Little Hands Belong to the Devil Himself

 As my summer winds down and school looms on the horizon, my garden is in full swing and is also thinking about winding down.  The tomatoes took a hit with the 3 days of wild rain last week and they are ripening but they look like crap.  The beans are just about done and round 2 is just getting ready.  The peppers are pretending they will flower again but their first crop was pretty lackluster, so I don't know.  The peppers are good but very small.  Anything that flowers is blooming its pants off.  I arrived in my garden this morning to find this:

I know, more sunflowers and morning glories.  But they are so PRETTY!

And this:

This is very exciting because these are broccoli plants that I grew from seed. The slugs had a gourmet feast in the spring and I thought they had eaten them down to nothing. They have come back with a vengeance and I am thrilled.

Because then I came across this:

Something with HANDS had to be at work here.  You have no idea how much this infuriates me.  This is when I swear in the garden.  Hand wielding little shits ruining a whole summer's worth of work.  I am determined to grow corn without chemicals and I do quite nicely.  No bugs, nothing.  I picked one ear the other day and it looked so great that I couldn't wait to get a few more.  But something beat me to it.  I have 3 foot high fencing all around, so it was either squirrels or raccoons. We don't have deer in the yard and the corn is too far in for them to get it, even if we did.  Plus, they couldn't peel back the husks so nicely without HANDS.    

 

I go with raccoons because whatever it was actually pulled off some of the ears and then shucked them.  I don't think the squirrels are strong enough or determined enough.  And the raccoons would have to climb over the chicken wire because I think it's just high enough that they can't hop over.  Unless they climb a tree and jump down.  I'd like to set up a camera.  I am really mad.  I think the ears that are shucked right on the stalks are what infuriate me the most.  And if you look, they really aren't ready to be harvested, so they didn't even get a good meal out of it.  And the worst is that now they know.  The emails are being sent underground and the king destroyer (rubbing his little, shitty hands together) is marking the map so they know exactly where to go next year for more great stuff.  

 

Mornings like this make me HATE NATURE.  And that's pretty foul language from someone as green as I am known to be.

It's a Wonderful Thing

Yesterday, I went almost all day with no internet connection in the house ! I KNOW! This also meant I didn't have a phone, but no one ever calls me, so I didn't know that. As it turned out, it was my fault. When I was mowing, I pulled out a wire that I swear k-ster told me was cable and since we don't have cable, I wasn't worried.

Then I tried repeatedly to use the internet in the house but it wouldn't stay connected, no matter what I tried. When k-ster got home, I told him and he explained that though the lights on the modem were all green, they weren't all on so no DSL was coming into the house. LIGHTBULB OVER HEAD. Oh wait, I pulled out a cable this morning when I was mowing!

He went out to look at it and after opening the compartments, I had no idea what was really inside that telephone box on the house but now I know, it's fascinating, he had it back together and working. How stupid we would have looked if I had had to call Verizon.

And here is the wonderful part. K-ster really is a Jack of all trades. I know an awful lot of people whose husbands can't connect anything, don't even know what a screwdriver is, wouldn't get on the ground to fix something if their lives depended on it. Thank GOD k-ster is none of those things. He is very handy. And this makes me handy because I watch what he does in case I have to do it next time. Living in a very old house, there are a LOT of next times and it seems he is never here the NEXT TIME so I do have to do things myself (his favorite activity to miss is pushing the button on the furnace. This only occurs when a) I need to take a shower and be somewhere immediately or b) it's freezing cold and I'm already undressed and in the shower thinking it will warm up in a minute. Then I have to go down into the creepy dirt cellar and push that button. I HATE IT.) I am a serial observer. I am so fascinated by watching people do things, especially fix things. I realized recently that the real reason I love watching what they do is so next time I can just do it myself and wow someone else with my skills. But seriously, if I could get paid just to watch people, I'd do it in a second! But I digress.

So the wonderful is that k-ster is such a man and can get dirty and fix things in the blink of an eye. I like to tell him that I stick around to keep him honing his skills(pulling out cables, breaking drawers, etc)! Not only did I know we'd be together forever when he ordered a mushroom pizza, I knew the first time he fixed my cassette player in my car that this one was a keeper. And if he ever leaves me, heaven help the next one because I cannot be with a man that I know I am manlier than. And with all of the observing I do, I can be pretty manly when I have to be.

Feel Good Friday, Already?

It's hard to believe we're there again, already. One more Friday of freedom before the kids descend on my oh-so-neat-and-tidy classroom. We have to go back next Wednesday and Thursday but the kids don't go back until the 7th.

So, after 3 rants about name brand products this week, it's Friday and I have to think about things that were good or funny this week.

