Looking for a Professional Black-Thumbed Gardener? Look No More.

March 31, 2011 By 20 Comments

I’ve been so busy “being sock monkey” that my house is falling apart, and I’m considering firing myself from my organization blog…seriously.

Now that Spring is here I’ve been tackling the neglected yard.

Here is an example of my landscaping talents

WARNING: Patricia from Lavender Uses and other gardeners, this photo may be disturbing.

weeds in my yard

The natural look

I thought I was going for a natural look and personally don’t see a problem. Look at the lovely yellow flowers!! I grew flowers!! Apparently these are actually weeds, and I have to get rid of the only thing I’ve been able to grow. The bird house is artistically placed on its side.

The Lavender Project

If it ever stops raining I’m going to attempt the challenge from Patricia that I can grow some lavender and keep it alive more than…well let’s just say over a week would be an improvement. Some of us (me) are just plant-challenged.

I will see if a black-thumbed gardener can be converted. I’d like to grow some tomatoes, but that is probably pushing it. We shall see.

The Five Year Old’s Garden

I know it is embarrassing. She didn’t inherit my plant-killing gene. She grew these from a seed, and they are currently waiting to be planted in the above pictured weed factory. Since I am involved at this point, they have a 10% chance of survival before making it into the ground. After that I can’t promise anything.

UPDATE (2 weeks later): I killed them. I think we all knew that was going to happen.




Filed Under: Nature Tagged With: ,

Welcoming Spring, Weeds, and Critters

March 9, 2011 By 25 Comments

weedsSpring has arrived in Florida, and I’ve been busily harvesting the winter crop of weeds. Naturally talented and experienced in weed production, I’ve got some real state-fair-worthy competitors. Unable to convince the deed restriction board that weeds are the new grass, they had to go.

After pulling off an arm starting the mower that has been sitting for 4 months, I set off on my journey that would be best be described as if it were an adventure game. Pollen flying in the breeze, I first maneuver over Armadillo Pit which is covered with holes dug by those nasty creatures and resembles Whack-A-Mole. Priceless wonders left in the yard all winter are uncovered: a football, 2 beach towels (seriously!), the deflated remnants of the blue ball the dog popped, and an arrow from the archery set. Next is the treacherous turn toward Weed Field while dodging the briar-covered Fence of Doom that runs along the conservation area.

Stop! Let’s discuss.

What is a conservation area?

I moved to Florida 13 years ago from North Carolina and had never heard of such a thing. Real estate agents tout the benefits of the natural view of a “conservation” lot. You believe you will be living on the cusp of nature and imagine deer calmly roaming behind your home in a tranquil sea of greenery provided by the trees and lush foliage. There is even a premium price added for the privilege of enjoying the view. I’ll take it!

Once you move in, you realize the true meaning of “conservation lot”:

  1. It is the leftovers of the swamp land your home was built on. (Seriously…I was in a store one day and a guy was reminiscing about the days when my neighborhood was a swamp. He also wished he had bought the land).
  2. Wild thorny plants grow over the fence and take over your yard. Traveling covertly underground, they surface ten feet from the fence. Pulling them out of the ground is nearly impossible but does make a challenging game of tug of war.
  3. Packs of raccoons live back there and attack your trash cans in the night…exposing all sorts of embarrassing items on your driveway.
  4. When it rains, 1000s of frogs sing so loud it is hard to have a conversation in the house.
  5. Armadillos rule the night in your yard, and the dog is scared of them.
  6. There are rattlesnakes big enough to eat a Smart car.
  7. During the winter all the vegetation dies, leaving you with a brown, dead view and the ability to now see the crazy person that sings at the top of his lungs at 1:00am and realize he is drunk…and barely clothed. Close the shades quick!!
  8. There are wild pigs and a small chance that they will tear up your entire yard leaving you no choice but to resod it – it happened to my friend.
  9. Oh yeah….best of all…there is an alligator living behind you.

Conservation = Swamp

…but it sounds so much nicer doesn’t it? Basically I moved into the middle of a zoo.

