How Time Does Fly...

Whether you're having fun or just way to busy to even think, it flies by. Where has my summer gone? I wasn't quite finished with it! I mean, I'm satisfied with what came out of it - tons of outside work, gardens, chickens, exercise, bronzing... but really, it could've lasted a bit longer for me. Haven't enjoyed just being for a summer like this last year in... well, maybe ever. It was glorious.

And now autumn is here. Or, rather, should be here. Doesn't feel much like it at all, does it? Is this what Indian Summer is like? I think so.

Thoughts! In list form!

Alas, tis too dry for bonfires.
Work is making a valiant effort to consume my soul.
Pretty excited that I get to have a Friday night next week.
Sold 9 dolls at the last ArtWalk!
Am battling the Time Zombies daily.
The chipper/shredder scares me. Which is unfortunate, since most of my outdoor plans hinge on utilizing it.
Chickens are fabulous creatures and I <3 them so much.
Zombie Walk! But I'm not really participating, merely observing. No time to get a costume together. *sadface*
Ran a race! A 5k race in 32 minutes! It was pretty awesome - talk about an adrenaline rush.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation apparently donates dollars to Planned Parenthood. This does not thrill me.

Now for zombies, corn maze and margaritas.

Moon-Lover by Robert William Service

II

I have a compact to commune
A monthly midnight with the Moon;
Into its face I stare and stare,
And find sweet understanding there.

As quiet as a toad I sit
And tell my tale of days to it;
The tessellated yarn I've spun
In thirty spells of star and sun.

And the Moon listens pensively,
As placid as a lamb to me;
Until I think there's just us two
In silver world of mist and dew.

In all of spangled space, but I
To stare moon-struck into the sky;
Of billion beings I alone
To praise the Moon as still as stone.

And seal a bond between us two,
Closer than mortal ever knew;
For as mute masses I intone
The Moon is mine and mine alone.

(full poem)

Lightning Man!

So one Wednesday evening at church, Melissa gave me a heads up about something her son, Parker, had up his sleeve. You see - her kids are crazy about superheroes. Seriously crazy about them - all of them. And they, being imaginative kids, create their own. Well, it seems Parker had created this beautiful masterpiece and dubbed him "Lightning Man."

And so, through various circumstances, he decided to ask me to help him make the costume. But, you see, Parker is pretty crazy shy. It took the poor kid all evening long to work up the courage to attempt to talk to me. Not even a regular conversation with him could draw out those words... He circled around the fellowship hall, getting ever closer and closer, and not able to do it. He even tried to write a note and pass it to me. Alas, no luck. So he followed me down the hallway to the church, still trying to ask. But by then I was surrounded by other intimidating adults! So I came back out to "get more water" and he managed to do it. He asked me to help him. And so, Wednesday night, we did. He even consented to let Christian, who was also already up at the church, give us a hand.

Perfection:

Dreaming of...

My Flock Grew Today

Breakfast

This:

Became this:

A Letter

Dear Aisling,

Please don't puke on my bed in the wee hours of the morning again. You should maybe try eating your food slower - I think your tummy would feel better then. No one is going to take your food away from you - we are afraid of you beastly teeth and claws during your meal times.

So please. Don't do it again. I didn't enjoy it, and I know you didn't either.

Love,
Elizabeth

Chickens...

... are brilliant, dumb beasts.

They climb up random things. They escape into the wild. They demand to roost in trees.

Chicken coop work tomorrow night.

Down to four - barely kept it at four tonight - Anastasia was pretty determined to sleep in a tree tonight.

