Chipmunk Wars

     Our summer garden is slowly taking shape. We have 25 tomato plants, four pepper, two cucumber, hundreds of basil plants and rows and rows of greens. I know greens are a cold crop, but we consume green smoothies everyday, sometimes several times per day in this household. The cuc's are going to be trellised and we still haven't decided what type of support to use for the maters.

     We love flowers and have planted hundreds of sunflowers, some morning glory, blackeye susan, zinnia, cosmos, petunia, lilies, calendula and marigold. We are having a huge problem with the chipmunks eating the sunflower sprouts. The sprouts come up and before the second set of leaves appear, the chipmunks are biting the tops right off. They have also figured out that they can dig up the seeds, so the majority of sunflower seeds never even make it to sprouthood. Hoping for a few survivors, I planted more with lots of other types of seeds, so we will see. 

     My dad has a trap for small animals that I set with some peanut butter rolled in sunflower seeds.....they triggered the trap, ate the seeds and licked up all the peanut butter! No chipmunks in the trap. I was looking for the most humane way of ridding the yard of the little devils, but now have begun to consider other options. My uncle suggested PVC tubing with bait inside. Once the animal enters the tube, you seal it until the animal starves. I can't say I would be able to do that. Long drawn out deaths seem cruel and unnecessary.  There is the poison approach, using some chemical poison, but I would hate for someones pet to accidentally ingest some. We considered a cat, but there is the issue of getting a cat familiar with the environment enough to start hunting. I think using a cat for future maintenance is a great plan, but we need a more immediate solution. I googled chipmunk removal and lots of pest control ads popped up, but there was one hit that got my attention. Juicy fruit gum is used as a bait, by placing the gum into the holes of the chipmunks, they eat it and it kills them pretty quick. My dad and sister seem opposed to the juicy fruit method, but these critters are seriously damaging the ground and eating lots and lots of seeds and seedlings in addition to driving my dog bananas. What my mother thought were birds chirping, ended up being the call of chipmunks. There are so many that this morning, there was a symphony of chipmunk chirps in stereo that was maddening. When we look out the front window, we are assured to spy at least three or four of the little rats scurrying from cover to cover, like little Rambo's and commandos. It's sick. My plan is to go buy a stockpile of juicy fruit to be used only in the front yard which isn't accessible by my pup. Normally, I love creating a habitat for wildlife in my yard, but this time is over the top. The chipmunks are taking over. I was also reading that one of the greatest threats the pests bring with them are ticks, mites and fleas and with the Lyme problem in the northeast, we aren't taking any chances. Goodbye chipmunks!! If anyone has any methods of eradication, please submit your suggestions in the comments below.

Are We There Yet?

     Today is my last day in KY until mid-July and, as always, it's bittersweet. We have the usual pre-trip mountain of gear sitting in the living room and I keep asking myself if it's too much or not enough. I try to keep it simple, but there is always that one thing I forget that my hubby winds up mailing to NJ. Current gas prices are petty low, so filling up is a priority today with the prices changing the way they do. With only a 10% chance of rain tomorrow and mostly sunny skies, the travel should be pleasant, so if we were to get off to a late start, it wouldn't be a big deal. I keep feeling like there is something I have forgotten and I am sure it will emerge as soon as I get half way to NJ.

     I mostly spent the day at home, tidying up and spending some time with my husband, my plants and my cat, Sunny....I miss many blooms each season and this year there is one flower that has grabbed my attention. A conjoined twin coneflower which is pretty incredible looking. Looking down at my scratched up arms and stained fingers, I keep asking myself why I saved weeding around everything for the day before a 12 hour drive. Oh well, it hasn't really been business as usual around here lately and it was worth having the cat tag-along with me while I tended to all the plants. Maya made a bird feeder out of sunflower seeds in April which has now fallen completely apart and landed in a pot of soil. We have about 30 sunflower sprouts which I happily transplanted throughout the day. I have a new neighbor who happens to be a master gardener, so naturally I gravitate to his expertise and have already learned how to correctly prune trees and grasses. My hopes are to come home to thriving plants in July....(Arthur <3).

     It was also the last day of school for the kids. Maya proudly graduated Kindergarten and Ethan, from 8th grade, so I now have a first grader and high-schooler!! That doesn't even sound right because they were just born ;). My babies are growing up so fast.

     Tonight is going to be a night of relaxation and hugs for Daddy as we get ready for the morning.

Procrastination

     I'm not feeling overly inspired to write since the kids and I are no more prepared for the NJ trip than we were two weeks ago...woops. Maya and Ethan both came down with the flu last week or so and recovered rather quickly, but now Maya has had a relapse. At points over the weekend she was unable to sit up, feed herself and sadly, unable to walk. Her temperature spiked to a 103 periodically and I felt like all I was doing was pumping her up with meds. For the first bout, the doctor recommended Tamiflu, which is $230 a pop. It is a virus inhibitor...don't waste your time. The potential risks, IMO, are not worth taking for shaving only one day off the life of the flu course.

     I have been drinking Kombucha everyday and adding it to Maya's green smoothies. After drinking the smoothies, she is more energetic and wants to play with her toys. Today she hasn't been as bad as she was over the weekend and her fever is much lower, sometimes not even there.  She drank her smoothie this morning after having her honey coconut oats and within one hour, I was telling her to stop jumping on her bed. Her little face is still pale and she rests between energy bursts, but it has been a gradual improvement.

