Eleven Snakes and Other Random Notes
1. Owen had his first guitar lesson with his new teacher and it was WONDERFUL. He came home all excited and happy and wanting to play his guitar. BIG difference. The other teacher is without a doubt a great teacher but just not the right match for Owen. I'm not all that concerned with what Owen learns----mostly I just want him to be excited about it. This seems like it will be much better.
2. Sort of an up and down weekend. Saturday, except for a brief respite for lunch, I wanted to murder my children. Well, that's not fair, mostly I wanted to murder one small, really persistent blonde. He doesn't give up....I'll give him that. But no matter WHAT deal he tried to broker I was not giving in....no video games for a week....and in fact because he whined so much it became eight days..... Impressively persistent and creative however....I gotta give him credit where it's due...... Sunday I had to work an event at work so the day was kind of a blur. Kind of a B- weekend....
3. I also had an interaction with two snakes in front of my front steps on Saturday. This did not help. At all. People helpfully tell me they can't hurt me. I KNOW THAT. I'm not stupid....I KNOW garter snakes can't hurt me, I know they're more scared of me than I am of them (well, honestly people tell me that but I'm not so sure), I know all that. I still can't help that visceral fear when I see them slither. I am trying but I am just not there yet. It's kind of like Owen and ladybugs. Sigh. So evidently when I was at work on Sunday our beloved neighbor Jeff came over and the subject of snakes came up. There may have even been a laugh or two at my expense but of course I don't KNOW that. Anyway, my beloved Jeff (as he will be referred to in perpetuity) offered to try to get some of the snakes. He got a bucket and reportedly got somewhere in the neighborhood of ELEVEN SNAKES OUT OF MY YARD. He even crawled under our front steps and pulled a couple out. I just stared at Ernie when he told me this. He said they'd thought long and hard as to whether to tell me but decided that it would be better for me to know they were gone. Periodically he would start to go into too much detail and I would have to stop him. Every so often during the course of the evening I would just whisper 'eleven' and shudder. I think we'll going to try to put Jeff on some kind of retainer.....
4. First ribs of the season last night and Ernie did a damn fine job. When I got home from work he was just filling up our old peanut butter jar with the spice rub he'd made. I made kind of a mmm, slaw I guess with corn, napa cabbage, olive oil, lime juice and a little molasses because the corn wasn't too sweet. Oh, and we grilled some beautifully knobby little onions and chopped them up and put them in.
5. We got our raised beds set up and filled with lots of compost and dirt. One has some marigolds and tomatoes, the other one has beets, carrots and arugula in half of it, still pondering the other half. Still need to get one other area ready to plant the beans..... In time...in time.....
And just in case you think we're on top of our gardening....here is a photo of another section of garden:
6. And on a final note....even though those little maple seed helicopters drive me crazy.....I find them wonderful too. When they catch the sun as they twirl down and they way they are made so perfectly to just land seed head down.....well, they really are pretty glorious little things. Annoying when they fill up newly tilled garden beds, yes but pretty great all the same.....
7. Oh, oh, one more thing: the tree peonies are gone already but the others are beginning to open....just look at this bud with the morning dew....