First Harvest!

In my last entry (over a month ago!) I showed you my tiny Earthbox garden and confessed that I had apparently botched a foolproof system when I planted my summer squash right in the middle of some fertilizer powder. Well, maybe the Earthbox system really is foolproof. I sure am glad I refused to uproot the squash. Just look at it now!

Are Those... Squashes? Why Yes, They Are!

And here is a beautiful, shiny zucchini:

And some teeny, tiny strawberries:

There's also a four-inch cabbage growing right in the middle of some very bug-eaten leaves, but I don't have a picture of it yet.

Speaking of bugs, I had my second run-in with chiggers last week. My first encounter was on our camping trip last spring. Oh, boy. do those itch. I had about ten giant welts right along my pantie line. Apparently those tiny invisible bugs spend the whole day crawling up your body and stop when they hit resistance (like an elastic band). Then they burrow in and secrete this poison that melts your tissue and causes insane itches. The welts lasted for weeks and weeks. In fact, I feared I'd be permanently scarred.

So you can imagine how careful I was a couple weeks back on our annual camping trip. I needn't have worried. This time we went to a city park. It was all manicured grass. Our site backed up to a giant parking lot! A whole different kind of camping.

Little did I dream that I would get bit by a chigger in my own backyard a week later. The grass (weeds, mainly) had grown way too tall with all the rain. Now, every time I go out to fill the Earthbox reservoirs, I have to wear my old runners, saturated with concentrated Deet spray, and then I have to shower as soon as I come inside.

But it's all worth it. Look at how the garden has grown over the last five weeks:

See the Bug Holes on the Cabbage (Far Right)?

All that lush foliage isn't just pretty to look at. It's actually fruitful. Tonight I picked my first harvest:

But I don't know what I was thinking. I picked it after dinner. I should've waited until I could cook it immediately. Or I should have picked it before I made tonight's pizza. I love grilled zucchini on my pizza. Oh well, I bet grilled zucchini will be great on leftover pizza tomorrow at lunch.

I'm so happy! I am Sarah, and I garden.

Let the Spring Come

If you've been reading long, you may remember my former passion for gardening and all the mishaps we encountered along the way with The Family Garden at our old house. For the last couple of years, I'd been wanting to start a new garden, but the very thought of it made me tired. Bill had done all the hard work the first time, plus all the watering, and I'd found it difficult to keep up with the weeding. Honestly, I've always had a black thumb. So gardening was one of the things I let slip when I started my life as a too-busy, always tired single mom.

One thing I picked back up this semester, with great joy, was ladies' Bible study at my church, We've been doing a very different sort of study called 7: Staging Your Own Mutiny Against Excess, by Jen Hatmaker. The study challenges us to examine seven areas of excess in this entitled, self-indulgent culture: food, clothes, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress.

If we had more time, I'd tell you about all the changes that little book has inspired in me. For now, I'll just say that it's very convicting. Even the chapters that I thought surely didn't apply to me--such as Spending--really made me take a hard look at how I live and how I think about myself, my family, and others.

The chapter on waste was another that I didn't think I needed so much. After all, I already recycle, I don't buy bottled water, I do buy organic produce, and I shop in the bulk section at my beloved Sprout's Farmer's Market. But I found that I did have a lot to learn, and plenty of room for improvement. I particularly loved the way Jen separated ecology from politics and reminded us that God has commanded us all to be good stewards. She posed some tough questions, like "Why don't we care for the earth anywhere near to the degree we do our bodies?... Why don't we fuss and examine and steward creation with the same tenacity?... Do we think ourselves so superior to the rest of creation that we are willing to deplete the earth to supply our luxuries?"

I made one commitment that week: I've gone back to reusable grocery bags. I'd started using plastic again because those bags are very convenient for cleaning the cats' litter boxes. As I thought about what I could change, I realized that I could just use one trash bag per week, storing it in the old litter tub where I stash the full grocery bags. It's a little smellier that way, but really not a big sacrifice.

The video that week got me thinking about gardening again, not just because we could potentially eat vegetables straight from the ground, but also because there's just something about gardening that fosters a love for the earth. That's what I want to teach my kids.

Despite my willing spirit, my weak flesh was pretty stressed over all the work this would entail. How would I have time to plan it all, let alone carry it out?