Living amongst alligators

It took a year for me to get over the fact that there were alligators in every retention pond on every block in Florida.

What do you mean there isn’t a fence between us like at Busch Gardens?? Are you people crazy?

I would walk the neighborhood constantly scanning for them in a paranoid schizophrenic kind of way while plotting the route to the nearest car I could jump on if need be. Reports of people finding alligators banging on their front door or under their parked car fueled my fears. Occasionally I would see their head surfaced atop the water. Then slowly over the years it became a fascination, and I hoped to see them. Out-of-towners would be treated to the official neighborhood alligator tour, and I considered producing some souvenirs. You get used to it. Snakes became my biggest concern. If you missed my snake encounters, check that out.

alilgatorThe resident alligator behind my house came through the yard one day many years ago. Grabbing my video camera, I began filming my personal National Geographic documentary. Done exploring, as they do during mating season, he was returning home to the swamp conservation area behind my house, and I zoomed in close.

Watching them walk is like traveling back in time and observing a dinosaur. It’s absolutely fascinating and almost surreal to watch. Then for a second…because it was zoomed in so much…a moment of panic ran through me when I forgot there were thick bushes between us. Adrenaline pumping, I dashed through the house to catch it coming into the backyard from the side of the house. He effortlessly crawled under the wire fence back to the pond, and I realized the frightening reality that the fence is a false sense of security.

On occasion I hear it roar, and he sounds like a lion. His calls for a mate are deep, muffled, and grumbly, and I don’t have the heart to tell him I think he’s alone in the pond. You’d think by 2011 they would be on the internet or something. I’m guessing by the giant splash as he descends into the water (like a boat being launched) he’s over 10 feet long now.

So, back to mowing. I’m always on the lookout for snakes and alligators. Every few minutes one of those evil conservation vines touches the side of my leg causing me to jump 10 feet, and this is called getting the most out of your aerobic workout.

Filed Under: Nature, sometimes I think I am a scientist Tagged With: , ,

Confessions of a plant killer

November 5, 2010 By 12 Comments

If you were wondering what happened to me (if you weren’t really concerned, just pretend), I just successfully climbed out from underneath a 10-load pile of laundry compliments of child#2. I love when she waits until EVERYTHING SHE OWNS is dirty before dumping them into the laundry room at 10pm and then having the audacity to ask me if they would all be done in the morning. I just say, “maybe” and walk away.

Anyways, I panicked thinking I need to write about 3 more posts to get that horrible zombie picture of me to disappear from the front page because what would someone think if they came here for the first time? If you are new: I am not a zombie nor am I doing any sort of strange science experiments in this blog…yet. It is just that I need a better eye cream and some sleep.

I am plant challenged

Walking down the Fall flower aisle, I enthusiastically selected a yellowish-orange Fall mum to spruce up my front porch for the holidays and placed it in my cart. I assured myself that his time I was going to remember to water it. Then I heard a faint muffled crying followed by, “No…not her! If only that sweet elderly lady had taken me…” and then a sigh of defeat. I think it wilted a bit which I took as a cringe. My reputation has finally reached the local plant population residing at Home Depot.

The life expectancy of a live plant in my house is a week, give or take a few days. I just broke a branch off of my plastic plant, so they aren’t safe either.

My Pride and Joy

When I was young I grew a plant from a seed. I was so focused on caring for it that over time I couldn’t remember if it was an orange or lemon seed. I anxiously awaited the day I could solve the mystery, but it can take 2-15 years for it to bear fruit.

Three years later, it was a two foot stick with two to three leaves, and I began to wonder if I would ever see a fruit. It never progressed further.

When the plant turned six, it accompanied me to college and hung out with me during exams. For over ten years I kept my tree alive. Note: I’m using the word tree very loosely. Eventually it stopped producing leaves and was just a stick in a large container. I was optimistic when I planted it in a large pot. I couldn’t bear to part with it. I couldn’t find a picture of it! I can’t believe my beloved stick was never photographed in all of its grandness, but just imagine a stick in a large pot.

