We suck less all the time

We got to play with a new yard toy this weekend and, while it looked like a pain in the ass (Bubba wrestled with it while I performed other equally important tasks, uh huh), it sure did get the job done.

And the job was? (Said like on Family Feud when they go, "Survey says!...")

Ripping out the lawns.

Because I think lawns are mostly stupid and have spent the last four years in this house slowly whittling away at Bubba's Midwestern affection for The Ultimate Lawn by quietly removing a bit here and there until TEE DAH they'll be gone and replaced with something that doesn't suck so much muthereffin water and time.

Not to mention who the hell wants to mow and trim all that grass? Not Jada, and she's the one who uses it the most, which would normally land her in the "If you want it, you take care of it" category, except she's a dog and without opposable thumbs, is going to have a hard time getting the mower pull-started.

Whatever.

She's actually the main reason we are even going to have grass left at all. Because she loves it so visibly and enthusiastically that, with the lawns currently missing, she's taken to rolling on our neighbors' lawns as we are out on our walks.

Here she is being a Lady in the middle of our soccer playing.

I know they think that she's going to pee on them (or take a massive dump - given the way their eyes bulge out from their living room windows) but all she does is nose dive into the grass, roll around a lot, sit up and pant appreciatively and move on to the next lawn.

No massive dumps in sight.

And I will not be made to feel bad for messing up somebody's carefully mowed criss-cross pattern because my dog rolled it away. Perhaps if she took a big steamer and then I didn't pick it up - OK - but messing up a mowed pattern in grass is no reason to yell.

Just saying.

ANYWAY.

Last weekend, after I put in my miles on the streets, Bubba and I put in our miles behind this beast of a sod cutter.

And really, by the looks of this video, you can see who was really putting in the cutting miles and it was not me. No, I am too puny and weak to tame this sod cutting beast of a hellhound, so Bubba was left to throw his 170 lbs against its awkward and bulky frame and wrestle it through our yards, cutting up rolls of dried out sod as it went.

My glamorous job (and really the only one I was physically able to do given my two hours on the road) was rolling up the sod after he cut it. Glamor! Aching hamstrings! Glamor some more!

Before: A lovely dog-friendly WATER SUCKING lawn.

After: An ugly ass soon-to-be-improved dirt hole.

I'm so glad we did this.

The plan is, now that the back lawn is out, to let Bubba take out all of his pent up rage on the lingering Bermuda grass and then maybe make something attractive grow in its place and for the enjoyment of the dog.

I'm leaving him to his madness as I have work to do in the front.

See, my first step in banishing the lawn came a few years ago when we cut the corners off the thing and planted some trees and those grassy shrubs you see there.

And I will admit those pumpkins, while cute, stayed out a tad too long until Bubba noticed they were out of season which might have been in February sometime.

Before: Something we had to mow and water all the time.

After: Something that has explaining to people that, Yes, we know that sod goes grass side up.

So, the next step in Bye Bye Sucker Lawn was to cut up the sod, till the soil beneath, flip the sod over and TEE DAH plant a low water meadow where the lawn used to be. Like a lumpy meadow with some bulbs and wildflowers like you might expect to find in a forest clearing or in front of a house inhabited by people who don't want to mow or water anymore but still want a pleasing front yard.

And in case you are confused by the photo and think that is the meadow of which I speak - don't worry, it's not. No, that comes next.

We'll cover it with landscape fabric and gorilla hair and then I'll summon all my hamstring strength (hamstrength? I don't know about that one.) and plant 100+ Blue Grama grass plugs out there to commence the growing of my future meadow.

And then you know what I'll do with the front yard? OH NOTHING THANK YOU SO MUCH.

That's right. It'll be on its very own to just grow and be and live without me or the sprinklers having to water it all that much because it will be fall and then winter when the rains come and by the time spring rolls around it'll be established and won't even need that first spring mowing WOW.

That's awesome.

And all this will be happening right next to my Also No Water Required sidewalk patch full of self-seeding $.99 wildflower landscaping.

I guess I'll just have to sit here and think about what we'll do with all the water and money and time we'll be saving since the front part of the house will be pretty independent of all those things.

Perhaps I need to put another vegetable bed in the garden?

KIDDING, BUBBA! Bubba?

So far it looks like I might not be a loser.

When last we saw the Suck Less landscaping project, Bubba and I had planted 210 (!) low-water grass plugs in the front yard and I was praying that they would establish so I wouldn't look like a loser to all of my neighbors and greater Creation.

Afterward, in order to soothe my grass-establishing anxiety, I did some shopping, as is my way, and ordered "some wildflower bulbs".

Now, because I was mildly ashamed (and afraid) of my shopping trip, I didn't provide any real details about the "some wildflower bulbs" I'd purchased beyond linking to some vague description about the bulbs themselves. What I carefully left out was the amount of bulbs involved in this little Nature Shopping Spree of mine because, well, it was a little how you say, outrageous.

My friends, I ordered 800 (actual) bulbs. Yes. Eight Oh Oh bulbs. Wildflower ones. With the intention of planting them all in the front yard with the grass plugs to hopefully create this bucolic meadow scene sometime in the future.