Like Nobody Else

As Father's Day approached this year, I knew I wanted to help Allyson shower Bill with gifts as she had done for me on Mother's Day. I wanted him to feel the same warm joy of knowing that your daughter thinks the world of you. The only problem was that I am not at all a craftsy person, and now that Allyson is out of school for the summer she didn't come home with crafts and cards ready made for Daddy. So I arranged with my friend Gentle to go over and make Father's Day crafts with her kids. But then Gentle got sick, so we were on our own.

The main craft Allyson wanted to make was a decorative cemented tile for the garden; she'd seen the idea in an art book. Bill had to gather all the supplies for us and tell me how to mix the mortar, which almost made Allyson give up on the idea as she had wanted it to be a surprise.

It was messy and fun, and we both enjoyed it. Following Bill's instructions, I added just enough water to make the mortar thick like peanut butter, and we slathered it over the back of a spare ceramic tile. We gathered smooth pebbles from around the base of the pool, and Allyson arranged them to say "I U".

She lovingly made him a card that said "A is for Allyson. That stands for love." And on the inside, she said:

She tried to throw that card away because she'd made a mistake on the other inside flap, and then she'd tried to cover it up and made a mess with glue and paper. "You can't throw this away, Allyson," I said. "Daddy will love it because you made it. It doesn't have to be perfect."

She also decorated a picture frame and we put her Kindergarten graduation picture in it. And then she signed the card she had bought when Nana and Grandpa were here for her birthday last week.

We served Bill one of his favorite meals, fettucini alfredo, in the dining room with sparkling cider in wine glasses. Even though he came home with a tummy ache from a greasy burger at lunch, he still ate our fettucini, and I loved him for that.

Watching him open his presents was such a sweet pleasure. I realized with joy that the old feelings of insecurity about Allyson being such a daddy's girl were gone. I am so thankful for the special bond they share.

I saved my gift for last, and I was nervous. Because he's been traveling more lately for work, I bought him a fancy laptop case. It was quite extravagant, and I was hesitant to buy it because Bill is a practical person and he already had a functional laptop case. But this case had his name written all over it.

He loved it! He examined it thoroughly, searching every pocket and flap. "It's so stylish," he said, and I flushed with pleasure.

In the morning, after he'd left for Arkansas (carrying the new laptop case), I went out in the backyard to take a picture of the tile, which he had set next to the one he and Allyson made for me last Mother's Day.

I wondered if I had truly appreciated all the work that went into that stone. And I looked at the garden behind the stones and felt a stab of regret at all the weeds that have overtaken our beloved family garden. I've neglected it this year, just like I have neglected many things that needed my attention. I realized in a moment how self-absorbed I've been, wrapped up in unimportant things like baking bread and making muffins and running all over creation instead of spending time with my family.

That's why when Allyson asked me to sit next to her on the swing, I said yes even though it felt like it was already approaching 90 degrees (32 Celsius) at only 10:30 in the morning. I sat on the swing next to her and closed my eyes, enjoying (briefly) the warmth of the sun settling over me like a blanket. I felt the fragile beauty of this life God has given me with startling sharpness, and it took my breath away.

Allyson came and sat in my lap. "I think we're too heavy," I warned, but I couldn't push her away. I snuggled her close and swayed in the swing, breathing in her familiar scent. And then... we started to fall, seemingly in slow motion. Down we went in a pile on the ground. The swing had split!

Thankfully, neither of us was hurt. We had a good laugh together. "Maybe this swing set needs to go," I said.

"No, I love this swing set. Daddy and Grandpa built it for me when I was two. And even Ethan helped."

The Garden
You know what's funny about the garden? Even though it's been sadly neglected, this year we are getting a bigger harvest than ever. There are lots of flowers, promising cantaloupes and cucumbers. Bill has picked green beans three times, and once we got over 20 of them!


May we reap a similar harvest in our family!

Zucchini and Boggle

What do zucchini and Boggle have in common? I'll get to that. But first, some breaking news...

Guess what Ethan and I made last night? Tortillas. Yes, our own 100% fresh-ground whole wheat, lard-free tortillas. I mixed up the dough in the food processor, formed it into 10 little golf balls, and let it rest on the counter for an hour. Then I proceeded to throw flour over every inch of the kitchen, including my purse:

I pressed each ball flat between my palms, sprinkled on even more flour, and rolled out little circles with a Pampered Chef pastry roller (a small wooden handle with tiny rollers at each end) that I had heretofore never used in the 10 years or so since I paid way to much money for it. It was perfect for the job! My circles were almost... circular.

