Does your garden grow?

Let's hope so!

I just planted a garden this afternoon. This is only my second attempt at this hobby so we'll see how this goes. My first attempt was in Minnesota and that didn't produce any produce. I'm sure the negative temps in October through May didn't help much either. But this time, Mother Nature's on our side.

We've got 4 tomato plants (Early Girl and Better Boy, those names crack me up!) 3 kinds of peppers (chili, banana and I forget the other kind) and then I sectioned off a little area for some herbs (sweet and Italian basil and lime mint.) I'm still working on the feng shui-ness of the garden but for now this will have to do. In time I'll pick up a few gnomes and add more veggies as we go along. We still have a lot more space to fill but I wanted to start slow with just a few trial veggies. We're also thinking about planting some grape vines along the back wall to cover up the bricks, however that will attract a Hitchcockesque amount of birds and since this wall butts up against Tom's putting green we have to consider the mess that could follow. So we'll see. Baby steps.


The herb garden, which must be pronounced Herb, like the name. The "h" is not silent in my garden.

Tom's busy working at the other end of the yard planting trees. Our neighbor came by from across the way and asked, "Will it ever end?" I think he meant that in a nice way. At least I hope he did.

A struggling bug

Outside on our back patio there is a giant black beetle bug on it's back, trying to simulate the bicycle motion with all 6 legs. He has several tufts of Wrigley's fur tangled between a few of the legs and it's sooo sad to watch him struggle. Tom's on the golf course (actual course he belongs to, not our putting green) so I called to let him know that he needs to come home straight away so we can perform a fur retraction procedure on this beetle bug. He didn't seemed thrilled with the notion of having to take part in beetle surgery but we need to help this poor guy. It's so sad to watch him suffer. I would try to do it myself but I need Tom there for moral support. He should be home in an hour so until then I covered up the bug with some cardboard to shade him from the hot sun and I'm keeping Wrigley indoors.

9:31am
Bug is barely alive, I need to perform procedure right now. I just came back into the house to get some tweezers and... I have no clue what else??? Towels? Maybe just a wash cloth. And some Bactine?? No that might kill him. Also, I need to use something to hold him down while I pull out the tangled fur. Maybe just the eraser side of a pencil would work. I want something soft so I don't accidentally stab through him. Ok I need to gather my tools and head out STAT!

9:50
Surgery was a success!!! I'm so thrilled! Although not as easy as they make it look on shows like ER and Grey's Anatomy. The beetle was barely moving when I got out there but I was able to gently hold the back part of him down with the pencil eraser so I could pull out the clump of fur without lifting him up along with it. It took a few tries and he almost lost a leg in the ordeal (but that would probably be ok, he has 5 more) because the fur was completely wrapped around it like a spool of twine. But now he's back to crawling around! I didn't take any before pics or video because I didn't get my camera until after the procedure was finished since I didn't have a second to waste. But here is part of the wad of fur that was removed...


And here is some video of his recovery...
(post surgery hydration and removing another piece of fur, also noticing a little bit of wing damage)


(one last final bit of fur removed. he's on the road to recovery)


I'm going to keep an eye on him and see if he needs any follow up procedures. I'm hoping a few rounds of physical therapy might do the trick on that wing.

11:00am
Tom and I headed out to check on the little patient and he was flying (although a bit unsteady) around the flowers! He started buzzing towards me so I screamed and ran towards the house and Tom's like, "What the heck are you afraid of? 10 minutes ago you were close to giving the damn thing mouth to mouth and NOW you're scared??? He's right. I think this was a huge breakthrough for all of us.

Speaking of spiders...

One of my dear friends, Deb, who came to me as a gift from God through Wrigley (a few of you know the story) shares my fear of creepy crustracean-like spiders, (nothing like my sweet spider friend in our toilet closet.) Last summer we had record heat and the night time spiders were out in full force. We had one hanging on a web on our orange tree that still to this day makes my teeth chatter. I had to snap a picture of it to show my friend because this one was the Motherload of all spiders. So one evening when I was feeling rather brave (or after I plowed through a bottle of wine, whichever came first) I ventured outside armed with my camera. Not a good idea. The flash scared the crap outta this guy and he sort of popped off his web for a second and I thought he was jumping out at me. Of course I screamed, dogs barked, Tom yelled, I dropped the camera. You get the idea. But behold, the photo. Luckily it came out because I sure as heck was not about to take another.