And then, perhaps as a gesture of fortitude and determination, I also purchased the suggested small bulb planting tool because even then I knew I was in over my head and would need all the help I could get.

And need it, I surely fucking did.

WOW. People, 800 bulbs is a lot. Even when a lot of them are teeny and they all fit in your old broken plastic bucket.

And why would they all be mixed together in a giant bucket, indiscriminately mingling with one another leaving no way to tell (mostly) which were which and when in the springtime they'd bloom and how tall they'd be so that they don't block out the little teeny ones so you know where to plant each individual one for best effect?

Well, to answer that, let's just get on to Step #12 in this process of Sucking Less All The Time landscaping (Steps 1-2 are here and Steps 3-11 are here).

Step 12: Dump the contents of each bag of bulbs into one giant receptacle for planting indiscriminately because any other method would land you in the loony bin.

Box 1 of 2. Lord help me.

See, in my mind, I had originally planned to plant all these bulbs the same way I've always planted bulbs. I was going to take the bags out to the yard and toss them where I wanted to plant them. And then I would take my handy trowel and go from bag to bag (usually there's no more than half a dozen bags) planting the bulbs in clumps.

This has typically taken me about 30 minutes to an hour to complete in my great and untarnished history of planting bulbs.

I always put it off and put it off, but this task that seems like a pain is usually not a pain at all and in the springtime I am rewarded with lovely blooming things in the yard. Yay.

Well, let me be clear that this time, however, it was a pain and I should have been putting it off and putting it off because this time it would have been appropriate given the pain it involved.

And let me be clear that I didn't use this old tried and true method of bulb planting because if I had I would not be here typing this post for y'all to read. No. I'd be institutionalized with other criminally insane gardeners for putting a bulb planting spike through a passer-by's forehead.

It would have been bad, is what I'm saying.

So, thankfully, I opened up about my shopping misstep to our neighbors over dinner one night and they helpfully suggested that, rather than attempting to stage some sort of strategic coup in my front yard with specifically placed bulbs to allow for maximum height, space, design or other perfection, instead I should just dump all the bulbs in a bucket and go to work planting them just however they came out of the bucket.

Oh. You mean, without a plan?

I'll admit, at first this sounded like craziness. Like utter reckless lunacy. I couldn't fathom the haphazardness of this approach at all. Because my mind is small and my A/R is large.

But, when I received and opened the enormous box (like it could have been holding something as large as three Rockets), I knew there could be no other way. My patience would not have allowed for it.

And so sprung forth Step #12: take all the bulbs out of their little bags, pour them in a bucket and store all the bulb tags for future use as bookmarks or as reminders of weak moments of yore.

I swear this seemed like a lot of bulbs.

Lots of tags. For reminder's-sake.

And while it sorta sounds like I made this decision quickly and the ensuing dumping of bulbs into one bucket was a thoughtless, un-mulled scenario, I will tell you that it was not.

Oh no. I mulled it fervently for a solid week, as the box haunted me from my potting bench and then I mulled it some more during my shortish-long Saturday morning run (running update coming soon) and not until the bags were actually being emptied into the bucket was I secure in the knowledge that this is how the bulbs were going to get planted.

Somewhere back in the most A/R recesses of my brain I think I was still contemplating creating a complicated schematic of the yard and all the bulbs' precise planting spots. Because, after all, some of me is always going to be totally insane.

Thankfully we've passed the point in my life where that part of me is running the show. Because it is a scary thing and I don't want to live like that anymore.

Moving on!

Step #13: Take out your pent up frustration on the earth.

STAB.

I started out planting these bulbs in a different way than I finished planting them, and the method by which I finished this project is far superior to the way I started. So I'm going to share with you my finishing method rather than my starting method and if you've managed to follow along in my ramblings thus far, you'll have no trouble at all.

Of course, I'm going to confuse things further by first telling you my starting, and later found to be faulty, method for planting all these bulbs. Because I know you're just dying to know.

FYI: Don't do it this way. Wait for the Finishing Method. This is just for your amusement.

So, to start, I set my bucket down at one corner of the smaller section of our front yard and began by brushing away about an arm's length of mulch, as I crouched or kneeled on one of those cushy gardening kneeling pad things.

Then, with the yard stabber (aka small bulb planting tool, which I TOTALLY recommend because it works REALLY well), I'd make about half a dozen holes at random in the landscape fabric/tarp/whathaveyou, drop in a bulb (root side down), cover it back with soil and then cover the whole mess back up with mulch - taking care to leave any grass plugs uncovered.

This takes more time than it needs to.

I did this for 3/4 of the entire space. Which was retarded. Don't do this.

FYI: Do it this way. The way I'm about to tell you. You'll be happier in the end. Promise.

So, once I got about 3/4 of the way done, I wanted to be 4/4 of the way done really badly. Like, I took a break from the arduous project just to go find Bubba and tell him how much I wanted to be done.

I'm not a very creative procrastinator.

Also, I got a glass of water and thought longingly about my lunch, which I'd finished at 1/2 of the way through the project when Bubba rescued me with a muffaletta break on our patio.

Let me just say this: Bless the muffaletta. It is so very delicious.