As I finished each tortilla, I carefully peeled it up and handed it over to Ethan, who was manning the electric skillet. (We tried an iron skillet first, but the sides were too high and it was hard to get them flat and to flip them; we kept burning our fingers.) Ethan watched for the bubbles and then carefully flipped each tortilla.

Look at this lovely stack:

While we waited for the electric skillet to heat up, I devoured one of the rejects. "Oh, this is SO good," I raved. "You've got to try one, Ethan. Here, put on some butter and honey."

"Nah," he said, eying our misshapen, slightly holey first attempts. "Are you going to start making all our tortillas now?"

I nodded vigorously. "For sure."

"Why?"

"Because they're healthier, softer, tastier, and even cheaper."

"You know, sometimes things you buy at the store taste better."

I rolled my eyes. "Puh-lease. You've never even tasted a tortilla fresh off the griddle. Really, try one."

"Nah."

He stayed with me until the tenth and final tortilla, and then he was out of there. I was afraid the tortillas would be too thick to roll into enchiladas, but I was wrong. They were soft and pliable, and just the right size. (Actually, they came in various sizes, which was just fine.)

Chicken Enchiladas

And Ethan changed his tune at dinner time. He and Allyson devoured the two remaining rejects at the table and asked for more. Guess we should have made 20.

So Back to the Zucchini
Back up a few days to last Saturday. Ethan, a couple of friends, and Allyson were getting ready for their first swim of the season (actually Allyson's second). Meanwhile, I was making a cake that looked like a giant oreo for Ethan's 15th birthday party that evening.

Allyson asked me to help her put on her new swimsuit from Nana, but I told her she'd have to wait until I got to a stopping point. She pleaded and pleaded, but I kept telling her to wait a minute. At last she said, "I'll try to put it on by myself." And there were ten blissfully quiet minutes after she disappeared into the bathroom.

She emerged triumphant. "I did it! I'm wearing my new zucchini."

"I think you mean bikini," Ethan's friend Clayton said.

"Yes, it's my bikini. Will you hand me the boggles, please?"

Allyson's New Zucchini

Speaking of Zucchini
And in gardening news... For the past few years, planting The Family Garden has marked the beginning of spring. But this year spring came later for us because we've been horribly busy lately. Bill and Allyson had planted some seeds several weeks ago...

The Tall Ones are Green Beans

...and the cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, and cantaloupe were all thriving in our window seat. They finally got around to transplanting them to the garden last Sunday, just when I was afraid they would perish from lack of root space. Bill spent the whole afternoon lovingly tending to them while Allyson dug up worms and occasionally mounded up some dirt around a seedling. I wasn't even around to take pictures this time because I was busy cooking.

The very next morning, I heard Bill hollering in the backyard. "You stupid dog! Do you know how long I spent...? Four hours. FOUR HOURS. Go get in your pen. Yes, go before I... Git!"

I was pretty sure I knew what had happened. I pictured Lola cavorting in the moonlit garden, or skulking around in it at first light.

But I asked him about it anyway when he finally came back inside. Just as I'd suspected, Lola the Garden Wrecker had struck again. She'd jumped the fence, dug a bunch of holes, uprooted a few plants, and trampled the green beans flat, breaking some of the stalks.

"I can't believe she was able to get over the fence," he said. Now Allyson and I had told him several times before that we'd caught Lola in the garden, but I guess he just didn't believe us until he saw the evidence for himself.

"Do you think the plants will survive?" I asked.

He sighed. "Maybe. All I know is Lola's going to live in her pen for awhile."

And that's what she did, for about three days. She could only come out when Bill was there to watch her. Today he relented and let her out while he was at work. I'll keep you posted.

A Fishie Funeral

For about ten days, Allyson's three fish lived like celebrities. She watched them constantly, reporting on every amazing thing they did in their tiny bowl. She kept them entertained by playing "videos" for them, and Billy Joel songs:

The Fish, Surrounded by Still Photos and Our Digital Picture Frame

She fed them twice a day, just a pinch, and she usually washed her hands first. They seemed to be thriving; we imagined that we could see them growing already.

So I was shocked last night when Bill whispered, just after we'd tucked Allyson in, "One of the fish is dead."

"What??"

"Shhhh!"

"Does Allyson know?"

"Not yet."

"Tell me it wasn't Spot."

Bill wasn't sure, so I raced down the stairs to check. Whew, it was Stripe. Still, I was sure she'd be very disappointed, might even cry.

