Slowly but Surely

We are going on our fifth year living in this house, as well as our fifth year of being amateur gardeners. Pretty much everything we know about gardening we owe it the wonderful fact of being a homeowner and having to take care of the yard ourselves.

Yesterday Norm and I worked on the yard just about all day and since I've been thinking (deeply) about how far we've come since we first moved in... We are now planting deer resistant plants (deer don't like lantanas, they don't like gardenias either). We are diligently spraying the anti-dog spray on the flowers on the porch, as well as the throw-up-smelling spray for anti deer (on the hydrangeas). We're putting hair clippings on these too to keep the deer away (these are the sort of things you learn when you live out in the boonies).

We have overcome the weeds (for the most part) as well as the moss stuff that grows on the front hill. Our yard is slowly turning green.

Norm "rescued" a Maple tree from the woods area, he planted a fig and a dogwood tree... We have an herb garden with an established rosemary bush, a lavender bush, thyme, parsley and we're about to add sage and basil.

Trial and error have been (and still are) our best teachers and because of them we appreciate what we have today even more. We are learning so much and loving every minute of it!

Scary Seconds

This afternoon, on my way home, I witnessed an accident. It was a very scary happening.

I was stopped on a two-lane road waiting to make a left turn (yes, I did have my blinker on - this is a tricky intersection and I clearly remember making the conscious decision to turn on my left blinker).

I glance at my rear view mirror and see a Nissan SUV hauling butt. The car is going so fast that for a split second my heart skips a beat because I was positive my car was going to be rear ended. While I am trying to wake up my reflexes and figure out if I should keep straight and not turn, I realize the SUV goes off the shoulder and around me - dirt everywhere.

SUV manages to get back on the road in front of me but then looses control and rolls about 3 times down the middle of the road (literally on the yellow line). The side hits, the top hits, the other side hits, and on and on. Meanwhile I stay stopped (with my blinker on) and I watch. Finally the SUV rolls off the road onto the shoulder/ditch.

Time stood still - nobody moved. No doors opened, no cars moved. Maybe 5 seconds went by, or maybe 5 minutes - I don't know. After however long had passed, I called 911.

"Hello, I just witnessed a car accident"
"Are you ok?"
"Yes, I am ok"
"Are others injured?"
at that point I notice that not only has the Nissan manage to wreck itself, there is a bright orange Camaro that is also wrecked.

We wrap up the call (crazy thing? there is no record on my cell phone register of my calling 911... weird, uh?) and then I get out of my car and walk over to the orange Camaro. The driver was a middle aged woman who wasn't hurt. She was crying, trying to call someone. As I'm keeping her company she shares that she had only been driving her car for 1 month - she had it custom ordered and waited on it for 8 months... I don't like Camaros, but this car really was pretty. It was bright orange with a black stripe. The interior was all orange and black leather - super fancy.

Across the street is the Nissan SUV - a young boy (maybe 18?) has gotten out of it and is holding his arm. This is the scene:

Might have to enlarge the picture to notice, but a flat of bottled water is all busted. He's managed to flatten the street post (yellow sign on the ground)

Boy wasn't hurt - well, he was hurt a little bit - but he could've been dead.

I hang around and give the cop my report. I was still a little nervous from having seen all this to the point were I was having a hard time writing my report. Is "stopped" with 1 "p" or 2 "p"s? Is it "rearview mirror" or is it "rear view mirror"? I couldn't concentrate.

Then I had a thought - we all have seen those funny website and those funny emails with police reports that are hilarious - they don't make sense, they have grammatical errors, information reads silly out of context. Well, now I know why those reports are the way they are - I can understand those witnesses (they are still funny though! I hope my grammatically incorrect report never makes it to the internet...)

The Cone of Shame

Today Norm took Pellet to the vet for his annual check up and shots. Come to find out Pellet had an aural hematoma (in every-day terms: liquid build up in the floppy part of his ear). So the vet had to cut open the area, drain it, and stitch it back up.

Cali was so excited to have Pellet back home that she started acting a fool. Actually it was nothing out of the ordinary, but with Pellet not at 100% her foolishness was accentuated. So we ended up giving her some of the puppy Prozac (for everyone's sake but mainly for Pellet's). Poor Pellet is all drugged up too with his antibiotics, pain killers and puppy Prozac of his own...

