The Fire of a Thousand Suns

It's that time of year again.  The time when I rage and vent my spleen and call down (metaphorical) hellfire on those creatures of darkness.

"First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes, and then he did not pass Go and he did not collect $200 but went straight to Purgatory for breaking the eighth commandment with such dark glee."  -The Edited Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and K.C.

Listen, I know rabbits have to eat.  I do.  And I have a whole yard full of clover for them to munch on to their hearts' content, because try as I might, I just cannot make myself care about grass.  Sure, I like to mow, but I'm just as happy cutting clover as I am cutting Kentucky Bluegrass or whatever the greener stuff is they grow on the other side.  What I do care about are my flower beds.  Guess who's been spending time in my flower beds?

Change his fur to grayish brown and that skull to the remains of my tulips, and you have my flower beds as of about a week ago.  As any knight knows, swords and chain mail are useless against such beasts, so I turn to the only weapon in my arsenal.

Three years ago Cassi told me about this stuff.  I'm still crazy grateful.

I sprayed this around the bitten-down stubs of my tulip foliage last week, hurrying because Derek and I were about to scurry out for a date.  When we got in the car, I wondered, "What is that smell?"  I was unable to locate the source of the stench until I scratched my nose and realized that Oh.  The smell is me.  I'd gotten some Liquid Fence on my gloves and therefore smelled like death.  We had to run back home anyway, so I switched out my gloves, as I didn't think the scent of blood and rotten eggs would mix well with barbecue.  

I also received this hate mail last week, because rabbits won't stop until they've achieved world domination.  I half expected to see cut out letters pasted on there under the photo, but they're much too canny for that.  "Easter bunny."  Sure.  He probably also has some candy in the back of his van.  Just 'hop' on in to pick some out, little girl.

When I haven't been waving my spade and shouting amorphous threats at the furry inhabitants of our yard (oh, and we have new neighbors who I'm pretty sure witnessed some of this.  Remind me to tell you the story of how they probably think I'm a monster because I wouldn't help Adelaide out of the tree she was stuck in.), I've been enjoying the warm weather by cleaning out and weeding the flower beds.  I've got around half of them done, and it's not even the middle of March!  Thanks, sixty-degree days!  I've even got a big chunk of the toughest bed done, and I've only found two nails so far.  

Right side:  Creeping Charlie, grass, iris rhizomes, and nails.  Left side:  Iris rhizomes only!

A few more years, and it's possible I'll have cleaned all the metal out of the dirt in our yard.  No telling how long it'll take me to dig out all the bricks inexplicably buried under the grass, though.  

The State of Our Backyard Address

Let's take a tour, hmm?

Hyacinths that I just found today, and only vaguely remember planting.  As for color, um... peach, maybe?  For some reason peach is coming to mind.  I could have sworn I planted the peach in the front yard, though, in a flower bed I have been vigilantly searching for apparently nonexistent hyacinth buds.

Daffodils!  Probably!

Rhuuuuuuuubarb.  Ugly at this point, but I'm confident it will blossom into something beautiful, no doubt after some hard, character-building lessons that will teach it compassion and empathy for its fellow plant.  

This is my favorite stage for sedum, all young and green and pretty.  Don't worry, rhubarb, looks aren't everything; sedum is relatively worthless compared to your deliciousness in pies and crumbles and tarts.  Except that sedum attracts all those bees and butterflies to our yard every summer and fall.  Imagine that- a beauty pageant contestant with a worthwhile Talent.  Wonders never cease.  (Does anyone, anyone have any idea what I'm talking about at this point?  Because I'm not sure that I do.)

I found these munchable tulip sprouts in a neglected corner of the backyard; because I had completely forgotten about planting them, I didn't spray them with miracle solution (aka Liquid Fence), and the rabbits had themselves a pagan feast.  They have since been sprayed, and will hopefully recover.  

And now, I need a volunteer to forcibly hold me down this fall until I agree to finally write down what bulbs I plant where.  You hereby have my official permission.  Until I forget.

