Planted bits and Novas Ten Puppies

Planted the Indian corn today, the Mandan Bride mixed with the special one from last year - the blue aleurone with the red pericarp.  It should take 85-90 days from now, and hopefully the other is similar.  The other sweet corn is just now poking its head through the ground, and it is 75-80 days.  We'll see how all that goes when it comes time for tasselling and pollination.  I want to find a place to put the Japonica striped corn out that is not too close.. but still protected.  Will think on that, maybe along the front edge, maybe along the side edge?

I also planted the Autumn beauty sunflowers, a watermelon hill, 2 Jarrahdale squash hills (all to mark the three rows of corn and vice versa), zucchini (genovese bush, early prolific straightneck and black beauty) in three hills, and a few marigolds.  I also planted a few Good Mother Stallard beans and a few others that were knocking around in a box - a Mayflower, a Bosnian, the last and only King of the Early from last year.  All of that started because I had planted the cottonseed inside in pots.  Mark is right - once I get on a roll it just goes and goes ... and then dinner was ready and I had to get Esme.

Now she is in a bad mood and we have sent her to bed, to be retrieved in a few hours to brush her teeth and get her sticker, then go to bed for the night.  I work late tomorrow - so I will be here when she wakes up.  She had wet a pair of pants again, and then told me not to talk about it - to be quiet, and not let anyone know until it dries.  Uh, no.  Sorry kid...  Mom won't play that way, ignoring the issue etc etc... but truthfully that problem is getting better.  With time and also waking up two hours after we put her to sleep - even if we have to lift her out of bed and put her on her feet -- it has become rare now during the day for us to have to yell at her.  But, there are still moments.  I think she came in from playing with the puppies outside and then forgot because she saw me playing a game... but still.

Spud and Cookie puppies talking with Esme outside.

Sweetie is the one most like Daphne, and it is a tossup whether to keep her or Spud.

Clockwise from top Bill (black), Bonnie?, Cookie(blue eyes), Dolly (head hidden), Sweetie, Spud, Brunhilde, T-Bone (under Brunhilde), Ted, Clyde = 10, yes count them, ten, five girls and five boys.  Mark has installed them out of their penned area in our kitchen and outside into a dogloo with their mom. 

Weekend

We've had a weekend 'in'... except for a trip to the grocery store.  I embellished one of Esme's stuffed friends from last year, and made another at her request.  She was elated, and gave me 'instructions' as to the details she wanted.  I mended a stack of pants, but did not get to any other clothes sewing - instead being drawn into this pink figure above.  We also played in the mud some, making sluices and a pyramid with a hole through it to a pool down below... that is about the only way Mom can get into playing in the mud.  Esme is usually content just to plop globs of mud down over and over for an hour - but I need to get constructive in order to keep occuppied.  And, after we had completed our project and study of water swirling patterns and mud, I went for a bath.  I saved the water for her and traded places with her, letting her have raspberry bubbles and barbie dolls while I read some more.

Esme has made me laugh several times today.  She has been mentioning that often to me lately - I need to laugh, to be smiling, if I want her to be smiling and not be 'drama llama' - a term she is trying to understand and does NOT like...  The other day she came up to me with a medical kit and said she was going to take my heart out and inject it with PLAY because it was not a loving heart it was a working heart - as in going to work and typing on my computer type of work, and that needed to be fixed so I could laugh and play.  As I object she leans in and whispers 'it's like pretend Mama, okay?'  Sometimes I'm sure I'm supposed to respond but I just have no idea how to... that was one of those times.  I understand how deep that is.. and the ring of truth, but wait, what?  How does she come up with these things and if this is five... what will ten be like?

Today she woke me up pretending to be an alarm clock and put a plastic cup on her head saying it was the snooze button and to hit it but gently, because it was really an Esme.  She was reading over my shoulder on my computer and pointed out a picture of her friend on Facebook.  She said the picture was like a video phone, and where was the volume and the words, since the girl had her mouth open like she was talking.  Then she got another idea - and asked me if this was how I 'called' the tooth fairy on my computer, and that I should call her now, please?  She really wants to talk about this calendar thing and maybe find out how to get her toy quicker.  Ha.  She helped me clean up a table, and fetched all her painting supplies from the bathroom downstairs.  We talked about color some.. but then I got back to reading.  I finished the Hunger Games trilogy of books through all of that... and it was a tearjerker in the end... Buttercup was genuinely convincing towards the end... and the expected happy ending that makes you wonder how 'happy' anything can be....and how different it really is from anything before?

I ordered Glass Gem corn from the Native Seed savers website, as well as one of their interesting beans.  The corn out in the garden is starting to poke tiny spikelets out of the ground... most of the transplant plants are doing okay even after all that rain.

Summer sewing has begun

First sundress of summer - the same pattern I used for her several years ago, I just fudged the measurements off the original and then had her try it on to adjust the straps just right.  I'll probably make another one with a fuller skirt as she has to pull it up some to sit down.. but it looks great and is not binding otherwise. 

Other news - Esme has her K test next Friday.  I'm trying to make sure she knows her birthday, as she really doesn't care too much about dates yet - but other than that I am just waiting and wondering what it will be.  I asked for the morning off of work short notice and they did work it out for me.. which is excellent.  In August we will have a Kindergartener :)

fish fry carnival

Esme had been asking about and waiting for this for weeks... we went tonight and Mark took lots of pictures.  Here are just a few. 

