A Digital Peek

The weather's been so absolutely magnificent here, and the children are starting to remember that this weather precedes the oh-help-me-why-isn't-the-compost-bin-right-outside-the-kitchen-door weather, so we've all been out there, wallowing in it. Good stuff.

There was a time we all stayed pretty much together, inside or out. Now, however, Jase just doesn't want to be where anybody else is. (Perhaps it's part of being 5/5? I don't know. Maybe he's just the next Lewis. Or Clark. Or that guy who runs across North America for no apparent reason.) So, we go outside, and disperse. I follow Jason like a ravenous hawk follows a bunny. The rest of them... do whatever it is they do.

They're usually pretty predictable. James gets on his pogo stick and tries to break his latest record. John sets up the archery bales and tries to improve his aim. Em and Jake take off for the back yard to conquer the high seas, or stave off dragons, or something interesting. Sometimes they all have a few rounds on the Vomitor 2000. Sometimes, they just find a comfy place to watch bugs and have snacks. (I do sincerely hope the two are not even remotely related.) But they all gravitate back together, in the end. They like to be together. Often, one of them will snag the camera. I never know what I'll find when I upload pictures.



But it's usually pretty interesting.



And it's almost always fun. I love seeing what was important enough to them to capture an image of -- what the distilled version of their day looked like.



(Those are John's jalapenos, in Earth Boxes from Aunt B. They're last things still producing from this year's garden. We're trying to recruit him to full-time Resident Farmer status for next year. He's good!)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Sloth is Among Us

It's more of a mindset than an actual animal. (Lest anybody worry that we've taken to importing critters to, erm, supplement our income.) Although, in the interest of full disclosure, if you'd watched me from 2:00 to about 5:00 this afternoon, you'd have been hard-pressed to see any movement.

This weekend wasn't just hot. It was Hot 'n Sticky. I know, I know, Zorak helpfully reminded me that summer's almost over. (It wasn't helpful.) Add to that, our propensity for not being what one would call "Morning People" (so we don't get out and work early in the day), and you have the ready indication that we are also (as I've pointed out before) "Not Farmers". It is a miracle that we've harvested as much as we have from the garden. Once we found it among the weeds, that is. And after the flush of excitement wore off (about three seconds after the last item hit the bag), we mutinied against our Beloved Commander and headed for the house.

See, he has a work ethic that demands he get things done on the property, no matter how unholy the weather, or how miserable the conditions. So, although he may not get up and at 'em bright and early and go scattering cliches about the property, he still gets work done. Even if that means doing it in the hottest part of the day. While the children and I (lacking such ethic, and sweating profusely) keep edging nearer and nearer the house, keeping in the shade of the trees, in the hope we can make a break for it while he's on the other side of the barn.

I can't blame the boys for taking 30 minutes to "get a glass of water". They'd blow the glass, themselves, if they thought it would buy them some time. And, they do come by it honestly. You should see my lovely, hand-crafted ice cubes. I'm sure that added touch makes Zorak feel much better when he comes in, looking for us.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Found it!

We found the upload cord! (Zorak found it. Right where we'd looked several times. Death by irony, I'm tellin' ya.) Anyway, there's no particular story to go with most of this. I've forgotten anything funny by now, too.

Here's Jase, looking incredibly tiny compared to the burn barrel. You can't see it in this shot, but to the left is the shooting bench, to the right is the burn pile (b/c some things just don't fit in the barrel), and to the far left is the carport-that-won't-die. The older boys saw the pictures from this series, and burst out laughing. *Now* they get why I make hillbilly jokes about ourselves, and not other people.
EmBaby planted something (we don't know what) as her tea garden (we can't find it), and she was very excited to drag each of us down to show us (it didn't do any good). However, I took the camera, and had fun watching her walk so daintily among the plants (this is James' corner of the herb/tea garden) in her wee bare feet and her ratty-headed hair. Which, for the record, we do brush daily. But sweat, and rambling, seem to do quite a number on baby fine hair. She looks feral ten minutes after she leaves the front porch. The bare feet probably don't help much, either, but she's made it a verb -- "Can I barefoot?" -- and I can't say no.