Once Upon a Time, There Was a List

• The Liquid Fence appears to be working.  (I may or may not have stood at the entrance to the rabbits' burrow under our shed and cackled madly when I discovered this- but quietly, because we live in town and have neighbors.  Quiet evil laughter is harder to execute than you might expect.  Go on, try it.  Get as villainous as you can but don't let your co-workers or family members or dog hear you.  It's surprisingly difficult, huh?  Apparently evil calls for volume.  The things you learn.)  The chewed ends of the tulip leaves have begun to mend themselves, and I haven't detected any further illegal consumption of my pretties.  I have thus begun composing an epic musical masterpiece dedicated to Liquid Fence.  And by "epic musical masterpiece," I mean I've been singing Smelly Cat but substituting the word "rabbit" and adding quite a bit more verbal venom to the lyrics.

• In other plant news, my seedlings are coming along nicely.

I just love this stage.  So young, so innocent.  They still believe everything you say but haven't started mouthing off when you're out in public.

• We went to Derek's parents' new house again a couple weeks ago, and two things of note happened (well, probably more than that, but I only remember two):  We had THE BEST Mexican food, which sounds trivial, but please understand, I love Mexican food, and have been utterly unable to find any decent offerings of it since moving to Iowa.  I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we were too far north, too far away from, you know, Mexico, when we went to Lomita's.  

I admit, I was skeptical.  Derek's parents had been there once before, but I don't know how many Iowans have recommended really terrible Mexican food to me. (Hint:  A LOT)  Then there was the fact that it was a lunch buffet.  I envisioned a taco bar with store-bought hard shell tacos and bagged cheddar cheese.  Plus there was the apostrophe-s in the name of the place.  Nothing Spanish about that.

I was so.wrong.  This place.  Run by actual Mexicans with the actual spiritual gift of making people fat with their insanely delicious food (oh, you don't remember that one?  I'm pretty sure it's right after speaking in tongues and before interpretation).  There's one guy whose only job appeared to be re-stocking the amazing buffet.  Just a constant back and forth between the kitchen and the buffet with fresh taquitos, fresh fajita fillings (juicy chicken, tender steak, flavorful strips of vegetables- I dream about those vegetables.  It is not normal for me to dream about vegetables, okay?), THE BEST queso blanco that I would happily drown in if they'd only fill a jacuzzi with the stuff, fresh guacamole (I don't even usually like guacamole), fresh flour tortillas individually wrapped in aluminum foil to keep them warm.  And I just listed maybe ten percent of what was offered on that buffet.  I mean honestly, who knew you had to travel an hour NORTH to get good Mexican food?  Not I, said the hungry girl.

After I put away a terribly impressive amount of food (man, I am such a catch.  Someone remind Derek how lucky he is), we all decided a hike through my in-laws property was in order.  This time it was four adults and three kids, a ratio much less conducive to losing one of said children and causing me to hyperventilate.  Derek took pity on Caedmon toward the end (it was a pretty long hike for a 3-year-old, and we went through a bunch of tangles of thorns that were taller than he was) and carried him.  From my vantage point behind them, I was able to witness Cade's transformation of pathetic, downcast face when on his own two poor feet to small, triumphant smile after Daddy had hoisted him up.

We also got a family photo, which is rare.  We don't even ask that everyone's smiling anymore, just that all five bodies are present.

To all of our friends who have asked us, "Is Caedmon this happy ALL the time?", please click to embiggen and see that no, our Cade is more than capable of unhappy pouting.  And yes, there are two other photos I could have chosen where he was not pouting, but neither of those made me laugh.

A Newsy Kind of List

• My baby sister had a baby yesterday.  The baby of my family now has two babies of her own.  This would be strange except both my sisters somehow produce the most scrumptious babies you've ever seen in your entire life.  She and her husband (because she is an adult; I just realized I'm making her sound like a teen mom or something) didn't find out the sex of the baby while pregnant, which is one of my very favorite things ever.  I love the anticipation of not knowing and the hot debate of Boy or Girl, although I could do without all the "well, since you're carrying all in front it's a girl," and "you know you're having a boy when a birthmark in the shape of Bolivia appears on your rump" nonsense.  So before yesterday, nobody knew that Steph was gestating another GIRL.  They named her Elliot Ann (adorable!), and I can't wait to see how her tank of a big sister, Vada, attempts to smother little Elliot with love.

