Wordless Wednesday: Waiting

This is super awkward, Nature.

Somehow, we have become "the dog people" in our neighborhood.

We live in the middle of nowhere, and not only do some of our (ahem) lovely neighbors let their dogs roam around freely with zero supervision, somehow our house and the surrounding 1/4-mile area has become the numero-uno dumping ground for unwanted dogs as well. And since we have dogs and I volunteer at the local dog shelter (or, at least, I did before Bubba got sick), all the neighbors call me.

"Uh, Shannon? There's this white dog in our yard? And he's chasing our cats. Can you come over?"

And...do what? They never really say. Chase the dog off? Assume it's friendly and try to coax it into my car and drive it to the shelter (which is perpetually over-booked)? Let it live in my basement? They don't care. All they want is the dog OFF their property, and they've elected me to deal with it.

This weekend, I got the call. "Um, Shannon? Could you -- and maybe T -- come up here? There's these two dogs here and...well, could you just come over?"

Sigh.

We trudged up the hill that separates our two houses. Our neighbor, her husband and their five-year-old son were standing in their driveway, looking across the road at two dogs in our other neighbor's yard.

The dogs were standing close together, not really moving. Something seemed...odd.

"Shannon, those dogs are hurting each other!" five-year-old C called to me as we walked up the hill. "Mom said they were playing, but they got stuck."

Oh. Oh, no.

Yep. The dogs were "playing" in that very special adult-dog way, and had gotten stuck together. Have you ever seen this happen? I'd only seen it once before, when our golden retrievers Heidi and Nugget got amorous one summer, and my brother and I got a firsthand lesson in "Why Saying 'No' Can Really Be Way Less Painful in the Long Run."

T took one look, turned around and headed back down the hill, tossing "Not it" over his shoulder.

Neighbor and her husband looked at me expectantly.

C continued staring across the road at the poor, humiliated dogs.

The dogs tried desperately not to make eye contact with any of us.

And I just stood there, torn between covering C's eyes and guiding him back up the driveway (WHY was he out there again?) and just making a break for it like cowardly (aka: smart) T.

Wait, are they expecting ME to do something about this?

Pull them apart? Push them...back together? Perform some sort of doggie relationship counseling so they can let go of their built-up resentment and get back to the lovin'?

Here's what ended up happening: I walked tentatively across the street toward the dogs (with absolutely ZERO plan in mind), saying "It's OK, it's OK" in the dogs' general direction for lack of anything better to say or do. Neighbor and husband got bored and went back inside, leaving C standing in the yard staring at us like a real-life National Geographic special.

After about five minutes, the male dog did some kind of special move, and with a heart-wrenching yelp from the female (seriously: OW OW OW), they broke apart and immediately ran off in opposite directions. (I mean, wouldn't you?)



Relieved, I headed back to my house.

Oh, dammit.

"Shannon?" C was jogging behind me, on my heels. "Why were those dogs stuck together? How do they play? What makes them do that? Huh?"

Thanks, Nature. Thanks a crapload.

Wordless Wednesday: Drifting across the moors...of my backyard

It's not a lake. It's just fall fog in Ohio.

I think it's beautiful. :)

Curse: Broken!

When last we left my green stuff, I was beating the curse...but one little thing was mocking my attempt at total victory:

That was the beginning of July. We suffered through a long, hot month, I got out my pruning shears and hacked the dead stuff to pieces, and now in August we have...

...this!

OK, so I cheated a little and threw away the truly dead stuff around the edges. But look! The snapdragons (the white flowers) are blooming again! The geraniums are STILL blooming!

IT'S ALIVE!!

And so is this stuff:

And even my herbs have survived! Well, most of them:

AND. Remember the sad, sad story of my dill, that was being drowned by the uncharacteristic amount of rain we had in Ohio this summer, so I had to transplant it, and then it ended up looking like this?

Turns out, there's a reason dill was named the herb of the year. See that giant green thing in the corner with the yellowish flowery type things on top?

Resilient little booger started growing all on its own after I moved its parent plant to its eventual death.

And it even has a little brother that somehow made it over to the geraniums!

Curse: Broken! I am the champion! Weeds, fear me! Potted plants, revere me!

Maybe next year I'll try something harder. Like perennials.

Nocturnal visitor

(I just realized that this post title kind of sounds like a euphemism for my period or wetting the bed or something. For the male and squeamish among us, be assured: it isn't either of those things.)

We live in the country.

The sticks.

The boonies.

T and I both grew up in the country, and after a few years of living single in the city and then as young-marrieds in the suburbs, we decided to return to our roots. The reasons were many, but in truth, almost all of my desire to live in the country has to do with three things:

1. Seeing the stars on clear nights
2. LOTS of peace and quiet
3. The sights, sounds and smells (for better or for worse) of nature and/or wildlife

We have the first two in spades. It's absolutely lovely. We have an especially great view of our back deck, and all of our neighbors, while very nice, are thankfully far enough away that we can't hear each other without shouting.