Me-Tae gave the Littles their very own pots to grow things in. They had a blast putting them together. And no, we weren't gardening in the dead of night. The camera's still wonky and wouldn't take non-blurry pictures without the flash. So, for your enjoyment, Zombie Gardening:

The Zombie Slayer, with his wooden stake? And, our dying tomato plants in the background. But don't look at those. Look at the beautiful green railings, and the non-child-killing, up-to-code pickets! Swanky, huh?

The infamous Vomitor 2000!

Really, this is a good summary. There are the normal things, the daily things. Kids forget that you really shouldn't wear the same shirt into town that you wore down to the creek. The laundry will. not. stop. I usually don't have any clue what we'll have for supper when Zorak calls to say he's on his way home (hence, the call/warning that I'm rapidly running out of time to figure it out!) And there just aren't enough hours in the day.

I suppose we could get more done. But then we wouldn't have pictures like these, and the memories that go with them. So, tonight it's leftovers and clean undies. Tomorrow, will bring chores and joys of its own. And I wouldn't trade this for anything.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Pictures!

And they're stuck on the camera!

Got the software, and now we've lost the upload cord. Again. That settles it. I'm asking for an Executive Assistant for my birthday. Other than that I can't keep track of my own eyeballs, it's been SUCH a great week!

The mower, which I will refer to from now on as The Sea Bear (from Spongebob - "maybe he just doesn't like you"), is running. It will even start for me, as long as Zorak is on the premises. We mowed and mowed and mowed. I even mowed things that haven't been mowed before, just because I was afraid if I stopped, I'd never mow again.

We sucked it up and cleared the upstream side of the culvert. If it should now rain on a Sunday morning, we won't have to miss church out of fear that we'll be flooded off the property. Go us. (It only took two years! We're getting better!) It was pretty gross, and I loathe people who fling their trash out their car windows as they whiz along the street. Where do they think the trash ends up? Is there some roadside vortex that they think will suck it up and transport it to the dump? No. No, there's not. There's a little wind, maybe, and some momentum to overcome. But eventually it just lands, right there, on the side of the road, on somebody's property. Gah.

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I can't get over how much the kids are loving the tire swing. Unfortunately, they're also sick to their stomachs at least three times a day. Zorak and I can hardly stand to watch them spinning, spinning, spinning. Knowing that two of the four on the swing have a propensity for volatile reactions, there's no way we'd get on there with them. But siblings are trusting. Or forgetful. Either way, they all have fun together, then stumble back to the house to lie down for a bit before nabbing a bite to eat and heading right back out to do it again. (Yeah, I know. It's like they're *trying* to make it happen.)

We finally put new seed down in the front yard. Me-Wa had mentioned that lime will do magical things to clay soil. So, when we tilled in the leaves, we sprinkled a thin layer of lime, and whaddya know, Magical Things Happened! We have *dirt* in the front yard now! It stays soft, and dirt-like. There is hope that this year, we may grow something other than child-killing clover and dandelions around the perimeter of the clay moat. (Though the dandelions are welcome, the clover is not. And I'd love a break from the trekking in of the clay on the feet.)

Winter garden stuff is going in. Company is coming next week. (Wonderful Neighbors from Maryland are bringing our Wonderful Future Daughters-in-Law for a visit!) And...

WE GOT A NEW CAR!!! Well, new-to-us, new. It's an '03 Suburban, and it's wonderful. It starts on the first try, every time. And the a/c is cold all the way to the back. And the road noise is so significantly reduced that Zorak has started speaking to us on drives, again, now that he can hear. There's not a can of starter fluid anywhere near that thing. Ah, it feels So. Incredibly. Good. to know that the next time somebody hacks off something, or inflames something, or just rips something wide open, we can get to the ER before they loose all their blood. Yes, indeedy. I am blessed beyond measure.

Like I said, it's been a great week.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Non-Agrarian Report

I don't know why we're doing this. I really don't. Zorak's pretty good at it, but what made him think I would be of any benefit is beyond me. The man obviously didn't marry me for my farmwife skilz.

