Homestead Longings

I decided to write on my word processor first because I know this will take me a while to write.

We finally drove back into the driveway last night from our trip out to Colorado Springs. Such a lovely place, and a lovely trip to go along with it. If you would like to see some pictures, they are on our website under CMZ (Cheyenne mountain zoo) and GOG (Garden of the Gods).

We did have one fatality on our trip.  Mommy killed one of our tadpoles. I put them in a glass canning jar. I put the lid on it to keep it from spilling as we loaded the van for the trip then forgot to remove the lid again. The big guy suffocated. It is amazing how traumatic the death of a tadpole can be to a woman. I thought we had lost 2 of them, for 2 of them were belly up and not even gasping, but by the grace of God (or maybe his sympathy for my very pathetic state) one of them miraculously flipped back over and started doing slow laps of their tiny jar. He may turn out to be a brain damaged frog, but being a frog maybe no one will notice.

This morning I woke up to a BEAUTIFUL morning. The temperature was in the 60’s and everybody slept in except me. Even dh since he had today off. I got up early and opened up all the windows. I watched the thermostat as the temperature dropped from 79 to 70 in a very short time. Normally, I hate the cold, but I have to admit that it was nice to have a change of pace. So, I sat at the computer catching up on some email with a nice hot cup of coffee in my hands.

After that, while everyone was still sleeping, I decided to go see how my garden was fairing. I was not impressed. Before we left my tomato plants were about devastated by at least one horn worm. I tried to spray him with some Seven spray and he just turned his head away from me. I tried something a little stronger and it at least annoyed him enough to get him moving. My tomato plants still looked miserable this morning. Call me what you will, but I had had enough. I have not gotten one single tomato off of those monstrosities yet this entire year. OUT THEY CAME!! All except for the cherry tomato plant which has produced wonderfully for me all year even having been ravaged by the worm(s).

While I was ripping and tearing I decided that I aught to go ahead and do some preparing for fall with the weather and all. Out came the trellises and last of the cantaloupe vines. I am not sure if I was sad to see them go or not. We were about sick of eating cantaloupe. About the same time I grabbed the rake and shovel to start remixing the dirt in the bed, the kids started wandering out to see what mom was up to. They ended up helping me pull out stray weeds and roots.

Then the devastation of my garden became today’s home-school adventure. We found the cocoon of a horn worm buried in the soil where the tomato plants had been ripped out. So, off to the computer to look up some information about the worm. Even after learning that it was not a butterfly but a moth, my ds was adamant that we place him back into the dirt. This was after I convinced him that it was NOT going into the house. So, into a different garden bed he went. Back to gardening, where the kids helped me clear a good area then put in 2 rows each of carrots, spinach, broccoli, and just a few cauliflower. We also started some lettuce in peat pellets. For the life of me, I can’t get them to sprout outside.

Today was not a day for cleaning. Today was a computer and list day. I spent the early afternoon on the computer putting pictures on the web, paying bills and balancing the budget, and going through our pantry making a grocery list for the afternoon. I didn’t want to clean really. Tomorrow “normal” life will resume. Tomorrow is soon enough.