As for the wildlife, up until now our experience has been limited to the occasional rabbit's nest, your usual flocks of birds (shudder) and one unfortunate rat-in-the-garage incident that I'll tell another time to give it its proper due.

Then Saturday, T and I walked out the front door to walk the dogs, and saw this on the side of the house:

Do you see how he's looking at me?

A tiny tree frog! On our house! Peering up at me with tiny, tree-frog eyes! LOOK AT HIS AWESOME FROG TOES!

(I love frogs.)

Much to T's horror, I immediately scooped him up in my hand, and he hopped tentatively up my arm before launching himself desperately back onto the side of the house. (I tried to get a picture of him in my hand, if only for scale, but the little dude wouldn't stay still.)

Last night, we again venture out front to walk the furry ones, and we see...FIVE tree frogs clutching the siding desperately.

T believes this means we are infested. I choose to believe that word has spread about how awesome and one-with-nature we are.

Let's just hope word doesn't spread to the arachnid community, because nothing shatters the quiet solitude of the country like a grown woman having a panic attack and throwing pots, pans and appliances at a tiny, scuttling evilness.

Green! Stuff! Update!

When I first began my foray into hopefully NOT killing green things for one season, things looked promising.

I had five planters full of robust, healthy, flowering awesomeness, several flowerbeds' worth of flourishing greenness and a bucketful of misguided confidence.

And my good friend Two Pretzels, in her infinite wisdom, challenged me to showcase my wares in a month's time.

Well, it's been several months since last we left my green growing things, and reviews...are mixed.

The yellow flowering hanging baskets I turned into planters are, surprisingly, flourishing!

As long as they get water, they bloom constantly and are vining their way across the rocks with abandon.

Shannon: 1; Plant Curse: 0

The tiger lilies I got from our massage therapist last year finally bloomed, and are (as I keep telling T, because it annoys him) growing like gangbusters!

Two points for me.

Of the two big planters full of flowers, I planted one and T planted the other. One of them is a total rock star; the other looks as sad as...Lindsay Lohan's eye makeup.

Want to take a gander at which one is mine?

Life:

Death:

If you guessed that the amazing, bountiful #1 is mine and the scraggly, depressing #2 is T's, you would be...correct! Against all odds, I have become a winner in the game of Plants! So even though one of the planters is dying and sad, I am still ahead.

I wish I could have taken this next picture about a month ago. The dill and chives (and the parsley, for that matter) were so huge, they were falling out of the planter. What, you don't see them in this picture?

Oh, that's because they're NO LONGER THERE. It's hard to see in this picture, but there are now two gaping holes where the dill and the chives used to be. We got so much rain (and apparently our non-existant drainage system was a big fail) that the entire planter flooded, and everything started to rot.

So, I dug the two big holes for added drainage, and transported the rotting herbs to these sad little pots:


Since I took this picture (over the weekend) the dill (far left) has turned to toast. The lavender (middle) and the chives (right) are hanging in there, but it's touch and go. At least I got to make a bunch of awesome dill sour cream dip before the massacre.

Overall, I'm calling this one a draw. Which, since other years I've killed absolutely EVERYTHING, I'm saying still means I've come out on top.

Suck on THAT, nature! We are friends and you know it!

In case you were wondering, there IS an Herb of the Year

So, one of my favorite things about living in (or near) a small town is goofy small town events.

Example? Every summer, the little town nearest to us hosts the Sweet Corn Festival. If you thought this might feature the Sweet Corn Princess singing songs in the town square while the local folks eat corn and fair food...you win a prize to be named later. It.is.awesome.

This past weekend, I attended another such event, hosted by a local greenhouse (that apparently has been around since the beginning of time, which is also awesome). The name of this event?

Herb Daze.



(Note: I'm almost 100-percent positive that no one planning this event thought about the possible connection between that cutesy spelling of "days" and marijuana. Which made it even more adorable.)

While it was definitely a small town event (read: small and kind of goofy), it was actually kind of great.

The whole thing was held inside the greenhouse, so we had the benefit of being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of green, growing things. It made for a lovely atmosphere:


Their agenda actually looked really interesting: How to grow herbs, creating a serenity herb garden, aromatherapy, cooking with herbs, pampering your skin and making other fun stuff, like cocktails, ice cream and sorbet.

