motherbored's Blog
motherbored's Blog
Last Post 2 days, 17 hours Ago
Jul 2, 2008 | 11:59 AM PST
Mike had to take Alyssa to her orthodontist, as her wire was coming loose, so that left me and Micaela to entertain ourselves. We started by watering Momma's Garden, then Micaela started climbing an oak tree, so I asked her to wait, while I went in for the camera. As I was coming out of the house, with the camera, I found a terrified 7-year-old, crying. I finally found out that a huge beatle had chased her out of her tree, so we went to investigate. I don't know what kind it was, but it was easily 4" long; I helped it back into the tree, after I tried to take its picture. I got the picture, but it's hard to make out details, but here's the pix.'
After we watered the rest of the gardens and cleaned the birdbaths, we went to the sewing house and started a quilt for Micaela's little half brother. After that, we went out to the pines and she started her climb.
About half way up she discovered pitch (that's what I call it) on her hand; she wanted to know why her aunt Sophia calls it sap and I don't know the difference; anyone out there want to help me?
At about this time I came down with a really bad case of stupid, so I suggested we go clean the sap/pitch off our hands and go swimming and she agreed; we really had a fun day together and she is an amazingly old soul and has her thoughts in order, for a 7-year-old.
Goliath and Sarah waiting patiently for their kid to come down from the tree.
Jun 29, 2008 | 3:06 PM PST
I just finished handwatering our jupiters; we have three kinds, around the pool. Mike has them on drip, but I don't like drip, so I'm going to put in a mister-type on the existing drip hose. Speaking of misters, here's Sarah with her's.
When I arrived at church, today, I found a fallen pine cone that was still green and had a part of the tree in it, so, I brought it home and gave it a home; I hope it will grow, although I have my doubts, but I'd rather try and fail than not try at all. I also planted as many of those 10-cent seed packets as I could, but still have a bunch left. I checked the vine starts that I had, for my son-in-law, and they all appear not to be doing anything, so I threw them by the place that I took over, as my potting place ;-) Watch, I'll bet some of them take off and grow like crazy and I'll have a regular jungle there. Anyone have advice on how to divide the Lily of the Nile? I never throw anything away and I have these neat bird-bath thingies that I have to put out, now; one is a plastic sitz-bath from the hospital, and the other is a plastic bed pan, from the same place; wonder if the birds will mind? ;-)
Jun 29, 2008 | 7:31 AM PST
I rearranged the computer room, took off the software from the Olympus manufacturer and got the pictures up. If you care to see them, they are in my photos under Life at Mimi's. This morning is starting off beautifully, with a cool breeze. There is a nursery, up here, and I've been there twice, but there don't seem to be any clerks, to speak of. I'm hoping to find a place to buy Italian cypress' to plant along our fence, so I don't have to look at the dead oaks our new neighbor felled... or is that fell? Heck, just getting words out, correct or incorrect, is a chore for me ;-) I just went out to take a picture of the late oaks. I spotted Lilies of the Nile in bloom, sooo, I sort of got sidetracked; does that ever happen to you?
Before oaks were pushed over
After oaks were pushed down
Girls' corn 6/29/08
I've been trying to look for something good that has come of the demise of the oaks and all I can think of is, with the dead oaks laying there, I can't see what is rapidly becoming a junkyard... see? There's always a bright side ;-)
This area is where I was gardening, after the surgery, and I like it so well, I'm keeping it; anyone wants to eat on a picnic table will have to go to the pool deck; this is MINE!!
Jun 28, 2008 | 10:07 AM PST
The other day we took oodles of pix of the girls, ice cream cones, dogs, flowers, etc., with Mike's new Olympus camera; we-ell, the pix are still in the camera and the furschlugner thing won't spit 'em out! I loaded the software, because the computer claimed that it didn't recognize the camera; ha! Dumb computer. Mike's taking a nap, right now, so he can't help me; my son treats me as though I'm dyslexic and sold my soul to Santa; my daughter is in the air, somewhere between here and Florida and I'm frustrated, to say the least. I'll try, later, when I have a living body around here to help me. Sorry to go on like this, but I really wanted to show the pix of the kids and their corn, their faces with ice cream on them (this won't happen much, in the future) and all sorts of other things that were captured on film... or maybe not, since my computer says this camera does not exist. On the bright side, and there always is one, it's 10:25 and only 74 degrees. Going out and plant some more pots with flowers, etc. I think I like container gardening, the critters can't get in them, except for the Washington State Bird, the Slug.
