Smack

So this new kitty of ours is going to be a big one. I swear she's already the size of a small raccoon. My oldest boy told me I'm not allowed to call her fat. Because that's mean. Ms. Paws is officially "round". But being round doesn't slow her down any, because, she's just... big all the way around.

And if you challenge her? She will bring it.

The smack-down starts innocently enough:


Soon enough you realize that her roundness only adds more power to her punch:


(or maybe it's the extra thumbs?)


Game over.

Entirely worth it

I dread trips to MalWart. But this, well, it made the whole florescent light, sensory overload, having to interact with people, on the brink of disaster three year old, wobbly cart, how did I just spend $145, so help me God I am never coming here again event entirely worth it.

And it's a whole lot bigger than it looks, okay?



This puddle was directly behind my car. It was lovely trying to step around it while attempting to load up my trunk with the whatever that I had bought. The whatever was heavy. My car was muddy. And the space that was left between this... formerly-alive puddle... and my car, and the cart with my kid, was interesting to say the least. Meanwhile some old guy was washing the windshield of the car next to us, and then he way-too-cheerfully said, "Gotta take care of the boss!" as he jumped in a different car and drove away. But that's beside my point.

I don't know what my point is.

What type of bird, exactly, has three legs and one beak?

Does MalWart clean their parking lot, like, ever?

And why did I never share this creation from last year? It's my favorite.


credit to my sarcastic sister for the de-motivational poster concept and the caption

Problem solving

"Give me a five here on my foot", said the kid in the tree...






Oh, also? Those boys took apart a washing machine and a dryer, almost completely by themselves. And then? They partly reassembled them.


{yes one is in the dryer}

Garden of Summer-past

Goodbye garden. Hello garden-blogging fail.



I'm equal parts thrilled and cringing that October is almost here.

This is my very favorite time of year. Running through crunchy leaves, sipping spiced cider, listening to my chickens sing as they scratch up the last of Summer's bugs, tidying up the garden in perfect hazy afternoon light, hearing combines chewing through the fields surrounding us, constantly sampling bits of whatever is going on or coming off our overworked dehydrator, tripping over the produce that spills out of our entryway and into our home... The whole season is one great big sensory experience, and I love it.

Cringing because, well, these glorious weeks are so fleeting.

And here it is, yes, almost October.


{not snow - cattail seeds}

And I have failed to blog about... anything and everything. But the garden? I barely mentioned it three times. That makes me cringe too. Seedlings in eggshells, harvesting peas, and voluptuous eggplants. That was it.

I did the writing in my head.

Here are handful of abbreviated posts that never made it to press:

1. I neglected far too much of our garden the previous year. The perfect solution to that is obviously to add another fifty square feet and five NDSU home garden variety trials. The observing, learning, comparing, tasting, and ownership the kids had of their trials was a beautiful thing. I wholeheartedly recommend this program to my North Dakota friends!

2. Our pole bean tee-pee was magnificent. I've never grown pole beans before. I underestimated them. It was shocking how the tee-pee went from bare to covered to unrecognizable (in a matter of fourteen days) as the beans went beyond crazy. The cats loved that thing, far too much. They even left offerings exactly in the middle of it. So weird.





3. The younger boy planted sixteen watermelon plants. See variety trials above. See oppressed overworked dehydrator above.



4. Apples! Finally these trees produced enough to justify using the word harvest. And harvest we did. We waited four and a half years for this.


{maybe that one had a bug?}

5. I cannot imagine fall without winter squash. A whole long shelf full. Every one of my seeds rotted in the ground this Spring, and I was irrationally upset about it. Yeah, I know I can get winter squash at the grocery store or the Farmer's Market. It just isn't the same. Then I found a volunteer something among the sunflowers that looked suspiciously gourd-like. Sweet happy day when I realized it was, in fact, winter squash. God does answer insignificant little prayers.

Game on

Nothing says true love like:

Someone searching Asia for a meaningful, plastic, made-in-China souvenir gift for his wife. 'Cause Lord knows you can't get stuff like that around here. Even better, he had previously (repeatedly) told me not to purchase said item because of all it's redeeming plastic junk qualities. He settled for a chocolate candy bar instead. It had intriguing Chinese script on the wrapper which made it extra cool.


Nothing says irony (no, not ironing) like:

That fantastic plastic made-in-China itemapparently not for sale in China. Being a "piece of junk" is actually it's most endearing characteristic (I swear I'm not being sarcastic for once), which is why it has held a place of honor on my Amazon wish list for so long. You know how this ends, right? My sweet husband showed up with an empty Hershey's wrapper, because it would have melted on the way home anyway.