1. I went to see Josh Turner this week and he was good. I'll be posting an entire post about this later. But it was enjoyable.

2. Kathy over at The Junk Drawer found me, no wait, I found her, and we are kindred spirits in our frustration with Sunchips. She encouraged me to blog about my composting efforts which I did. We've chatted a bit and I think we have a lot in common. So that was fun.

3. I now have functioning sewer pipes. I didn't know there was a problem but found out this week and it was rather in depth. But everything flows nicely now. I think I will be posting that story later too. I find that since I've started blogging, I save up ideas for a rainy day and then these posts never really materialize. Hmmm.

4. I was allowed (yes, we weren't ALLOWED last week and I was livid) to get into our classrooms this week and I have things arranged nicely and feel less worried about that. Last year, I moved rooms and at this time was out of my mind with where things were and what I needed to get done. I have my act together much more this year.

5. I attended a fitness conference over the weekend and was so inspired by Mindy Mylrea. She is hysterical. Because she's small and cute, she just gets away with saying the most hysterical stuff while she's kicking your ass. And I love her even more for it. She said my favorite thing in 2 different sessions and I'll share it. She was explaining that women often don't do squats right and that we spend too much energy working the quads when we should be working the glutes. Her solution is to take a small ball(she was using the famous Bender ball but any 8 inch inflatable ball would do) and hold it between the thighs. This sets women up better physiologically for squats. Her theory, after watching men do them perfectly, is that men have been carrying a ball between their legs for their whole lives and they know how to do squats the right way, so we should put a ball there too and voila, perfect squats. This is much funnier out loud with her scratchy voice and all the women gasping because there's ONE MAN in the group of like 800 women. I want to be Mindy when I'm 50. I'm the right size, and sometimes I'm funny and usually, I'm fresh. Maybe I'll get to be her when I grow up.

Oh My Burning Legs

What a week. On Monday, I said mean things about Huggies. On Tuesday, I went nuts about Sunchips. I let that go onto Wednesday too. Why not finish the week ranting about yet another company. I give you: Aveeno.

I was never a fan of shaving cream or gel because I thought good old soap and water did just fine and I am too Thrifty to spend the money on it. And it did fine for many, many years. About the time that I started using the outdoor shower-which is now illegal- I realized that my legs were suffering from severe razor burn. This is probably because it's sometimes cool out there and though the hot water feels good, it causes goose bumps and then I must shave right over them. So, I found Aveeno Ultra Calming Shave Gel with feverfew. the feverfew makes the different as I tried another style and it didn't work. I loved it and have used it for quite a few years. I stock up on it when it goes on sale. It keeps my legs calm and no razor burn happens when I use it.

In the spring, I noticed that CVS no longer carried it and they had a strange sign on the shelf that said something about issues with dispensing. I thought that was odd. Stop and Shop still carried it, so I used some coupons and bought a few. And then I noticed they weren't restocking it at CVS. And recently I totally ran out and they dont' have it at Stop and Shop either. And there isnt' even a tag for it on the shelf anymore.

So, I did what I do when I can't find something. I went to the interwebz and I searched until my fingers bled. And yes, I found many places that had it, until I actually went to the link and whooops, they no longer had it. I went to the Aveeno site and clicked on every store they said would have it. And they did not. I even went to just any random place online. BUT NO ONE HAD IT. Really??? No one in the entire universe? Not even some god forsaken place?

Now, this makes me nervous. WHen I've used a product for a long time and then it suddenly clears off of every shelf in the known world, I get worried that they discovered some horrid side effect or latent chemical. Like in the 80s when Citrus Hill orange juice just up and vanished. For years, I was sure I had been drinking poison but as I just googled this, I found that they got into huge trouble for calling it fresh when it was concentrate and couldn't survive. Ahhh the joy of knowing that it wasn't poison.

Anyshave, back to Aveeno. I emailed the company and asked what the story is. This was their very convert response: With regards to your recent inquiry, at Johnson & Johnson Inc., the quality and safety of all of our products is of utmost importance. We are aware of this dispensing quality issue and the cause is currently under investigation. We know that these products enjoy a high level of consumer loyalty and satisfaction and you can be assured that we are taking all appropriate corrective action to resolve this problem. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. The product will be available on the market by the end of 2010.

What is dispensing quality? When CVS had that little tag about it, I thought they meant that there was an issue getting it from the manufacturer. This makes it sound more like you would push the button to get gel but get nothing. This never happened to me. Why punish me like this if all my cans of shave gel worked just fine???? What is the big INVESTIGATION? Get over here and INVESTIGATE the bumps on my legs!! No other gel works, I've tried. Maybe they will change their minds when I braid my leg and armpit hairs into the words AVEENO.