This arachnid was soooo hairy and turtle-shelled that it looked as if a crab from the ocean had found it's way inland to our orange tree. Last year Wrigs was just a wee puppy so every night we would walk him back to the side of the house for potty (where these monsters hung from the trees) and we'd have to karate chop our way through the webs, making sure these bastards didn't land on our heads. But more often than not I would scream bloody murder, because I would see a big blur out of the corner of my eye just before I was about to walk face first into the beast. Then I just decided to cover myself under Tom's golf umbrella.

So I shared this picture with Deb and she tells me that she has a similar situation at her house. A big black bumble bee type spider had settled nicely into this zipper like web in her backyard. She was keeping a close eye on this guy to make sure he kept his distance from her and the house. From what I remember I think it was on a dare that she decided to go out and snap the photo. She told me that her hands were shaking when she took the picture but at least she was smart enough to take it in the daylight without the flash. And here was her nightmare...



It could be worse. We could have these guys...

This is an incredible video to watch. It makes you realize that even the creepy crawlies are still God's creation and serve a purpose in this world. Nature rocks.

Life's little things...

Everyone and everything has survival instincts and a strong will to live. I witnessed 2 instances of this today, actually within moments of each other, right here in my very own home.

The first example is of a spider that has found his home in our master bathroom toilet closet. I call it that because that's literally what it is, a closet with a toilet in it. For about 2 weeks now this spider has lived in the corner of the t.c. hanging from a low lying web. He has not budged, apparently he's able to trap other insects into his web in order to survive. (Gosh, maybe it's time to call an exterminator??) He has grown about twice in size since I first saw him. My first instinct was to call for Tom to come and escort him outside but he looked so comfortable there (the spider, not Tom), and appeared non threatening nor was he grotesque (again talking about the spider.) His body is about the size of a cooked piece of rice and legs a bit thicker than one strand of dog fur so we decided to let him be.

I even say "Hello" to him throughout the day when I use the facility he occupies. Surprisingly, he doesn't appear to be threatened by my presence either. So this morning when I'm vacuuming the master bath I open the door to the toilet closet. The vacuum is buzzing, (it's one of those portable ones with a long extended hose) and I'm not even 3 feet from the spider and he starts FREAKING out. Both his body and web are violently pulsating and he's trying to scramble up to the top of the web but he's shaking so much that he's not really getting anywhere. He stops for a second (I assume to take a breath) and then frantically starts trying to climb up the web, only to end up in the exact same spot. I quickly shut off the vacuum, he calms down a bit and I tell him "Don't worry little guy, I won't hurt you." What amazes me was his strong will and determination to survive just like humans and animals. Here, this itsy bitsy spider that has a brain probably the size of what? A pea? No that doesn't fit in this scenario that would make him a GENIUS spider, but come to think of it do spiders even have brains? Thank God for google, you know what I'll be doing later...but here is this teeny tiny spider (with our without a brain) with the same core instincts as the rest of us. I decided not to vacuum the toilet closet for fear of giving the spider a heart attack, that is, if he has a heart.



Onto another one of nature's miracles...

My kitchen plants...They sit atop the counter in the window by the sink and bask in the rays of sunshine. Well this one little plant wasn't doing so well. Tom picked him out at Lowe's a couple months ago and I thought he might be on his last leaf. I usually water the plants on Tuesdays (just once a week) but today I thought that this little guy needed some extra hydration. Out comes the watering can and he gets quite a soaking. I don't think much of it and decide to go on about the day and then an hour or so later I return to the kitchen and gasp in amazement. Here is the plant that just moments before was wilting away to nothing...


I really wish I would have taken a before picture but I had no idea this guy would become the topic of a blog post. His flowers that were once shriveled up and dark brownish green are now vibrant and bright purple. And in this picture it looks like the flowers are craning their necks straight up to the sky, so proud to be alive. Again, another testament to nature's survival instincts.


Or maybe I'm reading into this too much and just need to water my plants more often.

The 17 year ick!