There's a tree, down in the meadow, a huge, sprawling tree, that's been left to its own devices for such a long time. After "the mowing" (accompanied by "the twitching", and that one point where a blackberry bramble came up behind me and stuck me in the neck, and I nearly flew right up over the front of the mower, thinking I'd been nailed by a cottonmouth...) well, after all of that, and a few days to recover what's left of my dignity, I realized the tree is no longer nestled into anything, but stands proudly in the middle of the meadow.

It could have quite a bit of character, I thought. If properly trimmed, it could offer more than just a place for ticks and snakes and whoknowswhat to hide, but it could also provide a shady place to the babies to play (but not with the snakes), and for us to rest during the hot summer days.

So once again, my flights of imagination overruled my common sense, and I got out there with trimmers and clippers and a saw. I'll get pictures today. I swear to you, I think it's a poison ivy TREE. I kid you not. John was with me, and I warned him to stay away from the poison ivy. But then we noticed it was everywhere. Then we noticed it was not growing *on* the tree, it was growing *out of* the tree. As if it were the tree. Huh. Weird.

Since I haven't reacted to poison ivy yet, I set John loose to hack down the stuff the mower couldn't take down (it is so nice to have a child proficient with a machete, weird as that may sound), and I got to work. Got all the lower limbs, got the suckers off, and then I scaled the tree to start working on the upper portion. All was well, until I realized the tree was absolutely *covered* in little bitty caterpillars. And spiders the size of my thumb. And poison ivy vines. Not a realization you want to come to, twenty feet up in the air.

I'll skip the part about calling for a spotter, but I will say Zorak has learned a lot about working with the less-capable in the field. He remembered to warn me before he grabbed hold of my leg to steady me. Heaven knows I might have panicked and scrambled up to the top of the tree, thinking I'd been nabbed by a rare Alabama Python! And it's hard to blog from the top of a tree.

The children have also learned to at least wait until Mom's back on the ground before you start snickering. Although John did offer to go up for me next time.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

So late! Not sleepy!

It is a sick bit of humor, this whole technically not being nocturnal thing. Gah. And it only gets worse as summer approaches. (Although today, I had to give kudos to Zorak and I. It is the end of May, and there we sat, side-by-side, out in the yard, not complaining. Four years ago, by the end of May, we'd stopped venturing outside at all, let alone for leisure.)

Thank you for the great food ideas! I'm excited about trying some, and y'all got me lookin' for fun and feeling groovy. (I'm also trying desperately to get another song out of my head, so please forgive any further random lyric placement. It's all I've got, unless I want to go wake up one of the kids and make them talk to me of other things until it goes away.)

Zorak is the KING, folks. He rocks, and somehow, some way, managed to get the mower running. (And, as an added bonus, it now seems to be impervious to my diabolical efforts.) I mowed for two and a half hours. My butt is still numb, seven hours later, but the lower meadow looks almost great! Best. News. All. Week.

In his spare time, he has also been building me a pantry shelf for the basement, to replace the plywood and plumbing tape one we scabbed together two years ago. That one served us well, but it's a little ugly. And, being comprised mostly of scrap, it's a little saggy at this point. This new one's purty. And strong! It has a metal screen back, and doors up top, and will fit everything from coffee cans to five gallon buckets to coffee bags to canned goods and even those little sacks of coffee beans. To celebrate, I think I'll do groceries tomorrow!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Hoo boy.

Autumn Ridge Nursery.

We're going in.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Fences and Neighbors

Either our neighbors are going to have to get a grip on their chickens, or they are going to have to accept a certain amount of depredation on them. Either way, something's got to give. The chickens scratched the tea garden to pieces. They also went nuts on my oregano plant. I think that whole section of the yard is now in shock.

As I patted the plants back into place and put the mulch back where it belongs, I found myself thinking dark thoughts, like chicken stock and chicken casserole and chicken taxidermy.

We got everything put to rights, though, and then enjoyed the rest of the day. Church was lovely, and nobody fell asleep. We came home to rain, off and on, so we did pretty much nothing other than play Quiddler, watch a movie, and do laundry. Zorak grilled during a break in the cloud cover, and we enjoyed kabobs and beans for supper.

