Dirty

We went camping.

My kids (all of them) kicked the dirt, threw dirt in the air, rolled around in the dirt, inspected the dirt, and wiggled around in the dirt on their tummies. The little Bean got tired, put her head down and plowed through it like a bulldozer hard at work.

They were dusty, dirty, happy, smiling kids. It was such a fun novelty, because as you know, we don't have dirt at home.

I was photographing them, but then...

Then I saw this, on some milkweed which I was innocently checking for Monarch caterpillars.



I swear the only reason I took a photo was because, for the life of me, I couldn't remember the name of those red beetles.

Then I saw more pairs of them. I did not find it comical, and I did not get as close as the minimum focus distance of my almighty telephoto lens would allow, and I did not then zoom in on them because I don't yet have a macro lens (although there is one that I dream of).

A single pretty red beetle caught my eye, as she was sitting on the milkweed. All alone. I did not watch as a boy beetle scrambled up the milkweed plant toward her as she waited, and I certainly did not take yet another photo after he climbed on top of her.

Oh admit it! You would have watched too!

It was bizarre, red beetles were getting busy all over the milkweed.



If you look closely at the picture in the upper left corner of that collage, you can even see their parts!

(and I know you looked)

But that isn't the kind of thing I put on my blog. I always keep it clean. I never write about animals mating, and absolutely never ever talk about chicken sex. Nope, you'll never catch me doing that!

Ummm... nevermind.

Is this better?



After I wrote this up, I got out my Simon and Schuster's Guide to Insects. It's not the best insect identification book in the world, but it will usually do the trick. My heart did not start beating faster as I got to the section on beetles, because I am not a complete nerd. And there it was, in all it's wondrous beauty, the Milkweed Longhorn (Tetraopes basalis). I am also now certain that I have lost my mind, because how in the world could I not remember that!?


Linking up with Macro Monday at Lisa's Chaos, and MckMama's Not Me Monday.

Eye contact

Sometimes it's hard to get pictures of the kids looking right into the camera. Wait a minute, what am I talking about? Man, it's always a struggle.

But, ummmm... I have the answer.

It's my secret.

But I'll share if you all promise to send me chocolate. Lots of chocolate. The darker the better.

Or lemons. I'll take lemons too. Organic please.

Okay then.



Hey, I never said the facial expression would be amazing. Just that you'll have the eyes.

I had the beeper and the flashing light warnings going on my camera's self-timer. The camera was on the floor. That little Bean was intrigued, entranced, hypnotized, desperate. The camera was right there for the taking. If only she could... just...

Like a moth to the flame.

Her battle cry, like any good cave-baby, was "Uuuuuuuuggggghhhhh. AHHHHH! Ummmmbobmmmmm. Maaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmm! Beebeebeebeeeeee."

As you can plainly see, I was hanging onto this sweet uncivilized little wild thing for my dear camera's life.

Nice, huh?

Maybe I ought to put that one on the blog.

And what is with my neck? That is so flattering. I have no doubt that I could use a good exfoliating, but I look like a reptile about to molt.

Cows at sunset

Because really, I had nothing better to do.

{cough}

Actually, I was free. As free as a Red Rooster when he's not locked away in solitary confinement in the dog house. As free as a mom can be, when she has narrowly escaped the house armed with only a camera... and a grocery list.

No, people, I was fully dressed. Don't even go there.

Thank the good Lord we found the car keys. Today, I almost got all the dishes washed, almost got the whole main floor of the house vacuumed, almost got the entirety of the bathroom scrubbed. Almost lost my mind. Almost. It would have been fitting, in a depressing kind of way, had those keys remained at large as I would then have almost made it to town.

I was on my way to Walmart, ya'll! All by myself! Yeehaw!

I weep and wail and pour ashes on my head every time I have to shop there.

{sigh} But we can save that for another day.

At first they were all like, "What the heck?"



Cows are not very good models.

Move a few steps this way... now lift your head and look straight into the camera.

Or not.



Is it too much to ask just one of you to lift your head?



Apparently so.

Maybe I should have yelled or whistled to get their attention. Except that I have some kind of disability which causes me to be unable to whistle. I have tried, and tried, and tried. I just can't whistle.

And they're not my cows, so I didn't want to harass them.

AND I had not a clue how the cows were posing, because by this point, I was blind.

