Bugdate

I successfully have blogged what, once? twice? in the past month. Summer is here, which means that my hubby is off doing field work off and on. That leave me lots of one-on-one Bug time, but also less "sit on my butt and blog time."

Bug is doing awesome. He is up to 5 teeth and his hair is in his face. He is a solid walker now, and can run (and it's adorable, even if it isn't steady.) He loves to do everything that mommy and daddy do, even if that leads to some frustration on his part. It truly amazes me at what he watches us do, and he mimics it perfectly. Example from this last weekend. Friends from Pennsylvania came to stay in the Moosequito Inn and we took them gold panning. Bug spent most of the time playing in the creek while we panned for gold (daddy and I took turns watching him.) At one point we put down our pans and sat on the edge of the stream. Bug walked over, grabbed a pan, threw a scoop of dirt from the bucket into it and started to pan. He did it exactly like we did. It was adorable.

Friday, Bug started daycare. It was horrible and broke my heart to drop him off. He was there for three hours while I ran to the greenhouse to pick up my free green bean plants. He seemed "ok" when I showed up, but then just sat in my lap and cried. The poor guy has never been away from me. I'm glad I have the opportunity to have him transition slowly, I think....

Lots going on. We've had a TON of rain, and my garden is not happy. Hopefully it gets warmer and stays a little dryer for a bit. I'd like SOMETHING in my garden to grow.

Now, for some photos.

Garden Update

I am 1/2 way through Solo Parenting. Hubby is out SOMEWHERE in Alaska flying in a helicopter doing archaeology "stuff."  I know he was in a cave. I'm a horrible wife when it comes to explaining what he does.

ANYWAY Solo parenting is going well. I'm afraid to say "great" because Karma might come bite me in the ass. We're having fun! Lots of fun. Bug is an amazing little guy and I love spending time with him. We went through a few days of injury after injury.

Thursday last week he cut his finger - blood everywhere.
Friday night he fell and "fixed" his lip tie himself. - blood everywhere.
Saturday he fell a the park and hit his head - giant goose egg
Sunday fell and bit his lip- little blood and black and blue lip.

SO, as you can see, we had a rough couple of days. Poor Bug.

The Garden went in last weekend. I'd like to say that it's doing "awesome" and things are growing like crazy, but this is my first year growing in AK and things that did great in Seattle (i.e. Basil) are NOT doing well here. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but if it starts to go south, I'm going to harvest it all and call it good!

I have a ton of things planted.

Basil, Red Onions, Yellow Onions, Strawberries, Sunflower, Pumpkin (pie), Pumpkin (Atlantic Giant), Cabbage (OS Cross), Cabbage (Gonzales), Radishes (French Breakfast- I think!), Lettuce (Simpson), Lettuce (Corn), Cilantro, Thyme, Chives, Rosemary, Beets (? I forget!), Carrots, (I forget!! I have it written down somewhere...), Rhubarb, Garlic, Squash (variety of types, Winter, Spagetti, Yellow), Zucchini, Cucumbers (Bush, and three other types....dang it....only I would write a blog post with 1/2 the info!), Potatoes (6 towers), Corn  (Earlivee), Chard,  Tomatoes (a variety of types and they are driving me NUTS.) I'll do an updated list of everything and how it is doing for my own records (at some point.)

Seriously. Tomatoes like it hot and are not doing very hot. Last night I threw together a greenhouse for them to live in. In the process of building it the Bug attempted to help so I ended up getting my finger with the drill. OUCH. Tomatoes are more needy than the Bug. I spent today figuring which spot in the yard saw the most sun and I pulled that stupid thing there with the Bug's "help." I then had to move the cabbage because it was where the sunniest spot was.

SOMETHING BETTER GROW!!!!

The radishes and Simpson Lettuce are coming up. I had to giggle when I saw that. The first few rows are nice then I said !@#$ it and threw the seeds and ran to the house. The mosquitoes are HORRIBLE!! HORRIBLE-HORRIBLE-HORRIBLE. In 45 minutes I got bit 47 times (the marks that I could see and count.) I HATEZ THEM! Did I mention I hate Mosquitoes? Also, the onions are doing well, the first potatoes are peeking up, and the strawberries are getting flowers.

I bought a Mosquito Magnet at a yard sale the weekend before my husband left It needs propane and I don't want to drive with propane in the car with the Bug. I know people do it all the time, but with my luck I would do something wrong.

Secret Subject Swap

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week, 15 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My Secret Subject Swap was submitted by Someone's Else's Genius and it is  You've been given the gift of second-sight. You have no control over your visions. How would you handle your gift and the consequences of using your gift?


