The new bermudagrass

Remember when I was all, "BERMUDAGRASS CAN GO FUCK ITSELF", or whatever?

Because it was the worst/the devil's landscape material/etc?

You may remember. I remember. But now I laugh when I remember how much I loathed the Bermudagrass because...

Poison oak.

OH FUCK YOU.

People, I'm not saying that I'd take 5 acres of Bermudagrass over the poison oak, but what I am saying is FUCK THAT SHIT and also, our perspectives toward yard work have changed.

Specifically, we are extra not fucking around.

The days of maybe I'll wear flip flops while I do some light gardening are way over.

You know - coveralls speckled with filth are basically the same.

The days where I yard work myself to a near stroke only a few times a year when the vegetable garden goes in/comes out are super over.

Every weekend, folks. Be jealous.

The days where going out to do yard work does not involve a pre-treatment, hooded Tyvek suit, elbow length gloves, full face coverage and an invasively thorough Technu post-treatment hosing off are over, too.

Strange that the gloves are what makes this scary.

These are the salad days for sure.

But - we are making just the tiniest bit of progress with the 5 acres of Bubba-eating poison oak, so there's that.

Before

After

And, while Bubba happens to be violently OFFENSIVELY allergic to poison oak, I happen to not be allergic apparently at all.

And...vomit.

Though I'm sure that now I say that, I'll die of poison oak inhalation or something stupid.

And I think you know that this was finally the moment we were all waiting for - GOATS.

Let me allow that to sink in.

GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSS

FOR FUCKING FINALLY, RIGHT?

And not because I somehow convincingly demanded it or looked extra pathetic or made some censor-worthy offers to Bubba - oh no.

IT WAS HIS IDEA.

Because of the almost dying twice of poison oak since we moved here less than a year ago.

But yeah - GOATS CAME.

And not just, like, one or two goats. NO, PEOPLE - 402 GOATS WERE AT OUR HOUSE.

And, for a few minutes on our road, and then for 5 munchy munchy days of blissful oak, grass and POISON OAK eating they were on our property doing their adorable, insatiable, bottomless-bellied bests.

I said, "This is the greatest thing I've ever seen" approximately 100 times. Every minute.

Because COME ON...

I mean, before was all:

And then after 5 days of endless goat attention, it was all:

And during I was all:

It was all.

Anyway - yeah. Poison oak is basically our lives and, as a result, we've gotten REAL.

After they took the goats away (it was a sad day), we armed ourselves with The Poison Oak Station.

So, yes, this is a repurposed repurposed tool cabinet that some kid made (unsupervised, I'm thinking) in shop class that Bubba bought and cut up and welded back together to be the FrankenSmoker and then cut up again and then here we are.

Now it's, luxuriously I might add, lined with cardboard and filled with everything we need to almost hopefully probably if we're really careful not get poison oak while we use the Not Fucking Around tools to, basically, go to battle.

I mean, what even is this thing?

Brush ax. Kaiser blade. Sling blade. Take your pick.

We call it the Dothraki Death Blade because - I mean you can see why. It's kind of like a scythe crossed with a giant machete and bolted onto an ax handle.

And it FUCKING WORKS. For chopping shit back anyway. That's its main purpose. And we have a lot of chopping shit back to do. So, that's one tool we can't do without.

Then there's the super long tree saw with the hookey-loo that can snag the poison oak vines BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY ARE VINING and drag their oily asses out of the beautiful coast live oak trees and into the trailer BOOM. And then saw down the big fat trunks choking the shit out of the trees.

Except don't tell Bubba I called it a hookey-loo. I think he takes offense to the goofball names I apply to all his manly stuff.

And then there's the chainsaw to which Bubba has pledged his eternal soul.

Now, to be clear, we do not use the chainsaw on poison oak - that'd be crazy and would just spray noxious poison oak bits and blobs every old where. But we are also limbing up the trees and cutting up fallen limbs every other foot fall as we creep ever closer to the center of this property, so the chainsaw is a must.

And the trailer. He's a good boy.

And you may not think of it as a super Not Fucking Around Tool - but the rake is in there, too. The ratty old one that the former owners left behind. He can pull great wads of filthy poison oak down around your ankles in no time at all.

Makes me itchy just thinking about it. And I don't even get poison oak! Or do I...?

So yeah - that's what we're doing instead of training for races, brewing beer, crafting a thing, growing a vegetable garden or basking our buns in Hawaii.

AND IT'S GREAT.

So...the fucking marigolds.

