Moments In the Sun

"What are you doing, Mama?"
"I'm planting seeds for the garden."
"Can I help?"
"Yup."
"Will you please move your foot so I can sit there?"
"Sure."
"Oh, sank you!"

She plops onto the edge of the driveway at my feet.

"What do I do?"
"Will you please scoop some of this dirt into that pot?"
"Okay"

"Now what?"
"I will add some mushroom compost and you can stir it up like soup."
"Ewww!"  She grins.  She likes mixing the dirt.

We load some small seed starting pots with our mix.

"Now what, Mama?"
"Now you put one seed in each space and put a little dirt over it."
"Oh, okay.  These seeds look like mushrooms!"
"They're pepper seeds.  Bhut Jolokia, very hot Ghost Peppers."
"Are we growing these for Papa?"
"Some for Papa and some for Mr. Ric."
"Will YOU eat them?"
"Not me - I don't like my mouth on fire!"

She laughs.

"There, I did all mine, now what, Mama?"
"Now we mark them and put them on the table in the sun."

She carefully carries her little six-pack to the table.  I mark them with old plastic cutlery on which I write the names of the plants. She thinks that's funny.

We plant more kinds of peppers - jalapeno, poblano, purple bell.
"These seeds look like mushrooms, too!  All the pepper seeds look like mushrooms.  How come they don't look like peppers?"
"Perhaps they're in disguise."
"Like the Flash so no one knows who he is."
"Sure."

"What's in THESE ones, Mama?"  She points to more pots on the table.
"Some lettuce, some spinach, some Bells of Ireland I planted because of Mama Ra."

"I sink I want to take a taste of some lettuce with my dinner when it grows."
"You will try some of our lettuce?"
"YES!!!"

We finish up for the day.

"Will we plant more tomorrow, Mama?"
"Yup, we will.  Will you help me?"
"YES!!!  Umm...what will we plant?"
"Tomatoes and cucumbers and sunflowers and maybe some beans, and catnip..."
"Wow, that's a LOT!!!  We are going to have an ENORMOUS garden!!!  Papa will sink it is the biggest, best garden ever!!!  We will feed EVERYONE!!!!!  I'm going to go play now."

Off she flies on her scooter, hair streaming behind her, bits of earth crumbling from her hands.

"...and okra and squash and..."

Sprouting in the Spring

On Ostara (vernal equinox), we were at Mum's. Last year, Mum and Someone fenced her garden space with a sort of invisible-to-deer fencing. Turns out, it's terrific for containing Sprout as well, which means we can take her outside at Mum's and let her wander a little. Mum decided to start turning one of her beds, so we grabbed a quilt to sit on, occupied a non-garden patch of ground, and kept her company.

Of course, Sprout was not content to sinply sit on the quilt - she had to help. She wandered about, then went to see what her Gramlin was up to.

As soon as her toes touched the freshly turned earth she wriggled them, then had to hunker down and get her hands into it and give it a feel. She ate a bit, crumbled clods in her hand, and generally had a good old sensory experience. She approved.

And yes, that's a headboard in the background - it's a garden bed, sillies.

Hot, Hotter, Hottest

Holy cats, it's hot around here.

No kidding, I think the driveway is melting a little, and the corners and sharp angles of the Casa are softening a bit. I tried to fry an egg on the stoop, but it was cooked before I could crack the shell!

We could water the garden four times a day and it wouldn't be enough - the cukes, tomatoes, and eggplants are all petering out, producing fewer, smaller fruits. The okra are going great guns, though, and we'll have a fair bit over the winter. I may even have a bash at pickling some! Umm...does anyone like pickled okra? 'Cause I'll make it, but eat it? Thank you, no.

The thermometer and the weather dude say it's only in the nineties during the day. They lie. Cats don't ooze with that lethargic, boneless, graceless slink when it's only in the nineties. I think their paws have been sticking to the pavement. We're getting well into the one-hundreds around here, especially with the heat index. If the humidity is 99%, shouldn't it be raining?? Walking outside is like being full-body smacked by a steaming sponge and then trying to breathe through it.