One wouldn't think one would be quite so wiped out by such a low-intensity day, huh? Surprise! I'm beat! And so, to bed.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Life in the Spring: Ball and Gardening

Mondays through Fridays:
Wake, eat, study, eat, baseball, eat, bed.

Saturdays:
Wake, eat, baseball, baseball, baseball, eat-until-we-pass-out.

Sundays:
Wake, eat, church, work on the Forever Home, eat, bed.

This is why monks don't usually blog. It's very difficult to make that much unyielding routine sound interesting.

John's team finished their regular season today. They ended the season 10 and 3, a respectable finish. Tournaments begin at some unspecified point in the future, and they're a strong team going into it. I think they've got their eyes on the Championship. John really wants to see his name on a banner at the fields. :-)

Smidge's team is sitting at 8 and 1, with a make-up game to be played tomorrow. They have Unspecified Tournaments, too. Hopefully at the same fields as John's team. Then we're done. For the Spring. Fall Ball registration starts during the Tournaments, though.

Right now, Smidge says he wants a break (he loves his Mama), and John says, "Of COURSE I want to play Fall Ball!" (I tell myself he still loves me...)

We've had total failure on both apple trees this year. No clue what happened, but there's only one apple between the two trees. The pears are thick, but now we're getting "June drop". We suspect they're too heavily laden to handle the load. I don't know if it's too late to fix that. If it will ever stop raining (and we aren't at the fields when it's not raining - farmers cannot play baseball, that much we've learned), we'll thin the fruit and fertilize and see if that helps. Regardless, we've definitely decided to add more fruit trees to the Forever Home. Hopefully, a wider variety of fruit will help offset bad years like this.

James put in a tea garden. He started with just three plants, but hopes to have about six or seven varieties once he gets it established. It's darling, and we're looking forward to enjoying tea from the garden!

We have herbs in, and the Earth Boxes are planted with peppers, tomatoes, and lettuces. (I know, it's a little late for lettuce. Like I said, baseball and farming... not so much for the unorganized.)

OK, ok, you got me. It's us. We just don't know what we're doing, and we aren't organized enough to multi-task efficiently. Ah, but at least we're learning as we go, and enjoying the company along the way. That's something, right?

We'll be back to our regular, less-routine routine soon!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Springtime

We have glasses full of flowers all over the house. It's beautiful. Tulips, roses (well, A rose - the first rose of the season), irises, and whatever those things are EmBaby's holding. They've lasted the longest. I suspect that's because they have the roots still on them. The dandelions don't last long, but everybody's made a wish, now. The clover are on the porch, much to EmBaby's dismay, but they make James so sick. So, clover bouquets on the porch were a compromise.

It's beautiful, and it smells nice. But we're running low on drinking cups.

Maybe I'll ask for a couple of vases, and more Mason jars, for Mother's Day?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Weirdness and Landscaping

I've leapt into a worm hole. A time warp. Perhaps some kind of little cubbie in space. Whatever it is, I swear I'm only getting 3-4 days out of a week! Unsettling.

We've been working on the land. Currently, we're turning the lower meadow into an aquarium. Two or three more days of rain, and I think we'll be ready to bring in the sharks and rays. Pretty exciting.

We've also hired Zeus' Tree Trimming and Electrical Service to handle those pesky dead limbs we can't quite reach. A few more storms and we should have that all cleared out, too. (If the storms and rain coincide nicely, we could have everything done by the end of April.) Now if I could harness some random force of nature to actually plant the blueberry bushes and nut trees. And mulch the back yard.

In the meantime, the wasp hives are churning out new generations of wasps quicker than anyone would ever have thought imaginable! (said in a rather tense, squeaky voice) Our hope is that once we get the hang of raising wasps, bees shouldn't scare us a bit. And, just for the record, "Organic" is a lousy way to kill things. I'm on a hunt for some Organic Agent Orange, or Organic Sarin Spray, perhaps. That'd be handy.

Eh. *shrug* Stranger things have happened.