Apparently this is a "routine" surgery... you may look at the pictures and video at your own risk... they make me sad :(

The vet gave us the cone of shame (we can't be a household of Twelve Feet and think we can get through life without the Cone of Shame). We thought we weren't going to have to use it since Pellet had not been messing with the bandage while at the vet. But we ended up having to put it on mainly because of Cal...

We took it off to feed him dinner and he flung the gauze that was underneath the bandage across the kitchen floor. Shortly there after we had blood across the kitchen floor...

We called the vet, re-bandaged (with clean gauze) the ear and put that cone right back on. There are good news: Pellet had a great appetite!



DISCLAIMER: Please disregard the nasty glass panels on the door...

You May Disagree... and That's OK

I know that with this post I am going to put myself out there and folks might think I'm crazy (Norm and Pablo already do). We all know that there is something about gardening that is relaxing and mind-freeing. However, I particularly find weed pulling to be one of the best stress relievers.

Yes, legs hurt due to squatting. Shoulder hurts from pulling. Fingers hurt from grabbing weeds. But overall, at the end of a weed pulling session I feel so liberated and relaxed.

Our backyard (and front yard) have been taken over by weeds. Yes, I spray. Yes, they come back. So like every other year, I hesitantly turn to weed pulling to end up regretting not starting the weed pulling sooner due to the benefits it provides.

Not only is the pulling of the weeds a stress reliever, you also get instant gratification by seeing the yard slowly become weed free.

Here are two piles of weeds that were pulled yesterday afternoon and this morning. This is nothing... still have lots and lots to go. Can't wait!


This one you can sort of see the pile in front of Cali - it's just as big (maybe bigger) than the one above.

March Madness

I have never been into sports. The extent of my sporting activities has always been as a spectator (keeping someone else company as they watch the game). I do know, however, the term March Madness - it pertains to basketball.

Today at work my department (a total of 3 individuals, including myself) we each filled out one of those bracket things.

Two of us (including myself) ended up with Villanova as the winner. So apparently now we have to pick an actual score to server as the tie breaker between us if Villanova actually wins (???)

Of course I was totally clueless as to how to go about picking which school (until they told me that the little number next to each school is the rank in their category). So I came up with a logical reasoning behind each pick. Reason behind Villanova? I had a good friend all through college that was a big Villanova fan and used to always talk about it. I had no clue where this school was or anything (I looked it up this afternoon, it's in Pennsylvania, and why it plays in the "South" bracket is beside me).

Here are some of my picks in the Reg. Semis category and the reasoning behind each:
*Gonzaga - that word is so cool
*GA Tech - have to represent the home state somehow
*Vanderbilt - like the mansion
*Georgetown - like the town
*Cornell - good hospitality school, I wanted to go there but it's too far up north
*Clemson - have several friends that went there
*Duke & Wake Forest - have to represent Norm's home state somehow
*Michigan - have good friends that live there
*Florida - who doesn't like sunshine and beaches?

There you have it - the things that go through the mind of a non-sporting person.

I never thought these words would ever come out of my mouth: but checking the scores and all that stuff is pretty exciting. I might actually watch a game. Or two.

Remnants of a Stormy Afternoon

Yesterday it stormed and around 6:00pm the sun came out. I love when this happens! On days like yesterday I wish I had a super fancy camera to capture these seconds of nature - then I look at the price tag on those things and figure my little HP camera will do for now...



Of course the rainbow came out!

A couple of minutes later I look at the rainbow again and there was a second one! (look closely, the second one is to the left of the super bright one). There was no leprechaun or pot of gold...

Not Much

Not much has really been going on since February 27... it was Pablo's birthday, we went out for fried shrimp baskets and it was fun (and good).

Norm has been working long and hard on getting the new snackbar/restaurant opened - grand opening is next week!

The new computer finally came in and we've been in the process of putting it up to date with our files and pictures. The computer - it's a laptop - is big and the outside of it is super shiny. It holds fingerprints well... too well. Drives me crazy actually.