Esme has grown so much this year, and this picture does show that.  

I'm glad Grandma came along and tried some of the rides - she doesn't like heights or elevators, so this was big for her, too!  Esme tried so hard to be brave and ended up outlasting me.

 I tried just telling her to hang on to the spinner wheel - but moments after this she bashed her cheek against it and I had to wrap my arm around her for the rest of the ride - but she recovered bravely and was on to the next ride, and the next ride... she rode almost every one we would let her try.  I was getting dizzy by the end!

 we didn't know this little girl but her spirit and smile was shining so brightly

This is my favorite picture - thank you, Mark, it just captures the moment so well.   on the sizzler ride with Esme - this was a lot of fun... it was one of the rides I did every year at our carnival in Grand Rapids - so I told her just how to hang on and smash up against me and she really did have a great time.   She was 'pretend screaming' and then stopping in mid screech to say 'hi' calmly to the operator... I would have rolled my eyes if I had not already been dizzy!

A ride called the Surge Burst - it was very scary looking.. but Mark suggested I try it while Esme was in the ball pit slide... and I did.

 There was a lot of hanging on to the seat for dear life

 

This is a comparison of the dress when I first made it - April 2011, and last night.

Luckily, it was a bit big when I made it ;) and it has fit her all of this time.  She was unsure of it last night - saying I had made it when she was 'four years old' so it shouldn't fit anymore and be too small - only to be surprised that it fit well enough to even touch her toes in.

 

She has grown a lot in two years, but the dress probably won't fit much longer.  I need to get sewing again!

nice Tuesday homefront

Enjoying outside, more work repotting plants and in the garden.

those Monday bits

Mark got Esme a huge shovel full of dirt with the tractor and they played King and Princess of the Hill on it.

 

 

Loula dog saying 'what happened?' after Esme pretended to fall off.

The garden on 4/22 - it has changed some and lots of things have been planted now.

 

Tomatoes in the background from our seedling trays inside. 

Esme and I had a lazy day about town - library, park, McDonalds and then the thrift store.  I let her stay over normal time at all of the places looking at what she wanted.. and I read a book on the e-reader.  Now that we are home I've put out a play bucket of water for her and some sand tools - and she is playing between that and the lavatory sink as she gets scared when she hears Mark run the tractor near the house .. smart.. but it makes for a lot of running and screaming.  Oh, the running and screaming at the playplace - she was with FIVE little boys who were all playing growl monsters... it was loud, and then abruptly they all left at once - which left her in a terrible mood.  So we went to look at 'not expensive' toys at the thrift store... and came away with a sifter, a net and a shovel.

I'm watering things in the garden with a bucket.  It is a strange habit of mine - but soothing, in its own way.  I like pouring the measured amount of water on the ground, watching it soak in, run down natural furrows in the earth, hearing it 'gurgle' through the cracks.. watching the small plants burst through the earth in places I have seeded and watered before.  Mark says I should use this hose thing they invented a good while back.. not return for bucket after bucket from the hydrant in an unending repetition of on, fill, off, pour, on....  It's my day off ;) and I have time to do so.

The cucumbers are germinating, as are the zinnias and scallop squash.  I've put more water on the corn and the lettuce, lima beans and radishes.  The cabbage does not look terrible off... it has changed color a bit with the acidity level of the soil.  The pea shoots are pushing for all they are worth - the pea seedlings I germinated inside are wrapping themselves around the fences and heading up.  The other plants from the co op are alive... all of them adjusting to our soil. I had put them in the ground at 50 degree temperatures the other day, but they do not seem worse for it.

I have tomorrow off, too .. we'll see what we get up to.  I have had Esme write on her writing tablet both days - she finds it very difficult, but at least is doing it without connect-the-dots on everything now.  She needs to get over the 'difficult hard frustration' stage limiting her and just try - and then feel the happy when it is good... if we can get there her school years will not be quite so hard on her/us/everyone in the world.  Ha.  I told Mark the other day it is going to be so hard to teach her with that stubbornness -- he said 'going to be?  IS!'

And the recipe for 'no more sleepy me' soup...
kale, washed and broken from the stems put in a pot and covered with water
olive oil and red wine vinegar
large can of black beans rinsed thoroughly
about a cup or two of lima or butterbeans, frozen
a can of diced rutabagas, drained
about a cup of cooked sausage
some frozen onion and red pepper
salt, pepper, onion powder, oregano, garlic
some dried green peas and red lentils - to make myself cook it a long time, or I would try to pull it early
a few frozen tater tots thrown in to add thickening starch to it

I cooked this for about four or five hours at night - put it up in quart jars in the refrigerator.  I've eaten it for three or four meals now.  One day earlier this week I was so tired I just wanted to fall on the floor as if by sheer will I was keeping from doing so... and that feeling was all day long and had grown over the course of the week.   I feel fairly good now, still a little tired - but I ran with Esme at the park, went through the slides, walked with her here and there and everywhere... and I do not feel like that day.  In fact, I think I'm about to go out and dig a hole for some zucchini seeds.