As I stood in my backyard this morning eating my oatmeal, I was proudly gazing at my new garden while being eaten alive but some kind of irritating gnat-like insect. I thought being in the backyard at 7 am would be safe but for some reason, I was being dive bombed even worse than I am at night. It reminded me of Maine. New England has Midges (also called noseeum's) that will literally eat you alive. I remember wiping my brow while out tracting or otherwise working and having blood mixed in with the sweat. The noseeum's were so small (as the name implies) that you couldn't sleep with your windows open at night since they could fly through the screens. I have found the ultimate bug protection however. It is 100% vanilla. Not the cheap stuff from Kroger or Hyvee or Alberston's but the real 100%-from-Mexico goodness. Not only does it smell good but if you accidentally get some on your lips or in your mouth you are not going to be spitting for half an hour. The stuff works like a charm. The only problem is that it doesn't last long much longer than 1 hour. Another side benefit is that it covers the horrific stink of a 13-year-old scout at camp who refuses to shower.
What I was orginally going to write about when I sat down this morning was my garden. Finally, after many back breaking hours of work removing trees, building a raised bed, and filling the garden with nearly 2500 pounds of compost, I have peas, broccolli, cantalope, cucumbers, tomatoes (not for me!) and a jalepeno. Everything is coming up. I am excited to actually eat things from my own garden this year.
I hated our garden in Nebraska as a kid. It was huge. I swore that I would never grow a garden but here I am, excited to see what is going to happen. We have a serious rabbit problem here so I fenced my plot in but rabbits are devious. If I can keep them out, I have a good chance of having fresh veggies in a couple of months.
It all started with Michelle Lewis from Ohio, and Jason Clark from California. We met on a bus in Chicago in January of 1992. This is a blog that documents our crazy life.
3 comments:
I am jealous (not about the bugs)! We planted our first garden last year. It wasn't great, but it was a lot of fun for me! This year morning sickness took over our garden. Darn! I guess we'll have to wait until next year. I really want to build raised beds for ours next year! Good luck with your garden! -Jen
Where's a picture?? We need to see a picture of your great garden! We've had rabbits destroy our gardens here. We didn't even bother this year.
I'm excited to see your garden. We only have tomatoes (doing very well) and tons and tons of onion plants growing. Oh, strawberries and rasperries are doing well, too. We were going to plant peppers of various kinds and maybe a squash or watermelon plant, but it was so wet and then it was too late in the season. So our garden will be very small compared to last year.
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