One herb away from Scarborough Fair

Despite my strange and inexplicable affinity for all things Gnome, my thumb is most decidedly not green. The Cowboy is the gardener in our little family, and that's just fine with me for the most part. I help him here and there when he needs it, but for the most part, I'm a Plant Killer. I come by it naturally, I suppose. Betty Nuggs is a plant killer also. You won't find any green living things in her house, unless it's mold on some old food in the fridge. I'd like to think I'm a little better about having plants and taking proper care of them than my mother. Perhaps not much, and perhaps not at all, maybe I'm just fooling myself, but I have managed to have 3 indoor house plants for several years now, and not kill them.

When it comes to the out of doors, however, I generally turn the reins over to The Cowboy and he does a great job. He comes by his gardening abilities just as naturally as I come by mine - his parents have bananas, oranges, strawberries, tomatoes, okra, and all manner of other edible and non-edible plants growing in their yard. It's like a jungle over there. But in a good way. The Cowboy is the same way. We could open up our own produce stand over here with all the things he plants and grows each year.

We have an apple tree (with one teeny little apple!)

An orange tree with lots of itty bitty oranges!

Garlic

Cucumber plants (which will turn into pickles)

Dewberry bushes (which will turn into jam)

He also has some tomatoes, peppers and lemons back there. And lord knows what else. In addition to some beautiful rose bushes on the side of the house.

Every year I try to plant some herbs and keep from killing them until at least June. I've been mildly successful in the past, and some of that success has carried over from year to year. We couldn't kill our rosemary if we tried.

It's rouge. And 2 years ago I planted some thyme on the side of the house that is still going strong. I never use thyme in my cooking, so it just sit there and looks pretty, but it's growing nicely, and I will take the credit for that despite my lack of watering and pretty much forgetting it's over there.

This year I have once again decided to try my hand, or thumb as the case may be, at growing a little herb garden. I bought seeds for basil, parsley and lavender and planted them in pots. Then I forgot to water them for about a week, but thankfully we had some rain. And miraculously, when I checked on the plants the other day - lo and behold! Hark!

Green! Buds! Plants! Living things!

I can't remember which pot I put what in, so I have 2 out of 3 pots sprouting growth, and I don't have any idea what it is coming up. It's like a fun little mystery! Surprise! We've got basil! Or parsley! Or maybe lavender! Time will tell. Sometimes it pays to have a shitty memory.

My calla lily plants also bloomed nicely this year, despite my best efforts to unintentionally kill them. Perhaps the plants have forgiven me! See here, people of the internets, I will become a World Class Gardener, the likes of which few can ever hope to become. Akin to (insert famous gardener name here)!

Probably not. But if I can make something grow and have some yummy basil to put on the tomatoes The Cowboy grows, I'll be happy. Baby steps.

Speaking of growing things and making jam, it was Jam Central over here today. Jam Master Cowboy and I made 27 jars of strawberry jam. No, we did not grow the strawberries. I got them on sale at my new favorite store, Sprouts. But now we have enough jam to last us until the apocalypse.

I will be sure to keep you all abreast of my gardening triumphs. Please pray for me and for my plants and for rain in case (when) I forget to water them.

Winter Wonderland

Yes, I realize it's long past Christmas. And technically, here in Austin, today it's 75 degrees. But since a week ago I was freezing my butt off in Michigan, and I haven't blogged in nearly 2 weeks, I reserve the right to use the above title.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all that jazz. I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Mine was great. I feel like I don't even know where to begin to blog in order to try and catch everyone up with what's been going on. And then I decided I don't really care, I'm just gonna go for it. So up first is all the winter fun The Cowboy and I had in Michigan.

Let me begin by saying that we drove up in 1 day - 22 hours to be exact - only stopping to eat, pee, and get gas. Sometimes all in one stop. The Cowboy, God Bless him, drove all but 5 hours of that journey, and those 5 hours really wiped me out. I'm a wimp. Anyway, we didn't have ANY inclement weather or bad weather on the journey up (or home, for that matter). It was a completely uneventful trip, except that I was actually able to knit for quite sometime and ordinarily, I can't knit (or read) in a moving vehicle. So that was quite an accomplishment for me.

I digress. We didn't hit snow until about Toledo, which is about 40 minutes from my mom's house. Now let me tell you that the way my mom, my aunts, cousins and friends were talking, I was expecting to hit blizzards in Kentucky. Not so much. A little dusting of snow in Dayton, OH, but otherwise no snow until we hit Michigan for the most part.

But then, when we hit Michigan,.....oh boy.

Snow galore. Inches and inches of it.

Here's Lloyd, atop a mound of snow on a table on my mom's deck.

And it continued to snow the day we got there. The roads were awful. Snow was everywhere. What do you do when you're from Texas and you go up to Michigan and you are surrounded by more snow than you've ever seen before?

Why, you build a snowman. Of course.

I've never seen The Cowboy so excited. Me? Eh. I could take it or leave it. It was fun for 10 minutes. But The Cowboy, being from Texas, had to have a BIG GIANT Snowman. Because everything is bigger in Texas, and he wanted that rule to apply to his snowman. I got bored. Fast. And cold.

So I took lots of breaks.

But The Cowboy's snowman-shaping technique was sloppy, so I had to step in and assist.

Lloyd, I'd like to mention, was no help whatsoever. He was busy making snow-gnome-angels.

We both look like idiots in this one.

Our efforts paid off. Introducing......

Arnold. I don't know why we named him that, but we did, and it stuck. Arnold and Lloyd.

The whole fam.

I loved Arnold. He was a great and loyal snowman. For 3 days. And then, tragedy struck.

