See our family in photos. now!

Checked out our family photos yahoo page lately? You should! Guess who you'll see there?

Arctic Thoughts

As if yesterday didn't melt all my internal organs - or at least my patience - I just read this forecast for Monday:
"Maximum heat index readings around 118 in the afternoon."

I'm done for.

At least tomorrow we're going to the water park but without an A/C, our upstairs bedroom is just an oven with circulating air.

Please send arctic thoughts our way.

Bugs!

Bugs. Cool pictures, too.

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/

Vermin!

So of course after I spent a long time weeding and thoroughly enjoying those beans yesterday, last night or this morning the deer busted our fence lines and defoliated a third of the bean plants, ate a bunch of ripe tomatoes and branches, and generally caused me much cursing and expletive use this morning. I have been delaying the use of urine, but damn if I haven't seriously considered it today.

Ugh. Vermin!

Beans

This morning we harvested our first real batch of green beans. We chose to eat them with lunch, and I prepped them, filled a skillet with a little water and a little olive oil and a very little sea salt, heated them on medium for about two minutes, and prepared to enjoy the fruits of our labor. But "enjoy" is half the word I need - these beans were more than delicious or juicy or sweet or tasty. It is difficult to describe the energy they contained; how I felt eating them, fresh off the vine; the qualities of their flavor; how they crunched in my mouth. Lola and I just sat in the living room, muching beans as we read a book, variously moaning with pleasure each time we chewed a new one. They really were that good. This is not merely a psychological reaction to all that hard work and effort to save them from the deer. This is a goddamned revolution!

Next year, I plant twice as many.

love your weeds

I've been meaning to share this site for a while. Now I have.

Plants for a Future: http://www.pfaf.org/

Did you ever know so much about common plantain before? I learn something new each time I browse.

Fruits

Even though the deer ate half the tomatoes, a lot of beans, all 8 pea plants, some squash, and lots of misc. flowers, AND there's a drought, I have witnessed some fruits of our labor!

I saw little cucumbers yesterday, and we've been eating the cherry tomatoes little by little as they ripen. And the beans are plentiful, if not densely foliated. These will be ripe soon, probably enough to share and put up a bag for the winter. And one pea plant that survived the deer has one flower! Maybe we'll get a pea pod yet. The elberta girl tomatoes are getting bigger, too, as are the sunflowers by the house. And the inedible pintos I threw from the back door onto the ground have grown to about a foot already. And there's a great big green striped pumpkin (other squash?? Hard to tell) in the back. Woo hoo! The heat and sun are working well on the garden, as long as I water without reservation. Otherwise, it's nothing but brown crunchy hot ground and trees so dry they're losing leaves already.

Now if I could just get the zucchini to fruit...

a picture for you!

Here we are at the Red Bud Pizza Hut, wishing we were already at our hotel, an hour away across the Mississippi.

Don't we look energetic?

Note Lola's funky tights - a fabulous hand-me-down from a fellow homeschooler. I only wish I had something so cool to wear.

More blogging later, another day when the heat hasn't sucked all the vital juices from my body.

Lola wonders:

Where are words stored before they come out of your mouth?

Returning

Well, we're back. As of a couple days ago, we are in Menomonie and resting in pools of our own sweat at night. Did I mention it's hotter than hades up here?

I've posted some pictures from our trip south, and if I get permission from relatives, you might see some photos of Penny and Grandma and Grandpa and others.

Another time I'll post details of what we did and stuff, but so much of visiting southern Illinois is about surviving toxic exposure: acres and acres of monocropped agriculture, chemical-sprayed lawns and gardens, hotel rooms, pools, bad restaurant food, our own impatience. Perhaps needless to say, we are glad to be back in our safe home.

And did you know Pearl is almost 1? On July 18 , she'll turn one. My little baby... I don't miss being pregnant in this weather, but I do have longings for others' home birth stories. Thankfully the Mothering forums have plenty to get my fix.

Bon Voyage to Me

We're off to southern illinois tomorrow to visit my family. Two days there, two back, and 4 or so in between. So, if you don't hear from us you know why.

I'm actually looking forward to it. So there!