Holy F-ing Cow.

It's early.

Like. SUPER. Early.

Thank you Summer Storm for that wonderful wake-up call for my children and consequently me.

It was like a terrible domino effect I couldn't stop this morning. First Stella, who woke up Stryker, who wanted to eat, who wouldn't go back to sleep and found the fact that everyone else was up hilarious, so in turn woke up Scarlett, who might have possibly woke up the ENTIRE neighborhood when Zach tried to turn on the TV before he got her chocolate milk.

How dare he.

So now, here we are.

There isn't even good kids shows on this early in the morning.

The girls are laying like zombies, half back asleep, watching Oswald, a show I entirely do not understand.

Why does he live next to a Teepee, a Pirate Ship House and a Giant Baseball??

Bizarre.

So, since I'm awake, at an unglodly hour... I thought, why not just go ahead, make a pot of coffee and blog.

Like someone says on Twitter... I can't remember who.... But somebody says, "Morning People are Just Lying to Themselves."

Oh so true.

I am kind of thankful for the rain though. Besides hoping that it will cool this inferno known as July down, it also gives me a glorious excuse to NOT work in the garden.

Woot. Woot.

Actually, I think my garden is thankful for the excuse too.

Guess what! Turns out, working in a garden.... Not really in my bag of tricks. I can do a lot of things, I mean, come on... My talents seem to be endless....

But. Working in the garden is so not one of them

Well, here's the thing.... I've never done it before!

Like my mom had gardens growing up, but it was a lot like how when she would ask me to cook with her... I just had NO interest in it.

It seemed like a LOT of Unnecessary work.

Turns out, I was a smart little ten year old.

Zach, and I just mean Zach here, had these fantastic aspirations for a bountiful garden that produced vegetable after vegetable and made it so we never had to go to the grocery store again.

Ok. That's a bit of an exaggeration.

Obviously, I can't get my booze from a garden. Although... Have you ever heard of Rhubarb Wine??? It's a real thing.

Anyways. I told him at the beginning, like, I have no idea what I'm doing in there, so either you are the one that deals with it, or you take me out there and show me exactly what to do.

Step by Step.

Remember, I'm concrete sequential.

He says to me and this is probably verbatim, "I don't want you anywhere near that garden. I'll deal with it."

He gets me, you know?

I said, "Thank God, let me know when I can start cooking with all of that stuff."

Well, then reality happened and this turned into the time that he signed up to coach soccer on Saturday Mornings, but then had to work every single Saturday and so guess who was left with the job...????

Me.

That's who.

In his defense, he works hard.

Blah, blah, blah.

Anyways, so last week, I looked out at our garden and asked him, Is that what it's supposed to look like?

While weeds were taller than our cornstalks....

He's like, um, no.

And we split our garden with the neighbors. It's actually a bit of a community garden because it's huge. But anyways, the other side of the garden is beautiful.

Like Gorgeous.

My Landlord brought me a squash and a Zucchini from her side the other day and I cannot even explain to you how big the Zucchini is.

It's like, in the land of Caanan, if God would have said, go bring back a bunch of Zucchini to the ten spies, instead of the bunches of grapes. I mean, seriously. They would have had to carry them two by two.

Ok. Now I'm getting my Bible stories mixed up....

Anyways, I explain to Zach that I will be working in the Garden on Saturday and he's like, "Good! Finally!!"

And, I'm like, Really??? Finally??? This is going to get dangerous.

So. Saturday Morning. He went to work. I put Stryker down for his morning nap. Dressed the girls in swimming suits and headed out.

They ran through the sprinkler and I pulled weeds in 100 degree weather. I pulled and I pulled and I pulled.

And It is surprisingly hard work. The next day I woke up with sore muscles! (Which, ok, might not be saying as much about the hard work in the garden, as it is about how out of shape I am!)

But I also found it very therapeutic. There is definitely something to working with your hands and the earth.

It was really, a Spiritual Experience.

And the girls had fun in the sprinkler, until Scarlett stripped down to nothing and Stella grabbed her garden gloves and helped me.

And then they had fun helping me.

Although, I really tried to keep the bare-butt of Scarlett out of the mud. I just really didn't feel like explaining that one to the doctor....

Ok. So all of that being said.

The Garden is DISGUSTING.

And not just the garden. The WHOLE of outside. Did you know, there are a million bugs outside! ONE MILLION.

Just outside of my house!

Like, right outside my door.

Ugh. It's awful.

And when you are in the middle of a field of dirt, uprooting plants and vegetation you seem to find them all.

Oh man, it gives me the heebies right now! And inside of all of those weeds, there was way too many, more bugs!!!!

I swallowed a bug.

I swallowed it!

And I uprooted one plant and found maggots!

Maggots! People!!!!

It's so awful. It gives me nightmares.

Plus, can we just call this what it is. A Bull in a China Shop.

I'm the Bull.

The Garden is the China.

I get a little overzealous pulling those weeds. And sometimes there are casualties.

Ok. A lot of times there are casualties.

And we only have three things growing. Tomatoes. Corn. And Lettuce.

Whoo Hoo....

Like I said, there was a whole lot more planted.

Zach, who's opinion I trust implicitly.. Mainly because I tend to think he's an expert on EVERYTHING, also because he's had a garden before, but mainly because he's the only one to ask around here.

It's not like I can trust Scarlett's opinion.

She's been known to lie.

Anyways, Zach says it's twofold, since we took forever to weed, some of the more delicate stuff was choked out and also, the heat.

Thankfully we have fields and fields of produce behind us. Like corn. Which, I don't even know why we planted corn to begin with, but its one of those veggies that stand the test of time, aka, not being weeded in months and so it will actually grow.

And produce.

So hopefully we get at least corn.

And maybe tomatoes.

And hope next year will bring about the squash, and cucumbers and watermelons and peppers and onions and whatever else.

Until then, I'll stick with my rhubarb and hand me downs from the nice side of the garden.