I wasn't prepared for her actual response. When I climbed out of the shower this morning, Allyson raced into the bathroom. "Guess what? One of my fish is dead. It was Stripe. Daddy put it in a baggie in the fridgerator! Wanna see it?"

"Um, maybe later."

"We're gonna bury it, but Daddy says we have to wait till after church."

Well, at least she wasn't crying.

After church, Bill made a tiny cross out of toothpicks, and we headed to the backyard for the funeral. Allyson agonized over the spot for a good five minutes before choosing her sunflowers' bed. Bill dug a shallow hole with a trowel, and she plucked the tiny fish from the baggie and dropped it in the hole.

Allyson's Holding the Body Bag

See the Tiny Cross, Left of the Pink Flowers?

"Would you like to say a prayer?" I asked.

"You say it, Mommy."

I thanked God for our brief time with Stripe, and the fun he had swimming in his bowl with Golden and Spot, and then I asked God to help him grow big in heaven, and to let him have lots of fun swimming up there.

Allyson laughed. "Fish can't swim in heaven!"

"Sure they can," I argued. "I bet Stripe is swimming right now in a beautiful lake."

Later in the day, she seemed to have a bit of delayed grieving. She kept asking us to pray for Stripe, to ask God to help him be happy in heaven.

So I did. I'm also praying that the other two fish will be healthy and stay with us for awhile.

Speaking of Sunflowers
Look how big Allyson's sunflowers have grown!

I can't believe she just planted them at the end of March. That's also when Bill transplanted her little pinto seedlings, which she had planted all on her own, haphazardly dropping a few dried pinto beans from our pantry. Yesterday, she harvested her first crop.

 

 

"They're not quite ripe," she said. "But see, they're starting to get their spots." (Is that how you tell??)

They seem a bit small still, but pretty soon they'll be ready to eat. With all those pods, I bet we might have 23 beans to cook up. Yum!

Allyson couldn't be prouder. 

You Know It's Spring... Or Maybe Not

You know it's spring when I post my first blog entry about The Family Garden. The weekend before last was officially the start of our gardening, but Allyson actually got a jump on us a few weeks back. One afternoon when I was cooking pintos for some home-made refried beans (yum!), she grabbed a handful of beans and ran out to the garden. She probably didn't plant them very deep, and she definitely put them too close together, and it was also a little cold, but she was so excited to be planting beans on her own.

"They might not grow, baby," I warned.

"Yes, they will," she said confidently.

Sure enough, they sprouted within a week, and they've been growing steadily ever since. On Saturday, Bill thinned them out and transplanted them from the tomato area--yes, we're trying tomatoes again even after three straight years of failure--to the bean area.

Pintos in Their New Home

It will be interesting to see what happens if some beans actually grow. Bill will just have to eat them, even though he despises beans. Actually, maybe despises is too strong a word. All the rest of us love beans, so I've continued putting beans in chili, soup, etc. (and putting pureed beans in cupcakes and muffins, just because I can!). Bill used to pick all the beans out, but lately I've caught him eating them. Either he no longer has the energy to pick them out, or he's been assimilated. But I digress.

Allyson's other plants aren't in the garden, but over by the shed next to the pool. Bill built her a little planter box for some sunflower seeds she saw at the hardware, and we planted them on Saturday.

Allyson With Sunflower Seeds and Cedar Planter Box

Waiting Endlessly to Sow the Seeds

Allyson also got to plant a few veggies, which have grown into seedlings in our window box. The labels are in her own writing.

Squash, Peppers, Green Cantaloupe, Orange Cantaloupe

Aren't the Squash Cute? Like Little Ducks, Allyson Says

Okay, I can't resist. Here's one more squash picture... They are growing so fast I think they're ready to go in the ground:

See How They Reach For the Light... That's How I Feel During Morning Quiet Time

I hope our garden thrives this year, so we can have as much fun eating our produce as we have planting it. I'll keep you posted.

Or Maybe Not...
Until this afternoon, when it hit the 70s (about 24 Celsius), I was wondering whether spring really had arrived. We've had four days of cool temperatures, cool enough to bring out our jackets and maybe even sit by the fire. I think it was in the upper 40s (about 9 Celsius) on Sunday, the day I'd planned to walk with my neighbor Kindra and her daughter Makayla.

