Acting like a tree-hugger

I was sharing a story with a friend a few weeks ago, about my adventures of getting lost in a forest. I mentioned that while I was trying to find my way out, I ran across this little miniature village of gnomes.

Yes, I do realize how that sounds....

She wanted to check it out, so we planned to go hiking yesterday with the intention of finding this little village. The thing is? Her sense of direction is just as lousy as mine. This is not a good thing.

Here's our story (with a bit of artistic license, of course). Let's just pretend the blue text is me and the green text is that of my friend. Not that any of this conversation really happened, mind you.

OK, maybe some of it did.

More pictures of our adventures can be found here.

My friend, D (who happens to have the same middle name as me), sent me this Rose is Rose cartoon because she knew I'd find it funny:


I did, and I can totally relate to it. I've probably spent 300.00 on rabbit food this year. This was completely unintentional, of course. For example, I bought about 90.00 of the sweetest looking ground cover one day when I was out with my mother-in-law. I planted it that weekend, and by the next week all of it was nibbled down to the nubbins (is that a word?). My hundred (+) beautiful, babies that I started from seed? I think I have five left.

Yet the weeds? I suppose they aren't as tender and tasty as EXPENSIVE plants. Dumb Wabbits. Or maybe I'm the dumb one for planting them in the first place.

::Shrugs::

Anyway, this cartoon kind of reminded me of a strange habit I have. (OK, people, I *KNOW* I have more than one- cut me some slack) I talk to weeds. I am not quite ready to seek professional help about it, but the bearded eye-roller might think otherwise.

Here's the deal; I read somewhere that some weeds will grow next to plants that they kind of look like. Of course, I could be making all of this up- but I'm sure I read it somewhere. Anyway, I often find that to be true with some of the weeds. In fact, sometimes I'm almost fooled. When that happens, I always compliment the weed on the mad imitation skillz- right before I yank it out. The conversation goes something like this, "Wow dude- you almost had me fooled. Good job!"

I apologize after I annialate it though- does that count?

Upon more pondering, I'm sure it 'counts' toward my ticket to the loony bin.

But who's counting? As you can tell, my world pretty much gets rocked every day. Have I mentioned my crocs? They rock my world and now they have lots of flair, so not only do they rock my world but they make it a little more fun dontcha think?



If your crocs have flair, take a picture, and I'll post it here. Let's see your crocs!

I got a call from the nurse and they're not worried about the mammogram results, so said that they'll just have me come in every 6 months for a while to make sure. I can cross that one off my worry list. I also need to make a note to quit researching the Internet when I'm waiting for test results. BAD BAD BAD idea!

So, what does RG do when she's really tired? She makes herself even MORE tired by doing physical labor. The bearded eye-roller was hanging out with his step-mother (something I no longer have to do- yahoo!), so I had the day to myself to play in the yard. Well, in between rain storms, anyway.

The pathways through the gardens were driving me NUTS because there are pine needles and dead grass clippings all mixed in with the gravel. I've tried to rake it off, I've tried sweeping it off, but all it does is sweep/rake the gravel into a big pile. There's just TOO much of it to get it all out by hand, and the pine trees are constantly sluffing off, so it'd be a never ending battle anyway. My neighbor even told me to 'give it up'. Apparently my neighbor isn't on to the fact that I'm a wee bit OCD when it comes to clutter.


See? Wouldn't that drive YOU nuts? No? Well, OK- maybe I am a little over the edge.....

I got myself all coffee'd up and went to the local hardware store yesterday in search of things to improve the ratty looking garden (HA! I'm kidding! My garden is a thing of beauty!) I bought a few annuals to replace all of my precious recently transplanted seedlings that the bunnies had for dinner (grrrrrr).

While in the garden center, I saw bags of river rock.

Ding! The lightbulb went on in my head. If I used river rock instead of gravel, then the pesky grass clippings and pine needles would fall through the rocks after it rains (or I hose it down). So, I bought five bags just to see how far it would go. Holy moly, those bags were heavy. I'd guess they weighed about 30 lbs each.

Hmmmm, get a clue RG- they are ROCKS!

They didn't go very far, but I could see that it would look REALLY cool when it was all done, so I headed out to the hardware store and bought 10 more bags. Lessee.... 15 bags of rocks at 30 lbs each... that's 450 lbs I moved from the flat to the cart, from the cart to my car, from my car to the wheelbarrow, and then from the wheelbarrow to my yard.

River Rock (and why, yes- those are my oh-so-fashionable Crocs, tyvm):


Gravel (and some river rock):


I think it makes a HUGE difference. If you don't think so, keep your yapper shut because it's hard work, dammit! I want the payoff of hearing how fabulous it looks- so co-op-er-ate with me here.

Here's where I'm at so far. The line is where I've placed the river rock, and the circle is where there is just gravel. I'd say that I'm less than 1/4 of the way through the pathways (not all of the pathways are in this picture) Click on the picture to see a larger picture without the markup. You know you want to.

I've decided to try combining two of my favorite things. Things that do not include the bearded eye-roller (that'd be BJ. D- I've changed his title JUST FOR YOU!) since he's out of town. I'm blogging and sitting amongst my little slice of heaven:



I wish I had my camera at the moment, because as I sit here I've seen two goldfinches with the most beautiful shade of almost florescent yellow. Also, I've watched the little baby squirrels scurry up the water faucet so they could get into the bird bath for a drink. I'm sure my bird bath is known in the 'hood as the cleanest drinking hole for critters in these here parts. I clean it EVERY single day. Yup. My OCD doesn't just stick to routine house cleaning, dontcha know.

As I headed out to my bench, I heard some rustling going on inside the container where I keep all the bird seed and sunflower seeds. Sure enough, one of the squirrels was inside the container. So, since the bearded eye-roller wasn't here to torment, I decided to knock on the tin lid. I've never seen a squirrel run so fast.

Ahhhh yes... it's the little things...

I've also figured out that what I thought was a REALLY deranged cat is, instead, either a steller's jay or a crow (I've heard that both types of birds imitate all sorts of things). I've heard this AWFUL 'cat' sound for a couple of weeks now, but I've always been where I couldn't see where it was coming from. Today, I heard it coming from the top of a tree that I'd guess is about 40 feet high. That's no cat, it's just a bird imitating a cat. It sounds more like a "ba-wow" than a meow, but I've gotta give it props for such a good try.

It hasn't taken me long to decide that douglas squirrels, should they be human men, would be driving those big trucks with the huge tires. Maybe even wiith flames on the side of said monster truck. They seem to have a very serious case of short man syndrome. The douglas squirrels are less than half the size of the grey squirrels in my yard but they think they own the place. A grey squirrel better not even THINK about going toward the bird feeder, or else he'll get yelled at. Even *I* was yelled at by one of the little twerps when I went to put the sunflower seeds in the feeder. I told him to shut up and went about my business of feeding him. Yeah, I'm sure we both know who's boss.

Well, the wildlife is starting to die down so I'm going to head in the house for a little wildlife of my own. Since the bearded eye-roller is on a business trip- we all know what THAT means!

Vietnamese hot chili garlic sauce and reality TV!

Yeah- I'm wild, alright.