I planted too many marigolds.

Those are bush beans in there. True story.

The flower that I have always maligned has, like, run a-complete-mok in the garden.

I planted too many marigolds.

I tell myself this every time I go to the garden.

Because this past winter when I was planning my garden, all the while knowing we were totally planning to eventually sell our house and the garden and move to the country (yes, we knew. Don't be all mad.), I made a pact with myself.

Or something like a pact - like, a decision. Or a mandate! No, that sounds weird.

Anyway, my *strategy*,  let's call it since that sounds marginally less Plant Lady Crazy, was that this, quite possibly my last vegetable garden at this house, was going to be AMAZING.

Perfect.

Over the top with fucking awesomeness.

Like, no whammies whatsoever.

I was going to just kill it. In the way that killing it is having it be the best vegetable garden I've grown ever.

So, all I planted were Sure Things.

Like, firstly I took stock of what plants I'd saved seed from. Those were my home team advantage. I already knew they loved it here.

Then, for the Sure Thing ones for which I didn't have saved seed (like they were hybrid varieties) but I knew did REALLY well here, I went into my seed stash and raided whatever I had left to grow out into seedlings.

Then I set out a garden plan for the final round of my crop rotation in the garden in which I have grown vegetables for 10 years and, as extra insurance for the AMAZING HOLY SHIT garden, I also chose and sowed marigold seed that I hoped wouldn't make me sad every time I went to the garden.

Because marigolds are really good in the garden and also terrifically ugly.

They repel pests and attract beneficials while all the while looking like burned up wads of tissue paper that somehow missed the trash can and blew into the yard. But they do all that fruity shit for the garden that is actually quite good and real but for which people think I'm insane and, like, a whimsical moon maiden to believe and I don't care because fuck those guys.

I'll have burned up dark orange tissue wads protecting my last garden in this house because it has to be AMAZING HOLY SHIT or, like, BUST or whatever.

And so I found marigolds that were in a color I could stomach and wouldn't make me think that I had a bunch of blossoms on my vegetables because they were the same yellow color as the majority of my crops' blossoms. Which was the other reason I came to hate marigolds because I have only ever grown the yellow ones and I'd get all, "OOH! The tomatoes have blossomsohnotheydon'tit'sjustastupidmarigoldjerk."

Less jerky

Hate that.

So, I got these. Dark orange. I love orange. You know this.

And then because I hardly ever grow marigolds and have, obviously, very little idea how big they actually get, I planted about 105 of them in and around my vegetable garden that is not even 100 square feet.

So, yeah...the fucking marigolds.

I planted too many.

Are you seeing the burned up wad of tissue paper thing here?

And every time I come out here to check on how the AMAZING HOLY SHIT garden is doing, I think to myself, "WOW! This garden is doing AMAZING. HOLY SHIT!" and then, "I planted a too many marigolds. This is fucking ridiculous."

The "Watermelon" bed. Mmhhmm...

Also, "Wow. Those are way bigger plants than I remember them being. No wonder my work crew thought I was insane for wanting to put 3 plants to a 1 gallon pot at the entrances to my greenhouse. They must think I'm a moron."

Whatever. They're huge and the garden is really AMAZING HOLY SHIT so I'm fine with it.

The "Cucumber" bed

The Tomato bed that was saved the indecency of being overrun by marigolds but instead by nasturtium.

The tomatillo bed - spared the marigolds, but still a little scared.

Though I am having a hard time finding the AMAZING HOLY SHIT vegetables I was so intent on growing.

Beans? Are there beans in there? I think that no.

Because they're pretty much lost forever behind all the muther fucking marigolds yikes.

I'm thinking of pulling a few plants out, but you know how I am and how I hate to throw plants away, especially ones that are doing so well and clearly helping the garden so much.

Though I can't really say how much because I am having a pretty hard time finding the vegetables in there.

But I've found some.

And they've been pretty AMAZING HOLY SHIT so far.

The pole beans (Fortex, Blue Coco) and cucumbers (Lemon, Boothby Blonde) that I've snatched from the grips of marigolds.

The first pink lemon which I'm told tastes like grapefruit.

Kinda looks like grapefruit if you ask me. Which you are, right? That's why you're here? So, yes - grapefruit.

And I've, thanks to the not-yellowness of the marigolds, found lots of tomato blossoms and tomatillo blossoms and no watermelon blossoms yet because their sun may be getting blocked by the...um...marigolds, but I can see their spotted leaves!

The first lanterns! Not at all obscured by tricky lying ass marigolds.

