They're Sprouting!

The hops, that is. They took 2-3 weeks to come up, which made me worry, after all of the time and effort involved. Now, however, most if them have come up. Weed and water, weed and water, weed and water...

A Little Rabbit Named Night

We don't know where this lovely black color came from. Even its eyes are solid black. Its mom and dad are both white with small black spots. Ten days old.
Same shade as my super duper stylish black velure sweatpants.

Here's another boring video. Sorry the camera was facing the wrong direction! It somehow recorded sideways.

Night is pretty much too dark to see in this one.

Fashion Is A Chicken On Your Head


I love this chicken. He's new to us. We named him, "Mo."
I was thinking that, now that I am forty, I should maybe stop wearing shirts with words on them, but how else would you know that that's my shirt?

How to Plant Your First Garden

Somebody asked me for a "consultation" on her first garden recently. This was my advice to her:

1. Pick a sunny spot.
2. Make a raised bed. Buy four 8 foot, 1 by 8's and four corner braces, and screw together a square. Put some top soil in the square after you put it in your sunny spot.
3. Plant only lettuce, from seed, for your first garden. Follow the directions for sowing on the seed packet.
4. Water it every day until you see the little lettuce leaves coming up. Then water it twice a week.
5. Thin out the seeds (pull some that are growing too close together) after about two weeks.
6. Keep weeding and watering until it looks like lettuce.
7. Eat it!

Lettuce is easy and will give you a good feel for gardening. You may need to staple chicken wire around the bed, if you have wild rabbits in your yard.

Kits

That fur, back in the corner, there? It's moving. And Jingle the Bunny is looking quite self-satisfied. Me thinks we've got us some baby bunnies.

Yes... no. NO! Yes.



But wait, there's more!


Via Bad Newspaper.


I'm not procrastinating about anything. Oh, no. Not I.

Intermission

Flat tire ! Stop. Tire getting fixed! Stop. No computer here ! Stop. Paris adventure is... Delayed ! Stop. 

Stop stop stop stop.

As it says in the Tao Te Ching, 

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a flat tire."

Wait, this is actually working, isn't it? 

Hm... And there is an unlimited supply of coffee. This could work.

Seeds From the Library

You check the seeds out at the library. Plant the seeds. Harvest the vegetables, setting aside some seeds. The seeds are due back at the library in fall. How cool is that?
The pumpkin seeds in the middle are Amish. Random lady next to me at the library was like,

"Oh, you can totally tell those seeds are Amish. Just look at them! So Amish."

Awesome Godless Whores Swamp Wine

Zgjenyue and I are starting the Awesome Godless Whores Brewery. I mean not really, or possibly really, I don't know I just go with the flow... So I've been experimenting...

I made my own wine, out of the grapes growing off Melodi's porch. It tastes... Awful. Like grapefruit, which I don't like. But it's so highly alcoholic that after about three sips, you really don't care what it tastes like. I have no idea what I did here. It's sooooo murky. Swamp wine, I'll call it. Hard wine. This will put hair on your chest, this wine. If I die tonight, at least I've been to Pittsburgh.

The Hops Poles Are Up!

I've been working on this for several weeks:

1. Clear area of weed trees. (A long and involved task.)
2. Find the correct wood in our little forest full of fallen trees, trim them, and haul them to the correct sight.(A long and involved task.)
3. Till land. (Not too difficult, with our good Troybuilt rear tine tiller.)
4. Install hardware on posts to hold up the rope which will attach to twine leading down to stakes next to the actual hops plants. (A fairly simple task, once begun.)
4. Dig post holes with auger. (Easy as can be for me; Bad Ass Husband did it! Thank you!)
5. Erect posts unto holes. (Much easier than I thought it would be. BAH and I easily did it together.)
Here is a picture of me in front if the future hops garden, taken by Little Z (I had to promise her I would play stuffed animals with her for an hour. She drives a hard bargain!):

Next step: plant the actual hops!

Love and Terror Preview



Hoping to see this soon. It's based on a book by one of my favorites, Poe Ballantine.

Pretty sure our bunny is preggers

Check out that baby bump! But mostly the tipoff is the nest she's made, out of her own fur. Also her cravings for pickles and ice cream in the middle of the night. 

We suspect Apples the Bunny is the father, since he's a boy, and Little Z took Jingle over to Apples' house for a "Bunny Playdate," where they, "Gave each other piggy back rides." Whoops.