• I watched another documentary last night (no more Bronies, I swear).  It was Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, the one about the self-sufficient people of a small village in Siberia, and it was AMAZING.  I wish I could send Doctor Who to each one of your homes to kidnap you and bring you here to force you to watch it with me, only since I've already seen it, I'd probably spend half the time re-watching it on the television and the other half staring at your faces to watch your reactions.  It would be fun and not at all creepy.  There's so, so much I could tell you about it, but I'm afraid of ruining it for you if there's even the tiniest chance you'll ever watch it, so I'll just tell you about three of my favorite parts: 1) May 1st is Russia's equivalent of Labor Day, and one of their festivities is the curious practice of burning a scarecrow-type figure wearing a dress, which you don't really understand until the narrator informs you that they're "burning Winter in effigy."  RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU COULD DO WITH SOME BURNING OF WINTER IN EFFIGY.  2)  Gorgeous.  It is all fairy-tale gorgeous there: massive amounts of snow on the mile upon mile upon mile of forest, the breaking up of the river in the spring where it looks like the entire landscape has just decided to start moving itself along, the beautiful Russian language you get to hear as the trappers describe all their preparations and activities.  3)  It's truly remarkable everything they do by hand: making their own mosquito repellent from birch trees, making their own insulation out of moss and earth for their hunting huts, making their own skis, making their own everything.  If you loved Laura Ingalls Wilder or marveling at other cultures or if you're a human being, you should watch this film.  Incredible.

• At the direction of Cassi Renee and Common Household Mom, I picked up some Liquid Fence this morning, as the rabbits have been eating my tulip shoots and this is bad for my blood pressure.  Here's hoping I've finally found something that works, other than searching Pinterest for a good recipe for rabbit stew, that is.

A Listy Sort of List

• This morning I looked around and realized everything in our house was empty.  Empty Kleenex boxes.  Spray bottles empty of their cleaner in the bathrooms.  Empty laundry detergent bottle.  Empty baking soda shakers and empty soap dispensers, also in both bathrooms.  Close to empty fridge (well, as empty as our fridge ever gets anymore).  This is apparently what happens when I'm sick for several days in a row- nothing necessarily falls apart, which is comforting, I suppose, things just don't get refilled.  So I spent the morning mixing up some all-purpose cleaner for both bathrooms (half vinegar, half water, a squirt of dish soap), refilling the baking soda (I use it when I need an abrasive when I'm cleaning, it's kept in old parmesan cheese containers because they have lids perfect for shaking a bit out into the toilet or bathtub), refilling hand soap dispensers (this one is good, because it means my family has been listening when I say WASH YOUR HANDS WASH YOUR HANDS WASH WASH WASH YOUR HANDS), setting out new tissue boxes, grocery shopping, and making a fresh batch of laundry detergent (I use the Duggars' recipe).  I started all that make-your-own-detergent-and-cleaners business several years ago because 1) it's super duper cheap, 2) takes very little time (less than a minute to make the all-purpose cleaner, around twenty very easy minutes to make the detergent), and 3) when I began, our kids were all tiny and daring connoisseurs of just about anything toxic they could get their grimy little hands on.  

• Why the crazy shouting about washing your hands?  Because kids are filthy, filthy creatures, that's why.  I feel that I can say this with impunity because I've spent the past week wiping never-ending streams of snot from our younger children's noses, throwing my arm violently across my face because Caedmon won't stop coughing in my face (this also works as a nonverbal reminder to cough into your elbow, which is good as I've all but lost my voice), and using warm, wet washcloths to clean and coax Caedmon's eyes open in the middle of the night.