Some more beans. Because OH MY GOD WITH THE FUCKING BEANS.

That's a cucumber blossom which is OCCUPIED.

Yeah - watermelons. For reals.

Some tomatoes already setting. 

Yes. The blossoms are on the plants, fruit is on some of the plants, we'll probably have our first tomato by 4th of July which is almost 2 months before we move, we've already harvested nearly 10 pounds of beans and another 10 of cucumbers and it's really looking like my post productive garden ever.

Also we have grapes and this artichoke.

This artichoke

These grapes

And, like a billion sweet peas and nasturtium and we did have this volunteer Lemon Queen sunflower that I just hacked down because it was leaning unattractively and shade-blockingly in front of the melons that just grew up out of nowhere without my help or water.

I won't take credit for that one. It was just the annual, "Who's this fucking guy?" sunflower that I have gotten each year for the last, like, five years at least.

Man. I'm going to miss that next spring.

We *may* eat a lot of peaches. If we can get out of here without murdering anyone. I don't think they get a lot of peaches in jail, is what I'm saying.

So, we're kind of in the middle of some more crazy crap in our quest to become the least responsible adults, but instead of diving into that just all right out of the gate, I'm going to talk about plants.

Cheaper than a therapist right here.

Because I'm a plant nerd and also because this crazy crap involves me leaving a garden that I have so literally poured in blood, sweat and tears. And swears and The Money Chicken and bees and a load of seeds and an apple tree that we chose special for Bubba out of a farm stand line up of, like 20 varieties.

To be clear, the bees are coming with us. As is The Money Chicken. 

Plus, also a billion weekends, half a sabbatical, a business, after work cocktail hours and a cat.

Yes. Rocket's back there.

All buried in her old sunning spot (In an urn. Or whatever's inside the little wood box the vet gave me. Not, like, all alarmingly stiff and taxidermy-y wrapped in a blankie or something.) with her middle paw toe just standing at the ready.

So, yeah. Memories and shit.

Oh, and also the front yard meadow. Bye, buddy. You look effing amazing. FINALLY.

We're moving!

Eventually.

But for now - the plants.

I'm having these discussions with each plant sort of non-verbally.

Carpenteria californica, we need to talk...

Like, I look at the bush anenome and in my head I'm, like, "Hey, buddy. Remember the good times we had when I went to that hippie nursery in the woods and picked you out of all those other sorta boring-looking native plants just based on the little picture stuck in your pot and the fact that you didn't need summer water? Yeah? Remember? And then you got awesome. I never watered you after that first winter and BOOM you've gotten bigger and flowered more and when I pruned you properly thanks to all the horticulture classes you got all gorgeous and then I read this thing at a nursery about how come more people don't grow you and I felt proud. Remember? Yeah. You're cool. I'm going to plant you again."

Or whatever.

Each plant is like this. I'm fucking losing it. How will I really drive away and leave behind the grapes that like their fall pruning and making of wreath from their prunings behind? Who will do that now? HUH?

Um, no one. Because most people are normal.

And the citrus trees with their monthly fertilizing?

Um, no one. Because no one fertilizes their citrus trees adequately.

And the everything else with their everything else needs?

By having some shitty ass neighbors, that's how.

Oh - you didn't think this was going to be all about plants without any bitching, did you?

HAVE WE NOT MET?

Anyway then, don't misunderstand me, the majority of our neighbors are AWESOME. And by AWESOME, I mean AWESOME. You know this.

As I type, they're out there dropping off treats, voluntarily taking Jada to their houses when agents have to come show our house to clients, hosting dinner at their houses so that we can get in our hanging out time before moving, texting us with well wishes, offering to help us pack and all kinds of nice awesome things. You know - awesomey stuff that awesome neighbors do when they find out you're moving and want to help/show that they'll miss you/be awesome some more.

But those aren't the neighbors I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the shitty neighbors and the only purpose that they're serving right now is the one that will make it possible to leave all the plants, our sweet house and everything else behind.

Because of fuck those guys.

THANKS SO MUCH TO THEM for providing the crucial "How do we get our asses to the country?" puzzle piece.

YES THANKS.

Because yesterday, after eight (!) years of saying nothing about the fence that we installed (on our own dime mind you because they refused to pay a cent - you remember) they want it changed.

Before we move.

So that they can reclaim a 10 ft2 space next to their house in the name of "We need access to clean our windows."

Access which they'd have if they'd open the gate.

Which apparently they're unable to do because of they're retarded and want to fuck with us.