Anyway, once I got back from my lunch fantasizing and water drinking and bitching to Bubba about how much I wanted to be done with this horrible project I tasked myself with, I approached the remaining (and suddenly huge feeling) 1/4 of the yard in a new and more efficient (read: lazier) way.

I just stabbed the ground at random.

Yes. That's it. I just carted the bucket around with what was left of the bulbs rolling around inside and, when I saw an undisturbed bit of mulch, I stabbed a hole in the ground and dropped in a bulb.

Most of the time I made sure the root end was down. And most of the time I only put one bulb in there. The rest of the time? Well, whatever happened, happened. There were 800 bulbs! They can't all be perfect!

You know how I get.

And it all got done, so there you go.

Do you like how this looks the same as it did before? Yeah. Not super encouraging, but I promise it's OK.

Step 14: Water it.

Dudes. I know. This is supposed to be xeric. Low water. Drought tolerant. A miracle. I KNOW. But first, it must establish. And for it to establish so that it doesn't need water in future times from the hose (only the sky), you must water it. You know the song. Sing it - and water the grass and bulbs.

Then stand back and survey your greatness and take note that the watering you did back when you planted the grass plugs (and all the careful step following) seems to be working because the plugs are definitely establishing and putting out some new growth.

See how little he was before? My big boy.

Step 15: Commence finger-crossing and rain dancing.

So now, we wait. We hope that rain comes (because you know I'm not getting out there with the hose if I can avoid it) and waters the little angels so that in the spring time all the bulbs can come up in their haphazard pattern and give my A/R a little something to chew on.

We also shoo squirrels and search the internet for squirrel-shooing curses one can cast from the confines of the workplace.

We pull the random weed. We get down on our hands and knees in our work clothes to inspect individual blades of grass seen emerging in various plugs.

We threaten contractors' lives if they dare step foot on a single grass plug as they dismantle our front porch in the name of structural integrity.

But that, my friends, is another story about which you will hear all too soon.

For now - let's all hope for some rain.

Then we can get on to Step 16: Basking in the glory of your meadow-making prowess.

Next step in sucking less

Although, according to the dog, we definitely suck MORE.

When last we saw my front yard, it was looking like I'd taken to planting sod while drinking my 13th cocktail because WHOOPSY the lawn had been flipped over.

Thankfully, I meant to do that. And, thankfully, I rarely drink 13 cocktails in one sitting because - yarf.

The next thing to do, once the grass plugs showed up, was to tarp, mulch and plant the yard with the new less water sucking meadow grass and wildflowers.

And while that may all fit nice and neatly into one little sentence there, the process was nothing quite so little. Or nice. Especially when you consider how fucking hot it was in NorCal this past weekend. And if you consider that I first ran six miles (yay! Short taper distance!) and afterward I had a bachelorette party (not mine obviously) waiting for me.

I knew the exhaustion was going to be extreme. Which is why I was sort of hoping that High Country Gardens, the folks from whom I purchased my 210 (!) grass plugs, would have lame shipping practices that would result in the plugs not showing up until Monday. So that I could spend Saturday preparing for a night of binge drinking by methodically lining my stomach with mashed potatoes, dinner rolls or something equally absorbent.

But no. They're reliable over there at HCG, and when you say, "I want my stuff to ship on 9/21." It arrives the Friday of that week, just in time to be planted on the weekend and before it can totally die in the box because you're too busy working or taking the dog to the beach to do serious work like planting a meadow in your front yard like you would be if it showed up on the Monday you were secretly hoping for.

You understand - I'm lazy and I procrastinate. I was hoping their shipping methods would support these character flaws of mine. But they did not. Which, in hind sight, is a good thing since this time it would have meant a big box of dead grass and a bunch of money down the toi.

Anyway. Enough about my laziness.

Inspired by Knittah's recent comments, I'm going to press on in a sort of How To-sy way. And I'll try to add helpful nuggets in there as we go, but if I miss something, leave a comment and I'll try to answer your question if I know the answer. Which I might not.

And on that note, of not knowing everything (shhh! don't tell!), I also don't know everything about planting a xeric meadow, even though this series of posts may lead you to believe that I do, what with the numbered lists and all, but let me make it clear that I've never done this before and don't know if it'll take so just know that I'm not saying this is The Way to do this, but rather just the way *I* am doing this, so follow my How-To at your own risk. Personally, I'm optimistic about the results.

Anyway!

To introduce some sort of meaning to my How-To, you'll recall that steps 1 (cut up the sod) and 2 (flip it over) were covered in a previous post in which Bubba was nearly swallowed whole by a sod cutter.

For Step 3, then: Tarp the yard

I'd say "weedblock" or "Weedblock" or "landscape fabric" or whatever, other than "tarp", here, but the fact is that you can use most tarp-like materials to perform the function of blocking out weeds and you don't need me telling you which brand or type of material to use. Also, I'm not a shill for these products and merchants I mention and I don't want you thinking I am and then being all pissed when your "Weedblock" gets a tear just because you stepped on it when it was stretched tight and now you have to cover that hole with more tear-happy "Weedblock".

Not that this has necessarily happened to me. One hundred times.

