Impatient Gardener!

I am frustrated I live in zone 6 which means that you can't really plant alot of stuff til the end of April, serious bummer to those of us used to Feb and temporate climates! in the UK I mainly did Runner beans, strawberrys and toms, with varying degrees of success and enthusiasm! but on moving to The US and the real lack of lovely veg, I feel forced to grow, however within days of ordering my first catalog the forced as changed to obsessed!
I started by thinking about fooling nature, we have sun room, first mistake, although it is south facing the plants are west facing and are stringy looking for the light, still, those buggers will be planted and they can take their own chances! my other thought on cheating nature is using my basement which is a constant 60-65 is to grow early plants for the fall, which otherwise couldn't be grown due to the heat of summer and the cold of winter.
I have harnesed the unexpendable energy of my boys (4 year old twins) they are useful diggers, not in a methodical way, but in a random haphazard way in order to find worms and "put them in their house" and sing songs about worms to them!, it has saved me a lot of digging! I just rake level, after liberating the worms of course!
I have planted radish (very quick growing) beans (I use runner beans they tend to be in the flower section in the US but can be eaten after cooking, Yum!)sprouting seed again quick. I am prepared to sacrifice some veg along the way to show them the growing process (tried to do it when thinning out but quite frankly I go with their agender, they will never want to know when you want them to! and they will want to pull them out! so use it as thinning process)
I used a litre plastic juice bottle cut about 3/4 way up and 3/4 round, roll up newspaper, quite a thick wodge and put it in the bottle, push runner beans (a couple will do in case of failure, never happened yet though) down between the paper and plastic to about half way down, put about 1/2 inch of water in the bottom, basically so it touches the paper for about 1/2 inch, the water will soak up the paper. seal the cut bottle with tape and leave the lid off, put on a window sill, with the beans facing into the room, and wait, it only takes a few days for the root to become visable and this caused great excitement, not just from them! at this point I attempted to cut a ungerminated bean seed...managed and the lack of a finger isn't such a handicap these days I'm told!!! my husband then said I should have used a peanut! it shows, easily the root and stalk parts! DOH! so do this not the bean! the root grows down and down to find food, but because it has a good food source the stalk will eventually also appear, at this point (which was today) you need to plant them although I am sure I have left them longer without ill effects! one of mine was so happy today when I showed him, he hugged the bottle and said "thank you sooo much Bean" sweet! I never tried but I'm sure other beans would work, anyone know?.
I also gave them a small part of the garden to be theirs and a piece of paper each to plan their garden, I printed out a sheet of pictures of veg (which I stole off on line garden garden catalogs)(use powerpoint if you have it to save paper) got them to cut out the pic and stick them on the paper limit 6, they made some interesting choices, obviously brocolli and carrot which they love, but cauliflower, which they hate, its for you mummy, no fruits such as strawberrys? and they wanted flowers again for mummy, I gave in and we are using sunflower and nasturtium, sunflower spectalcular, seeds attract bird which my two like and if any left after the birds! can be eaten, nasturtium, because my aunt assures me they grow quickly! I have never grow flowers before so an interesting experiment for me. I only intend to let them have say 6 carrots and hope they grow! because they really need ownership and responsibily at this age not quantity, thats my job!, be prepared to tend their plots when they get bored and above all enjoy it, I built some raised beds on a slope yesterday and was amazed how much I got done without them around but found my self bored because they weren't around to sing "there's a worm at the bottom of my Garden, and his name is Wiggley Woo" I made the raise bed from an old toddler bed! and until my birthday last week I was using their yellow plastic watering can! check out making newspaper pots on the web, don't buy a shaper it easy, just damp the paper first, egg boxes for seed starting, I got hand tools from the dollar tree, they may not last long but they are a handly size for children.

the pictures above are of my raised bed! literally! IT is an extendable Ikea bed, the ground is really stoney and is a pig to dig (a poet) its also on a slope which is far from ideal, to the right is the previous owners terracing, stone free but still on a slope, so decided on raised beds, but my skill level really isn't great (me and powers tools? big no no!) then I saw the bed? I split it into the two half's and put them in upside down. haven't finished the top part yet. you can see how stoney the big rock next to the top part was so heavy I couldn't move it any further, my neighbour calls them stones! but when you see the rocks in my garden, it is more understandable to say stone! by the way, this bed had died after 4 moves, the boys still have beds! it was second hand for 25 quid in the Uk

Party

One thing I had been warned about is Americans except invites, but suffer no guilt if a better offer comes along and blow you out of the water, I had a demostration of that last night, the Brits gave appologies if they couldn't make it to the extent that one person turned up looking like death, to say she wasn't coming cos she was ill, which clearly she was. the Americans just didn't turn up, that said the Americans who did turn up where great, really nice and funny, I really enjoyed their company. and bless them they watched Mitchel and Webb and tryed to enjoy it.

