Zephyr Breathes Life

"Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the younge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe course yronne..."


Although I'm not planning on taking any pilgrimages to Canterburry, the general prologue to The Canterbury Tales is always what I think about when I go see how my Zephyrs are doing. I've been a total squash failure for years now, but this year I seem to have found the perfect bed for them and the Zephyr is rocking and rolling right along. I can't wait to try one.

Amazingly enough, the crook neck squash on either side of it is doing well also. Maybe this will be the year of the squash!

The morning comes early. Sweet squash filled dreams.

The Big Event!!

The moment that's been building up since July has finally arrived. Tonight was our Relay for Life event and the end of a milestone for Keychains for a Cause. Whatstarted as a simple, "eh, we'll make a few of these keychains," turned into a venture where we do more custom work than not and have over 70 different designs on our website.

I don't have total numbers yet, but we're very close to having sold 400 keychains just since July of 2010 and that's far beyond what I ever thought we'd sell. I could only be at the event tonight for 4 hours since I had the kids with me, but in 4 hours we sold 28 keychains! Think of what we could have done if I stayed the night.

There's always next year!

Thank you to so many of you who gave me the start and support I needed and if you haven't checked us out, "Like" us on Facebook by clicking the link on the right, and if you've never seen the website head on over there as well! This month, all orders will have theirshipping refunded once the order has been processed.

The morning comes early. Sweet dreams.

That Mother Keeps You Guessing

I suppose Mother Nature figures I've been at this long enough that she feels she can start hitting me with a few curve balls. What fun is there in being MoNa when you can't shake it up a bit. I've learned how to pick off Japanese beetles and squash bugs and remove squash bug leaves and bide my time until the SVB does its worse. Flea beetles quake in my presence and cabbage worms and I have come to an understanding. They win. I understand.

However, this year she's hit me early and oddly. My squash, zephyr and zucchini are crawling with stripped cucumber beetles.
O.K. They're not this bad. I borrowed this picture from a Penn State site, but when all of the 10 flowers I looked in today each had 1-2 of the boogers in there, it might have well looked like this. I've seen the occasional spotted one late in July, but this is a first and even more surprising because it's so early in the season. How worried/drastic measures should I be and take? I'm hand picking right now, but not thinking that will be enough....I caught two today doing the nasty. I'm sure there will be more in the future.

Thank you all for the wonderful comments and suggestions yesterday. The teacher who taught the class this year has kindly passed down his materials so it's a good start for me. The nice thing (also the hard thing) about it is that the Contemporary Issues class is so fluid. I can do whatever interests me/the kids. I'm thinking of units on genocide, terrorism/counter terrorism, urban sprawl and eco system depletion, gender roles, stem cell research etc.

I'm SERIOUSLY thinking about adding in a unit on genetically engineered foods - especially their effect on the home gardener/consumer. What do you think? What issues should I cover and does anyone have any stellar resources/information to pillage if I do decide to do the unit on the GE foods?

The morning comes early and because I'm no longer shocked, I'll be up late trying to plan something AWESOME! Sweet cucumber beetle-free gardening dreams.

I Totally Deserved It.

So, yesterday I posted about a big announcement for next week, but I didn't want to jump on it prematurely in case things happen as they always do and it doesn't pan out. The plans are still in the works, but I should have known better to keep surprises secret because that's a sure-fire way to get surprises sprung on you.

So, I deserved it, and I got bit.

I walked into first period just after the bell today and my team teacher told me my admin. was looking for me. I went to his office, propped my arms on the back of his guest chairs. He asked and I answered a question about graduation. When I turned to leave he said, "Sit down."

Translation: Not good.

I panic, start sweating, shaking and doing the general run through of the past week to see what parent might have complained about what and then he issued a bit of a snicker/laugh and glanced down as if he found the situation humorous. I'm in deep panic mode by the way, "SPIT IT OUT!" I wanted to say. Instead I just sighed a "What did I do?"

This time, I didn't do anything. It's what they need me to do. He told me that next year they'd need me to pick up a section of Social Studies. WHAT!? I've taught Language Arts for 14 yrs. It's a little known secret that I'm also Social Studies certified as well, but haven't touched the material for any S.S. since.


I asked to be excused to go throw up. He said it wasn't as bad as I thought. Wasn't bad!? S.S. could include anything from Geography to US History to Poly Sci, to Econ, to World History, to Psychology or Sociology. My mind started rolling. True, I haven't had to plan for a new curriculum in about 10 yrs, but I could do this. Bet. Bring it. I still have my college notes and I can brush up on these with no problems. No problem...right?

And then he said, "You'll be taking the Law and Contemporary Issues split-semester classes." WHAT!? Law and Contemporary Issues? I don't know anything about Law let alone how to teach Contemporary Issues. I took calming breaths and asked if I could see the textbooks and curriculum and wouldn't you know it - they're electives. There is no true curriculum.

YES! SCORE!

Translation: I'm a dead woman.

I asked if the deal came with a gift certificate to a liquor store. Sadly, no. It does not.

So, sports fans, the lesson here is - if you promise yet withhold others a surprise it will come back and bite you in the ass.

