of course we have a garden

we have a huge garden box in our backyard. we also have 2 medium garden boxes & 2 small ones.
so that's 5. 5 garden boxes.

"oh, so do you guys have a garden?" is the first question out of the mouth of anyone who sees our backyard.

for the past 2 years i've sheepishly frankly replied, "no. gardening sucks ass."

and i've meant it. i hate weeding. i hate watering. i hate waiting. i hate spiders & ants & grubs. i also hate most vegetables. so why in the hell would i have a garden when my local grocery store provides a bounty of fresh fruits & veggies?

but this year as i contemplated our garden box full of weeds- something inside of me snapped. i charged inside & told the husband, "we're planting a garden this year."

he looked at me like i had lost my mind (considering how much i lament my childhood summers spent gardening, this is a pretty accurate reaction) but he didn't question me. in fact, he seemed pretty excited.
see, the husband likes a challenge. and when he finds something that he wants to do, he pretty much jumps in with both feet (chickens, children, dogs...NOT doing housework)

so, on a weekend that produced nothing short of heat stroke inducing weather...



we put our green thumbs to work.

mowing, cursing the unforgiving earth, tilling, raking, swearing, watering, making rows, shaking our fists at the heavens, digging holes, purchasing plants, screaming, "I GIVE UP!", measuring, getting eaten alive by bugs, baking in the heat, blaming one another for this "genius" idea...you get the idea.

until finally- at 8pm last night- we finished.

as we stood there, covered in dirt & angry ants, we agreed that even though gardening still sucks ass, it might actually be worth it.

that is, if it actually yields anything. wild animals are notorius garden killers, and we have an abundance of those. we also have chickens who are also, apparently, garden killers.

they clucked around pecking at leaves, scratching up seeds & picking off all of our strawberries. bastards. the husband joked that we probably need a fence but that he's far too lazy to put one up. but after watching the chickens putter around & poop in the garden- i think he's going to have to suck it up and put up that fence.







and i also managed to turn the small garden box into an herb box






so green. so pretty. so yummy. so very much a pain in the ass.

now i don't want you to think we spent 72 hours planting a garden & straight up ignoring our children. no indeed. we decided to include them in this project.
and by include them we mean, introduce alex & brynn to the sprinkler.







see? spectacular.

(click on pics to make them larger)









and i suppose alex helped a little. if "running through the garden & getting muddy" = helping.



as you can see, the sprinkler had our child laughing maniacally for the better part of the afternoon.



brynn was initially ok with all of the excitement- but her mood quickly soured thanks to freezing cold water & the hot sun.



"save me?"



"i hate gardening." (i'm pretty sure that's what she was thinking)

and i think the only creature that hated gardening more than we did, was the mother robin who frantically flew back & forth to her nest, chattering away, in a vain attempt to get us to leave.

sorry lady. you built your nest on our house. deal.





and as you can see, not just on our house, but in the broom that we clean the sides of our house with. so yeah- no sweeping the house this year. i'm SO glad we noticed before yanking the broom down. i would have felt terrible.

this is just one of the 5 nests on our house. the corners of our log home provide the perfect spots for nesting robins. thankfully the cheeping of the babies is freaking adorable- but i'm a little concerned for their safety when they start hopping around. gary roams the outdoors now & he's a killer. good luck birdies.

and there you have it. now i sit here at work. nursing sore palms & numerous bug bites.
the garden better pony up & produce. no whammies.