Friends would come over to the apartment and sympathetically ask what it was, and I proudly responded, “It’s my orange tree. I grew it from a seed.” like I was five and saying, “I did it all by myself.” They would giggle, and I would be offended like any overprotective plant mother would be…because my baby is not ugly!

My roommate and I attempted to put Christmas tree lights on it for the holidays. That posed quite a challenge since it was like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree minus all the branches, but some packing tape saved the day. Eventually the day came when I put it out of its misery.

Confession

My mother, who is an amazing gardener with a house full of beautiful houseplants, gave me an African violet just after I graduated from college. I was tasked with keeping this gift alive.

Each time she visited, I had to run out to replace the plant…looking for an exact match. It’s like trying to replace your child’s hamster and hoping they don’t notice the difference. Sometimes I had to go to 3 stores to find one. She only lived five minutes away, so this plan was further complicated when unexpected visits occurred. I could claim the plant was out visiting friends or something.

Once I made the mistake of getting one that was much bigger in size, and she complimented me on how well I was taking care of it. I was rewarded with a second plant. The stress escalated, and so did the bill at the checkout lane. It is like going from having one child to having twins. I considered purchasing them in bulk, but realized that is just crazy as I would just kill them in batches. Fifteen frantic replacements later, I couldn’t keep up the charade and gave up.

I wondered how my future children would fair under my care when I couldn’t even keep a houseplant alive. I couldn’t just run out and replace a child I messed up.

One plant at a time

prized plantI learned I can only grow one plant at a time. Here is my baby that I call “Green Plant” and have managed to keep alive for about 3 years. New record! It also helps it gets rained on where it sits. I know Green Plant isn’t even a creative name and maybe I should have named it Dorene or something. However, when I say “go water the Green Plant” there is no confusion about which plant I’m talking about because plastic plants don’t even need water.

Patricia from LavenderUses.com is one of my loyal commentators and blogging buddies, and she is under the impression that she can turn me into a gardener. Just seeing all the pretty plants on her site is giving me the crazy idea to attempt a garden in the Spring. If it turns out as professional as my drawings, I will be THRILLED! If she ever came to visit my garden, I would offer her some sunglasses with a beautiful garden view painted on the lenses. Won’t she be impressed! Go ooo and aaahhhh at her plants while I quick replace mine.

Filed Under: Nature Tagged With: ,

Invasion of the Ants

October 22, 2010 By 19 Comments

antsIt should come as no surprise that my kitchen has been invaded by pesky, microscopic sugar ants. I don’t know if that is their official name, but it’s what I call them.

With all the various food items the kids seem to keep tucking away in corners of the house, they were bound to find out I was running the Ritz Carlton for ants. Who can resist a free buffet of sweets?

It’s hard to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich one-handed while forming a make-shift castle wall with the other arm to protect it. After three days of wishing them away didn’t work, I ran across the street to Walmart to invest in some Raid disks.

Strangely I felt the need to show each child a disk and explain to them it was poison despite the fact I had it crammed under the little space below the dishwasher. The kids are always trying to find my new snack hiding places, so what would stop them from looking there?

Envisioning the possibility that they would mistake the disk for a new type of food packaging, I had each child repeat back to me the following pledge:

“I understand that is poison and not a sweet treat. I won’t poke it with a pencil or take pictures of it for my Facebook page. I will not bring my friends over to look at it for a nominal fee. I will not attempt to pick up ants with tweezers and drop them into the disk. I won’t even look at the disk.”

After signing various legal documents and waiver forms, they sealed the deal with a pinky promise to not touch them. I like to cover all the bases.

This prompted questions from the 5-year-old who is currently obsessed with a fear of dying and asking a million crazy questions about it.

Her: “If I eat it will I die?”

Me: “Why would you eat it? Yes it is poison, so stay away from it.”

Her: “If I eat an ant will I die?”

Me: “No, but make sure you drink a glass of milk with it.”

Her: “If I touch an ant, do I need to wash my hands before I suck my thumb?”

Me: “Yes, and wash your face and brush your teeth, too, just to be on the safe side. A bath wouldn’t hurt either.”