Jun 27, 2008 | 6:29 PM PST
Just came back from taking the girls home for the weekend; I'm looking forward to a quiet night -- hope that doesn't mean I'm getting old and crotchety. I was waiting for my son to get home, so I could go home and Sarah was in the car with me. When son drove up, you could tell from Sarah's body language, that she was torn between going to him and staying in the car, so he told me to keep her up here for the summer; she loves to recline on the chaise, in the mister. Better get out and do the watering; it's 18:30 and the temp is 96! I think I'll water me, too ;-)
Jun 25, 2008 | 7:11 PM PST
Mike had his rotator cuff surgery, the girls are here and I'm a busy as a cat on a hot tin roof!
This morning was really fun, because, for the first year, the girls can reach the bird feeders and fill them, by themselves. I only wish I had been able to take a picture of them, up on the hill, Alyssa pulling the cart, with 50# seed in it and Micaela pushing it. They also watered their corn, Momma's garden, and then we went swimming, for the rest of the day. They are regular little fish, in the water.
Mike seems to be healing well, but the whole procedure was a farce, as far as everyone knowing what the other guy was doing. I've worked in certain areas of the medical field, but have little love for the behavior of some of the office staff and others, who should be doing their job well. They sent Mike home with a scribbled (not a doctor's writing -- that, I can read) paper of what he should do. He was supposed to have some sort of pain pump, which wasn't there, but, they had put a red tennis ball in his hand and he thought that was the pump, so, mind over matter, he thought it was helping. When I finally convinced him to call the doctor, he found out that there were several errors. Oh, well, I don't talk about my surgeries, so I won't talk about his.
I showed the girls their corn picture, on here, and they were in awe. I guess it's like getting published in the paper, huh? Right now, they are out on the back porch, watching a video... that's why I'm using the computer; they use the computers often, and we do watch what they do, closely. Micaela loves to Google stuff and, the other night, she was bitten by an earwig, so the following day, she Googled them; not bad for a 7-year-old. Alyssa has turned 9 and thinks she is totally different than she was when she was "only" 8. Never a dull moment with kids.
Oh, the day of Mike's surgery, we took our portable phones back to Costco, because they were receiving other signals, that muffled our incoming calls; big mistake, because we're not geared for phone jacks, The next day, Micaela put the phones together -- that kid is aiming to be an engineer, I think -- and we were able to use them, after 7 hours of charging.
Tomorrow, we'll get back to gardening, I hope.
Jun 22, 2008 | 5:57 AM PST
... and I want to start a similar movement, wanna join me?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TE
CH/06/20/guerr.garden/index.ht
ml
It hit 104, yesterday and I brought the dogs into the computer room to stay cool. I don't mind a little heat, but 104 is a bit much. It's supposed to be hot, again, today. We have wildfires all over the place, but our place is kept mowed and the dead brances and twigs are removed from the lower branches of the trees, where the critters reside, so there's very little chance of a lasting fire. At about 4 p.m., huge thunderheads showed up and the air was very humid, but the thunder storms moved north and missed us, thank God!
The girls arrived home safely, yesterday. Today is Alyssa's birthday and a friend of their father's is hosting a party for her. This friend let me take cuttings of a wall-climbing plant that was growing wild, on the other side of their wall. It looks suspiciously like a grape vine, but I'm not sure. I can't send a picture, yet, because I've already covered it with soil, but, once it starts, I'll do a picture. My SIL saw it and asked me to start it for him, as he has a huge water tank and wants a climber to help hid the ugly, but necessary tank. The reason I suspect a grape vine, this showed up in an area that used to be vineyards, but has since been turned into homesites. If it is a grape, it's probably a Tokay, which only grows in this area of Lodi, California and one area in Italy.
Jun 21, 2008 | 6:40 AM PST
The girls will be home from LA, this afternoon; sure have missed them. We'll be taking Sarah home, for the weekend, then she'll join her "sisters" up here for the rest of their vacation.
Here's the girls corn; they are going to really be excited, when they see how much it's grown. The beat-up truck, you see in the background is Mike's pride and joy. He bought it from a friend, about 10 years ago, and it's still going.
The herb garden is growing well; when I hose down the walk, the black oil seeds go in and are growing all over the place.
Here's Sarah, waiting to be let out of the kennel; she and Coco are kept here, at night, because we're not sure if Sarah would have the good sense to come home by herself. Well, I'd better get out there and see what they're barking at... probably our new neighbors.