Bits and Pieces

• Successfully completed the Yam City Tri in Opelousas! Lauren and I had a fabulous time (though Google Maps stressed me out some. Google really needs to work on their Lafayette maps/directions. Thank God for William who navigated us to the Smoothie Factory via cell.) All in all, it was a crazy fun event. You know, after we got over our intimidation of being surrounded by racer bikes and dudes in padded bike short (which, really, you don't need if you ride a bike with a seat that's more than 5 inches wide...). Lots of folks were nice and just smiled and laughed with us about our cruisers. Some of 'em sneered some, or just made snide comments constantly (really - those sorts of things are only funny the first 2-3 times. Don't keep on all morning!) Lauren had some bike troubles - her chain bounced off on a crazy uneven service road. But the policeman and the volunteers going along behind her helped her get it back on and she persevered! Meanwhile, I was really wondering where she was - we had wanted to try and stay together throughout the race, more fun that way. So I finished the 2 mile run, which I walked most of hoping she would catch up. Came back around to the finish where there was a volunteer cheering me on to the end, and came to a dead stop to ask him if he'd seen her. He said he hadn't seen anyone come in after me - which merely means his brain is made of swiss cheese, as 2 came in after I did. But I told him I was worried about Lauren, and he called the other volunteer at the halfway mark for the run. Sure enough - she had just passed the mark. So I explained to the guy that I knew it was retarded, but that I was going back in to wait for my friend and that we would finish together - that that was more important to me. So off I went! Dude tagged along, and Lauren came out shortly. Then we sprinted across a fabulous finish line - dead last together! It was great!!! We finished in just over 2 hours. And never once did either of us feel like we couldn't complete the race. Oh yeah, we'll be doing another one. Not soon, but someday. Spring, maybe? *shrug*

• One of my chickens is missing already. Such is farm life, right?

• Labor Day weekend coming up! Spending 4 glorious days up at my Mimi's house. Hello sleep, pool, pie and relaxation. :)

• Now that all that training is done I've got some tomatoes to can, zombies to be made, sewing projects to finish, a few figs to put up, seeds to plant. Back to farming. :)

Meet the Girls!

Drusilla meets the Rubber Chicken. She's so not afraid (or impressed).

Petunia - Drusilla was beating her up this morning. But they're friends now. 

She's kinda shy still.

Claudette Colbert. The first to venture outside the hen house this morning.

(Really she was just frightened by Dru and Petunia's little tussle)

Henrietta and Anastasia.

These two are pretty skittish. But adorable! Henri won't get much bigger, and I'm not sure about Anastasia.

Now With Chickens

Progress:

That, my friends, is a gate. That Cecil, the chicken dude, built for me. Because he is awesome.

And this is the crazy cat:

Chicken!

No, I don't have them yet. Yes, I've said this before. But here's the status of the coop as of the beginning of the month:

Some of my first produce from the beginning of the month:

Tomatoes! The vines are now covered on most of the plants. FINALLY!

Finally planted this basil after it being in it's little store pots for months and months (had no room to plant it for a while).  Within a week it looked like this:

Lastly, but most importantly, I have a date with a dude about chickens tomorrow evening. :) He's gonna help me build a gate and finish things up. Because, you see, I've reached the end of my skill level... Amazing Woman needs some help. *crosses fingers* Maybe the end is in sight?

Just a few things...

• The fact that I wear dresses and skirts most of the time does not make me a 'girlie girl.' I am, actually, pretty much the opposite. I'm just anti-pants this summer.
• Don't make fun of me and my farming/chickens. Because when the apocalypse comes... we'll see who's ready for it and who's not.
• Ignoring tropical storms does, in fact, work.
• Building a chicken coop/yard is really pretty difficult and time-consuming. Especially when you have no experience with anything tool or wood related.
• Never let one of the first things out of your mouth on a Monday be "I think I had a stomach virus last night." If that is, in fact, the case - STAY HOME. 
• Men over 30 shouldn't wear plaid shorts and t-shirts to work. Especially when combined with ill-fitting Toms shoes and a messenger bag that is not carried across one's body. So - please stop it.
• And for goodness sake, put your cellphone on vibrate in the work place.
• And don't whistle, whatever you do.

That's all.

Win!

Gunky cucumber soup + 3 super ripe avocado's = edible.

However, the whole idea of substituting sour cream for the evaporated milk? Not so much. I mean, it's tasty and all. But it definitely lends an guacamole flare to the dish. So stick with evaporated milk if'n ya ever make this, kids. Learn from my retarded mistakes. And avocados are only usable when soft - that's an important factoid.

(I am just way to much like my Mamaw Smith sometimes. The things I will just up and try in the kitchen; the random substitutions I'll make... it's frightening.)

Recipe!

Cucumber Avocado Soup

2 cucumber, peeled and seeded
1 large avocado (ripe ones, ya'll. I'm tellin' ya.)
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup evaporated skim milk
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Salt & pepper to taste


BLEND!
CHILL!