That is a raging case of pinkeye- in both eyes, of course, because we're not under-achievers around here, at least not in the things that count, like infectious diseases.  Atticus had it last week, but it was way less severe and shorter lived.  Cade is smiling in this picture because even being sick for five days straight can't dampen his spirits.  

• Every time I look out the bathroom window downstairs, the devil's offspring is sitting there.  

Look at him.  It's like he can sense where my tulip bulbs are planted.  

A List for Tuesday. A Tuesday List.

• I had book club yesterday morning, and afterward I marveled at how a certain television show has the ability to make an otherwise intelligent and well-educated group of women say things like "Oh. Mah. Gah," and "Can you even belieeeeeeve about poor Anna," and "It's just- it's just- I can't.  I just can't."  Yes, we also talked about our book, but when your book club meets the morning after Downton Abbey airs, you've got to expect barely intelligible gibberish.  It's loads of fun.  No, really.  It is.

• Yesterday the temp hit somewhere around forty degrees (I may or may not have sung Martha and the Vandellas' Heat Wave a time or two thousand, which my children absolutely LOVED), which was around sixty degrees warmer than it was last week.  While I love the fact that we didn't have to wear six layers of clothing just to take the trash out, I find myself longing for some more sub-zero temperatures.  No, cabin fever has not caused me to lose my sanity (yet. probably.); rather, I recently read a report talking about how this winter's extreme cold temps has killed off a bunch of nasty insects, which hopefully means you won't have to suffer through as much of my incessant whining about Japanese beetles this summer.  According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, however, we need at least two days in a row with temps of -38 degrees Fahrenheit before we can see decreased numbers of the Emerald Ash Borer, and unfortunately wind chills don't count, or we'd have been there long ago.  The Ash Borer is that nasty bug that's killing all the Ash trees in the US, and it's set to hit central Iowa within the next couple years.  This is bad news for our family, as the five gigantic trees in our backyard are all Ashes.  Blargh.  Let this be a lesson to you to plant diverse species of trees in your yards, friends.  On a related note, no word yet on how cold it has to be before the rabbits start dying off.  I do know that it hasn't been cold enough, because almost every time I look out our back window there's one cheeky little bugger sitting in the middle of the snow, staring at the house.  I figure he's decided he's going to sit there right through the rest of winter until my tulips begin to sprout, because apparently this particular rabbit has a death wish.

• You know those two foolish gifts I mentioned a couple posts ago?  The ones they received from their grandparents?  The ones I'd love to blame on said grandparents, except I can't, because Derek and I actually suggested them?  Well, one was legos, because read any article about educational toys, and you'll learn of the many virtues legos evidently possess, none of which I can call to mind right now.  Thankfully, I wear slippers 99% of the time in the winter, thus protecting my feet from those tiny barbs, except for that one time a few days ago when I somehow stepped on a dark one that blended in with the rug and made me squeal in pain and fully expect to see a stigmata-like wound when I inspected the sole of the foot.  There was barely a red mark, almost no evidence at all in proportion to the amount of pain I was in, which I'm pretty sure is all part of the hidden malevolent genius that I'm now half-convinced resides in the heart of every tiny lego.  The other gift was a sword for each of our boys.  Caedmon lost no time at all very seriously telling his teachers at church that he received a knife for Christmas.  I think we might be on their Watch List now.

Fin.

Spring!

Spring.  Thank you Jesus, Spring.

I've seriously had to hold myself back from writing a blog post every single day about how much I hate rabbits.  The above photo is just a small example of the carnage that has been inflicted upon my flowerbeds by rabbits.  

My grandma has offered to buy me a rabbit trap, but... then what?  She says that if you mix crushed ibuprofen with cat food, they'll eat it and be poisoned.  But what do I do with the bodies?  The only solution I've come up with is throwing them on the fire pit and burning them in effigy.  Any other (slightly more reasonable) solutions?  I mean, solutions as to what to do with piles of dead rabbit bodies and/or other ways to rid my yard of them?  And before you suggest human hair, take a closer look at that photo up there; that fuzzy brownish stuff in the middle is Derek's hair.  It obviously didn't work.