Or maybe a cow...

Maybe, just maybe, a cow would be more entertaining than a donkey?





Fun facts:
1. Objects may be closer than they appear. Like, dangerously so.
2. I didn't realize fact number one soon enough.
3. I learned fact number two after I discovered that someone had drooled on me. A lot.
4. Slobbering cows drool like they mean it. And then some.
5. If I could borrow this critter and park it outside my friend Deanna's house to slime up her kitchen window... I totally would.

Paper chain

There was this paper chain. In the kitchen. It was fairly long. Not anything impressive like military-deployment long (one of the reasons we waited to have kids). But still, it was far more days than we had ever been away from each other (beyond military life).

It was a count-down, and there was more than a week still left on the chain.



While we waited for the school bus I told one of the boys to rip a link off the chain.

He was sufficiently confused.

"Did we forget one?"

This is supposed to be an end-of-day activity.



Little Miss Destructo had no hesitation in breaking our own rule and ripping a few links off. Over the last nine days we had to re-tape several unauthorized removals back on. I have also had to extract one cat's tail from the door (pretty sure it, the tail - not the door, is broken), rescue a boy's formerly elaborate half-dismantled Lego creation, confiscate a broom (don't ask), and clean up the remains of 52 (yep, fifty two, I counted) over-ripe apples that were used as bouncy balls indoors... all courtesy of The Unstoppable Bean.


{the princess shirt kills me}

Then a fight broke out. Someone grabbed a link out of someone else's hand, or took one out of turn, or I really have no idea. You know, the usual. The princess was the one left crying, however, which is unusual.

It's hard to feel too sorry for her when she's usually the one wrecking everyth... well, nevermind.

"Boys. BOYS! What does it mean if the whole chain is gone!?"



1/160th of a blurry second, apparently, and they got it.

Daddy was coming home early!

From the surprises-don't-ever-go-over-so-well even if they're fantastic ones, I-don't-know-how-to-express-myself face...



to the really-Mom-you're-not-joking, wanting-to-believe, guarded smile...



Really?

Ummmm.... yes.



The only bad news was his surprise early return left me no time to borrow a donkey.

I guess there's always next time.

Clearing my conscience

My husband was in China a month ago, and I gave his side of our bed to a cat. It wasn't premeditated. I wasn't even certain the spur-of-the-moment kitty acquisition was actually happening until my dear friend put the kitten in my car and my confused kids said "What?". It might have been appropriate to wonder what my husband would say, since we already had a herd of one indoor and three outdoor cats. Then I remembered that I am the crazy cat lady, and my groom was well aware of that when he married me.

As it turns out, I had no need to worry. I was about to pull off my best yet "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission" moment. Not that I try to make it a habit or anything. See, as we were on Facetime attempting to gently break it to him that we had brought a new animal home in his absence, he jumped ahead of my words and assumed it was a large animal that eats grass. A donkey.

He was so relieved that it was only a cat.

Excuse me while I high-five myself in the mirror...



Paw-lee looks an awful lot like Bad Kitty, but with extra toes on her gigantic adorable feet. However, if the tragic events leading up to the cat re-homing incident had a title, it would definitely be Bad Doggie.


The roller coaster of emotions was rattling at top speed.

My own kids were angry and in shocked disbelief that I had executed our Red Rooster while they slept the night before. Despite my 20 minute top-of-my-lungs sobbing under the stars I was nowhere near finished grieving. It may have been Game Over but that doesn't mean it wasn't horribly upsetting or that I didn't love that ornery rooster dearly.

My friend's family was reeling from the violent death of two of their other kittens from the week before, which had followed yet another one, which had followed the inexcusable death of their sweet beloved Momma cat just days after her babies were born. Bad, bad doggie.

Now that the remaining one is ours, I feel so guilty that I wasn't more strongly insistent on taking a time-share of bottle feeding that batch of kittens when they were tiny.

For the record, The Old Nichols Farm has officially reached it's quota of cats.

For the record, we're in love.



My husband is in China again, and I think it would be pretty darn funny to borrow someone's ass (the four-legged kind) and park it in my corral just to mess with him when he gets home.

Hello 10th

Hello Kitty. Hello breakfast strawberry.


Hello schoolwork.


Hello snakeskin!


Hello Paw-lee!


Uh. Hello mess.


Hello sensory experience. (are you annoyed with the hello stuff yet?)


BUSTED! Caught shopping in Daddy's stuff.


Hello 14-inch circumference eggplant! (can't help myself - I tried, and anyway, Hello Kitty started it)


Helllllllooooo broody Mimi!