Ah, what are you gonna do?

Michigan or Bust!

It's 6:00 and I'm sitting here blogging, an old Snoop Doggy Dogg song running through my head:

"I got some b!tches in the living room getting in on, and they ain't leavin' till six in tha mo'nin

(SIX IN THA MO'NIN)"

Ah, Snoop. You always seem to find a way to put into words all of those little tricky life situations.

We leave for Michigan today. We are driving. It should take about 2 days and all the patience I can muster to ride in the car with The Cowboy, AKA He Who Thinks He is the Only and Best Driver in the Word and on the Road, and All Other People Should Get the Hell Out of His Way or He Will Run You Off the Road Because You Are An Idiot and Clearly Don't Know How to Drive For Shit.

Does Snoop have a song for that? I'm thinking I'll take a large sedative. Wake me when we cross over the border in Ohio.

Accompanying us on this journey will be my gnew gnome friend

This is Lloyd. He's a Michignome. He was a gift from my friend Cheeto (Stinky Pants' Mom). He is appropriately named after the recently retired and beloved coach of Michigan football (before they sucked this year, thank you RichRod), Lloyd Carr.

I am really looking forward to a nice, long, relaxing trip home, where I get to see my family, my friends and all my favorite places that they just don't have here in Austin, Texas (Meijer, Coney Island, Trader Joe's, Panera). Because of this, I'm not sure how often, if at all, I will be blogging while I'm gone. But I will be taking LOTS of pictures, and mentally writing lots of blogs. So I'll have lots to report when I get back.

I hope you all have a great, wonderful, magical, safe and fun holiday, where ever you may be and however you choose to spend it.

It's a Festivus for the Rest of Us!

Chillin' with my Gnomies

Just when you thought I couldn't get any weirder (it's ok, go ahead and admit it, you think I'm a circus freak, and you're not entirely wrong), I have a confession for you today that will really push it over the edge. If you know me IRL, then you already know about my little collection (problem, obsession, all consuming need for) of Garden Gnomes.

I don't know when it started, or why, but I can't get enough. So today, because I'm feeling extra funky, I thought I'd go ahead and confess my obsession to you and introduce you to my posse of GnomeBoys.

We will begin with The Brothers - the first 3 gnomes I ever owned, given to me for Christmas one year by the Cowboy's parents.

There is Harold, holding his watering can, tending to the rosemary.

And Simon, holding his prized radish. Simon had a terrible fall 2 weeks ago. "Someone" was sweeping up the porch and knocked Simon over. He broke right in half, and his hat was shattered into many smaller pieces. I managed to put his 2 halves back together, but his hat is missing a big piece at the top. It was pretty bad carnage, and I choose not to show you a picture of the current Simon. This is him in his former, complete state.This is Nigel, also known as The Roaming Gnome. Last year some of my "friends" thought it would be hilarious to steal Nigel from my back yard and photograph him all over the country doing various things, and send me pictures and notes from him. Real funny stuff. I'm still laughing....... uh huh. Anyway, the kidnappers weren't the smoothest or most experienced, and they sent me the following picture of Nigel at the beach.
Look closely at the upper right hand corner of the photo. Notice anything written in the sand? Anything that resembles a name? Anything that resembles the name of a certain friend I have with awesome hair and a nickname that rhymes with testicle?
Nice try, Wes. You're gonna have to get up earlier than that to pull one off on ol' Caps, though. Nigel was returned safely and now resides in the guest bedroom of our house. He is no longer allowed to go outside, for fear he will take off.

This is Squeaky. He's the smallest of all my gnomes, and stands about 3 inches tall. Squeaky is my Gnitting Gnome, and lives in my stash box with all my yarns.
This is a terrible picture of Gerald. Gerald is the front door Gnome. He is attached to a "Welcome" sign that greets visitors when they come to our home.Dudley and Otis were a gift from a former student of mine, and are a rain gauge.
The Gno Evil Gnomes are named Huey, Louie and Dewy.This is Pappy, and he is taking a little gnap. Please don't disturb him.
Shhhh, speaking of sleeping, here is my old pal Chadwick, the Gnight Time Gnome, reading a bed time story to his buddy Gavin. Chadwick is currently on Sabbatical in Michigan, but he should be home for the holidays.This chap was also a gift from the Cowboy's parents. I love how they accept my complete quirkiness, and fully support it. He was a gift for my 30th birthday, and when I opened him at the party, I said "Oh, we will have to think of a good gname for him!". My friend Megan's little boy, Jacob (age 4) was there and he said "Santa!!!" I guess to a child, he does sort of resemble St. Gnick, so I went ahead and named him Santa Gnome.

Another birthday gift, this one from The Cuteness' parents, and his name is Barney. I made the mistake of putting him gnext to Pappy in the garden, and clearly, he got the impression that it's acceptable to do gnothing but sleep all the time.

And this fella here is the newest addition to my Gnomies. See how shiny and beautiful he is? I did that. I painted him myself. He was just a blank, white gnome until I came along and made him what he is today. He's a true work of art, don't you think? Because of that, he had to have an appropriate gname. So I'd like to introduce you to: Michaelangegnome. Mike will also be an indoor gnome.

Those are my boys! I don't have any girl gnomes, and I rarely see them. My boys don't gneed any distractions anyway.

I can assure you of several things. First, I gnever claimed to be gnormal. Second, these gnames that I just listed above were gnot made up for purposes of this blog. All of my gnomes are gnamed as soon as I bring them home. Third, gnow you (g)know what to get me for Christmas.

Hope you all have a great weekend!