Y is for Yellow

And yellow is for fall......

Crisp mornings, warm afternoon sunshine, fresh apple cider and glazed doughnuts..... I love fall.

There is hay drying in the fields.

















Late season Black-Eyed Susans.

















Not my corn. But I wish it was. All ready to be harvested.







I turned my heater on this weekend.

Sigh.

Neighbors

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life.....

Truer words have never been spoken.

Horrible incident in my home Tuesday night. I get home, I let my dogs into the backyard, go into my room to change my clothes. I hear screaming. (No, not from somebody viewing me changing my clothes, thank you very much.) I run out into the backyard and hear my neighbor screaming "No, oh God stop, leave her alone." The "her" in question was my chihuahua. What she was yelling at were her two German Shepards who were trying to tear my dog in half. (From what I was able to learn later, the Shepards had broken a board on the fence and when Izzy stuck her head through, they grabbed her and dragged her in.)

There is no greater feeling of impotence than standing on one side of a fence while your dog is being torn apart on the other side. Thankfully, my neighbor got to her dogs quickly and my dog came back through the hole in the fence while I was banging on the womans front door screaming at her to give me my dog. I finally located Izzy under my bed and was forced to make the decision to reach in and grab her, knowing that it was about the stupidest thing I could do. Having said that, I did it anyways and was rewarded by her fangs going through my hand between my thumb and forefinger. I dragged her out, switched my grip and was promptly rewarded by having her try to tear a finger off of my other hand. I got her to the sink to start to wash her off so I could see how bad it was. Believe me when I say that is difficult to do with dog fangs buried to the bone in one of your hands.














God bless my vet who drove in from 30 miles away, after hours, with two staff members to come take care of her. Amazingly, although she had a dozen bites in her throat, chest, stomach and genitals, none had punctured into her rib cage or abdominal cavity. They did manage to pull on her so hard that they seperated the skin and muscles in her chest, causing an extremely painful air bubble and extensive bruising. After clean up, pain shots and antibiotics she was on her way home. And I was on my way to the doctor.















Anthonys sister had actually dropped everything and driven over to help me as I was both a basket case and wounded. She drove me to the doctor where they cleaned my wounds, bandaged me up and gave me 100 pills that I have to take within the next 10 days. I wish I was exaggerating, but it really is 100 pills. Every 6hrs. Apparently dog mouths are dirty. Imagine that. (I've personally seen them dine from the cat box, so this came as no surprise to me.)





On the plus side, I'll have a really cool scar and can tell people that a Chihuahua tried to rip my finger off.

On the good neighbor side, my other next door guy, Steve, came over and fixed my fence and the only payment he took was a bucket of green beans and some tomatoes. Of course, this was after he chewed me out for not coming to get him when all of this was happening. I'll take it. Steve's a good neighbor.

Political Unrest

I found two pictures that perfectly describe both the attitudes and the leanings of the people in my house, politically speaking.

Here's Anthony.



Here's me.




Need I say more?

Accomplishments

I am pleased.

In spite of myself, I actually managed to get quite a bit done this weekend. My neighbor built a trellis for my wisteria on Saturday and it made such a difference to the look of my front yard, that it inspired me to get in gear and get some stuff done.

So on Sunday I chopped all the dead heads off of the beautiful mums that I got (and didn't plant 3 weeks ago so all the flowers died) and since I didn't know where I wanted to put them in my English garden, I put them on the side of the house near the wisteria. That was a great idea, except that I forgot that the bed on that side is full of tulips in the spring. Surprise - planting 3 mums resulted in the uprooting of approximately 30 tulip bulbs which then needed to planted elsewhere. Sigh.





Well, since the bulbs were out and I had a fresh bed in the garden, I went ahead and tucked the tulips into the edging of the bed. Job well done. Since I was there, I figured I might as well lay down the new pieces of flagstone that were piled in the corner. And if I was going to do that I should lay down the weedguard first. Well, that was good. I stood about surveying the sideyard and realized that I really needed to get my fruit trees planted. So I dug a big hole and stuffed the apple tree into it. That was great, but I don't want the Virginia Creeper to strangle it, so I cut back all the running vines. Then I thought it would look much nicer if I pulled the weeds around it. So I sat down and managed to weed 3/4 of the entire garden until something crawled into my pants and bit me.

I jumped up and swatted at my waistband on my lower back, and then I felt something FALL INTO MY PANTS!!!! At which point I screamed and pulled my pants off and jumped around pantless in the garden, swiping at my rear end and shaking my pants out. After I determined that the attack was over and that there was no longer anything in my pants, I re-clothed myself and decided I was done sitting in the garden for the time being.

But the weather was SO fantastic (cool and overcast) that it seemed a shame to go back in. I picked up all my weeds and discarded plant pots and labels and soil bags and filled a whole trash can. Then I refilled my lettuce barrel with fresh soil to get ready for a fall crop planting. As I was walking back with my bucket I spied the pile o' rocks sitting in my grass and was struck with an idea for one of my garden beds. So I wheeled in a tipped over wine barrel (which I will half plant with hen and chicks next spring) and started hauling in buckets of rocks to fill around the plants in that bed. I killed a whole bunch of spiders and one centipede and two red ants that had taken up residence in my rock pile. I wasn't risking anything else crawling into my pants.