Hello "why am I missing a pic?" Hello whatever.

Hello linky:

Summer

Would we be this uncivilized if our nearest neighbor wasn't a mile away?


{some of us don't have tan lines}

Definitely.

How (not) to tame your rooster

First, you've got to catch your rooster. This is likely easier said than done. Go ahead, click that link. I'll wait.

Red happened to be distracted by the little sister's dance moves. He was either plotting against her or very confused. Or both. One of the grown-ups saw the golden opportunity and nabbed him quick. The element of surprise... there's nothing quite like it when it comes to catching a disrespectful rooster.

It's true. We've got an ongoing respect issue. Lack of respect. The bird hates my kids. Having them sit on him once in awhile boosts their courage and knocks his ego down a healthy notch.



Except, ummm... when the rooster's face turns dark purple and you have to remind the kid he's not supposed to be sitting with ALL his weight on the rooster. I mean, the thing has to be able to breath.



Oops.

Well, that's better. Red is so much more handsome red than purple.

The other brother will want a turn too. But the sister won't.

And when we finally let him go...

Did you know roosters can swear?

Magical

A neighbor asked if I was surprised. My blank expression was accompanied by a four-second inner monologue echoing in my brain that went something like this: "Surprised that I'm a year older? That my nearly-eight-year-old spent half the church service hiding under the pew because he couldn't stand the guest-pastor's voice? That we might actually have some chicks hatching soon? That the mohawk fits the littler boy's personality perfectly? That someone broke the unspoken no-birthday gifts rule and did a dang good job of it too!? Oh, no. Wait. What if it's that thing that I joked to my husband was going to happen only because the winner gets a girly girl prize, and that is just my luck."

And yep, it was that thing.

4H kids learn a whole lot of life skills, like the uncanny ability to put together a very very last minute entry for the Fair and still somehow walk away with the super-fancy Champion ribbon. It's a priceless talent to have, really. My Mom will be thrilled to hear that I've still got what it takes.

So I sincerely ask, what in the world will I do with a $20 styling salon gift certificate?

My husband sincerely asked, "What if a man had won it?"

I looked at his partly-bald head and giggled, "I guess you could get your hair cut!"

Anyway, last night topped off a pretty great week with a magical combination of ingredients: My children were sleeping and their Daddy was home to watch them. It was warm out. There was just enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes from being obnoxious. In a quiet corner of the barn, tiny peeps sang to their Mama hen as they fought their way out of their shells and into a whole new world. Electrons from the sun were blasting the Earth's magnetic field, causing the sky to dance overhead.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the psychotic little skunks crossed my path when I was out of the car.

And I stayed up way, way too late.

Magic, I tell you.

Our buggy 4th

We brought our collection of Red Admiral chrysalises to the lake:
a. to keep the kids entertained on the three-hour drive.
b. because I heard it was the cool new thing to do.
c. to show my Dad the evidence that I had identified the caterpillars wrong. (oh, the shame... they're Red Admirals, not Buckeyes)
d. because I was too chicken to ask my neighbor to babysit them for me after I'd already asked him to keep an eye on my chickens, and you certainly can't have butterflies flitting around the house unsupervised.

e. all of the above.

The Bean was ecstatic about:
a. Daddy and you and me and the boys and me and you and Daddy going to the lake? And Daddy? And ALL of us!!!
b. stealing tomatoes.
c. helping her Mom get an abandoned Project 52 back on track.
d. fishing during the day...

and at night...

e. all except choice "c", of course.

The boys found a toad that:
a. peed a lot!

b. made them laugh and squeal and climb up a cliff and run ALL the way back up the hill to show the Grandmas in the cabin.
c. did not amuse the Grandmas.
d. was gigantic! (at least by North Dakota standards)
e. ALL of the above.

The porch was a great place to find:
a. Great Grandpa Gus talking in German!
b. bare feet.
c. numerous Mayflies that stuck like velcro anywhere we put them!

d. a rogue cactus, which ended up stuck in someone's poor little foot!?
e. all of the above.

Perhaps the best part of shooting off fireworks when we got home was:
a. The Bean's very first sparkler!

b. scaring the living daylights out of our curious chickens with that first "boom".
c. Daddy tossing a firecracker into the septic tank.
d. playing with fire and making smoke.

e. every single bit of it.

This "4th of July Week" multiple choice fun is brought to you:
a. at least a few days too late.
b. just to freshen up this crusty old moldy lonely blog.
c. for the third time, which officially makes it an annual tradition. (2011 and 2010)
d. by a procrastinating Mom who should be doing dishes and folding laundry.
e. all of the (cough, cough) above.