I'm over 2000 miles away from these hideous rat bastards but they still manage to scare the bejesus outta me. I remember this time 17 years ago back in the north shore of Chicago, like it was yesterday. What an awful time that was. Our neighborhood was filled with thousands of old gigantic trees and when the sun would go down the cicadas would emerge from the ground and literally cover the lawns. They looked like flattened tootsie rolls wiggling and buzzing about. YECH! The mere memory of this makes the hair on my neck stand straight up! Then they would scurry their way up the tree trunks and settle into the branches and leaves doing whatever it is these beasts do every 17 years. One time one of them got into my car and thankfully I noticed it before I left the neighborhood because I jumped out right then and there, keys in ignition - door wide open, in the middle of the street, then ran, screaming like a bat outta hell, straight into my neighbors house. I wouldn't have cared if someone stole the car as long as that damn cicada went along with it.

Another time one landed in my hair while I was walking to my car and I fricking went ape shit. I ran all around the front yard bashing my head into the ground hoping it would fall out while spewing out all sorts of profanities. The neighbors were just as freaked out about the locusts as I was (as well as my mom and sister) so it was not out of the ordinary to see this happen to others on our street. It was almost a daily occurrence to hear someone scream out in horror and/or yell out random swear words. We all knew it was because of "them".

Then there was another time when one got into the house. I was upstairs and I heard my mom scream the most awful, blood curdling shrill from the kitchen. I went numb because I knew it was going to be bad. I secretly hoped that perhaps an armed intruder had entered our home but as soon as I went downstairs I knew we were not so lucky. There was my mom, shaking and yelling at the black beast as big as a fun sized Snickers bar with red eyes. Yes, he had bulging red eyes. She had grabbed a broom and was holding it in an attack position and just kept screaming, "What do we do? What do we do? What do we doooooooooooo?" I was no help in the matter; I just stood there screaming "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD!" We stayed this way for several minutes, screaming and shaking, but not taking our eyes off the enemy. We finally managed to tag team him and decided to shoo him out through the dining room with the broom. We took turns shooing with the broom and from start to finish the entire process probably took us close to a half hour. I just remember being drenched in sweat afterwards and we both didn't stop shaking for the rest of the night. I think I even slept in ear muffs that night (actually I don't think I slept at all) and we were both on high alert always scanning the rooms for others who may have invaded our home. It was like a real life horror movie.

Which brings me to last night's dream:
In my dream I was actually sleeping in my bedroom in our current house and awoke in the middle of the night because I was starving. I head downstairs into the kitchen to make myself a peanut butter sandwich. I didn't turn on the lights so all this was being done in the dark although there was sort of an eerie gray film of haze that illuminated the kitchen. I start spreading the peanut butter onto the bread and it's sort of hard to spread and I remember thinking to myself, "That's weird, we don't have chunky peanut butter". So I struggle through the spreading process, fold up the sandwich and take a big bite. It tastes awful but I'm soooo hungry that I continue to eat. (Now in my dream state I really think I can taste whatever it is I'm eating and I'm probably gagging in my sleep because it tastes soooo rancid.) I'm about half way done with the sandwich and I think maybe this peanut butter has expired so I flip on the lights to check the date of the jar and I look...the inside of the jar is riddled with squirming CICADAS!!!!!!!!!!! I start foaming at the mouth, spitting out bits of the sandwich, trying to make myself vomit and then I look at the rest of the sandwich and there are moving tentacles and blinking red eyes staring back at me!! I scream and throw my sandwich straight through the kitchen window (which breaks into a million pieces) and then grab for the phone and call Tom. (Even though it's in the middle of the night, he's still at the office??) Through screams I tell him what just happened and I tell him that he must come home right now, we have to get the cicadas that I ate out of my stomach and he tells me that he can't leave because he still has some putting to do!!!!! Ok, I'm starting to sweat even as I type this, just reliving this damn dream. Deep breaths.

Ok...so after I scream some more at Tom and tell him that he has to come home NOW the doorbell rings. I run to the door and it's my dentist from Chicago. He tells me that my caps weren't put in right and says they need to be taken out immediately. I tell him fine, take them out which he starts doing right then and there in my foyer. OMG this is so weird even as I type this. So now I am toothless and bloody and then I taste the cicadas that I ate in my sandwich and my stomach starts to gurgle and I throw up on the spot. It was like coffee grounds with all sorts of insect body parts. Sorry to be so graphic, I'm just typing this all from memory of the dream. I didn't intend for this post to be this long either so I'll spare you all the gory finale of the dream and stop right here.