I finished the bed and was so pleased with the results! I was also pooped. Hauling buckets of rocks will take it out of you. So I called it a day, laid in the shower for awhile and then crawled into the recliner. Anthony will pull my garbage can around to the front of the house and dig the hole for my peach tree tomorrow.

I'd pat myself on the back if I could actually still move my arms.

Hoisted by my own Petard

I think I finally figured out my biggest obstacle for learning to do new things and become more self sufficient.

It's ME!!!!!

I realized this the other day as my neighbor was explaining to me what I needed to do to build an arbor to hold up my wisteria. I had the best of intentions - I fully intended on doing the work myself. But he started talking about 4x4's and 1x2's and wood screws and crossbeams and supports....and well, I could feel my eyes glazing over. Literally. Then I found myself staring at the roses and thinking I really needed to prune them, and perhaps I should take a ham out to defrost for dinner....la la la...

So here's what I pictured in my mind as he was explaining how to build this thing.











And here's what he actually ended up building for me.










I should have been able to do this for myself. It wasn't a difficult project. So why is it that my mind just shuffles off when it's time to learn how to do something? I refuse to believe it has anything to do with me being a woman. I will admit that some men seem to be better equipped than some women to handle these sorts of tasks. But not once have I ever been in the middle of project and had to stop and say "Now, where did I put that penis?" It's not a matter of being a girl. I think it comes from spending my whole life with a man around who would take care of these things.

I went from my fathers house to my husbands house to my next husbands house with very little time in between. And I always had male friends who would help out with things. Prior to getting my home I had an apartment and there was a maintenance guy that took care of everything. I have never HAD to do anything on my own and never had the desire to do it. I can distinctly recall a number of occasions where my dad would be fixing something and he would explain to me what he was doing and I would just smile and nod and let it go in one ear and out the other, because I knew I wasn't going to have to do it.

Well, look where that has gotten me. Now zoning out has become automatic and I can't seem to prevent it from happening. At the same time, I was able to look at pictures in a book and build my upright garden trellises with no problem. Am I going to have to resort to figuring out how to do things by reading about them? It's entirely possible. And that's not a completely bad thing. But it's so much EASIER to let someone else do things for me.

It's amazing what you learn about yourself when you decide to head off into a new and previously unexplored direction. I always thought I was pretty self sufficient, but I'm discovering that I really do rely on the kindness of others to help me to keep things running and in working order.

My father is coming to visit and help me fix the guest room toilet in two weeks. I can hardly wait.

Fruit Trees and other Stuff

Yay me! I stumbled across a great deal on fruit trees this weekend and ended up with a Honeycrisp Apple and also a peach tree. The peach is self pollinating - good thing, since I don't know of any other peach trees by my house. The apple needs a cross pollinator, but my next door neighbor has an apple and I'm sure there are others in the vicinity. With any luck I'll be harvesting my own apples, peaches and cherries in the next couple of years.

We had a windstorm with gusts to 68 mph last week. I got up early and went to Lowes and on my way saw a number of downed trees including one giant cottonwood that came up roots and all and somehow managed to miss the house it was next to. It did however take out the fence and the phone, electric and cable lines. Half the town was without power all morning. I was very pleased that I didn't have large trees and hadn't lost anything. Turns out, I'm not that observant. As I pulled into my driveway I saw that my wisteria was hanging half into the yard, having pulled it's trellis right off the side of the house, shattering it into pieces. Crap. Anthonys sister, being sentimental as she is, said "Cut it down!". My mother also suggested I cut it down. I have news for you people. Wisteria are juvenile until they are about 8 years old. Mine is 6 years old and produced a flower for the first time last year. I have been waiting 6 YEARS for this thing to bloom - I am NOT cutting it down and starting over. So, my neighbor volunteered to help me build an arbor for it, give it a little more support and hopefully prevent another catastrophe.

So, having solved that problem, I went into the house and had a clear view of my backyard from the front door. Sigh. I have climbing roses at intervals along the back fence. Ten feet of climbing rose came down, trellis and all. That one I will just cut off at the ground. By mid summer next year you won't be able to tell at all. We're supposed to have high winds again tonight and the arbor isn't done yet for the wisteria. Believe it or not I have every intention of bungee-cording that sucker to the fence to prevent it from hurting itself.

I grew a fabulous crop of mosquitos in my side garden. They're like birds. You can actually feel them land on you. I hadn't noticed a bucket filling with water whenever I turned on the sprinklers. So now it's a feeding frenzy when I go over to work on the side yard.

The one thing that I thought for sure I'd get a bumper crop of was the tomatoes. Alas, they have blossom end rot. Unfortunately, that is my fault, as it is caused by irregular watering. If I'm a good girl and water appropriately and religiously, I may be able to pull this one out, as only a few tomatoes have been stricken at this point.