Anyway.

I also found this on top of our fence:

Robin eggs!

And I found this at the playground:

Atticus!

Well.  I didn't actually find him there.  I walked there with him.

I'm just going to focus on all these things, and not on the snow forecasted for tomorrow.

Things I've Learned Today

• Rabbits are fast.

• Bricks are heavy.

• I still throw like a girl.

A Perfectly Normal "Honey-Do" List

You know how sometimes you just get completely overwhelmed by life in general and things start to spin out of control and you feel like your brain is melting and you start checking your shoulders to make sure it's not oozing out your ears?

Come on, now.  I know it's not just me.


I had one of those days a couple weeks ago.  I don't even really remember what was so overwhelming about that day- it was probably just grocery day or something.  Something about hauling three small children around three different stores trying to get everything on the list, not losing the list itself, trying to get the best possible price for everything, and keeping those same children from burning down the store sometimes makes my pulse pound in my ears and sets off an adorable little tic under my left eye.

I'm pretty sure this was one of those days.

Toward the end of this particular day, I went out to check out our vegetable garden.  Last year, Derek's mom helped me build a fence around a small section of the backyard that's a good 3 1/2 feet tall, and also extends underground several inches to keep out those adorable, fuzzy-wuzzy little heathens that I have fantasies about burning on a homemade pyre set up over our fire pit (you may know them as rabbits).  Shortly after erecting this fence last summer, I planted zucchini and pumpkins and watermelons and basil and I don't remember what else.

I got a lot of nice basil.  I also got about a dozen little pumpkins, a few zucchini, and zero watermelons.  All because of the squash bugs.

Rabbits make me see red and feel like I should be on blood pressure medication.  Squash bugs wither my soul and make me want to curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb.

I'm not sure which I hate more: rabbits, squash bugs, or Japanese beetles.

There's just something so discouraging about putting all this time and effort into a garden, then seeing it eaten away by insects.

So this year, I decided I wasn't even going to bother with the garden.  I had given it love and affection last year, and it had given me so little in return.  If it wanted to be that way, I would shun it.  I would paint a scarlet "A" on its breast and turn my face away.  I would plant nothing.


Except some watermelon.  And a few tomato plants.  I had to give it one last, tiny chance.

After I planted those seeds and seedlings, however, I made good on my promised neglect.  I did no weeding.  I did not thin the watermelon seedlings.  I did not water.  I did not stake the tomato plants, but let them sprawl along the ground.  I let the other 2/3 of the fenced vegetable patch go wild, so that it looked like I was growing a crop of creeping Charlie and grass.


On the brain-melting day, I went to go check out the little garden I'd been so studiously ignoring.  And guess what?  Those little plants were thriving.  (As were the grass and creeping Charlie, in case you were wondering.)

Then I made the mistake of counting all the under-ripe fruit in there.

I counted seven watermelons.  Then I started counting the tomatoes.  When I got to thirty, I started freaking out.

I'm not really sure what was going on in my head.  I somehow took that whole crazy day and put it onto the garden.  And guess what?  Things were going well in the garden.  And that was not good.

I don't know why, but when things are going really well, I panic a little bit.  If I can't find anything wrong with a situation or a day or whatever, I become all gloom and doom.  Here we go, I think.  Things are too perfect, which means there's a tornado coming.  Or someone's about to die.  Or that tree is going to spontaneously fall onto our house.  

It's like I take the whole "calm before the storm" cliche too far and apply it to my entire way of thinking.  There's probably a fancy psychological term for this, but I don't know what it is.  All I know is, I don't like it when everything is just right.  Something needs to be just a little bit off, or you're just begging for some calamity to befall you.


Anyway.  I'm in the backyard, muttering about counting chickens before they hatch and tomatoes before they're ripe when I hear Derek's car pull into the drive.  The kiddos and I race into the house in time for him to come in the front door and me to announce, "YOU NEED TO GO PEE IN THE BACKYARD.  RIGHT NOW."

