Home Grown Goodness

I have discovered that I enojoy the work that goes into gardening. It is a pain in the butt, to be sure, but the results are wonderful and the work is rewarding. I suppose I should temper that a little bit by saying that I imagine that the results are wonderful due to the fact that I haven't actually tasted any of the results, and more to the point, nothing is technically growing in the garden yet. I have sprouts of corn, a few onions that have poked their heads up through the soil, and sundry other little green things that seem to be on the verge of becoming something interesting, but nothing in the way of actual vegetables yet. Each of these tiny green shoots will hopefully blossom into larger plants which will then produce a variety of produce.

I have never really been that interested in gardening. This is a difficult thing to admit for a biology geek like myself, but I am not really that fond of being outside. I do enjoy the occasional foray into a forest preserve where well manicured paths allow one to indulge in what could loosely be called a nature walk, but aside from that I rarely go out of my own backyard. And if the temperature is above 85, I tend to stick to my own living room due to the fact that I really don't like to be hot. We often have the air conditioning set at 68 so I can use a blanket in the middle of August. Not terribly energy efficient, but TOTALLY comfy.

So when the little 10 x 10 trial garden we had last year was deemed too small by both my wife and myself, I tore out a large, overgrown bush and proceeded to work the soil and remove all traces of weeds from a patch of land that effectively doubled the space available. This was done in preparation of planting any number of things - tomatoes, onions, carrots, pineapples, sugar cane - whatever! We were footloose and fancy free when it came to gardening. Rows of cotton? Sure, why not!

Ryan helped with this part of the garden creation. His job - because he had to have one - was to look after worms. After I uncovered several large earthworms with my pick, Ryan became really concerned for their well being. Mind you, this is the same kid that upon first seeing the long, slimy looking things, was so disgusted by them that he literally gagged and looked like he would throw up. Now, however, whenever I would uncover a worm, or part of a worm that was still wriggling, he would rush over and grab it and then run back and chuck the creature into a hole he had dug as a sort of worm hospital. He would then quickly cover the worm with dirt so it wouldn't dry out in the sun, and then pat the soil down gently like he was tucking it in for the night. This lasted for about half an hour, which is an eternity for a four year old. After that he got bored and went inside to have a snack. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?

Over the next week or two, the process of making this little fantasy garden a reality took a little break while other things with higher priority came along. Cleaning out the garage, installing air conditioners, fixing the bike, cleaning gutters, taking out the garbage, organizing the recycling, fluffing pillows, and knitting a pair of wool underpants for the dog all took precedence over the garden. Weeds grew like small, rapidly growing unwanted plants and quickly took up most of the soil space so that when, after several weeks of procrastination, I decided to ready the garden for planting (again), I had to spend several hours tilling and readying the soil (again). This time, however, Jen went out to pick up seeds while I tilled, and when she came home all was ready for the imminent harvest! All we had to do was plant, weed, water, weed some more, water some more, and wait a few months until our seeds grew into actual fruit bearing plants.

We are still in the process of waiting for that harvest. I went out today to weed the garden and had a grand old time picking out unwanted flora. Perhaps too good a time. I was halfway through "weeding" the onions when I realized that weeds tend to grow in a more haphazard fashion and don't normally form a nice, straight line. The corn is coming in nicely, and the pumpkins look well. Some fool animal - probably our fool animal - decided to dig up one tomato plant, but that is the only casualty thus far. So that means that, if my calculations are correct, we should be able to have the first meal with home grown veggies sometime in November.

Hindsight being 20/20, we probably should have started the seeds earlier.

Blog clean-up

I spent some time this morning cleaning up the ol' blog. I went back and re-read old posts and deleted those that seemed a bit too snarky. I am having much more fun writing things about my family, with the occasional science geek post, and I wanted my blog to reflect that. I still stand by most of what I wrote in those posts, but for the stuff I don't stand by, I have either changed my mind or changed my attitude, both of which for the better, I hope! Anyway, if you are visiting this site and are looking for something I wrote earlier and it is not here, now you know why.

My son doesn't need me anymore...

In every fathers life a little independence must fall. I have noticed over the last few weeks that Ryan doesn't seem to need me for as many things as he used to. There was a time when he couldn't roll over, sit up, or feed himself without my help. This eventually changed, and he gradually came to be able to do all of those things - he can even "help" make his sandwich for lunch, and he knows where all his fruit snacks, raisins, and yogurts are located even if his dad is clueless.

I love the fact that he is growing up, because along with this independence comes greater vocabulary, balance, speed, and sense of humor. He loves telling me jokes, most of which have no detectable punchline, but they are funny anyway because of his facial expressions. His taste in music is getting to be a little better (see previous post for evidence of this), and he is able to pick out his own clothes and get dressed with little or no guidance from me. This can result in some interesting clothing combinations including this gem from the other day: pajama pants, black socks, button down shirt complete with tie, and water wings. He is the kid from Big Daddy. Mostly, though, he picks out good combinations and we have no issues.

I have heard the phrase "No, dad! I can do it myself!" about 10 times today alone, and I hear things like "Don't worry dad, I can do it" fairly often as well. The list of things he can do himself is growing every day, but unfortunately that list also includes things like:

• He can climb into the refrigerator and get his own pudding. This sounds harmless, except that our refrigerator is a bottom freezer model and the pudding he wants is 5 1/2 feet up in the air.
• He can get into the tub, turn on the water, and put his toys in there all by himself. A good thing if someone is in there watching him, but feed your 9 month old son at the wrong time and you are likely to have a very wet, fully clothed 4 year old on your hands.
• He can get out his own toothbrush and toothpaste and brush his teeth on his own. This is often very handy, but he also can get out MY toothbrush and clean the toilet with it. Trust me - this is something that you allow to happen once and only once. We now have a supply of extra toothbrushes in a separate closet in case the current one looks a bit more frayed than it did the last time it was used.
• He can also wipe his own butt (YEA!) and wash his own hands after going to the bathroom. Along with these skills comes the fact that he can get himself onto the counter and spread lotion all over our giant mirror because the mirror looked like it was too dry.

Never mind. He does need me. Possibly now more than ever!

Ok. Now where is he...