This blog has lasted longer than some marriages!

That's kinda sad about the marriages, but pretty amazing about my blog.

Apparently, my first post on this particular blog was made back in March of 2006. Despite the many times I've wanted to stop blogging and have a real life, I've kept on keeping on...and here I am.

Some people keep track of their number of posts; me, I can't even keep track of my kids' names or ages. I'd like to say I've got better things to do, but the truth is that my memory has left me for a much younger woman. Now that IS sad.

Speaking of sad, here are a few photos of the devastation crows and raccoons left in their wake.  They destroyed the corn: (hm...this actually looks like a photo of pre-devastation...whatever...)

They destroyed the musk melons:

They destroyed the yellow watermelons:

They had left the Moon & Stars watermelons for a few days longer, but have since eaten them too.

It's enough to make a grown gardener cry.  Yet hubby bravely plows on, (no pun intended; he doesn't plow) sowing seeds to start lettuce and beets and more:

I guess you can't be a gardener if you aren't optimistic.  So I'll leave you with a fun quote about the optimist by Oscar Wilde, "Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll.
The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!"

Mmmmm....doughnuts....

Next time: how to cut up a whole chicken!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Water, water, everywhere...and same with vermins

I saw the best quote the other day from Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar:
"We all make mistakes in life. The thing that separates successful people from others is how we handle those mistakes."  It's the one lesson I hope the kids come away with if they remember nothing else I teach them.

Speaking of lessons for my kids, one of the ones I keep reminding ds#1 of is to not waste water:

Source: eLocal.com

Clean water is something that we should never take for granted.

~~~~~
We've enjoyed several meals of yummy sweet corn...

until the evil raccoons somehow got into our fenced garden (something they'd never done before) and destroyed the rest of that one bed. Luckily, we still have another bed, or two. One of those is surrounded by an electric fence, so they should fare better.

Raccoons, or some other pest, also swooped in on our Asian pears. One day our 2 trees were loaded with fruits, nearly ready for picking, and the next day, not a single fruit was left on either tree. Nada. If we catch the culprit, it is stew meat! Grrrr. The tree branch in this photo was so loaded with fruit that it had snapped off.

Luckily, there are other things we are able to harvest and process - more basil, for instance:

And here's hubby making the pesto, after I washed all the basil and the jars and lids, and the kids stripped the leaves.

A good friend, Tia, brought over two pullets that they didn't want anymore after her girls were done with their 4-H project. Meet Vader (guess what that was named after?) and Tawny (as in Sigourney Weaver's character from Galaxy Quest). Ds#1 gets the credit for these names. Do they look like they're doing a Rockettes' dance or what?

Our old hens had pretty much stopped laying due to the heat and their being broody, so we look forward to finally having some homegrown eggs again. Thanks, Tia!

In other exciting news, we'll be getting a new tractor soon - a lovely red Kubota! Hubby had looked at John Deere, but the dealer in town was surprisingly unresponsive, with the manager acting like he didn't really want to make the sale. The Kubota dealer in the town south of us, on the other hand, was so helpful and eager that hubby decided to go for it. Plus, the size and features that he wanted were cheaper with the Kubota. Can't wait!

Do you have any exciting gardening purchases?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams