Oh, my stars and garters!

Sweetloaf doesn't like it when you give him flea medicine.

 

So he's gonna run away, and he's gonna live, uh...he's gonna live in the dollhouse! He's gonna live in the dollhouse all by himself and no one will ever bother him again because he doesn't need you, or anyone, ok?

God.

Ye Olde Me

I turned 35 on Friday. That seems preposterous, but it's true.

Luckily I received an alligator lopper, sort of a mini safety-scissors version of a chainsaw, so I can distract myself from my total oldness by trimming vines and cutting down trash tree saplings behind the house. Despite some initial qualms, it was an extremely nice birthday weekend, thanks to friends and family. You dudes are pretty all right. 

The garden is gardening out:

 
 April 4th

May todayth

I'm not sure about what to do with the tomatoes that have already outgrown their cages by about a factor of 50, but I guess I'll just let them do what they do and figure it out later.

 

I had a little harvest this morning: Sungolds and serrano peppers. The basil is rocking along too, but I'll leave it outside until we need it. 

But also there is a bit of unease, for the insects love the plants as much as I do. What are these gnarly little guys? They are hungry, and they have this tiny, repulsive give when you crush them, and I am sure they will grow up to be something destructive and annoying.

I have already battled the opulent lema leaf beetles and the stink bugs, and now this devil larvae. I am not sure what to do now. Because, look, I am not totally organic--when it comes to fire ants, for example, I am not dicking around with molasses and vinegar or whatever, I am busting out the Amdro--but still, I think it would be nice to grow some food in my backyard without drenching it in poison.

I sent Eric to a local nursery to get some counsel last week, so Eric went in and explained to the nice old man about picking the bugs off by hand and spraying the leaves with compost tea and orange oil (which does nothing, by the way, except make everything smell like oranges, which is nice but not exactly worth the effort, and plus I read it chases away the beneficial bugs that eat the bad ones and I guess you're just screwed no matter what you do) and the guy looked at Eric like he was a little goofy and said the only thing to do in this case was apply a nice dusting of Sevin.

I guess Eric looked a little taken aback because the guy explained how it was totally safe, that the government wouldn't let you sell it if it wasn't.

I know the nursery guy meant well, but when Eric got to that point in the story I got mad, because bullshit. Oh, yeah, the government would never let anyone sell poison to put on your food. That's the same government that's letting BP tinker with this oil well in this haphazard, desultory, secretive manner while it fouls the entire GULF OF MEXICO. That same kindly, well-meaning government whose policies let this shitty, unsafe oil rig get built a mile down in the first place.

I've been hearing my whole life about corporate influence in politics and how corrosive it is, and I always agreed, oh, yes, how awful, we must stop it, but it seemed sort of abstract, and I had stuff to do, so, sure, whatever. But I see satellite photos of the oil slick growing and moving while the official estimates of this mess remain insultingly conservative, and I watch how BP is pretty much doing whatever the hell it wants even after a month, airily dismissing EPA rulings on the fly, and it seems impossible that this could even happen in the first damn place...and, ok, I think now I get it.

(Hey, how's that for a tangent? It seems almost rude to talk about the oil because the situation is so totally, completely, sickeningly fucked and hopelessly complicated and there isn't anything to be done about it, but I think about it a lot, and maybe you do, too?)

The point is, I'm not putting fucking Sevin on my vegetable plants. Maybe part of organic gardening is that you just cede some of the plants to the bugs and hope your efforts are enough that they leave you with something?

Really, I have no idea. I may be a little older, but I'm not any smarter. 

I don't mean to sound so grumpy. Really I'm not. Here, have a baby rabbit! 

His name is Ampersand. He has doubled in size but still fits in Larry's shirt pocket. 

Geography

 

I folded my dinner napkin into the shape of Texas in less than 30 seconds tonight because I am a jackass, and also because I wanted to demonstrate to a visitor from Nebraska just how deep the public-school indoctrination of all things Texas goes here.

I wish I had made the Coastal Bend slightly more bendy but, as I quickly found, the medium has some limitations. I'd really like to see Al Franken do his little trick with 50 napkins.

Tend the rabbits

Bryan rescued it from his dogs, who were poised to make it into a chewtoy right there in the driveway. Now we have a bunch of ordinarily rational adults walking around saying things like, "Did you see the bun-wun? Did you see his sniffy no-wose?"

Do not judge us; we can't help it. Even his (tiny, little) poop is cute.   

 

 

Sigh.

Tour of yards

I won! A major award! Ok, it was just two wristbands for a native-plants garden tour yesterday, and all I had to do was be the second commenter on a post by the Statesman's garden blogger, but hey, it's always fun to win something.

I asked Angela, who has only recently embarked on her own garden odyssey, to accompany me, and luckily she said yes. She came over to drink a smoothie for stamina and join me in hitting a few of the six stops on the tour.

The first two gardens we hit were in central-west Austin, and they were great; really lovely and creative and impressive, and totally achievable if you had like a bazillion dollars and a crack team of landscape architects and engineers.  

It happens that I don't have any of those things at the moment, so while it was cool to see those yards, I was way more inspired by the yard we saw that had a far less manicured look.

It too was a planned, professional project, but it seemed like something we could do (at least on a smaller scale and over a very, very long time), and its messy exuberance appealed to me. Plus the owners get major props for labeling their plants.

 

Part of the deal was that we got free admission to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which I had never visited. I liked it a lot; I would love to go back when I'm not already a little bit gardened-out. 

 

We missed peak bluebonnet by a few weeks, but there were still plenty of blooms everywhere. The firewheels are out in force right now, and Angela had the best sighting of the day--a clutch of Red Hat Ladies.

 

And then we got home and of course my yard looked pathetic and piecemeal in comparison to everything I'd seen and I wanted to set it on fire, but that's okay. I don't have much in the way of money or talent, but I do have a little bit of time. 

Brrrr

 

Just like that, it's summer again. All of a sudden I'm covered in mosquito bites. Eric and the cats and I are killing giant roaches on the porch. The kitchen is unpleasant with the stove on. The rain has stopped, never to return. My legs are sweaty.

Oh, well. Time to buy a bathing suit and start holding auditions for a favorite summer drink. Tonight I made a batch of cucumber mint water: throw a bunch of thinly sliced cucumber, a few lemon slices, and a couple springs of mint into a pitcher of filtered water and refrigerate. Refreshing, but I might need something with a little more oomph, something that will stand up to a dash of vodka.

Who wants rescue ventilation?

 

I took a basic first aid/CPR certification course at work today, so if you ever want to get your airway unobstructed, be placed in the recovery position (aka "the kickstand"), vomit safely while unconscious, get chest compressions, or be defibrillated, well, honey, you just let me know, because I can totally hook you up with any of those things now.

But I used to be your biggest fan.

Bulky trash week is always a little sad.

My weekend was great, the end.

 

Hey, the art show party (and subsequent socializing) was pretty damn fun. You can see some a few more pictures of the festivities by clicking on the one depicting Courtney demonstrating that fudgesicles and beer do too go together, sort of.

Now I must attempt to maintain some sort of productive momentum. Doing things always gives me ideas for even more things. The lazy brain is funny like that.