Optional garnishes: tomato, green onions

CONSUME!

Fail.

Well.

I just took some of the best cucumbers on the planet (i.e., ones I grew) to make into a cucumber avocado cold soup, which I have done before and it was delightful.

Under ripe avocado's RUIN things, in case you didn't know. It's chunky, and texture-y. Also, I should measure things - too much lemon juice, and that's all one can taste. Lemon. In a cucumber avocado soup.

FAIL.

Gonna try and rescue it tomorrow evening with some massively ripe (i.e., overripe) avocados. Perhaps it'll be salvagable?

The worst part is I feel like I wasted 4-5 (lost count...) of my hard earned cucumbers.

*sadface*

Tomatoes are finally making, though!

I give up on those squashes. All they've ever given me have 2-3 puny little squashes and a hoard of male flowers.

Eggplant's coming along! As are the peppers. And my basil is taking over the world out there. So life is not all bad.

Just my soup.

Lazy Days

Of Goats and Chickens

Still working on that chicken coop... it's quite a bit of work, really. But it really is going well and progressing along. The surrounding fence is up, and now for the roof and the coop proper. I'll have fabulous help this Saturday to work on it, though, so more progress should be made. I sure am ready to have those chickens! And the fresh eggs that come with 'em. Mm mm!

My garden is slowly progressing along now. Just got a slow start. The tomatoes should kick in pretty soon - gotten a few cherries and a couple romas, but nothing of much use yet. Cucumbers are doing well! Made some cucumber/avocado soup with some of them - refreshing stuff, that. My basil is starting to take over the world, as well. Pesto, here I come! And soon, too. Some sage is ready to be picked off and dried for fall as well. So much to do! So little daylight to encompass it all. Of course, if I were a better time manager it would be helpful. But I yam what I yam, right? And it doesn't do to obsess over it and set time limits on it. I don't make a living off this Commune (yet!) so there's no use in getting too worked up over it all - just makes for one unhappy Elizabeth.

Blueberries are still making. This fact shocks me - it just goes on and on like the energizer bunny!!

I'm excited to get back to sewing this weekend, as well. Think I finally have that flea problem out there under control. (I hope!) So back to it! Purses and clothes and strips of fabric for braided rugs here I come! And it's time for more sewing lessons, too. And more research into the CPSIA thing. Still struggling through that mess to decipher whether or not I need to test my products.

And because all blogs need a picture, here is one that I shamelessly stole (because he is ridiculously cute):

Thinking that my goat adventure (next year?) will be only for regular goats, not for milk. Bought some goat milk over the weekend, and while I could definitely get used to the wildness of it, I just love cow's milk so much. So perhaps a lone male goat wandering the place...? A dwarf one, maybe. *shrug* But that's a decision for later.

Melancholy

One year ago today I was here:

What I'd Rather Be Doing Today

Lunch, Anyone?

I pack mine now, you  see.

In a lunchbox my mommy bought me. And using a loverly sandwich wrap from WasteNotSaks and a snack bag from SackSavers.

Time

Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury.  And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied.  The more claimes on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered.  Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him.  It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend's talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tete-a-tete with the friend), that throw him out of gear.  Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it.  They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen.  You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own'.  Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours.  Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties.  But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.

You have here a delicate task.  The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defence.  The man can neither make, no retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.  he is also, in theory, committed to a total service of the Enemy; and if the Enemy appeared to him in bodily form and demanded that total service for even one day, he would not refuse.  He would be greatly relieved if that one day involved nothing harder than listening to the conversation of a foolish woman; and he would be relieved almost to the pitch of disappointment if for one half-hour in that day the Enemy said 'Now you may go and amuse yourself'.  Now if he thinks about his assumption for a moment, even he is bound to realise that he is actually in this situation every day.  When I speak of preserving this assumption in his mind, therefore, the last thing I mean you to do is to furnish him with arguements in its defence.  There aren't any.  Your task is purely negative.  Don't let his thoughts come anywhere near it.  Wrap a darkness about it, and in the centre of that darkness let his sense of ownership-in-Time lie silent, uninspected, and operative.