 My first thought when I saw this prompt was "What the (BLEEP) is second-sight?" To the Googles I went! Google, more specifically Wikipedia told me the following: Second sight is a form of extrasensory perception, the supposed power to perceive things that are not present to the senses,^[1] whereby a person perceives information, in the form of a vision, about future events before they happen (precognition), or about things or events at remote locations (remote viewing).^[2]

So, if I had the power to see things that would happen in the future what would I do? I think it would be AWESOME! I have really strong Deja-Vu to the point that sometimes I know what will happen in the middle of an event happening. Does that count? Can I pretend? I think that is pretty cool. 

When I was little there was once that my dad and brother went out on a four wheeler into the woods. I didn't want them to go, I don't remember why, but I do remember that I cried a lot and my mom and I baked cookies to distract me. I was 7, maybe 8. The whole time I told my mom that something bad happened and we needed to go find them. We baked cookies, we ate cookies and as time passed my mom started to worry too. We got into the car and drove the road that they would have driven on. About two miles down the road we found them. They were fine, luckily, but it was getting dark and the Four Wheeler had died. No reason, it just stopped working. My brother was 5 or 6, and my dad would have had to walk back in the dark with him. 

Anyway, not sure that counts, but I'll pretend. If I had the power, I would hope I could ignore the bad. If I had no control over it. If I knew someone was going to die no matter what (wasn't there a movie about that?) I wouldn't tell them, why upset them. (THAT sounds morbid.) I would spend as much time with them as I could and made sure they knew they were loved. If I had that power I would hope it would be slight and not super vivid images. I'd like to know when good things would happen and train myself to be oblivious to the bad. What kind of life is that to know when all the bad was happening? I'd enjoy the good and make sure everyone around me did too! 

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                          Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                          Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                      Stacy Sews and Schools

http://dinoheromommy.com/                                    Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.juiceboxconfession.com                      Juicebox Confession

http://morethancheeseandbeer.blogspot.com           More Than Cheese and Beer

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/                          Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                     Someone Else’s Genius

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                        Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://www.crumpetsandbollocks.com                    Crumpets and Bullocks

http://fbxadventures.blogspot.com                      FBX Adventures (In Parenting)

http://elleroywashere.com                                  elleroy was here

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                  Climaxed

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com                The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com               Evil Joy Speaks

Gardening Time! (Almost!)

The other day someone said something to me about my blog....blog? Oh, yea! I write a blog. Opps! Sorry it has been a while. The kid was sick, then the husband was gone, and then my brain was focused (obsessed) with my garden.

The weather has been nice and the sun doesn't set (well, it does, but I am never up that late, and when I get rudely awakened by a certain 1 year old, it is never truly dark.) Gardening season is upon us! This is what I have been plotting and planning since we moved to our first tiny apartment in Seattle. I spent the fall making raised beds and have been counting down the days until I was able to plant. That time is here...almost. 

Buying my plants! 

Apparently the "rule" is to not plant until June 1st. June 1st came and it was 47 degrees. I'm not a gardening expert but I took the 47 degrees + massive wind storm as a hint to wait a few more days. Earlier this week I went to a greenhouse a few miles outside of town and picked up my plants so I can start hardening them up. Originally I planned on only planting vegetables that are edible, but I couldn't pass up the 500# pumpkin plant (Atlantic Giant.) The plant itself is crazy with how fast it grows. I'm excited to see how it does outside. Even more excited if the #@!$%# moose don't get it. I also bought two OS Cross cabbage plants. The lady helping me told me I needed to plant them 6 feet apart because of how big they get. Can anyone say sauerkraut!?  I also bought a Russian Sunflower that is suppose to get huge. So, my reasonable garden turned into a garden of giants. Which would be easier if it A. Rained and B. I didn't need to haul water. 

I did my first run to the well on Friday night and got 22 gallons of water, and my water container (the first one didn't work, so I bought a garbage can and made that one into the water system) holds 32 gallons. I get the idea that I will be doing many a trip to get water this summer. Especially when it gets warm out. It does get warm at some point, right Fairbanks people?! 

Saturday I went and got another truck load of dirt, and am so excited to make a few more gardens out of the tires I got at the Transfer Station. What I don't use to plant is going into our attempt at growing grass in the front yard! 

My gardening assistant does not quite get it....

Plants out of the garage enjoying the sunshine. 

Our pitiful backyard (the backyard wasn't raked last summer before we moved in.) Some of the garden beds ready for wire and plastic (for the peppers.) 

Bug is doing well! He is talking more and more. The other day he put his shoe on when I told him to (never in a million years guessing he would actually go get his shoe and put it on.) He is pretty much the coolest thing EVER. Saturday we took him to the Large Animal Research Station (University of Alaska-Fairbanks) to see Musk Ox and Reindeer. He loved it and ran all over. I wanted to try to smuggle out a baby Reindeer because OMG THEY ARE SO CUTE!!! 

Baby Bug

Baby Musk Ox