He was a little bewildered and made me repeat myself like ten times (possibly hoping he was just mis-hearing me), but I finally explained that I had recently read something about human urine helping keep vermin away from your plants, and that he had better equipment for aiming right around the perimeter of the garden, and then I tried to explain my little meltdown, but the entire time I'm talking my voice is getting higher and higher and I'm talking faster and faster and I'm starting to sound a teensy bit manic.


This whole post has gone on way longer than I intended, so let me just tell you that I did eventually calm down, Derek did not relieve himself in our yard (something about  laws on indecent exposure and not feeling the need to "go"), and Derek's mom told me about a delightful little insecticide that keeps squash bugs away- which is thus far working.

I have ventured into the garden one time since then- to pick our first, perfect tomato- and managed to keep the crazies at bay.

For now.

My Most Brilliant Parenting Move Yet

Because we have an exceedingly busy weekend ahead of us, I spent a portion of last night stuffing our children's Easter baskets.

Aside from the semi-healthy treats like fruit strips and those vacuum-packed foils of pureed fruit that Caedmon can suck dry in thirty seconds flat, their totes are mostly filled with the requisite hollow plastic eggs.  Each child received a couple balloons, a bouncy ball, and some yogurt-covered raisins in a few of those.

The rest of the eggs are filled with prunes.

Now, before you start shaking your head and feeling sorry for our kids, hear me out.  Prunes have a lot going for them.  They're all kinds of healthy, reasonably sweet, and come in these handy individually-wrapped packages, so that the inside of the eggs don't get all sticky.  Plus you know those kids are going to need something to keep them regular after all that junk they'll get everywhere else.

Convinced yet?  Then let me share the rest of my reasoning behind the prune-stuffed Easter eggs.

It all boils down to the fact that I'm kind of regretting introducing our kiddos to the concept of the Easter bunny.  And no, it's not because I hate rabbits (well, not just because of that).  It's because when you're trying to keep your kids' minds on the real reason for Easter- Jesus- it's really hard to compete with candy and a giant rabbit just scary enough to make him exciting.

Obviously, I should have thought all this through when Adelaide was still very young.  But when you have your first kid, you're not thinking straight.  Holidays get an extra dose of excitement because you can't wait to introduce your brand new kid to all those fun traditions you remember enjoying as a child.

I remember Adelaide's first Easter; my head was full of my favorite Easter dresses and Easter goodies, particularly the basket that contained an actual Barbie doll that I received the Easter we were at Grandma's house.  Why is it the Easter bunny is always so much more generous when you're at Grandma's house?  It's a mystery.

Suddenly, it's five years later, you have not one, but three Easter baskets to fill, and you just can't bring yourself to fill it with things that will make your offspring love a huge garden pest.  So you fill it with prunes.

And if your kid looks at their friends' baskets and starts asking, "Why didn't the Easter bunny bring me all that stuff?  Why doesn't the Easter bunny like me?" your ready-made answer can be something along the lines of, "That Easter bunny is a fickle fellow.  And honey, while the Easter bunny may not like you, Jesus always loves you."

Sounds like a plan guaranteed not to blow up in my face.

Even I, however, felt a modicum of guilt over stuffing my little darlings' buckets with dried plums, so I also stuck a big specially-shaped slab of chocolate in the older two's baskets.  Not in the shape of bunnies, though, oh, no.  Our kids' chocolate is in the shape of an ichthys and reads, "Jesus."

Because what says, "Happy Easter!" better than Jesus chocolate?

No, I Do Not Also Hate Kittens, Puppies, and Frolicking Lambs

You know that photo I posted on here yesterday of my sweet little tulip buds?

That photo was taken last week before we left for a trip down south.  When we returned Sunday evening, I marveled at how much they had grown, clucking over them and pulling an errant weed here and there.

Yesterday morning, the boys and I headed into the backyard to play.  As I was making my rounds of the flowerbeds, I came to those tulips.  They were no longer six inches tall, and they were no longer green and pink and beautiful.