The air conditioner is trying, bless its mechanical heart, to help us out, but it's too small for the house and is struggling mightily to keep us at eighty-one degrees, running all day and well into the night without stop. Believe it or not, eighty-one feels just fine after a minute outside.

Meanwhile, there's another plant doing well out there in the garden...the Thai Insanity Pepper, after a spindly and questionable start (grower error, not congenital defect), decided that Redneck Central is just fine, thankee, and decided to give the okra a run for its money.

Check this out:

This one's going to be a seed pod:

I've only harvested three so far...while Phelan told me they're edible at any stage, I want them to get all red and tear-inducing. Someone ate the least ripe of the three and pronounced it hot but not unpleasant, good flavor, nice spreading heat with a little ring of fire that traveled from lips to the back of the throat. His face flushed a little, but he didn't cry or burst into flames. I'm thinking of making pepper sauce with 'em - he likes pepper sauce, and I'll use a wee bit on eggs sometimes...I wonder if Tabasco would give me their recipe...?

How're you making out with the heat?

In Fact, I Can!

Look what I did last night:

Thanks to some friendly guidance from SciFi Chick, Casa de Crazy now has nine jars of home grown tomatoes - two with herbs, one with herbs and pepper flakes - for our stores. There would be ten, but one jar got a little excited and blew out its bottom. Dang.

Next up? As soon as the yard-longs start producing, I'm going to have a bash at pickles.

I am going to need some bigger jars...

Simple Economics

A package of seeds costs a whole dollar at the evil empire. Yeah, yeah, but any seed is better than no seed at all.

Hot house cucumbers are up to $1.49 at the market right now.

If we can get one seed to grow into one plant and produce one cucumber, we're up $.49.

We have several vines of several varieties growing, mostly heirloom/open polinated types. We still have plenty of seeds, too. It's a small saving, but the small savings add up. Not buying cukes means I can put that money towards meat for the winter.

At $2 - $5 a jar for pickles, I need to learn how to make my own...save more at the market, never mind that home grown/homemade is usually superior.

Tomatoes at the market ("vine"ripe my fat fanny) are upwards of $3 a pound. One plant producing one tomato would set me ahead almost a buck. We have a dozen or so, a mix of types, and they are loaded. Again with needing to learn how to can - water bath method as I don't have and cannot afford a presure canner at this time. I really should learn how to use the dehydrator to full advantage, as well - did some blueberries, but they went a bit long and are more crispy than raisinish...oh,well...

We haven't yet purchased okra at the market - no need.

Eggplant, onions, peppers, potatoes, squash, melons, beans, peas, lettuce, cabage, strawberries, blueberries, assorted herbs...on and on...it all adds up.

Considering today's economy, you can hardly go wrong investing a buck or two...

How does your garden grow?

Hope Greening

There's a lot going on outside Casa de Crazy - gardens being tended, new beds being tilled and cultivated. We've slowly begun to supplement our store-bought food with fresh things; spinach in our scrambled eggs, a handful of strawberries in the morning, a few green onions.

Last Sunday, while the Evil Genius was being loaded down with sugary-food-coloring treats at his father's, Someone, Sprout and I went over to a friend's house. Someone was going to do some yard work and I was there to give a Reiki treatment. Sprout was along for the ride, but once we got there she provided some amusement for the resident kitties (who, to my knowledge, have never met an infant before). We scored a bit of chicken wire while we were there (it was languishing under the porch) and Someone knew just what to do with it.

Pea fence!

So now the peas have something to climb and spread out along, and they're quite happy about it. Someone put up a bit right away, and on Wednesday evening we had house guests, one of whom helped Someone put up a bit more fencing. I'm looking forward to fresh peas, and will (if there are enough of 'em)(are there ever really enough fresh peas??) make some into baby food for Sprout - in a few months, she'll be able to start eating "solids" (because calling it "mush" isn't very appetizing, is it??), and as with the Evil Genius, I want to make as much of her baby food as I can.