I don’t know why the ants decided to go into the kitchen. I haven’t cooked in two days. OK that is an exaggeration. I haven’t cooked in at least 5 days. OK now I’m thinking my cooking is what was keeping them away.

So far the ants are using the disk as a slide to get to their destination faster, so I’m not sure it is working.

I didn’t even mention the playground as one of the hotel’s amenities in the brochure.

Filed Under: Nature Tagged With: , ,

Snaky visitors

October 4, 2010 By 15 Comments
Hoe

Due to the fact that snake pictures creep me out...here is a hoe for your viewing pleasure.

I use to have such vivid nightmares about snakes being in the house that I would freak out when I woke up and rubbed a bump in the sheets with my foot.

Snakes keep visiting me…

Having learned of my extreme dislike of their species, I can only assume I am the target of a “Make Peace with Humans” campaign the neighborhood snakes are promoting. They are convinced I can be converted to a snake-lover. They are so wrong.

Snake number 1

Walking into the laundry room to check on the clothes, I found myself standing barefoot next to a baby rattlesnake. He was sitting right by the door to the garage. I carefully leaned over to reach the door and opened it slowly, and he obliged and exited peacefully. He may have left some tiny brochures about how snakes are my friend, but I was too panicked to notice. I couldn’t rest knowing that thing was in the garage, so the mother-hen instinct kicked in. I was instantly transformed into a superhero armed with a hoe, only I was missing the cool cape and bravery. Facing my worst fear, I was terrified.

I took a whack at it and missed. It curled and warned me with a chill-inducing hiss. I missed about 30 more times. It was at this point that I realized why I never played sports. I made a mental note that a trip to the batting cage might come in handy one day. Finally…I got it. Grossed out, freaked out, and covered with goosebumps, I managed to balance it on the end of the hoe so I could toss it in the front yard bushes.

I walked 2 steps and the thing moved. I screamed, dropped the hoe, and backed up 6 feet. It was alive! After making careful observations for a few minutes, I realized I was shaking so much that I shook the hoe, which in turn shook the snake. After repeating this episode two more times (each time convinced it was alive again), I finally made it to the bushes. I curiously looked up and down the street to see if any neighbors witnessed the display of hysterics. No one in sight.

For three weeks I jumped out of my skin if anything lying on the floor even remotely resembled a snake. Belts and black pieces of string were outlawed.

Snake #2

Life went on and I forgot about the incident. That is until snake number two was discovered balanced on the edge of the kid’s bathtub. Another baby poisonous snake bit the dust that day. Hey! I’m pretty good at this now. I was fine until I was giving the little one a bath in that very bathtub an hour later, and the other kids decided it would be funny to yell “Look! A snake!” every few minutes until I almost had a nervous breakdown.

The antics continued for many days with the kids’ leaving their assortment of plastic snakes in various locations around the house to surprise me. After three near heart attacks, plastic snake-like creatures were disposed of and banned.

Confident that statistics were on my side, life continued with no more worries. Unbeknownst to me, the snake committee was busy commissioning a third visit.

Snake #3

OK enough already! I need my own Discovery Channel show, but they turned me down citing that “Mom vs. Rattlesnake” is more of a comedy than a drama.

I opened the dishwasher to find number three sitting on the inside of the door. Not caring if every piece of tile in my kitchen was chopped to pieces, I had to get the snake in order to avoid shopping for a new house.

Snake prevention

The kids were constantly lectured on the dangers of leaving the door to the garage open for over 5 seconds. If I had a dollar for every time I screamed “Don’t leave that door open! A snake can crawl in!” I would be able to afford a full-time guard whose sole job would be to keep snakes from getting inside.

Three snakes in the house! OK, surely the snake committee took the hint that I was not a candidate for conversion.

Snake #4

The snake incident memories faded once again over time. Until the day I saw something on my daughter’s floor that made me cringe in horror. The shed skin of a snake in the middle of her floor. AAAAAAAAAA! It must be living under her bed. My daughter loves reptiles and has lizards that shed, so I called for her professional opinion. She agreed it was a skin, and neither one of us was brave enough to get closer than 8 feet from it.