Anyway - the point here is that once you've cut the sod and turned it over so that the decomposing grass can provide a nice compost for your new plugs, you should still tarp it to keep other weeds from invading your meadow and choking out your precious meadow grass plugs. Because I hear that this can happen. And I don't want any part of it.

Also know that when I say, "you", I mean "me", but it always comes out that way.

Step 4: Get some mulch and then go for a run while Bubba unloads it onto the tarp.

This came from Mountain View Garden Center and is just thin gorilla hair mulch.

Technically, you can be a good wife and unload it from the back of the truck because he was so nice to go pick it up during the week, which involved him shoveling it into the bed of the truck while wearing his nice work clothes and shoes, but you don't have to is what I'm saying.

You can just go for your run and then come home and rake it out, making sure that he makes note of how you just ran six miles and are totally awesome for immediately putting on your work clothes and getting down to business.

And, I will say this about Bubba, he's always the first to give me credit for doing anything remotely helpful. In fact, sometimes I think he may give me *too* much credit, but let's not go spreading that around.

Step 5: Water the mulch

We've capped the sprinklers, so are using this hose stand sprinkler thingee in the mean time. It's fine.

Now, this step, and the future ones where I tell you to water things, may seem counter-intuitive to the whole "suck less water" idea, but to get these guys established, I'm told that they will need to be watered at the outset. For root establishment and what not, so just do it and then hope to hell that they do establish and grow because if they don't we'll all look a little stupid for ignoring blatant instructions.

For now though, just water the mulch. This will help it mat together and be less fluffy so that when you go to plant, you don't have to wade through quite as much mulch to get down to the tarp and dirt. Plus, less will end up in your nose and I know you'll appreciate this as much as I do.

I do not enjoy mulch splinters in my nostrils.

Step 6: Distribute the grass plugs

Go ahead and say they're "SO CUTE!" because everyone else did.

Now, if this were, say, six years ago and I was still in that phase of my life where I didn't think two minutes ahead into the future, I would have just sat down at one corner of the yard with the box of plugs and started planting away. And not until I'd gotten, say, 3/4 of the yard planted would I realize that WHOOPSY I'd been planting the plugs too close together and SHITSHITSHIT had run out of plugs altogether.

Then there'd be some pretty elaborate swearing and either some mad cap unplanting and replanting or a race to the internet to order more plugs.

Thankfully, this is not six years ago and instead of engaging in that back-in-the-day-of-Finny madness I instead thought five minutes into the future (see mom, I AM growing up) and took one flat of plugs at a time (each flat has 70 plugs) and started dropping them at random but evenly dispersed intervals beginning at the far corner.

And don't you just know that the side of the yard at which I started was much more densely populated with tiny grassy plugs than the side of the yard at which I finished. And then all I had to do was grab a few from one side and toss them over to the other side in a way that was still random but less congested so we wouldn't have any unseemly bald spots in the event that the grass actually grew in right.

WOO! I learned from past mistakes! I'm growing as a person!

Step 7: Make dip

Not Hidden Valley, but still good.

Don't be ashamed if, at this point, you'd rather go inside and make some ranch dip and sit on the porch eating it with a big bag of potato chips, because I was right there with you. All this prep work is monotonous and, with all your neighbors standing around watching you organize fluffy grass poofs in your front yard, one can get a little self-conscious and feel like retreating into a big bowl of Leave Me Alone With My Craziness, but stay with me.

This dip is for the plugs. I hear it helps keep the plugs from drying out when you plant them and helps them establish sooner so that you don't have to wait forever and a day for your meadow to prove to your neighbors that you're not a total hippie loon.

This dip is a creepy thing though, let it be known. I added the recommended 1 ounce of dip to the recommended 4-5 gallons of water in my super old ass bucket with the broken handle grip and watched in grotesque amazement as this shit congealed into a spooky mass of dirty Jell-O.

Note that the dirt was already in the bucket and I don't believe it hurt anything.

Step 8: Scratch the plugs

Now, I forgot to take a photo of this process, but let me describe it to you.

See, each plug is like a tiny plant you might buy at the nursery. So when you take it out of the tray, it's got a mat of roots at the base, just like you'd find on your average 4" petunia seedling.

What you want to do here (and thanks to my garden savvy neighbor for reminding us of the crucial importance of this step) is "scratch" or cut the base of this mat off and "scratch" or slice down the sides of the root ball so that you have an open frayed end on your seedling - still holding onto some soil - but not all bound up in there with no hope to grow.

You can do this on all your plugs ahead of time to save a step at planting time, or, if you're like me, you can enlist the help of your Scratch Happy husband to do this while you start planting so that all the plugs are scratched by the time you reach them with your trowel with the intention of dipping and planting them.

We found that a standard box cutter worked really well for this. Just don't try to catch a flight afterward, ifyaknowwhatImean.

Step 9: Commence to planting

With your dip all jiggly and waiting (PORNO GARDENING ALERT), grab your pointiest trowel and get to work, already.

Goes like this:

Dig a hole
UPDATE: punching through the landscape fabric with your pointy trowel and planting the plug in the soil below.

