Bad Axis

Today is a very exciting day.

My brother begins the CD release tour with his latest project, Bad Axis.

He and the band have worked so hard to get to this point.

And tonight, for their first show, they're headlining at The Hard Rock Cafe in Nashville!!

You can check out their website HERE.  

Click on the Tour tab and see if they're heading your way!

{Drew, my bro, is the lead singer and lead guitar player.}

You're gonna want to buy the CD when you hear it.  This may sound biased, but it's really good!!  Promise!

We're so proud and wish we could be there! 

RYBO guys!

KinderGardens 2011 {week 8.}

I have put this week's post off until the last possible minute. 

It pains me to talk about the garden this week.

The HEAT, WIND and DRY conditions this early in the summer aren't making for much success in Oklahoma gardening.

Though the bean plants are beautiful...

There are NO beans.

OK, ONE bean.

But the tomatoes aren't near keeping up with what they did last year either.

The cucumbers are climbing and flowering...

But only this little cucumber so far.

We soaked it in....just in case it's the only one.

For the most part, the squash aren't getting any farther than this...

They're just rotting off.  I've even got the squash bugs under control!!  And no squash.

We water daily...  

And still, some evenings, after being beat down by the sun and wind things look like this...

The snow peas are done.  Too hot for them...

Seedlings are literally being ripped out of the ground by the wind.

We've lost nearly all the watermelon and okra we planted a few weeks ago.  Eeek!

Despite a run with flea beetles, the eggplant just may make it...

But what the crap is going on with this webby thing on the marigolds?!?!

***Sigh***

We WILL keep plugging along, hoping for the best.
There are peppers growing and my herbs look wonderful.  So all is not lost.

The beautiful thing is that the kids don't really seem to know the difference.

They don't care about how FULL the shopping cart is.  

They just find joy in pushing it around and filling it with whatever they find.

When they do come across the occasional treasure, it's the most exciting thing in the world.

I've just decided that, for this year anyway, it may not be about the harvest at all.  

With this heat, it may not even be about beauty for that much longer.

It's just truly going to be about getting outside together.  

Sweating together.

Getting dirty together.

Having fun together.

'Cause we really do have fun... 

And we'll just have to see what next week brings...

Oh wait...

{Funniest Debbie Downer SNL video ever HERE....'cause you need a laugh now.}

****

Jump over to The Inadvertent Farmer to see what everyone else in the KG's community is up to this week!

who lets the dogs out?

Every morning we let our dogs out from being pinned up at night.  

Bossy McBosserpants...

"C'mon Mommy!"

The dogs anxiously await.  Tails wagging....Deuce (on the right) jumping as high as he can as if to open the latch himself.

It's such a happy moment.  If only every moment was as happy as this moment of the day.

I don't have any idea how CJ beats Deuce out.  

She's old and crippled.  

But she's boss.

And Deuce spazz-es out as soon as he gets out of the gate...

No children were injured in the letting out of the dogs.  

Only pure joy here.

Deuce loves the kids. 

And the kids love Deuce.

KinderGardens 2011 {week 7.}

This week for my KG linkup, I have much to talk ramble about.

As far as the garden goes... 

It rained, so of course, everything looks beautiful.  

And now I need to mow.

Herbs look good...

Cucumbers look good...

My eggplants are starting to make...eggplant!  Miles is convinced we will pick eggs off this plant.  I tried to explain about chickens, but he told me "You SAID it was an egg plant."

How can I argue with that?

And teeny little watermelon vines are poking up.

Despite Ella (aka, Bam-Bam) flattening out our hills of dirt after M & I carefully planted the seeds last week.  She's a mess.

The kids continue to not let the snow peas into the house. 

 

And we have our first bell pepper.

In other gardening related news...

I was contacted yesterday by Teresa O'Connor of SeasonalWisdom.com.  She's a Master Gardener, writer, author, speaker and consultant about gardening and fresh foods .  She asked if she could use some photos of M & E in the garden for an upcoming post on why kids should garden.  Of course, after 10 seconds of looking at her beautiful and legit blog, I said YES!  

Now this is the part where you get a glimpse into just how dingy I am...  

I checked out a copy of Grocery Gardening from the library early this week.  

