Chaos and Confusion

As anyone with a garden knows, going away during the growing season means a big mess when you return. It's just inevitable. Everything keeps growing while you're gone, so when you come back, you find the new planting of carrots and beets almost completely hidden by spurge; the tomatoes flopping all over the place; the green beans overgrown and past when they should have been picked; the cucumbers trying to escape into the cabbages instead of climbing up the nice supports made specially for them; and the blackberries ready to be picked.

To use some not-at-all-random examples.

Last night A. got the lake pump running and I watered the desperately dry garden. With the big plastic pump hose. This thing is an inch in diameter and way too big to water with really, but it was what I had. In places with mulch, like the potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, I just dropped the hose in there and let the water flood the area. This may not be the best way to water plants, but they needed so much water, I figured it was better to flood them than not get them enough.

While I was letting the tomatoes flood, I hunted around the spurge to find the small carrots and beets I planted not too long ago. They were almost completely obscured by the weeds, so I spent a long time pulling spurge.

Weeds go in cycles from year to year. Last year it was some kind of shallow-rooted weed with little white flowers that set seeds immediately and spread incredibly fast. The year before that was the Year of the Pigweed. This year, it's spurge. The only good thing about spurge is that it all grows out from a central root, so when you pull the root up, a large area of the weed comes out.

I'm really searching for the silver lining, here.

I also weeded out the out-of-control bed where we would have had peas if the rabbit hadn't eaten them. As I was grabbing two-foot-tall pigweeds and yanking them out, I accidentally grabbed the rose bush by the fence. Hard. So now I have festering rose thorns in my left hand. Awesome.

Then I used my hand (not the punctured left) to disperse the water so I could get some water onto the smaller plants without washing them away. This meant I watered my arm and hand quite a bit as well. Then I picked some blackberries.

On the up side, I did spot the first ripening tomato. With the hot weather we're having, it should ripen quickly. The First Tomato draws ever nearer. Assuming I can get them all tied to their stakes so they don't just flop over and rot on the ground.

I plan on another assault on the garden tonight after Cubby is in bed. Wish me luck. I think I'll need it.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

No need to ask the obvious question: I know you all missed me. We can just move on to the trivial details of my life that are the reason you show up here.

First, a big round of applause for that miraculous child of mine. I would have bet money that a 12-hour day in the car would be impossible with a toddler. Impossible without a whole lot of shrieking and unpleasantness, that is. But that kid, man. Except for a few minutes of protest here and there, he just resigned himself to the misery. Of course, the misery was substantially reduced by the fact that one of us sat in the back with him the whole way and read books, plied him with food, sang many rounds of "Little Bunny Foo Foo" (it's a big hit with the under-two crowd), and generally did everything we could to keep him entertained and fed.

Despite the rockin' good times in the Subaru, however, we were all extremely glad to get home. We rolled up the driveway at 8 p.m. yesterday. Cubby's face straight lit up at the sight of the dogs, and he practically lunged out of my arms to his grandma when he saw her, so that was nice. Then I put him to bed, with much praise for his fortitude and good nature. He was asleep before he hit his crib mattress.

Then, A. and I ate the delicious dinner the MiL had prepared before we collapsed into our own bed. The bed on which there were clean sheets, because the MiL had washed them and put them back on for us while we were gone. I highly recommend having the MiL on hand to welcome you home from a long trip.

Before we got into bed, though, I of course went out to inspect the garden. There hasn't been a drop of rain while we were gone, so the MiL was kept busy hauling water for the poor plants (and the animals, who are all very much alive, by the way--good job, MiL). Despite that, everything grew like crazy in the last week. Some of the cabbages are ready; the green beans are producing abundantly; I can start eating beets anytime now (yay! love beets); and the chard has recovered from the severe pruning I gave it before we left.

The weeds, of course, have also been growing nicely. I will address them as soon as I unload the car, make laundry mucous and wash our many filthy clothes, put everything away, make some yogurt, and generally re-establish myself at Blackrock.

It's good to be home.

A Brief Experiment in Yuppieness

I'm sitting at a Panera Bread restaurant, typing on a Mac Book (not mine). My sister-in-law is sitting across the table from me, on her laptop. We're sharing a cinnamon roll and reveling in our temporary childlessness.

I'm very, very far from Blackrock, obviously.

So! Hello from beautiful Delavan, Wisconsin! We've been here for a few days now, after a few days in the car.

We drove across Canada to get here, crossing the border into and out of Canada in the same day. On the way into Canada, we were questioned on any guns, mace, pepper spray, or tasers we might have in our possession. On the way into the United States? Not a bit of concern about weaponry, but the border patrol agent confiscated our grapes. The grapes that we bought in New York, transported across Canada, and then had taken away from us by the U.S. Border Patrol because they were grown in Mexico.

I have no further comment on that ridiculousness.

Anyway! Those few days in the car were not the most fun I've ever had, although Cubby once again demonstrated his superiority by being surprisingly stoic at the reality of sitting in a car seat for hours at a time. Only a couple of hours at a time, though. We saw a lot of parks between home and Wisconsin.

A. has spent most of his time here fishing off the dock of the house my parents rented. My three-year-old niece, bless her, has spent a lot of her time out there fishing with him. In fact, I think she's caught more fish than he has. We even ate some for lunch the first day we were here.

You can take the woodchuck out of Blackrock, but you can't take Blackrock out of the woodchuck. Or something.