And that's 'bout it, here. Baseball keeps getting rained out (hence, our new aquaculture program in the lower meadow). I *heart* Amazon, and am looking forward to next year's literature winging its way here, box by smiling box. Tomorrow's going to be psychotically busy. And today looks to be just beautiful!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Monday Monday

Where'd this cold front come from? Freezing tonight and tomorrow night! Those-Who-Live-Here have already begun using the flat surface of the stove to hold stuff! Guess what I'll be doing today? Yes, moving that stuff... to other flat surfaces. One day, I will have a home with no flat surfaces, anywhere. Everything'll be rounded off, or just pointy. It will be delightful.

In Other News, we officially have a "farm". We're putting in water to the barn! Not that we have crops down there (the okra didn't make it), or animals (nothing's died down there. yet.) but we will have water! This little improvement greatly increases the odds that future endeavors down there will not die. Always a plus on a farm.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Wednesday Weediness

In spite of the fact that we are not farmers, we're doing it again. I do wish I'd remembered my camera when we headed out to garden. Em took forever to join us, because she had to stop and pick every little flower on the path. By the time she got to the barn, both hands were full - little daisies in one hand, and some teeny-tiny lily type thing in the other. She carried them around, and refused to set them down, so she wasn't much help. But she was awfully decorative.

We put our big, strapping okra plants into the ground. Then we stood back and gave a collective, "Oh, that's pitiful!" They looked much larger in the sprouting trays. All alone in the big, big world, however, they look like weeds, just waiting to be picked.

Then we tried to use the wood chipper to mulch the leaves in the back yard. That didn't go so well. Not that the thing hasn't already worked off the $10 we spent on it, but I want to mulch leaves and cannot figure out how to make it work! Zorak wants to just burn them, but we desperately need that material IN the ground back there. Where it's not damp, it's covered in clover. And where there's no clover, it's just kind of... damp. You can see this is not going to work well for a play area, with at least one child who is violently allergic to clover. And "damp" just doesn't seem like a good backyard theme, either, come to think of it.

The boys or, rather, John marked off the area for the sunflower house. It's enormous! I started to say something, then stopped. I did give him leave to do it the way he wanted, and I did suggest he make it big enough for them to enjoy come August. He did, and it is. Directions followed. But we're gonna need more seeds.

The boys' piano teacher called this morning to see if we could come later than our regular time today, so we were on the road when we normally are not. I'm really glad we don't have to do that every week. I suspect that "rush hour" in our little hamlet is when the inmates escape from the asylum, and make a break for the open road. (It has to be lunatics. I mean, the Very Basics were totally out the window -- Red generally means, "stop" -- The dotted white line is not for straddling, in the hope that one lane will suddenly open up for you -- OK, the speed limit can be considered a general guideline, to some extent, but if you're in the front of the line and there's no wreck or rain or flying squid, you might want to consider going a titch faster than 25mph under the speed limit -- Or put on your hazzards and pull over for a bit until the voices get you all caught up. That's what I do.) I don't know how Big City folk do it every day. Yeesh. They're tough. We, however, are weenies. Weenies who like being on the road when nobody else is. Or at least when the other people on there are those who know some of the basic rules of the road.

And, we found our First Tick of the Season. On EmBaby's head. *collective shudder* Tomorrow, we all begin taking our garlic tablets. Tonight, we began the ritual evening tick-checks. Like a bunch a' apes, I tell ya. But we'll be the tick-free apes with the cool sunflower house, and boquets of dead flowers all over the house. So, that's something, right?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Teamwork

The "help" was entirely Em's idea. Smidge went along with it. They're pulling vines off one of the persimmon trees down by the barn.

And Em made her own chopsticks to handle the persimmons. I don't know if it's a textural thing and she doesn't like touching them, or if she just thought it seemed like a fun idea to try out. She's pretty good with those chopsticks, though.