For the next half an hour, the house was in a mom-induced panic. Everyone was instructed to quickly get all their belongings off the floor due to the impending snake hunt. Mentally I was already making preparations for moving to a hotel for the night and calling in an expert to hunt it down. This can’t be! Snake number four is statistically impossible. I don’t know anyone that’s even had one in their home. It is so unfair! Why me?! Where do we even begin to look? What state doesn’t have snakes because I’m moving there immediately.

Snake identification

The kids were standing on a bed protecting the baby while watching for the snake. I was patrolling the house with the hoe in hand and wearing my old duck boots for protection. This event was different…I have no idea where the creature is hiding.

I decided to be brave and take a closer look at the snake skin to see if I could identify a pattern on it. I had to know if I was dealing with a rattlesnake again. Oh…the things moms do. While approaching it with caution, my eyes were wildly darting from side to side looking for any signs of movement.

As I got closer, the skin began to look strangely familiar. When I saw what it was I screamed out for my daughter to come immediately. The “snake skin” was only a thin strip of corrugated cardboard she had cut while doing one of her crazy tape/cardboard construction projects (a story for another day). The corrugation looked like a diamond pattern from a distance.

Phew that was a relief. I called off the search, and we all had a nervous laugh.

Two days later I found the door to the garage sitting wide open again.

It’s OK. I dare them to send another one into my house.

Filed Under: Nature Tagged With: , ,

Failing Zoology…again

August 24, 2010 By 13 Comments
owl

The owl next door

One morning I let the dog out in the backyard. As I was impatiently waiting for him to do his business, I noticed an owl sitting on the corner of my next-door neighbor’s home.

I quickly ran inside and grabbed the girls. “Hurry! There is a huge owl outside. Come look quick! It is so rare to see them during the day! Shhh…be quiet so you don’t scare him away.”

Three nature explorers stood in the backyard admiring the owl, who was proudly perched on a short pole. We whispered our observations so we wouldn’t scare him away. We came to the conclusion he was sleeping. Full of awe at the wonder of nature, we tiptoed back inside. I figured my neighbors, who are retired and garden daily, had seen it already.

The explorers in us

The next day my girls informed me the owl was still there in the same spot. Not knowing anything about owls, I had to guess it was a mommy owl protecting her nest. What a wonderful opportunity for a science/nature lesson in our own backyard.

The scientific observations continued for 5 days as we admired the beauty of this magnificent creature and formed hypotheses on why it decided to make a home there and not in a tree. I intended to do more research but forgot.

Unnatural occurrances

Day six…
A thunderstorm was fast approaching and the wind was picking up. Trying to beat the inevitable downpour, I sent the dog out in the yard as usual. I was staring at the owl when I noticed something unnatural.

A strong wind gust caused the pole and the owl to bend forward…together…at a forty-five degree angle, and the owl didn’t flinch. It was only then that I realized it was a plastic owl. Suddenly I saw the unnatural shine of his feathers glistening in the sunlight. How did I not notice that before?

The news sent my oldest daughter into a hysterical fit of laughter. A trip to the hospital was looking inevitable as she wasn’t breathing and tears were streaming down her face.

My neighbor

A week later I ran into my neighbor and explained how we thought the owl was real. I told him it was a good thing I hadn’t run into him earlier or I would have embarrassed myself by excitedly announcing, “Hey! Did you see that amazing owl on your roof?” He was amused at the story and said the only thing it seemed to have scared was us, not the animals in his attic.

He mentioned the owl was for sale if I was interested. It was tempting, but I passed on the offer only because that would require climbing on the roof to install it.

I am not an animal expert

However, if I were to become a vet, I would specialize in plastic animals. The only tools required would be a hot glue gun and some paint, and there is no blood. If my neighbor’s owl ever had the misfortune of falling off the roof and suffering an injury, I would rush to save it.

As a B.S. Economics major, I was required to take Zoology. I know it doesn’t make sense. I failed the first time due to my inability to identify the dissected animals in lab.

I feel like I failed Zoology all over again.

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