The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged.  The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell and we must keep them doing so.  Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they 'own' their bodies - those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another!  It is as if a royal child whom his father has placed, for love's sake, in titular command of some great province, under th real rule of wise counsellors, should come to fancy he really owns the cities, the forests, and the corn, in the same way as he owns the bricks on the nursery floor.

We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion.  We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun - the finely graded differences that run from 'my boots' through 'my dog', 'my servant', 'my wife', 'my father', 'my master' and 'my coutnry', to 'my God'.  They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of 'my boots', the 'my' of ownership.  Even in the nursery a child can be taught to mean by 'my teddy bear' not the old imagined recipient of affection to whom it stands in special relation (for that is what the Enemy will teach them to mean if we are not careful) but 'the bear I can pull to pieces if I like'.  And at the other end of the scale, we have taught men to say 'my God' in a 'the God on whom I have a claim for my distinguished services and whom I exploit from the pulpit - the God I have done a corner in'.

And all the time the joke is that the word 'Mine' in its fully possessive sense cannto be uttered by a human being about anything.  In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say 'Mine' of each thing that exists, and specially of each man.  They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong - certainly not to them, whatever happens.  At present the Enemy says 'Mine' of everything on the pedantic, legalistic ground that He made it: Our Father hopes in the end to say 'Mine' of all things on the more realistic and dynamic ground of conquest,

Your affectionate uncle
Screwtape

The Screwtape Letters
Chapter 21
C. S. Lewis

We Were Here, the Sequel

A Theory!

(click on the picture for it's full awesome glory)

A View into the Garden

The Annex (formerly known as the Rose Garden)

The Joseph's Coat rose has just exploded with all of the sunshine that it now receives without the sunroom there. It has bloomed and bloomed and bloomed.

The Pepper Bed

Bell, Banana, Habenero, and I don't even know what else.

In front of it - thyme, parsley.

Mint on top.

Tomatoes are growing! Woohoo. :)

The liberated Italian tomato.

Malabar Spinach (NOT a typical spinach, but more of a tropical vine. I thought it would die off... yeah, no. It's thriving. As are the cucumbers. I'm pretty sure they'll be taking over the world soon!

Blueberries are ripening...

Dewberries that grow on an old driveway. Cobbler this weekend!

The Mamas and the Papas: "Make Your Own Kind of Music"

Nobody can tell ya;
There's only one song worth singin'.
They may try and sell ya,
'cause it hangs them up
to see somone like you.

But you've gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sing along.

So if you cannot take my hand,
and if you must be goin',
I will understand.

You're gonna be knowing
the loneliest kind of lonely.
It may be rough goin',
just to do your thing's
the hardest thing to do.

But you've gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sings along.

So if you cannot take my hand,
and if you must be goin',
I will understand.

You gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sings along.

Happy Towel Day to all you Froods out there!

*sigh*

You know that feeling you get whenever you finish some beyond amazing book that has pulled you so deeply into its world that you struggle against the reality of this life that faces you and the only in the world that you want to do is just delve back into that world and stay there forever, but you can't because it's over and it's never the same on revisiting?

Yeah... got that feeling in spades. The end of LOST combined with Lauren reading aloud from World War Z on the way to Baton Rouge and back has my mind reeling against the reality of life. I simply can't come out of either of those worlds and face Monday.

So I'll go through the motions. And be in a zombie-esque state all day because of it.

Little Pretties...

Horace is a little hungry... 

 So is Pierre. 

Technotheism

A comment posted jokingly on a friends Facebook wall references "technotheism." This same conversation referred to playing Scrabble on an iPhone as a substitute for a real life, person to person game.  They are not the same. In the game of technology versus real life, real life seems to lose more often than not.

I am making a series of conscious decisions to overrule technology in my own life. While I would love to give up the TV, we all know that's not happening until LOST is over. Facebook continues to dominate my existence. The computer is always a go-to source of entertainment and a frequent boredom killer. But you know what? I find both of those fact increasingly less fulfilling and true. I crave the outdoors more than email and Facbook, and boredom at work (or at any other time!) can rarely be satiated by the intarweb these days.

It bores me. (It also gives me carpal tunnel.)

I crave simplicity, the out of doors, sewing, playing games with friends, movies in the park, picnics, baking, riding my bicycle, sunrises and sunsets, enjoying the time I have left with my dog, watching the cat scream at her archnemesis, being still and un-surrounded by modern "conveniences."