That Darned Sunchips Bag

I'm going out on a limb here and attacking a company's claim. Will I get into hot water? Maybe I hope so. I do not work for the Sunchips company or any company that is in any way involved with Sunchips. I have not been paid by any company to make disparaging remarks about this brand. This stems from my own curiosity and the fear that we are being "taken" by this company's claim.

I was recently reading through someone's blog and it led me to Kathy's blog at The Junk Drawer and she mentioned she might be a little upset that the new Sunchips bag is so, shall we say, NOISY??? She does a fantastic post about the noise, including a video of how effing loud it is in case you haven't experienced them this summer. She was lucky enough to have it picked up by someone big interviewed her at the Wall Street Journal. It seems many people share the distress that you can no longer sneak a snack of Sunchips. (doesn't that sound like some kind of rhyme you learned as a kid: sneak a snack of Sunchips... it has a nice flow so if the Sunchip gods are reading, I am happy to sign over all rights for a hefty fee.)

Anychip, my issue with the new Sunchips bag isn't the noise as much as their claim. (I know, anyone who knows me knows that there is not a noise that can possibly NOT bother me, so that is a big fat lie but really, the claim takes precedence here). On Earth Day back in April, they rolled out their new bag, which they claim is compostable. If you read their claim on their site, they say that in 14 weeks, it will break down. Magic. In 14 weeks, that bag will be long gone. If you read the fine print, it does say in a hot, active compost pile or bin. It says this on the bag too. Magic, I tell you, pure magic.

I might be a bit of a skeptic, or maybe I really WANT this new packaging to really degrade but I just had to try this myself. I have been composting for several decades and though I am no expert, I do quite well. I break some rules, like I never turn it over, but I do give it a variety of materials and when I dig in, JACKPOT, I have some darned good stuff in there.

I thought perhaps the average person doesn't have a compost pile, so they might not be able to compost. Or maybe they threw the bag on the side of the road and now it's just blowing around. So, to mimic the lack of a compost pile, I began my great experiment. I just wanted to know if the bag would crumble down like they said. Since it wasn't going to be in compost heap, I knew it would take a little while. I just needed to know for myself if their claims were real. So here's what I have:May 2nd, 2010. I placed the bag on the ground and anchored it down with a weight so I could find it. I didn't put any soil on it and figured nature would take its course. I waited. And waited. And then I read Kathy's post, so I went and looked at it again. And this is what I found:This was today, day 114. There are 98 days in 14 weeks. That means I have gone 24 days, that's 3.5 weeks, beyond their claim. I see it's faded a little. There are a few tears. But when I picked it up, it was pretty much intact. We've had sopping rain for 2 days yet under this bag the ground was completely dry, so it's not yet permeable. Hmmm. I expected a slow breakdown since it's not in the compost pile. But this gives me great pause.

I am nothing if not thorough, so you know this bag will sit until the end of time if it has to for me to prove my point. But what does this mean? Are the Sunchips people going to blow me off and say that I didn't do it right? Probably. Their claim says nothing about putting it on the ground and just waiting. But I just have to know if it will really break down. I think I've had plastic break down faster than this (ever had one of those resin patio chairs and the back just breaks off??)

So here is your charge. Go buy some Sunchips and try this yourself. Wear some earplugs, open them up and eat them all. Then go compost. If you have devised a way to put it in your compost and actually track it, let me know. Is it gone in 14 weeks? I'll be awaiting your response and so will Kathy!!

The irony in all of this is that I don't really even like Sunchips. I just NEED TO KNOW.

Poo On You

I was innocently reading through the Sunday paper yesterday and perusing the coupon inserts when I came upon this:
I'm not sure where to start. See the little dancing bears? I think they are supposed to be Winnie the Pooh and I think they THINK they are getting away with their campaign by being cute. But this is not cute. Those bears dont' even look like Winnie. I have never had a problem using wipes on a baby. What is meant by the "right" side of the wipe? Are you supposed to smear it all over the bears? Or not let it touch the bears? Are people so dumb that they use it and then turn it over to use the other side but get it all over their hands? Seems like you'd do that one time and learn a lesson, right?

And I think the most appalling part is that thumbprint on the bottom right that says LIVE POO FREE. Really???? Is this a truly big problem in this country that I am not aware of? A brown thumbprint is supposed to be alluring, memorable or just cute?

The ad reminds me of an ad to stay away from drugs. Or a suicide helpline. Just a one line, very bland font, in big letters like this is the answer to all of our problems.

This makes me think of an Apprentice (which will return with REAL people this fall, not celebrities and I am just about wetting my pants over this) episode where they tried to come up with a catchy or "cute" but inappropriate ad campaign. At least get the rights to use the real Winnie the Pooh and change it to Keep Pooh On the Right Side and I will be OK with it. Huggies has really gone around the bend and they are cheaping out.

