Putting the garden to bed.....

I love gardening. 

There is nothing like turning a brown patch of earth into lush greenery that I eventually harvest into delicious, nutritious, organic food. 

I love the sunshine and breathing the fresh air while I'm at it. 

I love the hard work, and even the weariness that I take to bed with me at night that sends me into a deep sleep. 

I love wrestling with the tiller and feeling the strength of my muscles. 

I love the heat soaking into me and the sweat cleansing me. 

I love sitting in my chair and relaxing as I wait for a tree to be watered and then moving on to the next. 

I love talking to the plants, admiring them and encouraging them. 

I even love picking off the squash bugs twice a day and feeling like a mama protecting her charges, until they are big enough and strong enough to survive.

I love planting a fruit tree and feel great satisfaction when the leaves start to bud in the weeks that follow. I love the feeling of faith and hope that one must have in planting a fruit tree.

I love eating my lunch on the move; picking ripe cherry tomatoes and popping them into my mouth for a burst of deliciousness, munching a green bell pepper, a few green beans, even a ripe ear of corn. Have you ever eaten a raw ear of corn? It is a sweet treat!

I love picking the eggplants, until I have bags and bags of purple beauty. 

I love digging up potatoes, a first for me this year, and feeling like I'm digging for treasure--what fun! 

I love discovering that I did something right, and wondering if anyone else in the whole world already knows about what I just learned. 

I love it when people stop to admire my garden and we chat about our gardens and sometimes swap tips and produce. 

I love the challenge of finding a better way to do something than I did it before.

I love finding ladybugs and their babies, and I invite them to stay. 

I love the bees. My dad kept bees when I was young and I was fascinated by them. In my garden, I talk to them and thank them for their work. I tell them to carry on, that I won't bother them if they don't bother me. And they don't. I talk to the grasshoppers too, after I have caught them. I tell them to stop squirming because they have been invited to lunch with Chance's salamanders today.

I love having my sons out there working beside me, contributing. Hoping that even though they grumble, maybe someday they will be grateful that I taught them to work, and maybe they will even love to garden as much as I do.

And I love the fall, when its time to put the garden to bed. When the season's work is done. When you think you don't ever want to see another tomato in your life. When the produce has all been picked, processed, stored or eaten. When its time to rest.....

and dream about and plan for next year.

Learning the hard way...

In one of my posts I mentioned some drama about my ex-husband and his new wife. That story ended happily, but I forgot how compelling, manipulative, controlling and deceitful he can really be. So after apologizing and sweet talking her for weeks, she took him back. 

All I can say is "GOOD LUCK HONEY!!!" She believes that he has changed. WOW! Wish I could make miraculous changes in such a short amount of time. I guess what is bothering me so much is that her oldest daughter found me on facebook and started talking to me. She is in despair that her mother is taking him back. If she won't listen to me and wants to learn the hard way, FINE, but it is unfortunate that her young children have to live through it.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

It is homecoming week at Delta High school. Since Chance is in the Senior class presidency, he and his friends were in charge of decorating the senior class hall. They have a super hero theme this year. The freshman are Captain America, Sophomores are Superman, Juniors are Spiderman, and Seniors are Batman. It's been a lot of work but I think they are having fun.

Ahhhhhhhgggg! Ahhhhhhhgggg!

Just when I thought I my life and my mental health was back to normal (after the divorce) then I'm thrown this curve ball.

A Little Bit Stronger by Sara Evans

On Tuesday, I discovered I had a message on facebook. I never received an email message about it and so it was 2 weeks old. It was from a woman who was wanting to ask me some questions about my ex husband, his personality, etc. I immediately sent her a message back with my phone number, hoping that it was NOT TOO LATE! The next day I got a message from her, telling me that they had met online 5 years ago, and then this spring met online again and she MARRIED HIM!!! (that's where the very loud ahhhhhhggg comes in!) She lives in Canada and they eloped. He moved in with her, hasn't worked, has been tormenting her and her kids like he did me and mine! She called me on Thursday and we talked for nearly 2 hours. It was total deja vu talking to her. He learned nothing from our marriage. I now feel vindicated in divorcing him after 9 months. He will not change! We began emailing back and forth, she was extremely confused. I told her that it was NOT HER! I told her that she needed to get out fast before she lost her kids, her mental health and more of her precious time and resources. I told her that it would NOT get better, only worse. That night they had a fight and he kept her up all night, and she has to go to work at 5 in the morning. I guess he figured he was in the dog house so he used his 8 hours of doing nothing time to write her a 17 -- YES I SAID SEVENTEEN -- page letter! She sent it to me through email. I read it all and it was his usual BS. I then sent her a few of his letters to me so that she could see that this was a pattern. I told her that I was a lot more compliant than she has been, and he was still critical and unhappy with me. So last night she told him she was done. 

Then this morning I got a phone call and I thought it was her. It was Lane! Thus the second Ahhhhhhhgggg! I got a chance to yell at him a bit but he said he only called me to ask me one thing...."When you talked to her, did you say any of the good things about me?" I said NO! (I should have said H--- NO!  Or, what good things? ) He then told me that this was none of my business, and I replied that she had contacted me. He then said that she was not my stewardship and that I would have to answer to God for it someday. Then he hung up.

The good news is that she emailed me tonight and told me that she discovered that Lane and the minister both forgot to sign the marriage certificate, so luckily she won't have to go through any legal red-tape. Her bishop came and got him out of her home and told her that she had been deceived and to disregard any crap he had fed her, which is his version of the gospel.

This post is red and bold because I have been pretty pissed off all day. And for a while I felt the same anxiety I felt when he was in my life.    It was icky!

JERK!

First day of school

My boys all ready for their first day of school. August 17, 2011

Chance's Eagle Project

This was the best Eagle project EVER! Not because it was the best project, but that it was over and done with in 2 weeks from start to finish. We still have the paper work to do, but from idea, to planning, to getting approval signatures, to the actual work, was only 2 weeks. AWESOME! Wanna know the secret? Call your elementary school principle (or any school principle for that matter) 2 weeks before school starts and most likely he will have something that he needs done before school starts. And having a short time limit is the best thing to light a fire under your teen boy who would rather go play.

BEFORE

This curb is yellow.....

Painting the "Time Out" box

The littlest helper

The smaller playground

...and this curb is green.

The fire drill line

4 square court

Tether ball

Hopscotch anyone?

Lovely stencil work huh?

A work of art!

The happy results of hard work

Remember this?

 This is what it looks like now!

We have harvested yellow and zucchini squash, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, beets, radishes, broccoli, green beans, basil, parsley, sage, cucumbers, and the corn is coming on. The celery and eggplant are growing well. The potatoes plants are growing great but we won't see what lies underground for a few months yet. I've got about 30 granny Smith apples, and 2 golden delicious...lol! Probably won't get any melons, (boo hoo!) but the pumpkins and spaghetti squash are growing like gangbusters! The green that you see on the right side of the garden is alfalfa. The soil isn't very good on that side so I'm growing a cover crop to try to  improve it. I was going to do the whole east side but it is a lot of work when your tiller is only 10 inches wide! Oh well. There is always next year.

I love to garden!