We've been really busy out in the yard. James has been hard at work improving and painting and clearing brush, and I? Well, I have been trying my hand at "gardening", though I don't know how to completely justify calling it a "garden" when I'm growing everything in pots on my deck. Still, I've been pretty successful, for the most part.



My, um, these things are flourishing. I don't know what kind of flowers they are; I just buy the pretty ones.


I have more pretties over here, which also seem to be doing quite well. I was a little afraid that smashing six different kinds of plant life together in one pot would result in some sort of photosynthetic mortal combat, but thankfully, everything seems to be living in harmony.



I'm even growing tomatoes, which to my utter astonishment, appear to be bulbous and green, just on the verge of ripening. (Please don't mind the hose snaking through the grass. Josh was filling up his pool while I was photographing the results of my foray into botany. Rest assured I never leave my hose laying about on my lawn.)








But then we come to this, which defies understanding. I don't know what went wrong. It looks like fetal alcohol syndrome, but I swear to you I never watered the seed with any of the wine I drink on the deck, and James never spilled his beer in there. Nobody smokes in this house, so it's growth couldn't have been stunted by second hand exposure. I guess we're really not sure what caused this poor jalapeno's deformity, perhaps the only explanation is a missing (or extra?) chromosome or six. Whatever the case, we're determined to love it anyway and face down anyone who thinks to look down on us for it. I've named him Sir Lumpliss. He's a sweet, special boy.


Speaking of sweet, special boys. I asked James for one favor this weekend. Well, one favor if you don't count painting the garage, mowing the lawn, rebuilding the decorative brick wall next to the garage, cleaning out the gutters, and helping the guy install the air conditioner. [Smiles sheepishly]

See, we have this bear in the backyard. The previous owners cut down a tree, left like six feet of stump, and paid what I can only assume was thousands of dollars to have the stump carved into a bear. I. Hate. It. It is the ugliest damn thing I believe I've ever had the misfortune to see. So I asked James to take care of it. He knew, damn him, that I meant "rip it down, burn it, chop it into pieces, I don't care how, just get it the hell out of my yard now", um pretty pretty please, but instead?

Sigh.

He painted it with leftover trim color from the garage and put a drill sergeant's hat on it. Now Smokey the Bear is plunked in my back yard and I'm not sure my husband will ever get rid of him now that he's discovered he can put hats on the damn thing.