Public Service Announcement: Boys and girls, do not look at the sun. Do not look at the sun's reflection bouncing off a mirror. Do not look through a camera at the sun as it shines into your camera's lens and bounces off the mirror contained within the camera, causing it to shine directly through the viewfinder and straight into your eyeball.



Oh the pain and agony I went through to bring you this sun flare.


You Capture - "America"

So I'm late with this You Capture, but better now than when the cows come home.

Multiple choice

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is my twelve dollar Hibiscus tree. You'll just have to trust me that a picture doesn't do it justice.



It's amazing. It's beautiful. The flowers are the size of my hand.

It looks so exotic and out of place here on the farm. The wind knocked it over once, and my darn chickens ate every single bloom off of it. If I can manage to keep it alive in our house through the winter it will be a miracle. But you know me, I am going to try. And honestly, stranger things have happened around here, so what the heck. Right?

Now, for purely entertainment purposes, let's play a little game of multiple choice.

I washed this gorgeous Hibiscus with warm soapy water today because:
a. I overdosed on my thyroid medication which meant my house was spotless from top to bottom and I was desperate for something else to clean.
b. it has become home to approximately five hundred thirty two trillion hungry little aphids and there is not a single ladybug around to save the day.
c. I always listen to the voices in my head.
d. one of my greatest talents is procrastination, and I had a sink full of dirty dishes.

And...

I'm up later than I should be, yet again, but this time I'm blaming it on:

a. guilt for not picking peas since Friday and knowing that many of them are going to be way too mature to taste decent, and even though they technically won't be wasted, will end up going to the chickens.
b. amazement at how a wild turkey can lodge itself way the heck up a pine tree with just a little encouragement from the sharp pointy teeth of our resident predator.



c. wondering exactly what maximum length of time a hen can keep sperm from a rooster (internal fertilization and all, you know, with those eggs they lay).
d. lusting after a Canon 5D mark II after getting so comfortable with one in my hands all of Saturday afternoon.
e. all of the above.

Also...

My 4th of July weekend was truly amazing because:

a. my little Bean slept through fireworks that were loud enough to wake the dead.



b. I spent half a day playing with (and drooling on) nearly four thousand dollars worth of photography equipment, while simultaneously giving my brainiac electrical engineer brother a taste of his own medicine by letting him eavesdrop on a conversation about a topic that he didn't comprehend, which by default made me feel brilliant and important.
c. the food was awesome, the company great, and our tent even stayed dry and bug-free.
d. the pee limit was three.



e. all of the above.

Facing Myself - July linky

I'm not sure exactly what possessed me.

In the nearly three years that we've lived here, I swear I have never before climbed the windmill even once. And certainly not at one o'clock in the morning.



Although my husband has done it. When we first moved here, climbing the windmill was the only way we he could get reception on our cell phone. Our only phone. Yes, for real.

Perfectly civilized, don't you think?

That shot was way harder to get than I imagined it would be. Of course, having never previously climbed the windmill, maybe I just didn't know what I was getting myself into. My timer is all of ten seconds. The bottom of the windmill ladder is five and a half feet off the ground. The shutter speed I decided on was half a second.

In the howling wind at one o'clock in the morning with our dog thoroughly enjoying the show.

So once I had the camera all set up and found a step-stool, it went something like this: push shutter button, run, climb, freeze at the exact half-second moment it mattered, climb back down, tell the dog how much I love her, peek at the photo and it's histogram... wash, rinse, repeat nineteen times.

You don't even have to do the math to know I was a sweaty little monkey by the time I gave up.

And yet I think this shot worked.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, go have a great holiday weekend with family and friends. I wish you awesome food, cold beverages, sunny days and mosquito-free evenings. You have all week to come back here and link up with your self-portrait. For details click here and also here.

The next Facing Myself linky will be here the first Saturday of August. Those of you who are intrigued and also terrified by the thought of a self-portrait, you have an entire month to think about it. I expect my head might explode with all the self-portrait ideas I have. Now, wouldn't that be something to get a picture of?

Despite hail and high water

In the evening after my kids are to bed, it's then that I escape down this path lit with golden light.



I come to visit my beautiful green things.

July is the magic month, the time when my little green things become lush and lovely.