We've had rough luck with the peppers this year, but I finally got one of the Thai Insanity Pepper seeds (aka Prik-e-gnu) that I won from Phelan to sprout. I am hoping it will flourish and provide us with eye-watering, tongue scorching, ear burning, peppery goodness.

Okra, beans, squash, cucumbers, potatoes and sunflowers are all showing promise. We'll get pumpkins in soon, with hopes to have some ripe by October. If we can get them to grow, what isn't carved (pumpkin seeds, woo-hoo!!!) will hopefully become puree for future cakes, bread, and muffins.

I am also hoping that anything we don't eat or sell (we're attempting a small CSA) I can either freeze, dry, or pickle. Last year, a lot was wasted. I wanted to learn to pickle, but did not. Hopefully I'll do better this year.

We may have a few blueberries from the bushes we planted last year...but I think I'll be raiding (with permission, of course) Mum's kind-hearted neighbor's lovely run again this year. We still have a wealth of berries in the freezer from last-year's forays!

Mum has a fig forest (it's one tree, but it looks like a forest). I do not care for figs...but I hate to let 'em go to waste...so whatever she and her friends do not eat, I will experiment with. If nothing else, I can always dry 'em...but I may get ambitious and try Cinner's recipe for fig newtons - which, despite my disdain for figs, I adore.

An upside to all this greening? Saving some green at the grocer's - good grief, have you seen how much fresh tomatoes cost? With fuel prices climbing, everything costs more...so anything we don't have to buy is a bonus.

There's another benefit to all this agriculture - we're outside more, which helps clear the cobwebs and get the blood circulatin', no bad thing in my book. Someone's working his butt off (not that he has a lot to work off, mind...)!

If you garden (even if it's just in your mind), what do you plant?

Berried

Yesterday was a quiet-ish sort of day for us. We toddled up to Mum's in the morning, somewhat early for the denizens of Casa de Crazy - we had to be up before breakfast! Mum asked us to come up and help tinker with her decrepit mower so we could haul it home and mow our Serengeti.

While Someone and Mum busted their knuckles and said many bad words worked on the mower, the Evil Genius and I hung out in the AC eating bon-bons reading and playing games while some clouds obligingly rolled across the sky, making shade.

We needed the shade, the Evil Genius and I, because we planned to go over to Mum's Very Nice Lady Neighbor's (VNLN fer short from now on, because I'm too lazy to type all that more than once) and pick blueberries. The lad mostly eats 'em as we go, but there is such a profusion of berries, he hardly makes a difference in the harvest.

When it looked cloudy enough, we trooped off, each carrying our container to be filled. It was hot, even without direct sunlight!

Much to my delight, VNLN was not only home, but was approaching the bushed as we were, intent on a mid-day snack. How delightful, to walk out your door and grab a bite to eat! We chatted amiably about off-grid living, and green living, and our dreams of doing so; about gardening, about grass-fed meats, freezing and canning, and prepping. Turns out she has something of a prepper's mentality, although she'd never heard it given a name before. We'd stop now and them to pop some berries into our mouths. Have you ever had a blueberry right off the bush, still warm from the sun? Such a treat...

Bird took part in the conversation as only an seven-year-old little dude can, and he even contributed a few berries to my container! He and VNLN got on nicely, eventually coming to rest in chairs under her grape arbor, where they talked about grapes and what can be made from them, and listened to the thunder roll along in the distance.

Mum and Someone went off to the local lumberyard for some planks to use as ramps to get the mower up onto the truck, should it deign to ever start again.

I kept picking and dreaming about winning the lottery and buying the VNLN's land (it's for sale), putting green houses and gardens on it, letting her stay in her house, maybe the nascent beginning of an intentional community. She likes the idea, anyway, and I think she'd happily stay if someone was there to help with some gardening, preserving, and maintenance. She doesn't really want to sell...just feels like it's too much for her. I need to win that lottery.

