Massacre in the Corn Patch

As I turned the corner around the house to take a peek at the garden yesterday evening, I couldn't help but gasp as I saw what had happened to all of the corn sprouts.

Some evil bird had discovered that if he pulled the plant out of the ground he could feast on the yummy corn kernels that the leaves were growing out of, and he proceeded to pull out every last one. Little baby corns lay strewn across the ground, dead, like in some kind of garden horror film. Now we must plant a new patch, but this time we will be prepared to fight back!

Secret Agent Toad

All alone and trapped by the enemy. No sweat... his ninja like reflexes will save him.

Introducing a our backyard's latest action hero... Golden Eye!

This is the first toad that we've found this year. He was fighting his way out of a tarp we had laying in the yard. We named him Golden Eye for obvious reasons. I think he might be blind in his golden eye but he seems like a feisty little bugger. We'll probably be seeing more of him this summer.

Sprouts!

We may have gotten a late start to our vegetable gardening this Spring, but the warm days and rainy weather have made our little sprouts happy and they are growing fast.

Our first attempt at a garden is all vegetables and herbs that we hope are simple to grow. At the moment we have planted:

• Bartels Family Corn
• Provider Snap Beans
• Blue Something Snap Beans
• Yellow Crookneck Squash
• Cucumbers
• Dill
• Rosemary
• Basil
• Nasturtiums
• Cosmos

The heirloom corn was the first to come up, followed by the cucumbers, yellow crookneck squash, and lastly came the snap beans. The row of Provider snap beans that we planted doesn't look too good at the moment, but not knowing how they're supposed to look, I guess we'll wait and see if they get a second set of leaves before we try replanting them.

Two of the nasturtiums have sprouted at this point, as well as the dill and the cosmos. It's hard to tell what's a crop and what's a weed, since we're such newbies at this point. Next comes the difficult task of choosing which of the little ones must be sacrificed for the good of the group.

We still need to get a second bed ready for planting lettuce, spinach, carrots, and turnips. And of course we thought of some more things we wanted to plant, so we have sweet corn and lima bean seeds coming in the mail, along with some tomato plants. Better late than never, hopefully!

Kaboom

Let's start this off with a bang, shall we?

Last night, a peaceful laundry folding session was rudely interrupted as the sound of an explosion tore through the house. Well this isn't the kind of noise you expect to hear coming from the next room at 11:00 PM on a Tuesday night... maybe some people would? Maybe we should? Anyways, we bravely crept out into the dining room to see what had broken what.

To our pleasant surprise, we were welcomed to a late night soiree! The loud bang that had us tip-toeing around the corner was to our delight the joyous sound of a cork popping from a delicious bottle of mead that had been sitting on the dinner table. Yes indeed, our homemade Yule mead is now an outgoing sparkling mead, spreading laughter and mini-parties wherever it goes. We of course broke out the glasses and filled them up with frothy goodness. Look closely, it's bubbling!



I'm excited to find out how it matures into the fall and see if it gives up its wild youth for a more refined old age.

Garden news on the way...