Dip the plug

Plant the plug

Bubba and I did that 210 times in the course of about two hours. It was monotonous and it was blazing hot outside and the neighbors kept coming over with their kids to tell us how we could be doing it better, but in the end it got done and Bubba and I still speak to each other even though I had to make a sudden escape to the backyard when the neighborhood boy began telling me how we should be watering our "lawn" and wouldn't be satisfied with the explanation that this wasn't going to need to be watered for much longer but thanks for your help, buddy, and hey isn't your dad calling you?

I'll say it now, I have no patience for children and I have a really hard time hiding it. I'm sorry you had to learn about it this way.

Step 10: Survey your greatness while watering your new future meadow

Like I said before, there is watering involved in this process even though the desired end result is no watering at all.

So, now that your plugs are tucked into their own individual holes with goopy greatness covering their tender roots, you must water. And water good.

And if you know what song is going through my head right now because of that last statement, I'm glad you and I can be crazy together.

By this time it was mighty hot and I was jealous of the grass playing in the sprinklers.

Anyway, we watered (or, to be honest, Bubba watered while he shooed me off to the shower because he knew I felt nasty and really wanted to shower but was feeling guilty leaving him to water my future meadow) each individual plant and the overall future meadow until it was pretty well soaked and then, in the evening (and each with a cocktail) we did it again.

And then on Sunday, when I was in a hot rage thanks to Brett Favre and his old man football antics (RETIRE ALREADY DAMN YOU), we went out and watered again if only so that Bubba could introduce some comic relief into my life by surreptitiously watering my shoes/feet/legs/hair while pretending to water the future meadow.

He knows when I need a laugh and WOW did I need a laugh at that point. And no drinks because YAY I was hungover from the aforementioned bachelorette party and was nursing a swift little headache.

Freshly watered and ready to grow. Or so I hope.

Step 11: Wait and meanwhile order some bulbs

My plan is to randomly plant some wildflower bulbs in and amongst this meadow grass so that maybe one day it will look something like a mini meadow out there, so while this stuff decides whether it's going to live or die, I ordered a lot of wildflower bulbs.

Because shopping is the best medicine when you're worried that your big gardening bet isn't going to pay off and you might have just made a very public ass of yourself, so better to cover it with flowers.

I got some wildflower bulbs and I'm happy to say that I have managed to create a big old project for myself to dread because when these many bags of bulbs arrive I will be out in that yard for many hours getting them all planted.

But that's OK. It will give me time to talk to each seedling and remind them that they should grow big and strong and not make me look like a loser. Even though I will then look like a big freak for talking to my plants.

Take the good with the bad, I guess.

Adopt a Crop update: My evil plan is working

Lettuce growing in the shade of beans. A true romance.

When I go out to the garden, as I do approximately one to two dozen times per day, the first bed I inspect is the cuke/bean/lettuce bed.

And while I'd like you to think that this is because I'm super protecting your adopted lemon cucumber crop, that's totally not the reason.

The reason is because I like to watch my Evil Plan unfold. With my Evil Plan being to extend the lettuce season by growing the tender boltastic leaves in the shade of the rapidly growing beans on their tepee.

And, much to my extreme joy and pleasure, this is totally working.

YES.

Not that this is *my* Evil Plan, since I know that this whole strategy has likely been around as long as the Three Sisters planting method, but still, for it to work for me is excellent. Makes me feel like I'm finally learning something about gardening rather than just running full steam into the soil in the spring throwing seeds and plants and stakes around me as I race to warm up from winter and get my hands in the dirt LIKE NOW.

The desire for a warm garden tomato is extremely strong in, say, March, so it's hard to control myself long enough to put together any strategy, much less one that works. Much less one that's also Evil, by my standards anyway.

Evil Standards = Gently defy nature to extend harvest

Granted, that's not very Evil, but I can start wearing my Halloween costume while I perform this task, if you feel like that will more appropriately honor the Evil. Just kidding.

I think this Evil Plan has been developing steadily, but being away for four days while we had a minor heat wave in NorCal really emphasized the developing Evil. In short, I came home to find the beans nearing the top of their tepee.

I predict this guy will hit the top before the end of the month.

The same tepee that, when Bubba built it for me, I thought might be a little tall but who cares maybe we can get extra channels on the teevee with it. (The fact that we have satellite TV should be disregarded for the purposes of this particular theory.)

The race is so ON.

On the less triumphant side of things, I brought in a replacement for one of the suck-tastic Better Boy seedlings since he's showing so few signs of life that it was pissing me off that precious warm weather was being wasted on his sucking self when I could have another plant potentially growing in his hole.

Of course, when I came home with this new not-sucky replacement, I didn't have the heart to chuck Mr. I Refuse To Grow Despite Heat and Optimum Conditions, so I just planted the new not-sucky plant next to him. A little, "Why can't you be more like your big brother?" guilt, I feel, is an effective gardening method.

We'll see.

His buddy in the We Suck Vegetable Bed of Failure is starting to perk up and act like he wants to be a part of this family, so I'm leaving him be and also trying to spend some extra time encouraging him to continue on his path to righteousness. And by righteousness, I mean, The Best Tomato Sauce Ever. Yep.

I want to be the best. I really do.