We had an abrupt end to our idyll when a wasp rather...erm...waspishly...stung Bird on his thumb. He let out a yell and cried a little, but he calmed down fairly quickly, only asking that I make it better. VNLN offered us a ride back to Mum's, which made Bird smile a little (VNLN is something of an Andretti, and the driveways are bumpy, so it was quite a ride), and we soaked his poor thumb in warm and then cold water until it didn't hurt quite as much. It began to rain, so we read some more, then played Plants Versus Zombies, and he felt better.

Mum and Someone came back and had to run through a frog-strangler to get into the house - it was really coming down! They commiserated with Bird on his wounded digit, then went about their business with the mower - rain or no, that thing was being fixed!

Eventually, another friend came over and helped tweak the dang machine, and Bird allowed as how he could maybe come pick berries with me again. We left the others with the mower and happily frolicked among the bushes until it was time to go (which time was indicated when Someone drove past VNLN's driveway in Mum's truck, mower on the back,
and hollered "See you at home!").

Now I'm carefully sorting and freezing the berries, with plans to go back and get more, more, more. VNLN harvests 'em until she's sick of 'em, and is happy to share, so we'll have some nice summer-ripe berries come winter. Mmm...blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, blueberry coffee cake...sweet!

I like the idea of putting food by, and hope to learn how to preserve, make jellies and jams, and pickle in short order.

Speaking of berries...Someone hauled in a nice lot of tomatoes in the evening, and we made BLTs with some of our Yellow Jubilee darlings. I like 'em - they're mellow, a little tangy, and not as acidic as traditional 'maters. Someone threw together a salad with an assortment of red and yellow tomatoes and some fresh broccoli (store bought, alas, as we can't seem to get it to grow here, and anyway they aren't generally in season together, broccoli and tomatoes) and a bit of Italian dressing, and he's a happy fellow.

The little guy's thumb is just fine, by the way.

So what do you like fresh from the garden?

Oh, My

Check this out:

That's a home grown, still warm from the sun tomato on that BLT I had for dinner last night. Oh, yeah, my mouth was happy...

Next time, it'll be on home baked bread...mmmm...

Small Wonders

I spent the morning inspecting our yard. I've gotten into the habit of checking on all the plants - I love watching them sprout, grow, flower and fruit.

Sometimes, I have to look carefully for signs of growth and change. They amaze me, these growing things.

There's something about the tendrils, so fragile, so determined...

I admire their tenacity.

The peas are shy in the beginning, hiding their first flowers.

A nascent cabbage.

The carrots, feathery and small, are finally coming along. Bird can't wait to pull one up and eat it fresh.

Sometimes I can see the fruit in the flower, hope and promise in a wee blossom.

The dill didn't want to be photographed.

The sage may not be very big, but it's strong...

...and the basil is promising. I am dreaming of fresh pesto and homemade pasta sauce.

We've had some berries from these plants, and there's nothing like 'em. Warm, sweet, succulent - we're already planning to expand the bed next year.

We have a Lima bean flower! I adore Lima beans.

I had never seen a bean flower before today. Pretty...

A pregnant pod...

How does your garden grow?

Braking, Glass

Do you ever have that dream where you're driving and you try to brake but no matter how hard you push the pedal the brakes don't engage, so you're hitting the floor with the pedal and you're not slowing down, but you keep trying because maybe they'll work?

I know what that feels like in real life!

Someone and I borrowed Mum's truck for a job and wound up needing it for two other jobs too, so we've had it here at Casa de Crazy for the week. Thursday, we went to the dump to drop off some flood damaged stuff that had been cluttering up a friend's yard, and then down to my ex-mother-in-law's place to remove her old washer, dryer, and water heater and haul 'em to the recycling place (40 pounds shy of the minimum weight required to get paid, dang it). I mentioned the brakes feeling soft.

Then they were really soft.

Then they were practically non-existent. At peak traffic hour, coming home. Near an exit that is notorious for backing up onto the highway, prompting sudden stops.

No matter how hard I pushed the pedal, the brakes wouldn't catch. Umm...yikes!