The event was a full day (all free), so I only stayed for the cooking and skin pampering segments (i.e., the segments during which I could get the most free samples). And, I was impressed! The culinary teacher from a local high school, set up in full chef regalia, prepared a full meal: grilled chicken with mustard dill sauce, new potatoes roasted with herbs, this cottage cheese dill bread that was OUT OF THIS WORLD amazing, rhubarb crunch and this apple salad thingie that I was not all about.



(Seriously: I almost attacked the other people there to get to the rest of the cottage cheese bread. It sounds ridiculous, but it was soo tasty.)

And in addition to the program agenda, they also had little vendors set up around the greenhouse, selling their herb-related wares. There was the usual boring stuff (Tastefully Simple and Pampered Chef), but there were a bunch of awesome local tables, staffed by folks in the area who were just selling their homemade stuff. This woman and her business partner were selling homemade tea blends and lavendar soap (she was mortified when I took this picture; how cute is she?):


The coolest thing (I thought) was the local woman who baked cookies using crushed lavendar. She had three different kinds of cookies, all with the lavendar baked in. They were FABULOUS (especially this Pecan Sandie-type cookie; SO GOOD).

And, in my favorite moment of the entire day, here was her response when I asked her where I could find these cookies regularly (meaning, I thought, a local bakery or something): "Um, I just make them? In my house? So...if you needed some...you could just...call me?"

Awesome.

In summary: It was a totally wonderful way to spend a spring Saturday. If you live anywhere near Mansfield, it's absolutely worth checking out.

Oh, and the 2010 Herb of the Year? Was dill. Who knew?

Spring

The beautiful flowering...something {I'm bad with plant names} tree in our front yard.

I just love living someplace that lets us experience every season. I don't know if I'd appreciate spring this much if it didn't follow such bleak winter months.

Nature wants me to stay fat.

In an effort to help along this whole weight-loss thing (particularly since I can't seem to get on track with the working out -- although I'm not giving up), I've been really trying to eat well.

So, I've been eating good food, food that's high in fiber, fresh food whenever possible, lots of fruits and vegetables. But it has to taste good, too, or I just won't eat it. Life's too short, etc.

I also have the added obstacle of needing to eat lunch and dinner at work three times a week (my one-hour commute puts me home too late to eat dinner). So it has to be something either warm-up-able in the microwave, or something that's good cold.

Last weekend I was cruising our grocery store and happened upon a giant pile of avocados. I HEART me some avocados. And I suddenly thought: These would be perfect. I'll get a loaf of fibertastic bread, some sprouts and some avocados, and I'll have myself the healthiest sandwich this side of the Mississip'.

Yesterday, I assembled said sandwich for the first time. Ohhhh, it was heavenly. The avocado was juuuuust the right amount of ripe: slightly squishy but not slimy. And it went so perfectly with the bread (something called Double Fiber; you're welcome, colon!) and the sprouts that my mouth was watering in between bites. SO GOOD. (Just looking at the picture at the top of this post, I want another one RIGHT NOW.)

Then, about 15 minutes after I'd finished it, I started feeling weird. I started coughing a little, and I realized my throat was scratchy. I had that weird, itchy feeling I get when I'm having an allergic reaction to...oh, crap.

I'm allergic to a LOT of plants. Like, not anaphylactic shock allergic, but itchy skin, watery eyes, nose burning allergic. Grass, trees, most outdoor plants. As I've grown older, this has started expanding to include a lot of raw vegetables, too.

And, now, apparently it also includes raw avocados.

Really, nature? Really? Do we really have to go through this again, like that time with the raw carrots when I nearly clawed the back of my throat just to stop it from scratching and got that awful pit in my stomach? Why are you doing this to me? And I thought avocados were a FRUIT, anyway. What is up with that?!

Ugh.

Of course, this never happens when I eat guacamole. Only the healthier fresh avocados.

See? Nature wants me to stay fat. Maybe she's freaking out because she made it so cold in Florida that they can't grow tomatoes and oranges or whatever, so she's trying to keep us addicted to fried things and trans fats so she can restock her wares or something. Well, I don't care. Scratchy throat be damned, I'm eating the avocados. Eat THAT, NATURE.

On a side note, while I was searching Google Images for that lovely beauty shot of the avocados, I saw a few glorious pictures of avocado trees. TREES FILLED WITH AVOCADOS. Somehow, I have never once envisoned where avocados come from, and never even thought about the existence of avocado trees. Can you imagine walking out into your yard and just grabbing an avocado anytime you want?! We have a pear tree, but you can only eat so many pears. But according to Wikipedia, avocado trees can only grow in tropical-type climates. Of which Ohio is decidedly NOT one. Boo.

Google Images also had this picture of avocado milk, which intrigued me -- although I'm not sure why it's garnished with a dill pickle slice:

And, this one made me laugh. I didn't see it in context, but I'm assuming it's referring to the debate about all the "good fat" in avocados. Heehee.