by timmy, he seemed remarkably calm. except for the peeing thing. but i tend to have to go when i'm nervous, too, so who am i to judge.

the burning bed

domestic violence is a serious problem and not something about which to joke. no. having said that, i would like to report that my husband once threw me from a golf cart.

the day dawned peacefully and developed into a real stunner, sunny and mild. perfect for golf. normally, tim golfed alone or with guy friends. on this fateful day, however, i decided to go along, provided we use a cart. i don't play, but i like to be outside, and golf is usually a time of pleasant banter and catching up with each other.

i obliviously sipped my large iced tea with lemon and browsed through a magazine as tim's mood darkened hole after hole. his swing was off, slicing to the left, and his score suffered.

things went from bad to worse at the 5th hole. tim stomped, cursing, to the cart and gunned it. my now empty cup tumbled out, tim aimed a few choice words back toward it and i pleaded, "tim! go back! we can't just leave it on the ground!" no sooner were the words spoken than tim whipped a wicked u-turn accompanied by the most splendid of curses.

it all happened in super-slow-mo except for my thoughts, which raced at the speed of light. my inner voice calmly informed me, 'you are now exiting the golf cart. there is a slight chance you may be mangled and broken under those tires. you must save yourself.' so, of course i used every bit of strength my (at that time) quite nicely toned thigh muscles could muster and launched myself up, out and twisting free of the vehicle.

fortunately, the cart's position at the top of a hill aided me in my escape. i landed, hard, and rolled to the bottom of the hill, magazine still gripped and unwrinkled in my hand. my paralyzation (and possible death) worried me not as i gazed upward in awe of the beautiful contrast between the impossibly blue sky and the glossy leaves of the tree under which i'd come to rest.

tim's laughing (laughing!) face came floating into focus above me. his mouth seemed to be moving and seconds later the sound came to me: "sweetie, are you alright? are you hurt?" indignation and realization of my inability to breathe battled for prominence in my still-tumbling brain. the fog slowly cleared. no, i would not die today! i would live, if only to seek revenge.

tim laughed as he carried me back up the hill to the cart, kissing that spot on the bridge of my nose and apologizing profusely the entire way. he laughed while examining my extremities for injury, finding only a mildly stiff and uncomfortable ankle. he laughed as my dad approached (we'd passed him - played through?- on the last hole). he did not laugh as he explained the incident to my dad.

although tim's swing did not improve throughout the afternoon, i've never seen him - before or since - in such a good mood or so attentive. if memory serves, tim cooked every meal for a week after "the incident."

the great tomato experiment of '08

i am generally the cautious, logical type. but that doesn't prevent me getting a wild hair every once in a while. and growing tomatoes upside down? doesn't get much wilder than that. for me, anyway. (note: this is a lie. i am always coming up with one scheme or another. ideas just come to me. sometimes in the shower. frequently in a dream. more on this at a later date. just know for now that i really am a cautious, logical person, but creativity occasionally explodes directly from my brain and right onto tim's to-do list.)

my mom grew a garden every year when i was a kid. tim's mom, too. they enjoyed the whole "working the earth" thing, sure, but their gardens' primary purpose was to feed their families. fresh produce during the summer and monster canning sessions to "put up" peas, tomatoes, green beans, etc. for the winter.

i, however, do not till the earth. i do not toil under the summer sun. i am quite certain i could operate a lawnmower, but i am just as certain that i would not. (this is not to say i never go outside. i spend the majority of my day outside. but only because timmy is an outside kind of guy.)

i did try to grow tomatoes and peppers in decorative barrels last year. actually, no. i didn't try. i grew. but the harvest was paltry due to the scarcity of direct sunlight in our yard. delicious but paltry. and i tried to grow an herb garden in my kitchen this winter and spring. i lavished love and attention and an appropriate daily amount of grow light upon my seeds until they became spindly adolescents who never, ever matured until i eventually lost interest after months of care and passive aggressively forgot to water them so they wilted and then dried up and so they remain to this day, a sad, crispy testament to my gardening skills.

monday during naptime, i read blogs. i came upon oh my stinkin heck's upside down tomatoes post. i was smitten. i vowed that i, too, would grow tomatoes upside down.

the abridged version (as if brevity is my forte) is this: i bought metal hanging planters (learned from others' mistakes and ascertained there was a hole in the center bottom) with coconut fiber liners . i cut a slit in the bottom of each liner large enough to easily pass my tomato plant's root ball through, from under the bottom of the planter to the inside of the liner. then i pulled the coconut fibers around the slit to kind of mesh it all back together around the stem of the tomato plant so no soil would fall through. filled the planter with potting soil and planted herbs in the top of the basket. then i hung them on hooks on my front porch, watered them and took some pictures.

see how the tomato plant is poking through the bottom of the planter? upside down? see how the basket is not hanging in a strictly vertical orientation? it was really, really, windy! so windy that at one point, timmy (who, with ethan, was working alongside me with the plastic herb pots and some driveway gravel, planting a bindweed vine and another weed i'd pulled from the shrubs in front of the porch) screamed out, "oh, no! i have soil in my eyes! call the fire department and the garbage men!"

see the pretty rosemary and those sassy chives? this one's got an "early girl" tomato plant. i used two early girls and one "tumbling tom." up top, we've got the rosemary and chives. another has oregano and chives and the third (the first picture above) has flat leaf parsley, sweet basil and cilantro. yumster!

see my sleepy husband? he works nights. but that didn't stop me from waking him up so he could marvel at my mad gardening skilz. hmm, now that i really look, he doesn't seem as in awe as i thought he'd be. in fact, he seems a bit puzzled, no?

*edited to add: whoowee! i didn't realize i could click on tim's picture above and up would pop the original size photo. i can see my reflection in his eyes! how cool is that?! note to self: next time, photoshop about 30lbs off my reflection.

summer is here!

the waterpark opened yesterday. when the water park opens, it means "summer time!" timmy has been waiting weeks - an eternity for a three year old.

after a delicious ham dinner at mom's, we and tom, taryn & ethan, went to the water park. it is a little teensy slab of concrete with a few water spraying devices, but it's absolutely perfect for little guys like timmy and ethan.