Why we do what we do, no?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Fall Fun

Smidge took that picture. The SmidgeCam has come a long way in three years. I love digital cameras - the kids can take pictures til their eyes bleed, and we don't have to pay to develop the nostril shots. But we can enjoy the gems that come with progress, and with seeing the world through their perspectives.
Just as Smidge had his pear tree, John had his apple tree. He picked the first apple of the season (not counting the ones we picked and cut open to see if they were ripe yet...)
And we began collecting apples. (And a stray pear.) Man, that tree will be a lot easier to harvest from when we're done pruning it properly! (We have to move slowly so the tree doesn't succumb to Fire Blight while we restore it.) However, the metal bucket is about half-full now with fresh apples, and they will become, hopefully, (magically...) apple pie filling this weekend!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Can't Win Them All

Well, it looks like these babies are good for animal feed, and not much else. *sigh* Thanks to this site, we've figured out that this is C. cordiformis, which has a bitter kernel. The boys were looking forward to gathering and drying them. (I was kind of hoping to be able to bake with them.)

Maybe planting a couple of pecan trees would be a good consolation? Is it weird to console our kids with new trees? Well, they'll like it, regardless. They're cool that way.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

OK, folks, what is this?

This is a clipping of the fruit we found yesterday. For a size perspective - click on it (I hope it's clickable) and note the average 10yo standing beside the apple tree. The tops of the apple tree and the mystery tree. (Edited to add: the fruits are each about the size of a small marble. Definitely unripe, and seem to have seeds inside, not a stone. Maybe that'll help.)

The top of that tree is absolutely laden with berries/fruit...

And here's the trunk, to show you the bark of the tree...

Do we have something edible? (Please say yes.)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

This is wild.

I dragged the family around the property today to help assess the things we have growing. They went somewhat grudgingly, but soon got into the spirit of it. Me? I'm like the guy who thought he was going to starve on the island and suddenly found an orchard. This is really exciting stuff!

We found another new, seemingly edible thing growing. No clue what it is (as usual) - look for a photo and a plea for help identifying it tomorrow! It kind of grows like cherries, but the tree shoots straight up and it's a good 50' high. It's also shading the smaller apple tree, so if it doesn't pony up with something edible, then it's going to get some serious pruning this winter.

The soil in the salad bed desperately needs more compost for next year. Even after two years of amending it, it's hard as a rock. Poor John's carrots never have grown longer than 1cm, tops. We've increased our composting contributions, now that we have the tractor mower. Hopefully, we'll have plenty of compost for next season.

We got three gypsy peppers from the armadillo-torn upper meadow beds. (The one w/ the snake.) Weird. We gave up on those beds back in July.

The apples are ripe, and they're *fantastic*. They have a complex flavor, starting out slightly tart, but turning sweet pretty quickly. They're psychotically juicy, and have a delicate crisp flesh. Ohhh, they're really good. It's exciting to be receiving from all these plants, now.

The Black Walnut trees are laden with big green balls right now. We gathered some and tossed them into the driveway to help crack the outer hulls. I'll go down in the morning to rake away the debris from around the tree so we can collect the nuts as they fall. Zorak's not sure there's enough meat in any of them to make it worth the work. I just want to try. It's part of the adventure. And, if it doesn't work, well, we've learned something along the way, right?

The persimmons are ripening unevenly, and between the height of the fruit and the birds, I don't think we'll get anything salvageable from them this year. Never did hear back from the County Extension Office, so I'll give them a call or swing by this week, sometime. I hate to give up on the persimmons, since there are three of them - if they can be saved and restored, I want to do it.

We enjoyed okra and cukes from the barn garden with supper tonight, and a late season watermelon this afternoon. That's always kinda fun. Perhaps the novelty wears off when you're an accomplished gardener. If so, we have decades of enjoyable side dishes ahead of us. ;-)

The kids finally decided pear jelly would be preferable to pearsauce for this year. If the trees stay healthy, though, we can do more next year. Tomorrow is canning day. (Someone hold me to that!)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

More From the Non-Agrarians

OK, so I, the Non-Farmer, came to terms with the sooty blotch and the flyspeck. But this... I'm not handling this well, at all. I don't know what it is, for certain. For now, I'm just calling it the Plague of Apple Death. Is it Cedar Apple Rust? Gah. It's hideous, whatever it is. (Please don't ask me if it's soft. I can tell you now I did not touch it. I'm not going to touch it. I didn't even want to stand under it to take the picture.)

Look at that a little more closely. Ew. That's all one can really say. Ew.