I phoned on the way home from church and talked to Makayla, who sounded pretty grumpy. "Obviously it's too cold to walk," I began. "There's a cold mist in the air and a sharp breeze."

"Oh no, my mom said we're walking today no matter what," Makayla said, her tone even grumpier.

Uh oh, I thought. Walking together was my idea, since I'm the one training for The 3-Day Walk. I heaved a sigh. "I'll be there at 1:45," I said.

We bundled up, and it wasn't all that bad, only I really wished I had worn gloves. Bill would have laughed at me, but I wouldn't have cared. Kindra and I chatted the entire two miles to her son Jacob's soccer game, as the miles slipped away under our feet. She explained that they probably would've stayed home except for her husband's ribbing. "I knew you guys wouldn't last long," he'd said.

"Oh, no. We're going," she retorted. "We're going no matter what."

I was so glad we did. Not only did I get some great exercise and a good chat, but I also got to walk with someone new this time: Ethan!

Ethan Has an Odd Habit of Picking Up Random Sticks When We Walk

It was my first training walk with him, unless you count the one where he took off on his Rip-Stick (like a hinged skateboard) and never came back, so that I feared he might be lying in the road somewhere. 

This time he was on foot, and since he's not really a runner, he was stuck with me. We had the longest conversation since I don't know when. He was talking about some projects at school, including something about World War II. For 20 minutes straight, we talked about whether it was wrong to drop the atom bomb, and how awful the Japanese internment camps must have been, and then about other less than stellar moments in American history. I was pleased to learn that his history teacher doesn't just teach from the bland, sanitized textbooks; I didn't learn about things like the internment camps or the Trail of Tears until I was in college.

During our walk, it dawned on me that my boy not only looks like a young man, but he's starting to talk like one too! What a wonderful walk, even in the chilly drizzle that turned into fat, splatting raindrops just as we reached home. My hands and cheeks were freezing, but my heart was toasty warm.

Maybe It's the Power Line

Have you wondered how The Family Garden is doing? Well, it's hard to say. Nearly everything is growing like crazy, and we're getting a bit of a harvest here and there. But most of it is just... weird. Like the cantaloupes we've been so eagerly anticipating. They're huge! But they're orange instead of green. They smell like cantaloupes, but they almost look like pumpkins.

Here's one that fell off the vine while we were away on vacation:

See the deep ridges and the orange tint?

It grew so fat that it split at the bottom, so we were a bit afraid to eat it. Bill and I each took only a dainty bite, but Allyson gobbled her usual portion and said, "More please!" She's still quite healthy, so I guess we should cut up the other one that's hogging fridge space.

The cantaloupe vine is still trying to take over the garden, or maybe the whole backyard. If you look closely at the center of the next picture, you'll see a little green cantaloupe nestled inside the tomatoes' cage:

Speaking of tomatoes, guess what? We finally have some! The tomato vines had grown so bushy on our vacation that they were dragging the ground, so Bill went over to cut them down. But then he saw a good number of fairly normal looking tomatoes like this one:

We might even have enough to make some tomato sauce, if I can figure out when to pick them. Even though they're still small and green, I found beak holes in one of them. Stupid birds! We probably need a scarecrow. You'd think Lola would chase them away, but she's probably too busy barking at the birds on the neighbor's roof to notice the birds plundering the garden.

The potatoes were a big disappointment--make that potato:

The big white bucket was overflowing with lovely green leaves, but when Bill dug it up, there was only this one shriveled potato in all that musty, wormy dirt. I knew we should have followed the complicated instructions I found on the Internet, but Bill assured me all that work wasn't really necessary.

The butternut squash seem to be dying out, though I did harvest enough (five, I think) to make a delicious pureed casserole for Mom's birthday on Sunday. Most of them were small and oddly shaped, but there was one nice fat one. It was so gratifying to say, "Oh, I'm glad you liked the squash. Did I mention it was from our own garden?"

I had thought the squash vine was climbing our photinia hedge, but turns out it's actually the cucumbers. We have one perfect cucumber...

Can You See it in the Middle?

...and then this weird thing that we'll definitely be afraid to eat:

I just don't know what to make of our produce, but Bill has a rather scary theory. There's a giant electric transformer box--or whatever you call it--in the corner of our garden. He says maybe the voltage in there is zapping our veggies and causing mutations. He may be onto something: do you see the red splotches in the picture above? That's where utility workers marked a power line in preparation for digging the pool. Come to think of it, we really have seen several odd vegetables growing in that one spot.

