Botanical Gardens

Today I needed to run to Birmingham to pick up an order I had placed and drop off Erin's hat we borrowed back in February.  So, I woke the kids up and only Chandler was functioning, so we headed out to the big city.  Picked up my order with little trouble, though the gummy bears were out of stock!  *sob*  After that, we went to see Erin for a few minutes and talked to one of the people who will be doing hair and such for the event that the girls and Jake are going to be modeling for later this month.  Then it was time to eat! 

After lunch, we opted to head to the Botanical Gardens to see what was in bloom. Turns out, quite a bit!  There is little in life I enjoy more than getting in the groove with my camera and shooting things.  I do very well with flowers, plus I enjoy looking at them and I make an effort to learn their names, in all, an afternoon in a garden or the woods is one of the best ways to spend my time. 

I took about 100 pictures, I tried to narrow it down somewhat, but I liked so many, that more than half made the final cut.  :) 

Combo planting of poppy and phlox

Likely a type of pansy

The wild child

Ragwort

Bluestar

Wild geranium

false garlic

sneezeweed

lesser daisy fleabane

Eastern shooting star

dwarf iris

Bloodroot

bleeding heart

red star anise

bellwort

apple

phlox

blue-eyed grass

sweet shrub

This is a type of rhododendron, though I have never seen it before

Iris

Azalea

This is a blooming fern from Japan, I liked the color.

 Bee in English Dogwood

tulip tree

Vinca

Dogwood

We had a wonderful afternoon, though it was HOT.  The AC is back to blowing warm air in the van, I guess that is next on The List, though it was not originally on The List, so that sucks eggs.  I hate adding new issues before we resolve things that have been patiently waiting in the background.  At least the hall bathroom floor is all fixed up.  One thing down at any rate! 

Random April

We tried pizza from Dominos on Monday
They are pretty small, so we also picked up Taco Bell.

They look pretty good!  I like a hearty crust, but gluten free crusts are like sheets of paper.  Rice paper.  ha!

 The vote was unanimous, we all liked the pizza just fine.  At $8 for an 8 inch, it's not going to happen often, but it is, sadly, better than Mellow Mushroom, where a 12 inch GF pizza is $20.

Yay, pizza!  (and Taco Bell)

 After the above picnic, we hit the library and the orthodontist and then went to Karen's house for a couple hours to visit and see her FIVE new tiny baby goats.  SO cute!  Did I get a photo?  No! 

We followed this most of the way back, life in rural Alabama in the spring!
I never complain about getting stuck behind tractors and such, agriculture is our number one industry!
Plus, food.  I like it.

This is my very first order!  Coconut marshmallows.  I added samples of my newest creation, Moundsmallows.

This is what Ben and I worked on yesterday, blueberry white tea. 

And the Moundsmallows again.

These are SO good, I only made a half pan and I gave half of that to Suzette to try to stave off a sugar coma.
We decided to make marshmallows once a week and give most of them away, while 2-3 a day is no big deal, there are about 30 calories per marshmallow-less for smaller mallows, double with chocolate and coconut.  But, the base is sugar, no matter how you slice it...

So, maybe I will use my camera today, there are wildflowers all over and I am like a stick in the mud.  I have been on pause while Chan works out if she wants to keep her spot in the local musical.  It's a small role and since they WAY over-cast, it's now shared with another girl.  Not much fun for all the work and running back and forth involved.  But she LOVES to sing and dance, so that may win out yet.  Any chance to go at it on stage is worth it.  Plus...costumes.

Tomorrow is a big storm, 100% chance of bad weather.  I am watching the mockingbirds torment the cats, the sky totally clear and blue and the wind is light and the trees are greening up and I can't imagine it will ever be different.  I would TOTALLY be one of the first to die in a flash flood without the National Weather Service.  We did a storm spotter class, only one other weather service in the nation has a smaller region than the Huntsville office and they also do marine forecasting.  But the Huntsville office gets some of the worst weather in the nation, they are just as busy with their little 11 county range as bigger offices that cover dozens.  I guess that's something to be proud of, but it kinda makes me want to move.  haha

Poppy!

I finally hauled Poppy out of her muddy parking spot-maybe by next fall we will have some rock down to park on.  Got her hooked to the van and van the systems check to make sure all the lights and signals work, then checked the tires and popped her up.  I spent most of the first day letting her air out, I swept and changed out the little dry...thing that pulls moisture from the air. 

Today I went out and wiped out the whole thing, all the cabinets and wiped the hard walls and ceiling, fridge, floors, microwave and sprayed the vinyl with mildew cleaner made for pop-up campers (which worked so well, it looks better than ever in there-the constellations of stains we inherited with the camper are GONE) then gave the outside a good wipe-down.  Then I put in the new heater, replaced the reference library and games that stay in there in the summer, bought a new rug for inside the door and left her open to air out more after all that cleaner being sprayed around.  *hack*

Last fall I bought a new set of party lights for her when they went on clearance.  Then I bought a new set this winter when they first went on sale for spring (dur).  So, I will have the camper with the lantern lights as well as the color-changing ghosts (double the awesome!).  I put up a few new hooks inside because those things come in handy.  I hang the fly flapper and the car keys, the upload cords, the charger cords, the bag of toothbrushes, the go-potty-at-2-a.m. flashlight...all that stuff I don't want shuffled into the fray.  Shot at a cat with the fire extinguisher and declared it in working order and put that back in the rack.  Checked the fuse thing and the carbon monoxide tester, replaced the AC vent filter.  Painted a set of folding shelves I was not using inside any more and put those in there.  You can't have too much storage like that because the cabinets are not easy to get to once there's anything else in there, like a pair of shoes.  The floor space is minimal at most.