I've been reading through it for a couple of days.  Today, however, as I was flipping through the pages, I read the name...Teresa O'Connor.  I went straight to the back of the book where her bio is listed...it talked about SeasonalWisdom.com.  I ran to my email to be sure.  What a CRAZY coincidence that on the week I check out this book, one of the authors contacts me?  All because of KinderGardens.  She knew through the grapevine that I would have some pictures she could use.  

So anyway....all that to say it's a small world and I'm a digbat.  Excuse me while I run to the library and check out a book by Bill Gates.  No, Steve Jobs.  Or maybe Brad Pitt....or Martha Stewart.  

You can see Teresa's post today at:

Seasonal Wisdom

Last thing.  

I've been thinking about starting a link up party of my own.  A play off the KG fun...  Because as I plant more and more things - because this gardening stuff is so much fun - I find myself wondering what in the world to do with the harvest.  I'm getting bored with my recipes.  

You're ideas regarding this adventure would be greatly appreciated.  Here are mine:

*weekly linkup called "Cooking What You Grew"...or "I Grew It...Now What?"...or maybe "How to not waste these vegetables since you went to all the trouble of growing them yourself...you squished an awful lot of squash bugs for this."  

*use the linkup to share personal recipes, storage techniques, ect...

*it would't be exclusive...you don't HAVE to grow it to link up

*it would run through the harvesting season...not as long as KGs (??)

Would that be interesting to you?  Would you participate?  Got any ideas?  

Share 'em, please!

Love, 

Your Favorite Digbat in the Whole Wide World


Jump over to The Inadvertent Farmer to see what everyone else in the KG's community is up to!

in search of my favorite flower.

I definitely think my new favorite flower is the cone flower.

I really love the shape.  

But I kinda love these the best too...

Wait, maybe these....

"Mom.  Real quick!  Take a picture of me and my blue bird house."

{"Mom.  Reeeeeeeel quick.  Take a pit-yure of me and mah bluuuue bird howz."}

Kindergardens 2011 {week 6.}

For this week's KingerGardens linkup, please excuse me while I show you entirely too many pictures.  But it's the first harvest of the season and it's just so darn exciting.

Not only are the peas growing up the tee-pee, but they've started to mass produce...peas!!! 

I had actually forgotten exactly what kinds of pea-thing-a-ma-jigs we had planted....

So it's been fun to see the little snow peas pop up on the vines.  Not many of them make it back to the house...

I'm so thankful that my kids will eat vegetables...and how fun to do it off the vine!!  

 

And that they think it's about the coolest thing ever.  

Except sno-cones.  They get way more excited about sno-cones.  

After picking all the peas, Miles said...

"I'm gonna shop the shopping cart over here and get the tomato."

He's had his sights on it for a couple of days now.

  

Success!!

After the tomato (there will be more....10 plants worth, but for now it's just one at a time), we went ahead and picked ALL our carrots to make room to plant something else (which we haven't decided on quite yet).

 

Every single time she pulled one, she was as excited as the first time.

 

She was pretty good at picking them all by herself too.

 

Miles worked so hard.  Look at his little hands....*sniff*.

 

Picking and loading into the shopping cart...

 

We learned that this is what can happen if you don't thin your carrots properly (look out Matthew!).

They might grow together and make a crazy looking carrot like this!!

 

50+ carrots.....still excited about every one of them...

 

Excited and fascinated and overwhelmed...

 

Did I mention excited?

 

I told you I was going to post way too many photos.

Miles disappeared from the picking for a couple of minutes.  I spotted him at the water hose washing this carrot.  He needed a snack.

 

With very little help from me, the kids pulled all the carrots.  Miles had sweat beads dripping down his little face!

I'm one proud Momma!

(A) for the carrots, 

(B) for the first ever 2-of-them-sitting-still-smiling-and-looking-at-me-picture of their life. 

 

(More unnecessary but cute pictures.)

 

He "shopped" on over to the onions and pulled a few of his "favorites".  

He likes the purple ones best.

And some lettuce...

You can see in his face how focused he was on his tasks.

(hahahahahahahaha!)

Hot & tired.

 

But oh, so worth it.

 

Happy first-salad-of-the-year-where-everything-was-grown-by-us day to us!!

 

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is doing in their gardens!  Hop on over to The Inadvertent Farmer and check it out!