Luckily, we made it home.

So Friday we checked the brake-fluid reservoir and found it bone dry. Someone had some brake fluid in his truck. A liberal application of said, a few depressions of the pedal, and we eventually had working brakes. Hurrah!

So today we went to the DMV, now call the DDS (Department of Driver's Services, as if that changes anything about the process) and got Someone his Redneck Central driver's license (you can read his take on that here). The Evil Genius was with us. I told him to keep a lookout for rednecks.

Nope, no rednecks here.

We were going to the recycling center, too, while we were in the area. Is it wrong to show up at the DMV with a pickup bed loaded with empty beer bottles? In a Bob Marley T-Shirt?

The folks at the recycling center let us drive right over to the glass alcoves to make unloading easier.

It was empty when we started...

I kid! Actually, we didn't add much to the pile, relatively speaking.

I like this one - it looks like it'd make a nifty puzzle.

As a bonus, we found out we can get free mulch there on weekdays...score!

What's the recycling like in your neck of the woods?

Sunlight, Earth, and Rain

They tasted even better than they looked.

Mother's Little Helper

Well...mother's sweetheart's little helper, really.

The Evil Genius is right fond of Someone. He mimics the man - if Someone is playing darts, the Evil Genius wants to play. If Someone puts on a jacket because he's going outside and it's cold...the Evil Genius does the same. If Someone eats spinach...well, let's not get carried away, here.

So when we (yes, WE - I helped, too) worked on putting in a garden bed in the front yard Sunday(Casa de Crazy is going to attempt growing some of our own food this year, to eat fresh and put up for next winter)(seriously, have you SEEN the price of tomatoes lately? They're like little red balls of gold!) , the little dude wanted to help. He moved some sod clods with me, and raked a little, and helped Someone measure the finished bed to make sure it wasn't all crooked.


And when Monday saw us out front, amending and improving the bed in front of the house, Little Dude was right there.

He was careful to use safety equipment.

I wish I'd gotten a photo of him in his "safety goggles", a pair of sunglasses so dark, they may as well be drywall for all you see through them.

When tools were needed, he was on the job.

When Someone asked for some stones to help prop up our timbers, level them up a bit for back-filling, Bird fetched 'em in a hurry.

He didn't hesitate when it was time to stake a vampire, either, grabbing one of the monstrous nails we were using to secure the timbers and getting to it.*

He even hauled wood, and a four-foot length of landscape timber is no laughing matter.

I wasn't helping him, either...he carried that thing himself. The shot's all cock-eyed because he wasn't stopping for a mere photo - he had work to do, by gum, and if I couldn't shoot on the fly I wasn't getting my shot!

He learned how to measure and mark wood, and about cutting carefully.

We got it done, all of us.

Not bad for one very talented, hardworking Someone, one Evil Genius, and one completely out of shape nutter who is more marshmallow than human.

*No vampires were harmed in the making of this blog.

I Spent the Weekend...

...getting my hands dirty.

It was nice outside, nice enough to prompt digging a new garden bed, removing grass and planting it where it can take root and perhaps amend a mud pit in the yard where cars once parked.

Diggin' in the dirt sure was nice. Now we just have to wait a month to plant...because warm, sunny, and tempting though it be out there, one doesn't plant in Redneck Central until April unless one wants to do it twice...the second time just after the rogue freeze that often rolls through around the end of March.

So what'd you do this weekend??

How Does Her Garden Grow?

Not at all, to be honest.

I had the best of intentions - I was going to plant cucumbers, if nothing else, but Spring got away from me.

It's probably all for the best, though - with all the travelling I've been doing, the poor things wouldn't have stood a chance.

When spent the summers on Martha's Vineyard with Dad, Stepmum, and Stepmum's family, we had a huge garden. Well, her father did, anyway. I miss those days, but I had it easy - all I had to do was harvest veggies and remember to bring the compost over in the evening.