I have a theory of my own. Maybe the pumpkins crossed with the cantaloupe, and the squash crossed with the cucumbers. Is that even possible? Maybe it is if you throw in a strong electric current. 

I was none too pleased when one of the men tromped all through the garden. I don't see why they had to be in there anyway when the pool is at the other end of the yard.

Bill finished his preparations for the excavation yesterday. I could have cried.

Ethan and Tin helped out again, but they weren't nearly so enthusiastic as the last time. When I informed Ethan that Bill needed his help with carrying the limbs to the truck, he whined piteously. "But Mom, it's ho-ot!"

"Exactly. That's why we need to get a pool. And if you don't help, we won't be ready for them to dig the hole."

"But I'm not really the working type."

I burst into laughter. "I'm not the working type either, Ethan." I waved my mop at him. "But when there's work to be done, we just have to do it."

He stalked back into the near 100 degree sun (38 Celsius), grumbling all the way. I did catch him and Tin smiling when it was time to fell one of my last three big trees, but by the time I grabbed my camera, he wore a studied scowl.

I scowled, too, when I saw the end result of their labors:

Look Closely and You Might Spot FIVE Trunks

While I was busy moaning and complaining, Bill was digging ditches, rerouting the sprinkler lines:

In the Background Was My Second-Favorite Tree (After the Departed Cypress)

It better be worth it all. I'll keep you posted.

Maybe I'm Not the Dog Whisperer

In one instant yesterday morning, Lola wiped out all the tenuous goodwill we'd been building over the last several weeks. As you know, Lola and I have a somewhat rocky history, but thanks to Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, we'd been making a bit of progress.

What I learned from Cesar is that I have to show Lola that I'm the pack leader. One of the best ways to do this is taking her for walks and making her match her pace to mine. Before I tried it, the idea seemed laughable. When I tried to walk her in the past, she almost pulled my arm out of socket, and she even pulled me over a couple of times. But as I watched Cesar transform the most unruly dogs into docile followers, I started to believe there might be hope for even Lola.

"It's all about body language," I explained to Bill, even though he watches the show right alongside me. "We have to somehow commune with Lola, convey our intentions through touch and calming thoughts."

"Nnnhh," he replied.

"No, really," I persisted, determined to overcome his skepticism. "It's like the girl and her owl in that book I read recently. It took weeks, but she somehow convinced him to let her trim his talons. She just talked to him in a quiet voice and told him what she was going to do, and she focused on calm, soothing thoughts as she pictured what she wanted him to do."

"Yeah. So you're the Dog Whisperer now. Then why don't you tell Lola to stop running along the fence and destroying the hedges? Or better yet, tell her to stop barking at the wind."

"Okay," I said, heading for the back door. Lola raced up to meet me, resting her front paws on the dirty rug just inside the door and letting her long spotted tongue loll out. I knelt down to her level and gingerly rested a palm against the side of her head. "Now, Lola, we need you to stop barking so much. We hear you, and we appreciate it that you're trying to protect our house, but this is really too much. You don't need to bark at the birds. Or the motorcycles. Or the wind. Understand?"

 One of Allyson's Pictures of Lola

Lola stared earnestly into my eyes and then lunged forward to plant a sloppy kiss on my chin.

"Eww!!" I wiped my chin forcefully and pressed my lips together to keep from joining in Bill's hearty laughter.

"So what's she saying?" he asked between snickers. "I'll tell you. She says, 'It's almost bedtime. When are you gonna feed me?'"

Undeterred, I took Lola for a walk a few days later. I breathed deeply, allowing my shoulders to sink back and down, willing the tension to drain from my neck. "Now, Lola, you're going to walk right beside me, okay? Right beside me. And you're not going to pull on this leash."

Lola surged forward, jerking my right arm violently. "Wait," I said firmly, tightening her choke collar and forcing her to stand next to me. She kept trying to move forward, but I calmly held my grip and refused to move until there was no tension on the leash. At last we moved on, only to stop again after two feet.

This went on for three sides of the block, and the muscles up my arm and shoulder were beginning to throb. Lola was surprisingly patient, if a little bemused, and so was I. As we walked, I kept my knee pressed to her left flank. "You're going to walk right beside me," I repeated over and over, "and you're not going to pull the leash."

After we rounded the last corner, she finally seemed to get it. She still pulled the leash a bit, but she walked right next to me. "Good dog!" I exclaimed as I removed her collar and fed her a Milkbone biscuit back at the house. I gave her a little pat on the head, and I swear she smiled at me.