And, hey, speaking of under-performers - the corn doesn't suck anymore.

YIPPEE. WHIPPY. WHIPPY.

We're reading above our grade-level now.

Now that I've replaced the seeds that refused to grow after two sowings with healthy seedlings, a handful of which were crushed by a wandering racoon, and covered them to protect them from future wanderings, they're doing, well, GREAT.

They look good. Like, small scary children could potentially be rustling their way through their stalks very soon, kind of good. I like that. Scary in my mini corn field. Fun times. Perhaps that will entertain me enough to distract me from the fact that I'll be lucky to have two ears of corn to rub together this season.

Again, we'll see. There's no telling what will make me lose my shit or, conversly, provide enough entertainment to warrant otherwise crappy behavior acceptable. I'm a loose cannon, folks!


Thankfully, I don't have to hold back any tears with regard to the cucumbers this year. They're very happily doing exactly what the packet promises, and so far, without any bugs to speak of. And if there were any naughty bugs (there are some good ones in there, they get to stay), I would know. I did a very intense veg bed weeding this morning and found nothing naughty to make me cry.

Of the 14 seeds I planted (7 per hill), I've left 4 per hill to go bonkers. I also caged them after the recent Night of the Racoon, which will also help them stay upright and strong when the alleged Heavy Yields begin.

Say it with me, "Pickle Chips. Pickle Chips." Alright, then.

They only love me for my fiber.

I have a new artichoke on the plant and the first one is big enough that I'm thinking we'll eat it when we get home from backpacking next week. Because that's what I need after eating dehydrated food for three days: FIBER.

You know.

If I had red stitches, MLB would want me.

For those of you keeping tabs on the #1 tomato - it's fucking huge already. When I left for Yellowstone, it was the size of a marble. When I came home, a paltry four days later, it was the size of a baseball. I'm afraid to look at it today, lest I find it the size of a basketball and have to consider the possibility of doping.

No steroids in this field, damn it.


The one million blossoms on the Meyer lemon tree are now one thousand tiny lemons. I hope that, at some point, they become somewhere in the neighborhood of a few dozen ripe Meyers from which I can contemplate making the Most Hated Dessert of All Time since I think Bubba could use some Lemon Love.

Oh! Spank me! That sounds nasty.

#1 Nasturtium. Not nasty at all.

And to end on a Not Porno note, the nasturtium have begun to bloom in all the beds, which is nice since it brings some color to the Complete Green of the vegetables and also fulfills another Evil Plan of recent years: confuse the cucumber beetles.

What the hell am I talking about? Well, according to various companion gardening resources, nasturtium repel cucumber beetles by confusing them. Specifically, with all those leaves in and around the cuke plants, they get lost and give up trying to kill your cukes.

Whether this is an accurate portrayal of events, I can't say, but if it's going to work, then I've got the ideal setup given that even *I* couldn't immediately locate my cucumber plants for the forest of nasturtium.

Thankfully, I don't give up that easily.

Can you tell what's naturtium and what's cucumber? SEE! It's hard.

Oh, and if you're interested, I'm updating the Garden Tracker with our daily harvests (mostly lettuce so far), so you can see how the Sow ---> Reap process is hashing out. So far so good. I'll let you know when we're getting close to Zero Barrier.

And if you don't know what Zero Barrier is, you haven't watched nearly enough doomsday movies. Please go rent Armageddon and come back when you can understand what the fuck I'm talking about.

The universe wants me to be a fatty

Because it's the beginning of a new year, I'm obviously spending a lot of time with Google Spreadsheets open on my laptop.

That is because I'm an anal retentive psychopath and I plan things as though the act of putting characters into a spreadsheet makes them miraculously occur without any further effort from moi. In reality, it just frees my mind from having to store up all the details so that I can think about important things like thong underwear and new surfaces for the kitchen floor.

Basically, once it goes on the spreadsheet I, instead of continuing to refer back to it like a sensible person might, move on to other things and let all those details just sit and think about themselves while I try to figure out how one might clean spaghetti sauce off of cork. Eventually I make it back to the spreadsheet, yes, but in the mean time I make all kinds of other decisions without the burdensome interference of What races am I doing this year? lying unresolved in the Oh Good, You're Awake! part of my mind.

You know what I'm talking about. That trouble making asshole in your head that clicks on when you wake up in the middle of the night and really want to go back to sleep but all of a sudden your brain has run off in a hundred directions and forces you to go sit in front of the computer at 3:37am doing searches for "arm warmers for running" with your bare buns shivering against the leather of the Steelcase.

Why don't I put on sweats or a robe? Who knows.

What I'm trying to say is that I've tried to fit all the "I'm going to totally do that race in 2011" races into my scheduling and planning and you know what? Conflicts galore.

As though some universal hand of fate wants me to avoid exercising all year so I can just be the fatty it's always wanted me to be.

Take the Mermaid Tri/Duathlon, for instance. After last year's super fun and disaster-free outing on the Cannondale, I came into the finish line proclaiming that I'd "totally do that again!" and also I believed it when I said it. Except that it lands on the day after AIDS Lifecycle finishes up, which wouldn't be the end of the world except that it ends in L.A., which is about 600 miles from where the Mermaid Du starts less than 24 hours later.