The potatoes are starting to flower. That means if I gently reach beneath them, I would find perfect small new potatoes. It's addictive, pulling those little jewels out of the ground with my bare hands. You have no idea.

And when I do, I'll have garden dirt under my nails for at least a week.



I instantly like people with garden dirt under their nails.

Gardening teaches patience.



Our new bed of asparagus is doing exactly what it should. The growth on top is feeding the baby crowns below, giving them the strength to make it through our harsh winter. In a few years they'll be strong enough to survive the harvest of some of the first shoots that grow in early spring.

Corn should be knee-high by the fourth of July? Well, we're doing better than the ankle-high we had last year at this time. Deceiving angle, isn't it?



When sweet corn is harvested, it immediately begins to convert it's sugars to starch. There is nothing like grabbing some ripe ears, husking them right there in the garden and then racing back to the house to a pot of boiling water that is ready and waiting.

Look what I found!

Cilantro!



I thought it looked suspiciously like something when I was weeding. I wasn't sure what kind of something it was, so I let it be. Patience is a virtue.

I love the quiet calm and repetitive motion of hand weeding. It's my time. My time when no children are yelling, "Mommy wipe my butt!". My time to ponder on the mysteries of life, such as the reasons why my Red rooster attacked my mother-in-law.

Gardening forgives, giving me a new chance every year.

And yet, this gardener wonders how many chances that Red rooster should have. Right now, he's hanging on by a very thin thread of grace.


For the You Capture challenge this week, Beth gave let us choose between "Green", "Hands", or "Chairs".

You Capture - "Green"

A bedtime story

So finally it happened. Something that has never happened before, for us. Not saying I'm proud of it, or anything. I guess it just means I can sympathize with other parents in yet another of these "oh crap" parenting situations.

We had one of those days. You know. The kind where you collapse into bed and wonder at how on earth you (and your offspring) survived the day.

The Bean has arrived at the place where she needs between one and two naps a day. This adds to our daily disaster in strange and frustrating ways.

It was only six in the evening and she was froot-looping it bad. Bouncing off the walls (literally), laughing like some kind of evil maniac who had escaped the psycho ward (she is my daughter, after all), shaking the kitchen table so violently she spilled the boys cups... she stopped, briefly, when she heard our rooster crow. She crowed back at him through the window, and then went racing into the other room and attacked the furniture.

It was too early for bedtime but really, what could I do?

We use flat cloth diapers during the day, but at night she uses her Cadillac of a cloth diaper, the BumGenius 3.0. We have only one. I wash it every day. It has velcro closures. She likes to take it off as soon as I put it on her.

The plot thickens...

It was hot in the house. HOT. And humid too.

I made a gut wrenching decision to put her to bed in only her diaper. Why? Because she was so darn tired, I knew she was going to just go right to sleep once I laid her down. Plus, her short sleeved onesies that I normally lock her diaper into were all dirty, so I really had no other option.

We did our thing, she was sufficiently distracted, and to bed she went like a happy obedient little snuggly lamb.

Appearances can be deceiving.

Forty-three freaking minutes later she let loose a blood-curdling screech.

FAIL! I knew what it meant.

I snuck up the stairs and peeked through the crack of her barely open door, only to see her bare naked little crack peeking back at me. Sure enough, there were two wet puddles in her bed. She'd nailed her favorite blankie, along with the discarded BumGenius, but the party had been much wilder than that.

She had pooped.

Had she not squealed mid-squish with the poop in her hand, it would have been far worse. Sometimes the only way I stay sane (I mean, beyond my normal level of insanity) is by convincing myself that it could always be worse. Always. It could be. How that would be possible, I'm not always sure, but it helps to imagine it anyway.

The party travelled with her into the tub, nearly an hour after I put her to bed.



With the BumGenius out of service, I panicked, but then rejoiced upon finding a disposable diaper in the bottom of our diaper bag. I gathered up her bedding and remembered that I was out of laundry soap. It's not a big deal. I make my own. Why was the jug empty? Because I am queen of not doing something now if I can put it off until later. Later had arrived.

Things could always be worse.

My husband was home. He chaperoned her bath-tub party so I could take care of all the dirty business. Thank God. And then he put the boys to bed while I snuggled my little force-of-nature a second time.

And wouldn't you know it, there was a short-sleeved onesie in her dresser, the entire time.