Sunday, March 27, 2011

Random

If it seems strange that I'm blogging at 12:17....that's because it is! Stephen has croup and last night I was up too many times to count so I thought tonight I'd sleep great but that doesn't seem to be the case. So, I'm practicing sleep hygiene and putting my 30 minutes in. I went to bed early tonight but then at 10:40 Stephen woke up crying so I got up, put vicks on his chest and feet and propped him up on pillows. Philip then took over and is sleeping in Stephen's bed but when I couldn't get back to sleep after an hour I decided to blog. Hopefully by getting it out of my system...I'll be able to get to sleep quickly. This will also explain if my coherentness degenerates!

Let's see....we're still getting some of this....in fact, as I type I'm enjoying the snowflakes falling outside my window. Perhaps this will be the last of the season?

But before this snow....we had several days of 70 degree weather (hence, little boys going out in bare feet which probably resulted in the croup!. During the nice weather we decided to get out and so some garden/yard work. I just about lost heart the first day though. As I was hauling soil to the asparagus bed something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. There, about 6 feet away was a MASS of snakes. I couldn't tell how many there were but none of them were very little! Two of the maintenance guys from campus came over and killed six of them. Evidently they had been hibernating together and so that's why there were so many. The guys even dug up a rock below the surface of the soil and found some of them. Sighh.....I"m really NOT into snakes....at all. I took the boys down to the house and put them to bed and then returned to the asparagus bed where I found THREE more! Ugggg......and so....I killed one (Please take note of this David and Jonathan...you would have been proud....not of the screaming but having the guts to get close enough that with a five foot shovel I was able to kill one), the neighbor boy caught one and another got away. The following day when I was putting up my strawberry bed the neighbor lady about stepped on one and so her son grabbed a shovel (left from the day before) and dispatched with the ninth one (I'm praying that it's the one that got away the day before!) I have no pictures, it wouldn't have been pretty.

That being said: I did still manage to replant my asparagus (last year's plantings rotted in the ground...twice) and built a pyramid strawberry bed which turned out quite nice. Right now it's covered in straw to protect from the freeze but here's what it looked like.

Also my asparagus bed, that I built last year but the timbers warped so much that I had to use expandable foam between them so I wouldn't lose all my dirt.

Then we planted blueberry bushes:

I didn't get a picture of the cherry tree we planted (which was a Christmas gift from my BIL and SIL) - the grape vines didn't get planted before cold weather hit so they're in storage until warmer weather allows us to get them out.

OH, we also replaced lily of the valley, bleeding hearts, polemonium, and lady ferns that didn't come up last year.

So that's been our happenings recently. ...guess I'll go to bed, give it another 30 minutes and if I'm not asleep I'll blog some more....good night!

5 comments:

Regina said...

I feel your pain. I never knew we had snakes here until the cats joined our family. They caught at least 6 last summer. At least they're earning their keep!:)

Dixie said...

Sorry about the croup... Carson had that a couple of weeks ago. No fun!
Love the pictures of your plants. Snakes are not cool! Seeing a snake turns me into a crazy lady!

Unknown said...

Agh! You're braver than me, girl! I think finding that many snakes would put the dreaming of planting asparagus somewhere WAY down on my list! Ew! There are some snake repellents out there. Do you know what's drawing them? We found out that the presence of rodents (like chipmunks) is a huge drawing card. Hence the mean cat that lives outdoors. He's there to keep away the rodents, because I saw ONE snake! Ew! Shudder...

Julia said...

Snakes in the city? Good grief! As if gun shots, sirens, and drug dealers aren't enough you get country vermin too. :) Seems kinda wrong to me...so sorry. On a happy note, just think how lovely all that food will taste that you've worked to plant. I just ordered some fruit trees and strawberry plants myself.

The Dickinsons said...

Being up half the night sounds familiar. We've been battling mold issues again with both of our babies. (We are still finding mold among our things, so we are doing lots of scrubbing and sorting again.)

All your gardening looks nice. UGGGHHH! The snakes sound scary!
=(