I would head down to the shore with a pig's foot and some string, fish up some blue crabs, dig 'taties from the garden, maybe cut some asparagus, gather salad greens, and dinner was on. It doesn't get any fresher than that, folks.

I believe in fresh, whole, as close to source as one can get foods. I believe in them...but I don't eat them as often as I could. Last year taught me one thing - I'm not ready for a full-on garden and its attendant issues yet, but I hope to be, soon.

There's something wonderful about growing one's own food. I don't know that I'll ever butcher my own meat again, but fruits and veg? I can do that...eventually.

How wonderful it would be to can my own jams and jellies, preserves, vegetables, relishes, see the jars lined up on shelves, glass pillars filled with beautiful jewels from the earth...

Oh, well...some day...

Giant Green Critters of Doom!

Do I have your attention?

Let me tell you a tale, children, of how I battled the Giant Green Critters of Doom and survived to tell of it.

It began innocently enough - I desired to grow tomatoes for my enjoyment, and basil to adorn them with. I had the thought that tomatoes warm from the sun, ripe, crimson, delightful, bursting with flavour, would be a wonderful thing.

I purchased some tomato seedlings (Rutgers, heirloom) from an Evil Sorcerer named tarM-laW. They were small plants, but I knew that with love and patience, they would be mighty.

The red earth around my home would not do for my new little darlings, so I planted them in a pot, a large pot, with room for them to reach their roots downward and stretch their leaves upward and bring forth their globes of nutritive delight.

I watered them twice a day and arranged for their care while I was away, frolicking in the wilds of Ohio.

I returned to find them having missed me, but well enough. One or two of the little green berries were black at the bottom, unwell! I learned that potted tomatoes sometimes have blossom end rot due to calcium deficiency. Oh, no, osteoporosis for tomatoes! I remedied their condition.

One day, while watering them, I noticed odd little pellets on the ground around the pot. Hmm. Nothing looked amiss on the plants, so I watered them, rinsed the walkway, and left them in peace. The next day, more pellets. Tiny little things, they looked almost like morning glory seeds, but there are no glories in that part of the yard, and also it's too early for seeds. Hmm, again. Once more, I rinsed the walk, looked at the plants, and wondered what alien things were going on when I wasn't looking.

The next day, which would be Monday of this week, I found my answer.It was as big around as my thumb (not exaggerating the tiniest bit), and three or four inches long (again, really). It was plump, solid, and looked rather like a rolled up leaf. It was eating my plants! It was a Giant Green Critter of Doom!!

It was perched on top of a branch, happily munching away without regard to my desire for fresh produce!

Horror!

I investigated a little closer. It had a spiky bit on what I presumed was the backside. I poked it with a bit of grass, hoping to dislodge it. Giant Green Critter of Doom or not, I didn't want to kill it if I didn't have to. It didn't budge. Well, I thought, after all I'm only using a bit of grass. I looked for a twig and poke a little more insistently. Nothing, That Giant Green Critter of Doom was as solid as Gibraltar, and about as inclined to move. Hmm.

I poke harder and that's when it happened! The Giant Green Critter of Doom reared up, turned, and menaced me with nine-inch fangs!! (OK, now that may have been a slight exaggeration.) It reared back, turned, and let loose a stream of invective that included me, my progeny, and all the members of our household, then moved on to its analysis of our political system and all the woes of mankind. It was a well rounded Giant Green Critter of Doom.

OK, really, it did rear up and turn, and it would have hissed if this was a Stephen King or Arachnaphobia kind of movie. Maybe even spit something. I was, to say the least, startled. A word popped into my head, a name for this Giant Green Critter of Doom, but I wasn't sure if I really knew what it was (besides angry that I'd interrupted its lunch).

Nothing I did could dislodge the uninvited visitor, so I pulled out my tiny, almost microscopic pocket knife and decided that surgical intervention was the only answer. I carefully pruned off the branch where the Giant Green Critter of Doom was perched and flung it as far as I could, hoping that the spiky bit at the end wouldn't reach back and stab me as a vicious response to my tomato-rescuing efforts.