Boo. Probably not going to happen. Not that I'm doing the AIDS Lifecycle, Bubba is, but I am roadie-ing and have important responsibilities related to hot-tub finding and ball bandaging, if the circumstances arise.

Think I'm kidding? OK, I am. About the ball part anyway. I have no idea if any balls will require bandaging or if there's any ball maintenance involved in the roadie responsibilities that I'm making up for Bubba myself since I'm not an official "roadie", but rather just his personal roadie because I don't want to set up a million other people's tents or cut up bananas for a week.

Call me selfish, but I really only care about Bubba's well-being for this thing. Everyone else can set up their own bullshit and bandage their own balls. Don't they have awesome spouses like Bubba does? Let's assume they do.

So, yeah - I might have to wait until Mermaid announces the dates for their fall duathlon in Santa Cruz to get a chance to ride the Cannondale to mediocrity again. Look - I'm not winning any of these races (Hi, dad. I love your optimism, as misplaced as it may be.), so I take my satisfaction in races completed without accidental homicides rather than by way of traditional age group awards. I guess I'm just unconventional that way.

There's also the case of the Muddy Buddy I had so wanted to do this year, with me on the run and Bubba on the bike and the two of us murdering people in the giant puddle at the end under cover of filth as we clamored to a shameful victory, except that it lands on a weekend that's already triple booked.

How is that possible? For a weekend 10 months away to be triple booked already? That is some impossible bullshit right there. How can so many different people pick the exact same weekend for such different activities. You think there'd be a law, but no. Friend's wedding, fishing weekend, mud race - all the same weekend - all in different states. And you know the first to get the no-no is the race because the race directors aren't going to be sending us guilt-trippy notes inside ugly Christmas cards for the next 20 years because we flaked on seeing them speak their marital vows and then drink banquet beer from a red cup.

Lame.

So what races WILL I run this year?

Not sure. I skipped the first trail race of the year because I thought the weather was going to be shit-tastic and it was, so that's gone. There's one tomorrow that I totally blanked on and then the next one is at the end of the month at the exact moment when we'll be pulling into Steamboat for a week of snow orgies.

The first one I can see coming to pass is likely the Diablo Trails Challenge in March, but it's already filling up, so I'll have to pull the trigger on that sometime soon.

The important thing that I've decided, however, in all my planning and scheduling and filling in of tiny cloud cells, is that there is one race that I had on the "I'm totally doing that race in 2011" list that I'm so totally not doing: the Seattle Rock n Roll half.

Yeah, I thought I was only taking 2010 off from half marathons, but what really happened was that I took 2010 off from half marathons while also realizing that I'm kinda over road running for a while. Sure, I'll do the duathlon with its run portions on roads and trails, but that's going to absorb all the 2011 Interest In Running on the Roads I have to offer.

To put another nail in that coffin, when I was last out at Sanborn Park punishing and then rewarding myself with that mountain's steep ass climbs and downhills, I actually threw down the dough for an annual parking pass so that I wouldn't have to scrounge up $6 from Bubba's wallet (KIDDING. I take it from the disabled kid's jar at Safeway.)(KIDDING. I take it from our laundry change jar.)(Seriously. It's all in nickles and quarters. How pathetic.) every time I wanted to run there.

So now the challenge is to make use of that pass so that I don't feel like a baboon's red ass at the end of the year. My calculations tell me that will mean I need to run there once a month to break even. And *that* tells me that running on the road just became an expensive and boring alternative to running in the mountains at any of the parks we have around here.

And all that tells me that I didn't need a spreadsheet to organize my running plans for the year. I could have just put it right here: Run in the mountains as much as possible. Run any trail races that don't conflict with any other bullshit that's somehow already on the calendar. GO.

Well, *I* feel better.

:: Random side note here is that I dislike how Blogger doesn't recognize "duathlon" as a word. It comes up on the spellchecker and offers a slew of other -athlons like biathlon, triathlon, decathlon, but acts like a duathlon isn't a real thing and I take offense to that. Suck it, spellchecker - it IS a real thing and I have the cheesy pictures to prove it. And just to spite you: duathlon, duathlon, duathlon, duathlon, duathlon, duathlon. Ha. 

I win. ::

Running update: I now make up special names for my running clothes to legitimize my shopping.

I am about to launch into many months of gardeningblahblahblah so I thought I'd share some parting words about my winter running, the forthcoming spring time running and how I'm worried that not running a single half marathon this year will ruin my life or at least cripple my not-really-a running career to the point where all I'll do during the times when I normally would have been on a 12 mile training run is wander the neighborhood in my running shorts pointing at the race medals strung around my neck going, "Look, fuckers! These mean I don't *have* to run long distances anymore, OK."

Yes, my mind wanders when I run and I have an awesomely creative and inappropriate imagination.

Also, I realize that 13.1 miles is only considered to be "long distance running" to some people so don't get all "Um, loser - you're not running long distances until you're in the 26 mile range, OK?" in the comments because I'll ignore you and also quietly hate you. And, despite my innate crabbiness, I don't want to hate you.