I had such a good time the people who came to a man and women where great, the best people on the list turned up, I had never met Raj before...what a man great with kids, and he's invited us for food at his house....most definatley going, Anne and her husband, didn't have much convo with her but her hubby, we talked for ages about our rellys, he is such a sweety I may well have to adopt him, they may have kids of their own? don't know , but I am going to kidnap them they are soooooooooooo nice and fun.
Then there was Nick and his wife, they are way to glam for their age, his wife looked younger than me, dispite her having almost but not quite 10 yrs on me, how does she do that...not fair!
and they brought me cook book which anyone who knows me, know that is a fabbie present, I still can't cook but I love cooking, and I left such a lot of cook books in the UK.
Ali and Nick what can I say Brits and fun, and better still they have 2 amazing kids who get on with mine, Grumper is in love with H (girl), and Dobby is great friends with D (boy)they share a mutual love of Roary the racing car.
Julie and John, Brits again good fun, but can't give them an age I think they started young, their daughter V is 22 and she reminds me of my friend from childhood Helena, smart, clever and no nonsence! she is fab with kids.
Gill and Simon, great to see them, the only friend I had before America couldn't believe they came, again I wanted to kidnap them....please stay the night...please....unfortuatley they saw my stalker tendancey and went home.
well anyway I enjoyed my party and I got some fabbie presents, 2 bunches of flowers, 5 bottles of wine which unfortunately I can't drink, cos they are all red and I don't drink red as it makes me melancholy.. a watering can so I can retire the boys yellow plasic one, a best buy voucher and a candle, my boys brought a outside thermometre from a dollar store, all in all a good Birthday.

The Games People Play

One of the things I like about Americans, they are after convenience, all the great time saving inventions of the last say 150 yrs if not invented by an American have been taken by the American public and they have run away with them, I remember the jealousy I had when watching American programs as a child, the Microwaves, dishwashers, Garbage disposal (they never clicked in the UK) Video recorders etc and who of my age group and above didn't marveled at the start of the Rockford Files, "hi this is Jim Rockford, leave your name and message after the tone" brilliant!! the first answer machine of my life was the mid to late eighties...I remember the first video I ever saw Gregory's Girl, March 20th 1983, 53 Kingsgate Ave, phone 63147, (family and phone numbers have long since moved on!) hired for me by my Aunt Chris and Pauline, that how momentous that was to me, the space age had arrived...




I love technology, whenever I had the money I would buy the latest thingamajigs, sport it proudly for a few months, then a new thingy would appear, and I would save and save to get it, for my 18th I convinced my parents to buy me an Amstrad word processor, which I kept til I was 24, a computer of any sort was still so unusual in 1994 when I final said my sad farewells to it, a friend took it on for a year or so, I think I was the only student at that time amongst about 200 to have a computer of any sort.




I remember about 95 I had an American Friend who would walk miles to the university to "borrow" their computers to send "e-mail" I had never heard of it, even when he explained I couldn't understand how computer if you just put an address in knew how to talk to another one to which it wasn't directly connected!




Just before this the hospital we worked at got computers 1 per ward, for the nurses to use (another American idea) for care planning, which would be good except for 3 small problems, care plans are updated at the end of a shift, at the hospital I worked at this was 15.30 so from 15.00 till 15.30 you had 4 staff nurses near killing each other to enter their records on 8 patients and it was a slow system so they could go home, (I bet in this day and age it would be 2 staff nurses to 16 patients) hospital managements answer was...start earlier...conveniently missing the point that the report was about the patients condition at the END OF THE SHIFT! not at 13.30 not at 11.30 the END of the shift!




second problem was all staff and enrolled nurses where given passwords, straight off, as it was a nurses care program, Doctors reasonably not given them, only the Consultants and all doctors further down the food chain started to complain "we need to see the nurses care plans"...since when? never in my career has a doctor felt my plan was imperative, and never since the novelty of the computers wore off has one looked at them, in fact until a patient is discharged they are kept separately from the medical notes...any road up, the doctor won their battle after oh.. a week! and from that moment on nurses couldn't use the computers, especially at weekends as a golf game had been installed!!!




Third problem the care program was crap! I remember and bare in mind I am the person, people go to with computer problems! that the patient has a bed bath the minimum amounts you could put in per day was 54!!! I feel hospital management saw technology, wanted to follow and brought it off a guy called Garry (with 2 r's , so he was slightly sophisticated) out of his old motor in a car park!




In 1994 my Mum and Dad bought me a mobile phone cos they where sick of never being able to get me, it was on a contract sort of thing, in those days you could actually understand them! ANY WAY,I kept that phone for about a year, and it pissed me off, I'd be out and it would call my parents to report my misdoings, without my say so, they would hear me out! I couldn't actually say to anyone Oh sorry missed your call!! mobile where expensive then, so people expected them to be clamped to your side, and 3rdly I got very drunk one night, someone phoned me as I got out of the cab, I pulled it out of my pocket, and it went flying into a bush! we tried calling it but I had let the battery go a bit flat....never seem again...and this is the start of my problem with technology...but I still love it also....