I wondered - if there is one, will there be more?

Oh, horror, there was another one! Again, I cut the damaged bit of plant away and flung it, thinking that some bird was going to have a bonanza if it looked in the bushes. A third, and then a fourth followed. Poor plants, all munched and cut. Then I saw the green tomatoes, half-eaten away! Argh! With sorrow in my heart, I pulled them from the plants and sent them sailing in the direction of the Giant Green Critters of Doom - lunch out on me, guys.

I watered the plants, spoke lovingly to them, reassured and encouraged them, and went about my preparations for the guests I was expecting that night.

I also looked up my Giant Green Critters of Doom on the infallible Internet. The thought I'd had as to their identity was right - no otherworldly menace were they, but rather:

Photo copied from these folks, because I didn't think about photographing my Giant Green Critters of Doom until they'd already been flung, and I wasn't going to look for them and ask for a close-up.

I give you the Tomato Hornworm. Only mine were much, much bigger.

Photo "borrowed" from here without permission and with complete disregard for her feelings on the matter.

The funny little pellets are called "frass", which is really a nice way of saying "hornworm poo".


I found another, smaller one on there yesterday. He had a flight lesson and hasn't returned. I am now given to fits of suspicious staring, poking, and investigating the undersides of my tomato plants. I have decided that if I get even one ripe tomato from these poor, benighted plants, it will be a wonder.

A Better Ending Than a Beginning

Today is ending better than it began.

After being grumpy and feeling a little dizzy and rather ill with the world in general all morning, T, Bird and I went out on an errand - I needed yarn.

I hear Michelle, mum, and Kit laughing, for they have seen and heard of my prodigious stash and know that I could do without buying any more yarn for a decade or more and still have enough, but I needed yarn. Cotton yarn in many different colors and colorways (variegations, if you don't speak textile). I needed this yarn because I take it with me to the June event and custom crochet bikini style tops for the women there, and I wanted to have a nice selection for them to choose from.

I also crochet water bottle carriers and even little purses or gather bags on demand. A bikini top, if I am uninterrupted and in a groove, only takes a few hours. I plan to have a few ready-made for the event, and a few skeins ready to work with. It keeps my hands busy, gives me a sort of Zen mindset as I go about the day. I carry the yarn with me and walk as I work, chat with others, enjoy the venue. It's a pleasant way to go about things. So you see, I did need the yarn.

We went to the Evil Empire, this being the most convenient purveyor of yarns to our home. I wish it weren't so, but it is, and given the choice between shopping close to home or burning fuel for better than an hour to get somewhere else, well...I chose corporate malfeasance over polluting the air I have to eventually breathe.

While there, we got a little baseball glove for Bird, T insisting that the lad needs one. That's fine with me, as I throw like a girl whether I have a glove or not. T can spend some time bonding with the child and I can get dinner cooked, a book partly read, or any number of other things done in peace(ish).

We also went to the garden section because Bird was fascinated by all the colorful flowers, and while there I picked out a couple of tomato plants and some basil, and then a bit of soil...well, why not? I have had the desire to plant tomatoes this year, and I just happen to have a large empty pot that wants filling, so...

When we got home, we had a late lunch, and then T an Bird went to our room and wrestled on the bed for a while, giving me a little break. Then we went out into the lovely evening and the boys played while I planted.

I thoroughly enjoyed sinking my hands into the Earth, planting those little green things with the hope that they'll grow, thinking about the visceral pleasure of sinking my teeth into a sun-warmed tomato, planning a batch of pesto from the basil. I know there's no guarantee that they'll ever grow to harvest, our water being what it is, but I can hope...and isn't gardening the ultimate act of hope?

I know, I know, two tomato plants and some basil do not a garden make, but it's a start and it's all I can manage at the moment. Perhaps when Bird is older, we will put in some raised beds and have greater ambitions - but for now I will dream the simple dream of tomato slices with fresh basil leaves and a touch of balsamic vinegar on them. Mmm...

I feel better.