 Lola's Smile

I took her out a few more times over the next few weeks, and each time she caught on a little more quickly and put a little less pressure on the leash. When we walked sedately past the dreaded yard with all the barking dogs, I knew I really was becoming the pack leader. And just as Cesar had promised, we were starting to build a rapport. Even Bill had to admit that there might be something to this Dog Whisperer stuff.

Back to Reality
And then came yesterday morning. I was up on the computer, editing some audio for an e-Learning course I'm developing, when I heard Bill say something about "the dog." Though I couldn't hear his words, his tone alarmed me, and I yanked off my headphones. "The dog what?"

"I said, 'The dog just picked a squash.'"

I tore down the stairs. He was holding a six-inch, green striped squash with teeth marks all over it.

"You mean she jumped over the fence and stole a squash?" I asked incredulously.

"No, it was one of the ones growing on the outside of the fence."

"I didn't even see that one! Oh, man! That's a big one, too," I wailed.

Lola poked her head through the open door. "Bad dog!" I scolded. She padded inside and sat at my feet, leaving clumps of dog down in her path. "Bad, bad dog!" I repeated, but my ire was tempered by the laughter that threatened to bubble up to the surface. Lola was staring up at me with rapt admiration, her tail thumping audibly against the floor.

I could almost hear her saying, "Yep, I picked a squash! Isn't that great?" But probably she was really saying, "Oh boy, oh boy! The lady's talking to me!"

I guess I'm not the Dog Whisperer after all.

See How Our Garden Grows

You won't believe how much our garden has grown since my last update. We've harvested green beans a few times since then, picking as many as 17 at a time! But the green beans perished a few weeks ago. Their bright green leaves took on a mottled appearance, and then they shriveled up and died. I suspect they were choked out by the butternut squash vine, which is determined to take over the entire plot.

Here's a picture from about a month ago, when the green beans (against the front fence) were still vibrant and fruitful, and the squash vine was neatly confined in the center row:

And here's a picture from last night. See how the squash has entwined itself all around the fence and grown over the top of the green beans:

Here's a close-up of the biggest squash, one of about five:

The other big player is the cantaloupe vine, which is wrapping its tendrils around the other end of the fence. Pretty soon there might be a showdown between the two vines. I wonder which will win? I'm betting the squash, but it's hard to say....

Did you notice the tomato plants behind the squash? All three of them are producing yellow flowers, but not one tomato has developed. Does anyone have any idea why that would be? We thought it was the lack of bees to pollinate the flowers, so we planted several varieties of flowers in and around the garden. Allyson and I also prayed for God to send us bees, but I guess I didn't really think that through. The other morning, I saw three bees hovering around the cantaloupe flowers. "Thank you Jee...zus!" I prayed, recoiling violently when one of the bees meandered too close. So now we have the bees, but still no tomatoes.

Here's the biggest cantaloupe, which was thimble-sized just a week or so ago. Doesn't it look tasty?

I can't wait until it's ready. Allyson will be so excited because cantaloupes, which she calls watermelons, are her favorite fruit--with the possible exception of avocados.

Those Shriveled Up Banana Trees
Remember the pathetic, wilted banana trees Bill planted just before my birthday in April? They turned browner and browner with each passing day, but our friend Mike assured us that they really would survive. And he was right. Look at them now:

And remember the wisteria vine that Bill gave me for my birthday? It has clambered up over the top of the pergola.

When spring comes back around, maybe it will be covered in a profusion of fragrant, purple flowers that look like grape clusters; I guess that would be a passable replacement for my beloved cypress. Only then there would be so many bees that I'd be afraid to come out on the back porch to enjoy it.

It's Cow Sa-moor
Oh, I just remembered one more garden story I've been meaning to share. One evening last month, I was out weeding the garden while Allyson played on the swing set. Suddenly the breeze shifted, and I wrinkled my nose in distaste. "What's that smell?" I asked.

"It's sa-moor," Allyson answered.

"It's what??"

"You know!" she giggled, covering her mouth with one hand. "It's cow sa-moor--that means poop! Me 'n Daddy bought a big bag of cow poop at Home Depot. Remember? It makes the plants grow."

"Ah," I said, turning my back to hide my snicker. "Well it sure does stink. I hope it's worth it."

Based on the way our garden's taking off, I guess it was.