I'm going to try and go computer-less this weekend. And text-less, even. I'm on a journey to embrace and simplify real life.

But obviously my progress will be hindered until after May 23rd, because the 18th and the 23rd will find me firmly rooted in front of the television with pina colada in hand, gasping and groaning my way through LOST's final hours. And then I shall go on the intarwebz to read what other people have to say about LOST.

But after that? The world is my oyster. I kicked the FarmTown habit - can I kick the Facebook in the face?



PS - It's still Zombie Awareness Month!! What will you do to raise zombie awareness this weekend?! Answer! Drink lots of wine and give me the bottles. :)

Stuff and Nonsense

• Curtain rods don't come 17 feet in length. Spent a week trying to figure out to make this work. Finally got it worked out last night. My sister will be finishing putting them up today. Looking swanky up in there...
• Spring is still here!
• Continueing to observe Zombie Awareness month by spreading the zombie love. Reccommended World War Z to a friend, and she's lovin' it. The Bottle Barrier(TM) still needs expanding, but I'm out of bottles. Accepting donations of wine and other liquor bottles.... :)
• Balance - where is it? And I don't mean literal, physical balance (though that is improving - successfully completed the lunges section of the YMCA workout yesterday with minimal balance issues!) but rather a life balance. Sewing/gardening/8-5ing/Piano teaching/sewing lessons. No, I'm not over-extended, I just need to manage better. Setting out on a journey to do that...
• Piano! INSIDE!! I have the best friends - they're always there, good times, bad times, piano moving times. Also, L. is way stronger than me. Would like to blame my inability to lift the piano on the 2 full days outside I had put in, but getting the slider footy thingies out from under last night was a challenge, for sure. She is Teh Awesum. Now to just wait until it acclimates itself... it's in pretty sorry shape right now.
• Biking - down the highway to a snowcone stand. 4 mile roundtrip. So nice!
• Gardens - BUILT! And planted! Pics soon - they're still on my camera.

Thursdee Thanx

It's a beyond fabulous day, isn't it?

Here's why I'm so abundantly grateful for today:

• Spring has been here for around 2 months now! And when I say spring, I mean springlike weather. Granted, we've had our odd bouts of freezing and hot/humid, but for the most part the weather's been beyond beautiful for 2ish months. What's up with that? LOVIN' IT!
• I get to spend the next 3, count 'em, three!, days doing nothing but gardening and sewing and building a chicken pen/coop. What is better than that? Nothing.
• I have family and friends that support such actions as being excited to do nothing but garden and sew try to find bathtubs to plant eggplant in. Stop staring - it's an awesome idea. You just wish you'd thought of it!
• That larger bedroom I've been waiting for? Thisclose to being done. We're talking putting-up-a-curtain-rod-close to done. It's not the cottage I desperately crave, but it will do quite nicely in the meantime.
• Did you know it's Zombie Awareness Month?! I have it from a reliable source (i.e., Alexz saw it on Chelsea Lately last night) I'll be adding a Bottle Barrier(TM) to the Zombie Garden Annex (i.e., Rose Garden) this weekend to keep it safe from the marauding hordes. What will you do for Zombie Awareness Month? {need more proof? Go here.}
• Yoga in the morning! I've given up the last few Tuesday night stretch-fests for various reasons, which range from snow-cones to dirt-moving, but tomorrow it's on like Donkey Kong. 
• A leisurely breakfast. There's just nothing like a nice, leisurely breakfast with coffee. Outside, of course.

Cheers to the outdoors!

Lostdays Are Coming to a Close... *sadface*

But Petula Clark is forever. Right?

Downtown

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - no finer place, for sure
Downtown - everything's waiting for you

Don't hang around and let your problems surround you
There are movie shows - downtown
Maybe you know some little places to go to
Where they never close - downtown
Just listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossa nova
You'll be dancing with him too before the night is over
Happy again

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, where all the lights are bright
Downtown - waiting for you tonight
Downtown - you're gonna be all right now

And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along

So maybe I'll see you there
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - don't wait a minute for
Downtown - everything's waiting for you

Downtown, downtown, downtown, downtown ...

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary?

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells...

And cockle shells...

And pretty maids... 

all in a row.