My PRESENT! (Like it matters to Joe or Joella Public) and some other goodies.

Life is a little out of control at present. Various visitors, a bunch of work to do, a bunch of weeds to pull out of my jungle-esque vegetable garden, and so it goes. Last week, my husband gave me a major surprise by walking in the door with this:


Yes, a new iMac with monstrous 24" screen! I am so happy. I was in hurtin' need of a new computer (my old iMac will turn five later this year), and now I have one. I was too cheap to buy it for myself, so Gordon did it for me. He also got me the InDesign software I need to do my work, so I can stop using my ten-year-old versions of Photoshop and Quark (at least my version of Illustrator was marginally newer!)

Note my stupid-looking "farmer's tan." I do wear sunscreen, but obviously not enough!

Thank you, awesome husband! And maybe this fall I will be able to redecorate my office and get rid of the wallpaper that is driving me crazy. And yes, I am gonna take pics of the bedroom reno. Soon. I promise!

But first, my garden....

A honeybee enjoying a poppy.

The yucca. I had no idea we could grow yucca! This thing overwintered. The flowers are gorgeous. Who knew this was hiding under a gazillion feet of snow?

One of the many beautiful delphiniums I inherited when we bought this farm.

A grasshopper attempting to blend into a delphinium leaf.

Asiatic lilies!

And one of the highlights of my week. Two days ago I saw my first bluebird EVER. Yay! Check out this. It was singing sweetly on the power line, and I took several photos of it. We are going to put up bluebird nestboxes next year. Our across-the-street neighbour has them all along his fence line.

It has been a madhouse around here, so much so that I completely forgot a doctor's appointment I had today (until 30 minutes too late), which is very unlike me. Things will slow down soon.

Tristan (Lab-Vizsla dufus) has developed a taste for the giant radishes I am growing. This isn't a bad thing; there are only so many giant radishes one can eat! It's quite amusing to see him trotting around the yard with radish leaves hanging out of his mouth. Less amusing was seeing Sophie trot up to me last night with the back end of a deceased meadow vole hanging out of her mouth. She proudly dropped it at my feet. When I told her it was lovely, and could she please go away, she picked it up again and proceeded to follow me everywhere for several minutes, until finally she gulped down her snack.

Shortly thereafter I had to go rescue a poor garter snake that the dogs were harrassing as I weeded my vegetable garden/jungle. I told them very sternly, "No snakes!" I am quite fond of the slithery beasts.

What else is new? Well, today some guy from Monsanto came to do an audit on the soybean crop planted in our fields. Yes, the guy who rents our land has sewn genetically-modified soybeans destined for Japanese dinner plates. I am very much looking forward to the day we can take the land back and make it organic, one way or another. Our "tenant farmer" is a great guy and knows what he is doing and takes good care of our land, but "Round-up Ready" GM crops really are not in line with my or Gordon's views. Nonetheless, for the time being we need the field rental money and the reduction in property taxes it affords us. Plus Bill (the former owner) would throw a wobbly if we let the land go to pot, and I can't say I'd blame him.

Anyway, it was amusing to have this Monsanto dude show up, presumably to make sure our farmer guy wasn't doing anything illicit with the soybeans, the seeds of which come from Monsanto itself. "What do you do for a living?"... "Well, I audit soybeans."

My little vegetable jungle is an organic oasis in a sea of Monsanto. Well, I know full well it can't be THAT organic; I don't exactly have a fifty-foot buffer zone at present! But allow me to delude myself.

The other fun around here has been discovering bazillions of blackberries growing along the old stone fence down the middle of the fields. Marvellous! And Sophie cracks me up. When I first found the berries, I offered her a couple. She snatched them out of my hand, then proceeded to pull mouthfuls right off the canes. She does this every day now; who knew a dog could love blackberries so much? The radish-lovin' Vizsla, the blackberry-addicted Lab... amazing.