My bell peppers are just now flowering. Very late. The melons quit growing. The zuchinni and the pumpkins have been taken hostage by squash bugs. My onions are gone. I don't know where they went. I know where I planted them, but they are not there anymore. Weird. That's the second batch that's gone missing this year. I got some really weird deformed cucumbers. They're like art. I have five volunteer Roma Tomato plants in the wrong garden. I didn't put them there. The green beans look great - they are starting to flower. So apparently, we will have beans this year. Just beans. Oh - and oddly enough, my lilacs are preparing for a second bloom, which I've never seen them do. What an odd summer.

What I have learned this year:

-Start growing my own plants early indoors. Do not wait for the nursery to get them in.

-Put the plants out early, regardless of the weather. Protect them from the elements with floating row covers and/or Wall-o-Waters.

-Square foot gardening grows square feet of weeds. I repeat, does not cut down on weeds. At all. I don't care what the book says.

-Quit growing squash. The bugs freak me out.

-Hire small children to pick the raspberries.

-Cover the entire yard from fence to roofline with mesh or accept that the birds will get into the fruit. I'd rather they ate the squash bugs.


Sadly, I have accepted the fact that if I had to rely on myself to produce the food for our table, we would all starve. I don't consider it a complete failure. I did learn from my mistakes and I'm already formulating my plan of attack for next spring. This year, I'm still going to do fall crops of lettuce and peas and get some garlic in for next year. And I am still planning to make and can apple butter this fall and also practice making home made bread. I'd really like to try to can up some peaches before the season is over, too, but I don't know if I'll get around to it. Time is running out.

Cabelas, The Final Frontier

I know that Disneyland is known as "The Happiest Place on Earth", but I beg to differ. After 5pm, with all the tired little people and the exhausted parents and navigating the lines and the crowds after a day of eating junk food, it becomes "The Crabbiest Place on Earth". Fathers can be dragged to Disneyland, but have you ever actually seen a grown man skipping through It's a Small World? Probably not. But I've seen one skipping through the fishing department at Cabelas.

Okay, maybe "skipping" is an exageration. It was more like that fast run/walk you do when you're really excited and can't wait to get somewhere but you have to restrain yourself because you're a "grown up". It's the closest I've ever seen to skipping in a man. Especially a rough and tumble, huntin, fishin, big-boy truck drivin man. There's something about Cabelas that turns men into little boys. And it is a sight to behold.

Take a grown man to Cabelas and you'll get to see what he was like at the age of five. Let him press his face to the glass aquarium in the fishing department. See his eyes light up as he watches all the trout and bass swimming around, as peaceful and serene as he imagines sitting in a boat trying to catch them would be. Getting him out of the fishing department past all the gear will be like taking a toddler down the cereal aisle at the grocery store. Hold your ground. There are no Marlin in Idaho - he does not need 80lb test line and a deep sea fishing rod made of graphite.

On the way to the back of the store you will have to pass through the household decor section. He won't pay much attention through here unless he's really looking for a new travel coffee mug with a duck decoy decal. You can get through here with a minimum of fuss. At the back of the store is the "General Store". He will find all kinds of cool man stuff, like meat and fish seasonings for his grill and a variety of salsas and condiments for game as well as a few "guy" deserts like malt balls named cute things like "Moose Nuggets" or chocolate covered raisins in a container marked "Rabbit Poop". But more importantly, this is where YOU can come to get fudge. You can sample every single flavor of fudge they have and then buy your favorite. By this time, you probably need some chocolate.

After purchasing your man some "Rabbit Poop" to snack on, take him to the center of the store where the main taxidermy display is. These guys do a beautiful job of recreating wildlife tableaus. There are a variety of areas where you can sit and stretch out for a minute. Depending on your man, you may even have time to take a little nap while he wanders around daydreaming that he's the one who brought in that 12 point trophy buck. He can go face to face with a snarling mountain lion or scan the fake hills for record setting big horn sheep. There's plenty to keep him entertained.

I know how hard it is to get most men to go shopping for clothes, but take him into Cabelas and he will stuff himself into down filled coveralls and a layered, waterproofed, camouflaged jacket even though it's July and 100 plus degrees. If you find him covered in camouflage crouched down and hiding in a clothing rack he's just trying to see how comfortable he'll be sitting in a deer blind for hours on end. The only way I know of to get him out is to tell him you'd like to talk about your feelings, since he's just sitting there anyways.

After you've peeled him out of his deer/elk/duck hunting gear, convinced him that the 6 coolers he has stacked in the garage are sufficient and he doesn't need one with a gas powered, back up generator and purchased his obligatory Cabelas T-shirt, you will need to drag him kicking and screaming past the gun and ammo department, conveniently located to the right of the registers. They do that on purpose. It's Cabelas equivalent of the splurge spending rack at the checkout counter of your local grocery store.

Take your man-child home, feed him some supper and tuck him into the recliner where he can watch River Monsters, Unhooked. He'll be a happy guy all night long. I realize it sounds like I'm making fun, but really it is quite enjoyable to see a man get so excited about going to a store. My fathers, my stepbrothers, my brother in law - all cut from the same cloth, so I know what I'm mocking..I mean talking...about.

Too bad you can't place personal ads on their bulletin board. I know. I asked.