Anyway, mostly I just worry about The Fatness and not being able to hike as fast on our backpacking trips, as I set my sights on the 5 and 10Ks in the ever-present Active.com Upcoming Events in Your Area emails.

I mean, yes, I have been vaguely tempted to sign up for the Seattle Rock N Roll Half Marathon, if only for the chance to maybe possibly see a bald eagle, like, right there along Lake Washington again so that I can be an inappropriate ass, again, and shriek "Holy Shit!" amongst a sea of horrified runners, but I've learned an important lesson about re-running a race:

Don't do it because it's very boring.

Yep - thanks San Jose Rock N Roll, for that life lesson.

OK, so the second time I ran it, it was OK. I was going for time, which I made swiftly and with little added effort, but the third time (last year), the race was terrible. I was bored to the point where I considered just running off the course at the six mile mark *knowing* that I wouldn't care later about ditching out on the run because I was *so over it*.

But, thankfully, the tiny competitor in my mind (and let me be clear when I say, "tiny", because I'm not all that competitive) forced me to stay and finish what I started. So, really, it probably wasn't the tiny competitor in my mind, but more the HUGE A/R accountant in my mind that wouldn't let me flake on a commitment. Or a race entry fee.

OK, the fee part was probably the tiny Jew in my mind, but whatever. Jew, accountant - let's not get buried in semantics.

All in all, the lesson was learned and as I was finishing that dull drag of a race, I decided that I would certainly not run it again. At least for a while. Because HI no one did anything remotely interesting to their front yards in the year's time between the '08 and '09 races and so I had nothing to look at but the same tired landscaping and the ankles of the toads in front of me.

Boh-ring.

About my winter running, though. Well, I think we're done with that season now, too.

I had, officially, one day that required YakTrax, but as I had not yet purchased the YakTrax, I spent the duration of that run slip-sliding away and very nearly snapping a groin muscle (no injury sustained, though, so YAY).

After that fateful day, however, I did buy the YakTrax and have since used them many times - in Tahoe. Where it snows. And where I like to take the dogs out for leash-free roaming while I drink wine out of a coffee cup.

Like I've said before, I'm a class broad.

I think the arrival of the YakTrax also marked the permanent stowing of the remainder of the winter running gear like the vest, tights, long-sleeves and thick running pants.

Though I may break the tights and long sleeves out for the Mermaid 10K if the weather makes an evil turn on the eve of the race like it did last year.

Fine. I'll manage.

But, in a deliberate attempt to welcome spring and force winter to the back of the closet, I got myself what I'm calling, a Transitional Running Top.

"Transitional" because it has short sleeves rather than long or tank sleeves and will let me transition between the cold ass mornings of the winter and the cool and lovely mornings of spring.

You get it.

Mostly this is because, while I'm ready to wear tanks on my morning runs, I tend to get the hairy eyeball from the freaks all wrapped around their paper coffee cups at the stop lights and sometimes the older gal in her head-to-toe winter running outfit (with matching headband - sharp!) goes out of her way to interrogate me on what exactly is my problem aren't I freezing.

Sure, I can say No and wipe some of my carefully cultivated boob sweat on her forehead to illustrate my point, but it's easier to just wear short sleeves so that my barren shoulders don't attract so much attention.

It's amazing how an extra two inches of fabric extended over the shoulders can mitigate so much unsolicited inquiry into my mental status.

But, surpriseSURPRISE, I actually quite like my Transitional short-sleeve top even though I thought I'd certainly hate it.

It's more form-fitting than the one-size-fits-most free race day technical tees I've been wearing, but not to the point where it rides up my midsection until it's sitting just below my boobs, thus offering up a quivering display of my midsection.

It's a nice, slick, breathey, wicking type of fabric - which is good for the inevitable sweating I do when it's *GASP* 40 degrees during morning intervals, and on top of that, I daresay this top has made me faster.

Oh sure - a top can do that.

And I would know, too, since my last two interval runs, for which I wore my Transitional Top for the first two times, have been in the 23s.

Yep - suck it - Runs in the 24s! 23 is the new 24! And I will now wear this Transitional SUPER FAST Top until such time as it becomes less maniacal to wear a tank top before the 7 o'clock hour.

Which sort of gives you an idea of what my spring time running will be like. Tank tops and shorts, intervaling out my Tuesday and Thursday mornings and long running my Saturday mornings, all with the ill-conceived goal of making time on my races.

In other words, 2010 probably won't be so much about trail running (as I'd previously thought) as it will be about nailing down some specific distance times. Like I've said before, I'm going for a sub-60 10K race time. And, since I managed a sub-30 5K at Thanksgiving last year, I'd like to now make that a sub-29 5K. Which isn't as glamorous as a sub-30, but it's faster than my finish time of 29:14, so you can understand my reasoning, yes?

Yeah, true, it's not as fun to say, "I'm going for a sub-29 5K PR and sub-60 10K PR this year!" as it is to say, "I'm running two half marathons", but when you get down to the bottom of all this, running isn't usually associated with "fun" for most people, so I can be a little less rigid with my standards of declaration.

I'm sure you agree.

And that is about all the running updating I have to do for now. Gird your loins for the forthcoming gardening talk.