Touche, dear friends. Touche, indeed.

The morning will come early because I'm going to be worried all night and it will as well for the entire summer for I've got a curriculum to create. Sweet Social Studies dreams.

P.S. Seriously? Law and Contemporary Issues!? John, if you still come around here, you better have those bloody marys ready.

P.P.S - not sure if those squash and zucchini I hand polinated yesterday afternoon are going to make it, but the squash is covered in striped cucumber beetles. What's up with that!? Don't they understand I've got enough to worry about?

The Garden Beats On

My harvest Monday on a Tuesday is rather pathetic for this week since I never remember to take pictures of the salads I pull almost nightly, but I am glad to say I found a use for those baby squash that bloomed with no males in sight. I decided to make breakfast with those squash and zucchini and added an onion, spinach and basil. Doesn't make a half bad omelet!
Over the past few days I've hand pollinated several females, but always in the afternoon when the buds on both males and females were closed for the day. I hope they take! Sunday, the man was kind enough to fix my beds that were falling apart. The boards were so warped that he had to use a come-along to wrench them into position and even then, some were unsalvageable. There are two boxes on the side yard that I'm just going to replace when this growing season is over. I don't know what possessed me to use 1 inch boards, but it was a bad decision.

I got around to putting some of the peppers in. This will be the third location for peppers in three years. If they don't do well here, I'm hanging up my hat.

Lastly, here's an aerial of the main corner yard taken about a week ago. Squash is lookin' good!! It's just about the only stinkin' thing I can grow consistently.

If I hold my mouth right - and the planets align accurately, The Corner Yard may have some big, big news for you mid to late next week. I can hardly stand it myself, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag in case life happens and things don't come through as planned. Suffice it to say that this will be the biggest news ever to come our way. Seriously.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Raising Children Right

Children don't come with a manual. It's a point bemoaned by many parents. What's worse- what works for one child doesn't necessarily transmit to the second. The man and I, as all parents, have resolved to do our best. They are both more familiar with Voltron than Sponge Bob and are prone to quote archived Looney Toons more often than not. The boy and girl are making their way through one episode of Popeye a day and my next plans are to introduce the boy to time honored classics as Thundercats and the girl to She-Ra and Jem. Oh yes....Jem is a must.

We're making headway. Both kids know the lyrics to "Ghost Busters" by heart and had a duck when the man brought home a poster with the awesome logo against a black background.

The next words out of the boy were, "Wow! Can I have a Queen poster for my room!?" Our work here is done. He comes home from school with comments on how a Justin Bieber song was played on the announcements at school, but is quick with the snarky response of , "Yeah. but he's got nothin' on David Bowie." Ha! Judge our parenting skills now, will you!?

Granted. they're children. The glories of the REAL Halloween films will come in time. And yes, oh yes, GWAR will be introduced at a time to be determined for we are not going to give our children up to popular culture without a fight. For whereas we do not intend on raising Hans or Franz, we will indubitably raise children who understand "it is better to look good than to feel good," can hold a "coffee talk" for the masses and appreciate a good "candy gram" when they see it - shark not withstanding.

So get out your leggings, brick cell phones and pagers. These kids are hip to be square.

The morning comes early - especially when there are birds nesting under your porch and keeping ungodly hours. Sweet gardening dreams.

Mid April Garden

First, the overview I promised. Actually, things are a lot more developed in just a few days in the squash/zucchini area and depleted in the lettuce and spinach areas due to a neighbor whom I caught pilfering my garden this afternoon. BUSTED!!! ;) All of those females opened with no males in sight. It's really rather odd. Could it be my soil mix? Do I need to fertilize more/less? Take a second and compare this to the April 1 garden. Awesome!!


I'm having a huge, HUGE problem with my beds splitting. This one is obviously splitting with a weed/grass growing from it, but I've got the side tomato box and the far horseradish box in this picture almost falling apart. It's conviction to build these with two inch and not one inch boxes.
Here's the horseradish box that's falling apart. Really trying to decide if I should try to salvage all of this or just rebuild with 2 inch boards....I just don't want to empty and refill. Last year I had such great success with cabbage. This year, it's all been fodder for cabbage worms. I don't have a single viable plant left. I haven't used BT, ever. Does it deter the worms or only kill them once they're there? That would make a big difference on if I try them in the fall again

Potatoes, both the regular - here in the pots - and the girl's purple ones are doing great. I'm really excited about these after having the potatoes last year. My problem is pulling them too soon because I'm impatient.

One if my garlic beds is still looking puny in comparison to the other, but this one seems to be growing an alien. I suppose it split down there somewhere. I never can remember - when DO I pull garlic?

And because I'm just so excited and I can't remember if I posted these or not, here are some Class of 2011 keychains that we're starting to sell to support my school's Relay for Life team. It's a pretty poor picture, but they say 2011. They make me smile.Well, garden fans, that's it. Hope I didn't overload you too much. If you can believe it, I took these pictures Tuesday and the plants look so much larger even today. Grow baby grow...male squash flowers if I can put in a request, please.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.