The Mobile phone, I began to hate it, I was never free, even though in those days it was expensive to phone a mobile, people did it, and because they could get me at any time any place, thay stopped making definate plans ( I wasn't the only person to have mobile phone at this time) "I'll ring you at 8 and tell you where we are. "no tell me now and I'll meet you!" lossing my mobile is the best thing I ever did, took me till 2003 before I brought another one, and that was because I missed 2 trains on the trot, by phoning my hubby on a payphone saying I'm on the... my dad was very ill, so his care home also needed a number, so I got a mobile, Pay as you go in 4 years I spent £60 the phone died with about £7 on it!!

And back to convenience, a mobile phone is a useful tool but it has made us lazy, rather than a list when you send you other half out to the supermarket do you give them a sort of half a list? and they call you endlessly?

Drive in

I love the convenience of America, but sometimes Americans are fooled by this, I do Drive in lotto, I look at the car in front of me in the drive in and see if I can beat it...by going into the store?... say for instance Mac'o'Donalds can you order and eat before the car you saw in the queue? answer yes? bonuses you use Mac'o'donalds heating or air conditioning, get to sit down and save on gas...go figure, best fave of this game is at Bank of America very rare not to be in and out before the first car in the queue let alone the one I would have been behind, I often wonder if there is a button on the drive in call "rob the bank!" that is the only reasonable explanation I can come up with! the amount of time is ridiculous! try it you might find you like it!

Sunday bloody Sunday

I decide as all male members of family are trying in various comical ways to maim each other that I will go upstairs and tidy our room, big mistake! the room on the surface looks pretty tidy but look closely and the picture tells a different story, the mirror is covered in small persons finger prints,the floor has a candy floss layer from our new rug and indeterminate sticky stuff on the floor, my monies on Apple juice! which then attracts every bit of dirt and hair, oh and fluff from the carpet! so I decide to start easly by making the bed on trying to smooth it down I discover a lump? (in the bed, don't worry) so I decide to do the job properlt unlike my midweek pull it up and that'el do, so I untuck the sheet and I kid you not it was like the Disney Lemming film where they hurl themselves off the rock, 7 sock in all jumped under the bed! I would like to point out it is bloody colded in this neck of the woods at night!

so onwards I convice hubby to leave me at Joann fabric, before I had spent a justifiable about of money they all turn up, home and that for me was sunday,,, not that bad I suppose

Sunday, Sunday so bad to me

Hi this is my Sunday... you may need counseling after this! I know I do!
okay up 6.30 am, which was Bliss... for some reason my twin things had predicted the clock change 3 days ago and had been waking me at 5.30. in actual fact it was 7.30 with the change which is their normal wake up, mummy it's day! 6.30am amazing.
So I got up breakfast, PBS Kids, Ciggie, cup of tea, last two me, I am not conducting experiments!!!! and outside....Ciggie that is!
So far so good, go upstairs at 7am (or 8 with time change) to get dressed, wake up at 9.30! (10.30) DH tells me he was woken at 7.15 (8.15) by the small people, so I get up another cup of tea, and cunning plan...
DH I whisper, I am going to have a bath, this is not sexual, its just I haven't managed a bath on my own at home for 4 yrs... so I creep up the stairs, fill bath and decide in my moment of decadence that I will crack open my Jasmine candles...I opened one! small person 2 appears...looks at the bath and starts to strip off...........No!!!
I give in, and put the candles to one side, dip one toe in the bath and number 1 son appears, strips off and is in the bath before I can react!!!!
so I get in... the bath is the biggest bath known to mankind it is a huge spar bath thing and even me at my 5 foot 7 and 3/4 inches can lye comfortably with room for maneuver... not that I have ever had the pleasure! anyway, today was the worse ever, the boys have discovered the "bubble seats" so I end up width wise with my knees by my ears, and the Bill Bryson I am trying to read somewhere near the plughole!
Little bit of history here, I have twins and number 2 son was potty trained at 2 and number 1 son has steadfast refused to be potty trained, but the last 3 weeks hurray mostly dry, as in every third day an accident, which is hard to understand as number 2 son had 2 accidents on the first day and since then 2 accidents, both my fault "can you hang on?" and an hour later I had forgotten....bad mummy...
So on this note bath! number one son says I need wee wees, I try and get him out of the bath and he is reluctant to go to the toilet, forcibly eject him and he comes back saying I've been, I haven't heard a flush so I ask DH when he appears with a cup of tea, can you check...nothing...number 1 son "did you do a wee wee in the bath?" big smile "yes it made the water yellow"!!!!!!!!!
So, So much for my bath, hair remained unwashed for obvious reasons. got dressed and came down stairs, both boys dressed and out in the Yard, my plants in the sun room! jury out... number 2 son thinks that when a leaf appears its ready for picking!
Outside... both sons exhibit a wilful disregard for living beyond 4, rock jumping, running each other over, by means of the victim actually lying in front of the moving object!, hitting each other with big sticks, you may think why don't you stop them? but they have an amazing telepathy with enables them to communicate without words, and one of them will act as a decoy, I learnt this to my cost when they where 13 months old and couldn't speak and one locked me in the toilet whilst the other escaped out the front door by means of a chair!! believe me it isn't dignified to run up the road hauling you underwear and trousers up...
TO BE CONTINUED....we are at 11 am!