Wendy and I love gardening. We LOVE it, and we refuse to be hindered by the fact that we have no idea what we’re doing.

Last spring, we decided to make a couple of flower beds around the side of the house where there was basically nothing ornamental. We put out hostas and daylilies because we’d read on the internet that they’re hearty plants, that they thrive in poor soil and low sunlight, and that you can’t kill them without napalm. We figured they were the perfect plants for people like us, who’s thumbs aren’t as green as we’d like.

What they don’t tell you on the internet is that the second year, when the plants come back, they’re roughly five bazillion percent larger than they were the first year. So the cute little hostas and daylilies were spaced so well and seemed so unimposing last year are now huge, gargantuan vegi-monsters, competing with each other for limited space.

”A little elbow room here, fellas!”



I haven’t seem a crowd packed this tight and looking this uncomfortable since my last Metallica concert.

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Wendy is all about the flowers, I’m all about the vegetables. My reasoning being that you can’t (or shouldn’t) eat flowers. We’ve got little space for veggie gardening, so we use the back perimeter of our chain-link fence for growing foodstuffs.

There’s nothing prettier to the horticultural epicure than the first tomato blooms of the season.

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The squash, which we planted from seed, is doing well, too.

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This is a pea blossom, and I kinda like this photo.

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Getting off topic, this is a woodpecker who was busy working away at something in a telephone poll during a pouring rain. I kinda admired his work ethic.

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Now, totally off topic, this is a picture of my stepson, Liam, who I call ”Leeman,” for reasons I can no longer remember. Liam is famous around these parts for his “Liamisms,” some of which seem absurd and some of which have a zen-like quality about them. For instance:

Me: “Liam, I couldn’t understand what you just said.”
Liam: “That’s because I was talking in cursive.”

Wendy: “Liam, what do you want for your birthday?”
Liam: “I can’t tell you, or it won’t be a surprise.”

Us: “Liam, what would you like for Christmas?”
Liam: (Look of intense concentration) “Soup.”

One day, from the back seat, he announced that he'd changed his name to Leslie Littleworm. It must be from a cartoon or something, he was totally oblivious to where or how he came up with the name. Whatever the source, Google knows nothing about it. We're pretty sure that's not a nickname he'd like to have follow him to high school.

The other day, on the way home from Wal-Mart, Liam and my son were jabbering away in the back seat and Wendy and I were discussing groceries up front. We got on the topic of bologna, and we noticed that, in the back seat, Liam had started repeating a little song that went “Eatin’ Bologna, Eatin’ Bologna,”.

Then he started modifying the color... “Eatin’ Red Bologna, Eatin’ Blue Bologna,”.

Then, he started modifying the verb... Throwin’ Green Bologna,” etc.

Then, he found a combination that, for some reason, he really liked... and you can imagine the horror we felt when we realized that, for some reason, he was repeating over and over again “Pump The Black Bologna, Pump The Black Bologna, Pump The Black Bologna...”

Those lyrics might be appropriate for Ja Rule, but we moved to quickly silence his artistic expression. Call us closed minded if you must.

By the way, here's a cool set of pics (a bit odd, but cool) at another blog. Check 'em out.