And they want it done NOW so that they don't have to go through this with The New Neighbors.

Because, you know, we're all just so close already that it's easier to do with us than unknown new people.

Or maybe because they know that, aside from my oft-referenced aluminum bat, we're unarmed and, with The New Neighbors - who knows, right?

Whatever. These neighbors are asshats.

*Sigh*

Thankfully, we have the grooviest, savviest, and also very AWESOME realtor who smoothed everything out with these chuckleheads and coached me on how to smooth everything out with them without using the bat as encouragement.

Poor bat - barely gets any skull time.

So, yeah, we're moving y'all.

99% of our neighbors are awesome and we'll be sad to leave them. 1% of our neighbors are complete assholes and will be lucky if I don't take a farewell swing at them with Cracky the Bat.

But either way we'll be leaving the suburbs of Silicon Valley behind and going to farm country.

Prepare yourself, countryside, for full time facecuddling.

Because that's what you do when you are two kids in adult bodies and are left unsupervised to make life choices.

I'll facecuddle you too, Hawk Carrying Freshly Killed Mouse.

LET'S GO, ALREADY.

Everything I said last time except the opposite.

It's kinda sweet how I naively think I've figured out a few things in life. 

I mean, I have learned to wear proper shoes when shoveling so that I don't bruise my arches, how to light the furnace so that I don't blow my face off and how to hive a colony of bees so that they don't swarm the neighborhood.

These things I know how to do. 

And I KNOW that I know how to do them because I've done them wrong a bunch of times (or one tragic time) and then right a bunch of times (or a few triumphant times), so I feel confident when I say that YES, I know how to, like, do that kind of shit.

But the funny thing that I haven't yet learned how to do is how to NOT say I know how to do something until I've first done it successfully once and then repeated the thing successfully again.

That's what I should do.

But instead, I just go declaring victory when victory hasn't yet even been proven a single time.

I'd make a terrible scientist. All declaring YAY! I've found the cure for cancer! after just making Kool-Aid in a flask or something.

Anyway, today's lessons in Finny Doesn't Know Shit About Shit are as follows:

Dr. Fischoeder's Cleaning Lady, Consuela, doesn't clean a damn thing.

In fact, she makes more of a mess than Dr. Fischoeder and it's pissing me off.

Is that Consuela I see growing on the treasure chest? Why yes it is.

It would seem that Consuela is colonizing the fish bowl. Edging Dr. Fischoeder out perhaps or perhaps just making herself at home and commandeering items that she deems to be her own.

I take.

So all of that nonsense about the moss ball being "like a cleaning lady for the fish bowl" was complete crap. 

Not that I really announced to the world that it was The Truth And Nothing Else, but I did repeat what I'd been told by the dude at the aquarium store and that was a mistake. 

Don't always trust the stoned freak working at the aquarium store. Noted.

And then there are the paperwhites.

Damnitall if I didn't think I'd finally won the battle of These Things Fall All Over The Fucking Place just a little too close to the paperwhites so that they heard me and then rebelled.

WE WIN. AGAIN. STILL.

Yeah. If these flowers weren't so fucking beautiful and didn't smell like heaven and weren't being so hilarious, I probably would have ripped them out of their vases just for mocking me and making me a liar, but they are and they do and so I haven't.

Can't fall over in a vase this tall you say? IS THAT A FACT?

And while this has nothing to do with me being wrong, but more the seasons being off or our tree being absurd, our tree thinks it's fall.

January, November - what's the diff?

I mean, who couldn't use a little fall in their winter?

Even Jada's confused by this tree.

Yeah. Nice try out there, awesomely beautiful but crazy tree.

And then, because I I was feeling bakey, I made the best chocolate cake of my entire life last night.

Also the cutest napkins ever, courtesy of my delightful sister who knows me very well. 

Yeah, if you're looking for a chocolate cake recipe and none of your good-for-nothing cookbooks that claim to have all the recipes in the world in them (Hi. Joy of Cooking. Not as thorough as expected.) have a recipe for just plain chocolate cake, go to Cook's Illustrated and be free.

Thankfully, Bubba had the bright idea for me to scan all of my Cook's Illustrateds into my tablet and then start using that for my recipes, so I just had to search my tablet for "chocolate cake" instead of leafing through a thousand pages of magazine to find it.

He's a smart one, that guy. Which is why I let him eat cake straight from the pan with his hands like a fucking animal.

I used this recipe for chocolate cupcakes, but made a sheet cake because I'm a sunuvabitch like that.