My brother has been working this whole time, but he arrives this afternoon, so we'll have the whole clan together for at least part of one day before we all disperse tomorrow.

It's been a nice trip so far, but I bet the sheep miss A. and I'm sure the weeds in the garden miss me, so back on the road again we will go, Blackrock bound.

Catch you on the flipside, poppets.

An American Tradition

Okay! Now that we've all spent the last three days eating, drinking, and generally celebrating Our Great Country with wild revelry, it's time for us to continue the celebrations with yet another great American tradition: The family roadtrip.

That's right. Going Country is going on a roadtrip. A., Cubby, and I will be hitting the road tomorrow for Illinois, where my cousin is having a very large reception on Friday to celebrate her wedding. The wedding actually occurred in Mexico a couple of months ago, but they're having this reception for all the people (hi!) who couldn't make it to Mexico. My dad rented a house on a lake in Wisconsin where all of my immediate family will be staying. It's going to be a party.

But first we have to get there.

Today I will be spending my day gathering the various accoutrements belonging to the child, as well as all the food we're bringing in the car in coolers, plus clothes and the jars of jam for my family and toys and water shoes and those chunks of wood we're bringing for my dad to bring home . . . Well. It's going to be a busy day.

We're planning on leaving at 4 a.m. tomorrow. The idea being that we can just take a sleeping Cubby out of his crib, put him in his carseat, and make it a few hours down the road before he actually wakes up. Of course, this may end up being like the time we took him on a late-night plane ride hoping he would sleep and then he, uh, didn't. But at least with the car we can stop and get out and let him run around. To that end, we've planned a route that does not involve much freeway driving, so we can pretty much just pull over whenever the need arises.

But still. We're talking about 15 hours in a car with a child who rarely spends more than half an hour in his carseat. It will be an interesting experiment. Cubby often pleasantly surprises me when it comes to untested situations, however. I guess if you expect the worst, then anything else is just a bonus.

No matter how those two and a half days on the road go down, we will eventually make it to Wisconsin, where we will sit on a different lakeshore and play with my niece and eat, drink, and be merry once again.

I will probably not be taking any time from the merry-making to spew my usual drivel here. Certainly not while we're on the road. If my parents bring their laptop and this house we're staying in has Internet access, I'll probably send a shout-out from Wisconsin. But I'm not going to make a great effort to do so. Just so you know.

So send all your positive vibes to the Family Blackrock as we embark on our voyage. And stay tuned for the undoubtedly hilarious stories that will result.

Hasta luego, poppets.

Celebrating

Saturday night, we had a bonfire on our beach with a few friends and a few fireworks someone brought.

Last night, our next-door neighbors had a much bigger bonfire on their beach with many more friends, an impressive array of food, a table fully stocked with every imaginable liquor, beer, or wine (plus some seriously kick-ass made from scratch margaritas--YUM), and a LOT of fireworks.

It was pretty bad-ass. They even had glow sticks. Our neighbors throw a good party. And I very much enjoyed attending a party in which the travel to the party did not involve strapping Cubby into a carseat and driving anywhere. Walking down the driveway and down the lakeshore about fifty yards is the way to go.

Today we have yet another soiree to attend. There will be more food. More alcohol. More fire. What better way to celebrate the good ole fun-lovin' U.S.A. than with three days of excess? Seems about right to me.

Happy Independence Day, duckies! Go have some fun and blow some shit up. It's the patriotic thing to do.

Feats of Strength

Telling you that A. is really strong is like telling you that Cubby is really cute, or that I really like potatoes. Understatement. That's what calling A. "really strong" is.

He's not a small man anyway, but his strength relative to his size is really phenomenal. Phenomenal in the literal sense, in that he's something of a phenomenon when it comes to lifting heavy things. Not weights on a bar, although he can do that, too. No, his incredible strength gets used with some frequency at Blackrock for practical applications like lifting the lawn tractor so I can put jack stands under it or lifting the washing machine so the dogs can kill a woodchuck.

Or this.

No one should be able to lift that stone like that. That thing weighs probably 350 pounds. But that was the stone that A. wanted for the end cap on the foundation wall. I couldn't even budge one side of it. So he lifted it into place by himself. It was, as the MiL remarked, impossible. But somehow A. made it possible.

He's a useful sort of man to have around. I think we'll keep him.

Fine, You're All Really Smart

Yes, they were salt cellars. As almost all of you knew, apparently with no confusion whatsoever. I guess my knowledge of antiques was sub-standard before living here, because I didn't know what they were.

In fact, that big salt cellar used to be just sitting on a windowsill as decoration. I had no idea it was for salt until the MiL took it down, washed it, and filled it with salt for the kitchen table. That's the one that sits at the table for communal salting at dinner or whatever. The smaller ones are the ones we use for dinner parties. Every person gets his or her own, which means there's none of that irritating jockeying for salt.

I especially hate when I'm at a big table of twelve people or something and I really want the salt but it's on the other side of the table and I don't want to interrupt conversation to ask everyone at the table to pass the salt all the way around to me. Individual salt cellars are so much better.

Salt cellars work much better than salt shakers at Blackrock. It's just too damp here, and the salt inevitably clumps and refuses to shake out. Even with rice in it. Salt cellars are the way to go.

Okay! Enough with all the formal stuff. Back to your holiday weekend and your barbecues and beer or whatever that almost certainly will not include cut-glass salt cellars.

Happy holiday Saturday, duckies!