They had been chewed down, eaten by those irritating, disgusting, pagan RABBITS.

I hate rabbits.  I'm not going to sugarcoat it anymore.  No more, "Well, I just don't like the rabbits in my backyard.  I'm sure there are nice rabbits out there somewhere."  No more Watership Down.  No more God-loves-all-his-creatures-blah-blah-blah.  I'm done.

I was still stewing over all this as the boys and I went to Aldi yesterday.  After successfully completing our grocery shopping, we stopped by a local nursery so that I could peruse their vegetable seeds.

You know what I saw the second I walked in the door?

That's right.  Rabbits.

They had cages right inside the front door, taunting me.  Why on earth would a Garden Center have rabbits?  Wouldn't that be like a chocolaterie having a scale and a full-length mirror?  Or a library having DVD's?  (Oh, wait...)

A salesgirl quickly approached me, politely asking if I needed any help.

I got right to the point.  "Why do you have rabbits in here?"

"Well, some people like to buy them around Easter."

"Gardeners do?  You're telling me gardeners like to buy rabbits?"

(Nervous laughter) "I guess so."

Her obvious discomfort helped me snap out of it and put my I'm-in-public-so-let's-not-scare-people face back on.  She seemed very relieved when I asked her what kind of carrots they had.

I managed to make it through the rest of our visit to the store without incident, although Caedmon insisted on continually drawing my attention to the rabbits by pointing at them and saying, "Doggie?  Doggie?"

As we were leaving, Atticus wandered off a bit, distracted by a display of strange contraptions, right next to the rabbits.

"Mommy, what are those?"

I peered at the tags, then started laughing.  "Those are rabbit traps, Bud."

Maybe those garden center people know what they're doing, after all.

Flowers, Vegetables, and Scat

After an unbelievably mild winter (we saw just a few inches of snow, which is, of course, due to the fact that we finally bought a snow blower last summer), spring has arrived early here in central Iowa.

You know what that means:  Gardening!

I've been cleaning out and weeding the flower beds.  We've been out of town, so I've gotten all of two beds done, which means I still have what feels like miles of them ahead of me.  I'd like to get them done before our spring order of flowers comes in.  This year we've got a bunch of pink astilbe, some orange candleflower, jack-in-the-pulpit, and a couple succulents I'm going to try in a container.  When it warms up a bit I'll go ahead and fill in the flower baskets on our front porch.  One of these years I'll have my stuff together early enough to get some cool-season annuals in those- I love pansies and snapdragons- but this is not that year.

I confess that I have not planted any veggies yet.  I know, I know, this basically means I'm lazy and a horrible person.  I do have the vegetable patch about 70% ready for planting, and I've wrestled last year's Giant Sunflower out of there. My only goal for now is to get the lettuce in within the next few days.

I'd also like to try a small strawberry plant in a pot this summer, and if that goes well, perhaps start a strawberry patch next summer.  Our family has started going through around a quart of strawberries each evening at supper, and it's getting expensive.


While I love the way our flower beds look in the summer, there's something about them in the spring.  They're not much to look at from afar:

But up close, they're so... hopeful.

Our children have also been spending copious amounts of time outside, which is great for both their physical health and their mother's mental health, but also has it's drawbacks.

One day a couple weeks ago, I went out back to see what our older two children were up to.  Atticus beckoned me to him and asked, "Hey, Mom, you wanna see what's in my pocket?"

I was filled with instant trepidation, but answered in the affirmative.  "Sure, Bud."

"See?  It's a little ball."

I mastered my gag reflex when I saw the 'little ball' he'd had in his pocket, and managed to reply, "Bud, put that down.  It's not a little ball, it's rabbit poop."  

He paused to inspect it a little more closely before dropping it; Adelaide, on the other hand, instantly reached into her jacket pockets and pulled out two big handfuls of rabbit poop, throwing them onto the ground.

Then we all trooped inside and scrubbed our hands like we were prepping for surgery.

It's with those types of events in mind that I'm both excited- but also a little anxious- for what spring will bring this year.