1. You can plant corn as starters. Might be something to consider, if we decide to plant corn again.

2. Treat peas as if they are the drunkest sorority sister in the house. That is, support them, because they will undoubtedly fall over if they don't have something to hang on to and catch them. They need about five feet of vertical support.

3. Speaking of drunken sorority sisters, beer in tuna cans is awesome for the slugs. Well, awesome for us. Bad for the slugs.

4. Eggshells don't do crap as a slug repellant. I've watched slugs crawl right over them.

5. We need WAY more space dedicated to salad greens. Plus, they don't seem to grow as fast as one would think they should. The spinach, in particular, is being persnickety. It hardly grows, and then it bolts. Why??

...and now I feel like a cow in a feedlot.

Corn Chowder is too corny.

On an unrelated note, I am totally checking this book out from the library when it comes out: Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity From A Consumer Culture.

Methinks there will be a lot of vindication to be had on the day I read it.

Bad Day. Crying. Lots. Time-outs. Puddles of pee. FOUR TIMES. Crying. Exasperation. Swigs of wine. Dinner disappointment. More crying. Through the wringer and out the other side.

Feeling a bit surreal as a result of our day. Listening to music, which is a bit abnormal for me. I normally only take an interest in music when feeling a heightened sense of dysphoria. Which I guess I did today, but I'm just feeling emotionally drained now.

Picked up some gardening/urban homesteading books from the library. I love the library. Perused the farmers' market as well, and picked up some info on some local pastured meat.

Ah, I should go to bed. I can't help but feel a little phantasmagorical right now, and it's a little unnerving.

I would love to start baking bread.

I buy store-brand whole wheat bread. There's a ton of ingredients that I can't grow or buy from a farmer on it. Fail Bread.

I've tried to bake loaves of bread before but I generally fail. Rolls and pizza crusts are easy, but for the life of me I haven't been able to make good sandwich bread. It's always too moist and crumbly. It doesn't hold up to slicing.

Of course, I don't have any time to make bread. Or, rather, I have lots of time to make bread, but it's hard to make bread while holding and/or nursing a baby. And I have a potty-learner who always seems to need to use the bathroom when it is most inconvenient for me. So no baking bread for a while. Sad.

I almost bought a loaf of Dave's Killer Bread at the store this week. But it was nearly $5, and I can buy FOUR loaves of our usual bread for that. And I know I can make it for a fraction of that.

I Want Bread.

I know I seem extremely disjointed lately, and that's because I am. Or at least I feel that way. I have so much in my brain right now that I need to lay out there to get it cleared, but I can't seem to grab an hour or two to myself and just reboot.

It's 99% good stuff. We are so freakin' blessed, it's not even funny! We're undergoing a kitchen remodel right now (which started out as an easy couple of projects and has turned into a beast, but for the good!), I am trying my hardest to not screw up our garden this year, the kids are changing and growing and I'm trying to give them great opportunities to grow and learn and be happy, we've had huge family changes in the last few months (my father-in-law's passing and we have two new nieces, not to mention Oopma-Loompa!), plus miscellaneous odds and ends projects that for some reason I seem to want to do. Oh, and I have this newfound interest in permaculture. Plus, you know, the dishes need to be washed, the family needs me to cook them dinner, the laundry seems to pile up quicker than I can get to it, and I'm trying to potty-train a three-year-old who hasn't had an accident-free day in the last month (you can just about imagine how my house smells, yuck!).

Haha, I just checked out a book from the library today! What makes me think I'm even going to get to it??

SO, in summary, I love this blog and I love to journal, but damn, it's hard!

I'm making a goal for myself, right here and now. I'm going to be done with half of my "stuff" that's going on in two weeks. That's about June 10. I'm going to clear off my slate before I get into anything else, CAPEESH? Capeesh.

These are things that I have contemplated writing about here, but for various reasons have not. If anybody develops a way to add a few hours to my day, please contact me. ;)

Slug hunting

Baby talks

Growing a Miniature Orchard (Or, Why I love Permaculture Magazine)

Farmville

Why Am I Playing So Much Freakin' Farmville?

Thrips

Aphids

Outdoor Preschools

Radical Homemaking

Hypomania

Recipes, Including Vegetable Pasta Salad and BBQ Chicken Pizza

Oh, And Lemon Curd

The Documentary Entitled "Escape From Suburbia"

Why Won't My Baby Sleep?

What Was That Noise, and Where Is My Preschooler?

The Kitchen Remodel

And much, much more...I want to write. I'm just too busy living life right now!

I scored a sweet deal at the children's consignment sale I attended last week: a used double jogging stroller. Not that I'm using it. Oh, no, goodness. I break a sweat just thinking about it. The Husband is now using it to give me a half-hour of solitude every other day, which I use to cook in peace. Or peas, depending on what's for dinner.



The first evening they all went out for a jog was a cloudy one. It was a bit chilly, so we bundled the kids up really well before they went out. Thirty minutes passed. I was rocking out in the kitchen when I saw him jog back up to the front door, completely drenched. I was so focused on chopping veggies that I hadn't even noticed it'd been pouring! I went out to see if he needed help, and when I opened the front door I saw two very wet and pathetic looking children looking up at me with sad, rosy-cheeked faces.

So now we know to check the radar before heading out in questionable weather. And that the sun canopy makes a woefully deficient rain canopy.

Although I probably won't be taking that thing for a jog any time soon (unless there is chocolate involved somewhere along the line), I am looking forward to using it for regular walking type excursions. We haven't been able to much of that since The Husband sheared off one of the wheels on our last stroller while backing the car in the garage. By the way, I admire his ability to back the car into the garage. I can't back up vehicles to save my life, but he's been backing that thing in for almost a year and he's only ruined one stroller and one side mirror!

My roses are starting to bloom again.



Unfortunately, my big rose bush came down with Black Spot and I had to remove over half of the leaves. I don't know if I will be removing any more because I'm afraid it will die for lack of foliage. I've been really good at finding old spotty leaves on the ground, though, and I want to re-mulch the area this fall.