You should probably just ignore me

So, let's rest assured that I've not lost my incredible delusion.

When we were moving, I was making absurd declarations left and fucking right. 

"I'm going to shut the gate and hide forever."

Or, "Imma get drunk with the neighbors and eat their beautiful cake off the plate with my hands because I'm terribly behaved."

"I'm going to make your lunches, Bubba, because your day is going to be very long thanks to this new shiite commute." 

Translation: "I'll do it, like twice, and then melt down the special lunch container in the dishwasher and then sort of put it on the back burner for a while. BUT I'LL GET BACK TO IT. Swear."

"I'm going to wait until I've done the whole landscape design before I put in a single plant."

Crazier words have never been spoken.

But I'll just quick pull these dead ferns out and that's it. I'll stop after that.

BecauseImeanhonestly

The fucking place looks haunted.

So much mental vomiting

Fuck it. I couldn't take it. SO I PLANTED 6 SALVIAS SO WHAT?!

For the sake of Money Chicken

Then some leftover bark mulch happened that was a mistake.

Then some pumpkins came home with me from work because they're EVERYWHERE at work and it's impossible to keep them from just falling in the truck.

Marauding bastards 

COME AT ME BRO

Just...for days

Aren't the white ones the coolest? I think they are. Even though Halloween has passed and now all anyone can talk about is fucking Christmas.

Isn't this echeveria awesome looking?

Let's never speak of the holidays again. Or the fact that this door is positively shrieking for a succulent wreath.

Also, I may have some Mimulus en route in 4" pots.

And I may be kicking off of work early on a coming Friday to get some native iris rhizomes to restart my wild meadow.

BUT THAT'S IT.

I'm totally going to get a whole landscape design together before I plant anything else.

Eventually my eyes will stop watering.

I really thought I'd have more glamorous shit to report from our New Life In The Country, as it's been called, but who the hell knows why I thought there would be glamour in the country.

Mostly we just have skunks.

Hey buddy! NO THANK YOU.

OH MY GOD THE MOTHER FUCKING SKUNKS.

Remember how I got so over our old house projects before that I never wanted to hear the word, "kitchen", again? Or garage. Or bathroom. Or porch. Or fireplace. Or bar.

Because of the all-consumingness of those projects? Because we were spending all of our waking hours discussing the ins and outs and details and plans for those projects? Those projects that were going to result in a remodeled kitchen, a garage with electricity, a bathroom without a time machine shower,  a not-collapsing porch, a push button fireplace and an effing BAR?

OH TO BE SAYING, "BAR", OVER AND OVER RIGHT NOW INSTEAD OF, "SKUNKS".

And then to get a fabulous new BAR instead of...just not skunk smell.

Yeah. So, we're there with the skunks.

These sick bastards went to absolute town on our house one week before we moved in.

Sprayed the garage. Sprayed the guest house. Sprayed the deck.

Our eyes are watering, but still - COCKTAILS ON THE DECK. MUST HAVE IT. NEED THOSE ONION GOGGLES. Also, please enjoy our ski fencing while the deck railing is finished. 

I'll just say that moving day was fragrant. Eye-wateringly so.

Yay.

So yeah - all the glamorous fun projects like tearing out miles of heinous carpet, redoing a tragically tiled kitchen, setting up a media room or staking out my new garden has taken an abrupt backseat.

Because WHY DOES IT STILL SMELL SO BAD?

See...glamour. It's my life.

Thankfully, we now have A Skunk Guy.

We have traps set and they're baited with hard boiled eggs (I almost vomit a lot) and they're sitting out waiting to catch us the grand prize of a funking skunk.

That will probably spray again when The Skunk Guy comes to take him away.

Hooray.

At least we got the garbage disposal fixed on the home buyer's warranty!

Oh, not glamorous either.

Ceiling fan spins now?

OK, also boring.

New propane tank!

Snore, I know.

But the stairs! We had the hilarious contractor built us some awesome stairs! And they're pretty!

You'll have to do.

And he had his painter do the painting part and OH MY GOD LOOK A THE PAINTER GUY'S DOG:

I'm sure you realize that I cuddle raped the absolute pants off of this dog.

And then we've had some good looking sunsets.

Nicely done, Country.

And twilight turkey hunting.

And Jada's kinda in heaven.

Plus, we're managing.

Beer is why country dog walks are superior to suburban dog walks.

So fuck the glamour.

We have skunks, sunsets, stairs, turkeys, a happy dog and beer.

I ate my body weight in pretzels. And parsley, basil, dill, radishes, lettuce, cabbage, chives and arugula.

So, I went to Germany to look at some farms.

And look I did. A LOT.

My eyeballs are tired from all the lettuce looking.

And cute displays of herb looking.

If you don't look at this and squeal then I just don't understand you.

I mean, who DOESN'T want to look at and sample a half dozen types of dill?

Or talk to plant breeders about the latest in hedgerow design?

Or watch the corn wave around in the breeze?

This girl does, that's for sure.

Plus parsley. I tasted a lot of parsleys. Parslies? Whatever you know what I mean.

And eat pretzels.

So many pretzels. I ate them all.

And see the latest basil varieties.

I smelled, tasted and cuddled all of these basils. IT'S MY JOB OK.

And I work VERY hard.

I had to pinch this basil's cheeks because come on. CUTEST.

And, bless the friggen Germans - the straight lines and organization. Best ever.

Probably I will have to make this at home.

And eat pretzels.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner pretzels. Plus pastries. Plus YAY.

And see way more arugula than necessary.

Yeah. I don't grow arugula, but apparently a LOT of people do. There was much talk about it. 

And eat pretzels.

Which gave me a chance to eat more pretzels. 

And drink beer.

And mushrooms and carpaccio.

And look at squash towers.

"WOW! The Germans are so efficient that they've figured out how to grow squash vertically!" - The hilarious Bubba

For work.

Lamborghini tractors. Because Germans do not fuck around with farming.

My greenhouse manager and I - working VERY HARD.

Market research. At the market. VERY WORKY.

The shoppers in the store didn't really know what to make of a dozen growers poking around the living herbs section taking pictures and smelling and modeling with all the plants.

This was very cool - a package of herbs for a specific type of herb sauce that they make all over Germany ("green sauce"). We all marveled at it in the store. 

And then BECAUSE WE WERE WORKING VERY HARD, we went to the growers who produce this special "Green sauce" herb package to see how they do it.

And check out how the Europeans pack out their herbs. 

SO COOL - Cut bunched dill shipped in watered pallets.

Hehe - cute chives

And the very first chance I had, there was currywurst. 

Don't you call it hot dogs.

So yeah, Germany. Farms. Vegetables. Herbs. Beers. Pretzels. Clean boots. Cool people.

ENJOYABLE.

Now...Hawaii.

See y'all in a week or so. When I will be "not even that tan".