The only other purchase for the camper we have made were 2 new tiny turquoise candle lanterns that had been marked down at Pier One.  I went in looking for more wall-sticker art, after 4 years, several of the rub-on phrases I had applied are getting scratched.  It's like 'Seize the ...' and 'hit...road' and so on.  Last fall I put several of our 'we made a donation' Shakespeare stickers on the door from the festival we attended and after the months of storage, Will is looking a little faded.  I don't know what to do about that.  I mean the general degradation of my hinky dinks, not just Will...I.am.  (boom boom doth pow)

I kicked around painting the wood, but I think what would happen is it would get knocked into and there would be nicks and chips and it would look awful PDQ.  What I want to do is cover the floor in big sheets of silver duct tape and redo the privacy drapes in red and turquoise and bright yellow, put down a couple throw rugs and recover my little camper pillows to match.  And just leave the wood.  What I will probably end up doing is going out tomorrow or Tuesday and hemming the 2 damaged drapes and leaving it at that.  Maybe just safety-pinning them.  I can't figure out how to actually take them down...

At any rate, she's just about ready to go, I need to put the step ladder back in and restock the towels, sheets and put in a couple snuggle blankets and the sleeping bags...which I think are in the attic.  I still need to go through what's in the storage bins and make sure I have what we need.  Not like last year when I brought 7 huge trash bags and ended up using Zephyr's poop bags because I could not find any of them.  Last year, when Zeppie was still here.  I miss that dog, good Lord, it never stops hurting. 

Okay, time to do a little homage to ZZ and all the fun we had with her on camping trips.
I hope we have just as much fun with Nia.

Coming home from the summer kick off trip last year

Our Buck's Pocket weekend

Coming home from hiking to Virgin Falls

Our trip to Holt Lake

On our first family backpacking trip

Heading to the Ocoee

Swimming in the Hiawassee

Her favorite way to ride

Roam Home

I still need to get 10k steps a day, and with staying home all week, I have been looking for ways-other than cheating or walking on the treadmill-to get in my steps.  Yesterday I worked in the yard and finished out on the treadmill while watching Hatfields and McCoys with Matt to hit my number and today I opted to head to the woods and roam around a while.  I should have clipped it one of the dogs, I think for every step I took, they took 4.  Kuma was just a rumor once we hit the treeline.

We moved here 9 years ago.  For 3 years before that, we lived outside Nashville and for 2+ years before THAT, from the time we were married until we moved to TN, we lived about 1/4 mile from here, much further back in the woods.  Being broke and having no job and being pregnant, I stayed home with the kids every single day.  We went out on Sunday evenings to get groceries for the next week, Sunday being the only day Matt did not work.  He worked nights, so days, I had 1, 2 then 3 small children and no way to leave with them and no where to go even if I could leave, so we spent hours each day outside.  We would stay up until midnight, then sleep until around 10 a.m., Matt would come in around 5 in the morning and get in the bed with us, we all slept in one bed, finally kicking Jake out onto a toddler bed when Ben was nearly here.

I was scared ALL of the time, pregnancy is no good for me in the first place.  I am fairly rational, but throw some hormones on there and I lose it PDQ.  My brain opted to make everything worst case scenario if Matt was 3 minutes late, he was either dead or having an affair.  If one of the kids sneezed, it was malaria.  If money was extra tight, I would have trouble even breathing because I could not seem to realize AIR was still free, it was like I was being metered.  I planned everything ahead 2-4-6 and 12 months.  I had a schedule and a time table for everything and totally lost my shit if we deviated from it.  It's a wonder we are still married, other than he just wasn't around to notice how crazy I was.

But, my point is, I DID have access to a riding mower and we had a good wagon.  I kept trails cleared all through the woods and this was when gas was .87 a gallon, so keeping the mower going was not a financial burden.  I wonder what I would have done if a 5 gallon container was $17.50 to fill up, the way it is now.  I could put Jake in the wagon with some bread and jelly and a plastic jug of lemonade and put Channa on my lap and we'd drive off down to the bluff and have a picnic, sometimes every single day of the week.  When my belly got too big with Benny (who at that point was called 'Bumper'), Chan was big enough to ride in the wagon with Jake.

If not for those woods, these woods I can see from the kitchen, and that mower that gave me a way to escape, even for just a little while and just a little way, I don't know what I would have done.  It would not have been a good life for the kids, that's for sure.  Being in the woods kept me sane, even while it was a primary source of my isolation.

It's strange to think of that time now, even walking the same trails.  It's almost like it was a book I read of a terribly lonely young woman with no type of compass at all.  One I don't ever want to pick up again.

But, it's good to know walking down to the creek still brings me the same level of tranquility.

Trillium

Not an otter

Toothwart

Fiddlehead

Violet.  These are edible and quite good, flower and leaves.

Water snake from across the creek where I landed after I looked down and saw it about 2 inches from my delicious foot.

The constant trickle and flow of water is so soothing, I wish we had a creek closer to the house.

   My awesome new kicks, New Balance Ndurance with the optional neon green laces.

 Things I harvested to add to lunch and things I collected with roots and rhizomes to transplant into my little wildflower garden.
I am attempting to keep Nia out of it.  I keep wanting to get mad about her digging, but Jessie and Kuma dug up and ate 27 trees the first year we had both of them.  She's just making little holes all over the place.

Lunch:
Spinach, parsley, dandelion and violets
topped with oil and vinegar mixed with flax seeds

dinner last night:
Corn chips with seasoned tofu, black beans and kidney beans
Topped with fresh cilantro, tomato, cheese and sour cream