Anyone with me? Anyone able to offer some insight into the mystery of the wipe that has caused this campaign?

Shootout At the OK Corral

Ok, that's kind of dramatic. There wasn't a shoot out. No one but the cop had a gun. And I don't ride at the OK corral. I don't know the name of the barn, actually, but I call it barn #3 because it's the 3rd barn I've ridden at with my instructor and it helps me associate certain things I did at certain barns successfully.

This is supposed to be Feel Good Friday and on Feel Good Friday, we are supposed to write about things that made us feel good during the week. I like to write about my top 5. But this story is too entertaining for me to wait and post it tomorrow. So, the feel good in this is that I am in no way involved in what I'm about to relate and I'm really, really, really glad that I don't have to worry about where I'm sleeping tonight.

Barn #3 is out in the woods. It's a conservation area and though there are houses sprinkled throughout and there are actual roads, they are not paved and it's pretty darned quiet. And really, it's remote. It's not far from civilization, but when you're there, you feel as though it's you and no one else. Until today, this didn't freak me out much. I've had the odd thought that if I were to fall off this horse and break my back, it would take the ambulance a while to get there and it wouldn't be a great ride because it's quite bumpy, not being paved. But I try to keep that thought at bay.

So as I came to the last road before turning into the barn today, I saw 2 cruisers, one marked and one not, as well as a few cars kind of in the road.. My first assumption was that there had been an accident and I thought "how ridiculous that someone had to call the cops for a 10 mph accident in the woods". But then I realized that nothing looked smashed. And the cop was drinking a can of soda, so I wasn't alarmed.

Until I looked up as I parked down the driveway and he was in the rearview mirror. He didn't seem to be acting urgently but I supposed I should ask him what was going on since he could have chosen to take down my plate number and try to find something wrong with me. I noticed that my instructor's truck was there and so was another girl's car. So, I walked to the police car and this is what transpired:

Me: Hi
Him: Have you talked to the other girls yet?
Me: No (OMG THEY AREN"T HERE---WTF????)
Him: Well, we chased a kid who stole a car into here and then he bailed right there at the driveway and he's on the loose in the woods. He's recently robbed 4 houses and then stole this car.
Me: Wow. Did it look like he knew the woods well or did he just run?
Him: Oh, we think he's been living in the woods. His mother owns a house just at the entrance (to the conservation area). His name is xyz.
Me: XYZ??? Are you kidding???? I don't know him personally but i have heard that name for 20 years! He went to elementary school with all of my friends but never made it to the high school and he became one of those kids who seemed to just vanish after 8th grade!
Him: Yeah, he just got out of jail, mother hasn't seen him in 2 years. So, if you're out riding,
Me: Oh, I don't think I'm leaving the corral today!!
Him: No, we don't think he's armed (HOW WOULD YOU KNOW???) but we want to make sure you take your cell phone with you and here's the non 911 number. (then he watched me type it into my phone).
Me: Wow, this is crazy. Have you told the other girls?(Where the hell are they????)
Him: Oh, r-ster and j-ster? Yeah, they're out riding. I told them if they saw him to let me know.

So this cop seemed to really know the situation and was concerned that I might not really call them if I thought I needed help. This is a little different from the cops in my town that I don't feel are quite so helpful. Not that they are mean, they just seem to have a lot more to deal with than escapees in the woods. We have actual murders in my town.

Soo then r-ster and j-ster returned and the story took one more turn.

R-ster: So did you talk to the cop?
Me: Yeah, I can't believe it. (then I tell how I know the kid's name, etc)
R-ster: Oh, he didn't tell us his name, what is it?
Me: XYZ.
R-ster: XYZ????? OMG that is ABC's son!! I know his mother, oh he just got out of jail, oh she's going to be so upset. Yeah, that's DEF's grandson.
Me: He's DEF's grandson??? Holy crap, I didn't know THAT! Then my mother knows ABC because they all had horses growing up.
R-ster: that's funny, we joked that if he found him, we'd make him ride a horse back, but if we'd found him, he really COULD have ridden a horse!!

Then there was one more extra twist. I called k-ster and when I said it was XYZ he interrupted me and said "that's DEF's grandson" and I was like HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT and he said a friend of his had been friend with XYZ . This makes sense because k-ster's friend went to school with all of my friends when they were in elementary school.

They say that where I live is a small place. It's many towns in one region. This whole thing happened in one town, we live in another, they all went to school together in another and k-ster is from yet another and yet we all know or know of everyone involved. Do we live in Hazzard County? It sure seems like it at times like this. I supposed if the cop had bumbled his way through and a white limo pulled in with Boss Hog, it would have all been just right.