I fear my hopes of hot apple pies, baked apples, and fresh applesauce have been dashed for the year. If that IS Cedar Apple Rust, then those dreams are dashed for the future, as well, because I asked Zorak today if we can cut down the cedar tree, and as it turns out, he loves that cedar tree. He loves it so much, his voice rose an octave as he told me he loves it. That's a lotta love. You know, for a tree.

So, in an effort to comfort myself, I rounded up any children who weren't sleeping, and made them help me pick the pears. Before some kind of mildewy-gut-rot gets to them, too.

For one neglected, 45ft. tall tree, I can't complain about this year's harvest. Heck, two years ago, we didn't even know what kind of a tree this is! So, we've been pruning and hacking and praying. This is the first year we've had fruit from it.

This shot was taken about halfway through the picking. We got about that much, again, and then Zorak made us stop. It probably had something to do with the fact that I have no idea what we're going to do with all these pears. Or perhaps it was when I mentioned that after you pick them, you have to let them ripen for a week or two. There are another couple dozen pears still on the tree, but I suspect they'll remain there until the boys and I figure out what to do with them and where to put them.

Oh, well, it was fun. And it took my mind off all those apple pies I'm not going to be able to make this year. *sigh* For a while it did, anyway. By the way, I'm really enjoying Picasa's new functions and upgrades. Hopefully, this collage will be a clickable link, because it's really neat-o full-size! (Whoa, and was it HUGE! Edited to tame the beast a bit... edited again to apologize - now it's a manageable size, but it's no longer clickable. No clue what the problem is. Probably operator error of some kind... *sheepish grin*)
Kiss those babies!
~Dy

My Head Is Like This Right Now

There's some really good stuff in there, but I have no clue how to get at it.

Day six of this plague. The children are fine. Zorak is much improved. I. Am. Dying. I talked to the children's director at church today. She said everyone at church has had it, too. She also said when it hits your chest, you're almost through. If that's true, then we should all be well, or dead, by Sunday. Either way, we all look forward to some resolution, here.

She'd called because she wanted to let me know the church's Christmas play preparations began last night. So... this is what life is like for non-procrastinators? While I'm at the market, mocking the stores for putting out Halloween candy, other (more organized) people are planning for Christmas. Wow. I... I don't think I'll ever be one of those people. However, the three boys have indicated that they'd like to be involved in the production. John wants more information before making a decision one way or the other. (His main concern was that this will not extend into baseball practice, "right?" Right.) James heard there is a Narrator part, and he's set his sights on that. Smidge just overheard his brothers and wants to be One of Them. So. There ya go. Come Sunday, I will be playing the part of an Organized Mom, gathering information and penciling into my calendar the schedule for the auditions on Wednesday. Then I plan to go to the store and spend half an hour wandering around wondering why none of the summer stuff is on sale yet. (Ha. Yet. They got rid of all of it last weekend, I know. *sigh* I know.)

Smidge turns five this month. He has given me a beautiful lesson on Perspective this year. He has instituted a new ritual, in honor of this merry event. Each morning, he slips into my room while I sleep, gets right. in. my. face. and then says, in a restrained whisper (which is pretty creepy when that's the sound that wakes you from a deep slumber), "Six more days." OK, something that cryptic, said in a snakey-sounding whisper at six in the morning... that'll really mess up your early AM groove, you know that? I'm sure he's convinced that I am not looking forward to his birthday. He's wrong. I am. For, after his birthday, we can go back to our regularly scheduled six AM wake-up calls, which consist of three or more children standing at the foot of my bed, yelling, "Mom! Can we have some food?" It's all about perspective. That which was once irritating will now be appreciated for its non-shudder-inducing qualities. Good Morning!!

Been following the news, but evidently not the calendar (in spite of my daily warnings), as tonight I asked Zorak what time MadTV would be on. He looked at me with such gentle pity before he answered. I don't know if the pity was because I had no idea what day it was, or because he just didn't want to have to tell me that MadTV wouldn't be on for another 48 hours yet. Either way, I realized I'm still not functioning on all eight cylinders. So I leave you with the promise of what is to come (rather than the haze of what is at the moment...)
Kiss those babies!
~Dy