Spider Webs, Fall Harvest, and How Dogwood Girl Knows There is a God

So, I cleared out my summer garden yesterday, which involved pulling out the old plants, and reaping the last of the tomatoes, all of them still green. Tiller took this picture of Quint, who just doesn't get enough facetime on Dogwood Girl, considering he is always right there with us, no matter what we are doing around the house.


While i was working, Tiller and i found an awesomely huge spider web and spider.



The spider was not too happy when his web was messed up in the pulling of the old plants, but he was relocated into a nice boxwood and will be up and spinning in no time, I am sure.

And then there is the frying. If there is one thing I know, it is that there is a God. I know this because how else can we explain the majesty and awesomeness that is fried green tomatoes? They are a gift from God. This probably looks like fried okra to those of you in the know. . . however, they are tomatoes. That's right, i took the last of my patio tomatoes and fried them. I am sure my mom will read this and shake her head in disgust, because that's just not how it's done. But they were damn good. And I had realized that this was the first summer since i started eating solid food that i had not had any fried green tomatoes! A travesty!


Even Rollie and Tiller ate a few. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure you lose your Dunstan card if you don't like fried everything.

A Sad End to an Idyllic Aerie

Things came to a sad end here this morning. A few years ago, we planted Evergreen Clematis at the base of our porch, and trailed the vines up the pillars and along the edge of our porch roof. As evidenced by the name, the vine is evergreen, giving us green foliage right out our window, all year long. The Clematis blooms, with big white flowers, once a year, for an all-too-brief period of time.

The plus to this Clematis has been the unexpected families of birds who have set up shop in the vines. Clematis is strong, and it is strong enough to hold a nest where it runs across the corners of the porch. At one time, we had three nests, all bustling with birds. Okay, it isn't all zippity-doo-dah; The birds occasionally swoop at us as we try to get in our front door, but it has been more than worth it to hear the babies chirping in their nest as we sit in the rockers on the porch at day's end.

This morning, as Todd was leaving for work, and I was being roped into a game of trains with Rollie, Todd knocked on the window from the porch, a disappointed look on his face, and then pointed down at the porch floor.

"The Birds?" I asked?

Todd nodded. He held two fingers up.

Just Saturday night, Todd and I were sitting on the porch, having a couple of beers after the kids went down, and before Todd went out to see bands (lucky bastard). We sat in the fading light, and as we did, a bird kept swooping in the side of the porch, a worm in its mouth, then flying back again to sit on the fence next door. She would sit there, trying to look nonchalant about not being able to get us to move. We took pity on her and moved to sit on the porch steps, away from her nest.

It wasn't readily apparent what happened to our birds. The two babies were just lying on the ground, and they had been there long enough that the ants, who also live around and in our porch vines, had come to take what was there, swarming all over them. There was no sign of Mama Bird. My heart hurts for her. I wonder if she has moved on, this once idyllic aerie no longer holding any joy for her.

We brought Rollie outside to see the scene, and talk about what happened to the birdies, and how they are going to Bird Heaven, where they can fly fast and forever, without having to come down for a rest, where the worms are plentiful, and the nests are safe.

Growing Chocolate (and Wonder and Hope)

So, one of the really cool things about young kids is their total suspension of disbelief. They don't even know what disbelief is! They just walk around, looking at the world with the belief that anything is possible. It is fucking awesome. I look at my kids and wonder where I lost that ability, but know that in me? It is long, long gone. I am one cynical, disbelieving bitch. Not so cynical that I don't let them believe, though.

Which is why I answered Rollie the way I did today when we were out gardening. I had finished what I was doing, and decided to get some of the flowering things and bring them inside to enjoy. I was cutting some jasmine when Rollie said, "Mama?" "This plant is going to grow up and up and grow chocolate."

I looked at the Hydrangea, my absolute favorite flower (Not really a flower, I know!) at which he was pointing, and I thought, well, it is my favorite flower, but it would be pretty fucking cool if it was chocolate, plus, if my hydrangeas bloomed chocolate, I think we would be able to retire to my imagined farm in the middle of nowhere.

"Yeah, Rollie. It might just do that," I nodded, hopeful for a moment, and with a slight smile on my face. "It just might."

Victim's Reparations

I think Comcast should pay some kind of reparations for the crap we have dealt with this week. First of all, the cable goes out while the kids and todd go out of town. So, I actually had to find stuff to do with myself. Like read. Or leave the house.

Then, we find out we can't have service fixed until today. So, all of the shows that I normally watch or record are not being watched or recorded. Battlestar, Saturday Night Live, Brothers and Sisters, American Idol, Prison Break - All missed episodes. Not to mention that the box was supposedly messed up, so they gave us a new one, meaning that everything we had already recorded was now wiped out: Prison Break and two American Idols from last week, Lost, The Office, Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy (five episodes I hadn't watched!!!!). All disappeared forever into the ether.

Then, the guy gets here and tells us that our cable has been cut, which is why we don't have service. Which I could have told him, because I had already tried watching cable over the weekend the old-fashioned way, just running the cable directly to the t.v. - No signal. But he had already killed my old box with the recordings on it. GRRRRRR.

Icing on top? We have a whole new cable from the tap to our house, but they are going to have to come out on March 15th to bury the whole damn thing. And it runs all the way from the box, around the left side of our house, around the back, and back down the right side of the house. So, more than halfway around the house has to be re-trenched.

If somebody fucks up my azaleas and hydrangeas, I am really gonna flip.

Makes me wonder if the boob tube is really worth it.