     Today I really must buckle down and get the bags packed and tie up all the loose ends. The laundry pile is relentless and the house is screaming for one last deep clean of the season. My car is road-ready, the yard is prepped (mostly), the animals are caught up on their vet visits and I think I have managed to set aside time for the VIP's in my KY life. Gonna miss all of you for the next several weeks, but looking forward to seeing everyone mid-July. Normally, we come back with less than a week to spare before the start of the school year, but this year we want to spend Art's birthday with him on July 15th.

     When we arrive in NJ, Thursday night, I look forward to a nice relaxing chat with my parents and sister. Once settled in, Dad and I will start working on some major projects like garden planting, tile flooring, re-lining the pool and workshop organizing. During that time, Ethan and I will be training for our hiking excursion by trail running and walking with our packs on to adapt to the weight of all the gear. I have been running for the past couple of months and hiking throughout the entire year, but have to admit, not as consistently as needed. Tonight I am going to lay out all of the gear, assess what we have, need and can cut from the list. My guess is that in addition to the estimated 30lbs of stuff I will carry, there will be at least five more lbs. of food to consider, the animal-resistant sacks and  extra clothing (minimal of course). There will be five hikers on our excursion. My good friend and her daughter (who is roughly Ethan's age) and my grade school BFF!! I officially arranged for our shuttle this morning and will be gathering the maps next.

     One thing that I always look forward to upon my return to KY each summer is being greeted by my flower garden. My husband, Art, takes care of it while I am away and gives me live, FaceTime tours of what's in bloom during my absence. Spring came early this year which has proven delightful for me since some of the blooms are early too. My echinacea is starting to bloom, the roses are budding and blooming, tiger lilies are up, coreopsis is in full force and the butterfly bushes are lengthening by inches every day. The day before I leave, the sunflower seeds will go in and in late summer, I will be able to watch the yellow finches feast while my cat lazily enjoys the shade of the giant leaves below. Amazingly, she allows the birds to merrily partake of the seeds without any threat of becoming prey.

     Earlier this year I mailed a giant sunflower head to my parents so they could plant seeds before our arrival in NJ. My father just gave me a FaceTime tour of his seedlings and the garden will be magnificent this summer!! Stay tuned :)

The Count Down Begins

     Its the time of year again when things start to get really hectic for my family. The end of the school year is always marked by packing and trying to decide what to pack for the kids and I to get us through almost 2 months at the Jersey Shore. Last year I had one large and one small tote, a dog cage and some groceries. Living out of totes was miserable, so this year I need to devise a more organized set up. Suitcases take up so much space in the trunk, but they are much easier to live out of for the summer. In addition to what I would normally pack, there will be two hiking packs to account for this time. I have a 58L pack and Ethan has a 35L pack. Each one will be jam packed with essentials for the hiking we have planned.

     WKU mailed my acceptance letter which arrived Friday, and my ECTC grades are up. It appears this mama is a straight A student again! It's funny how when obstacles and annoyances try to shimmy their way into our positive energy fields, life and God have a way of showing us how great and loved we really are. With the stress of finals, kids having the flu and some slight turbulance last week, the WKU news couldn't have come at a better time. To top it off, we had the best weekend of camping with some of our friends and family.

     Friday kicked off the trip to Otter Creek Park with some glorious sunshine and temps in the 80's. Once we set up camp, severe t-storm warnings were a buzz over the net and radio, so we prepared our bug-out bags and patiently waited with some cold brewskis in hand. The storm missed us just barely. We hung out fireside, ate burgers and corn on the cob, drank some beer and nibbled some moonshine-soaked cherries. At about 1 am the rain started...then came the thunder and lightning. As we laid in our tent, I was wondering what the rest of the group was thinking as they laid in theirs. I didn't want to get out. but I was nervous staying put with nothing more than nylon between pounding rain, the crashes of lightning that sounded like canon fire and us. What I didn't know was that almost all the other tents were pooled with water from the massive influx of rain. Our tents were at one of the lowest points in the campground. Not bad for dry days, but something we should have considered with the forecast of stormy weather. With the craziness of the weather, I still enjoyed that evening and marveled at the power of nature. I was finally able to get some sleep around 4 am.

    

     When  I woke up at 7:30 am it was still raining and the system had just about passed us. Hiking for the day was cancelled as the creek was so high, safety became an issue. We assesed the saturation and began dragging tents to sunny spots, drying them out, creating makeshift clothing lines and surveying the best locations for the tents to be moved to in case of more storms. By early afternoon, everything was dry and the cornhole tourney comenced. The ultimate champions were Vanessa and Phil with an upset victory over Art and I (pssst...I think they were cheating wink-wink).

    

    Once evening hit, Vanessa cooked us some amazing camp cuisine. On the menu was grilled asparagus, roasted potatoes with filet mignon, and BLT's. To drink we had some fine micro-brews, moonshine and PBR.

     The kids had the playground right next to our site and ate smores, fireside. Late that night, the bigger kids all went looking for wood to make the fire as big as possible as we listened to music and relaxed. No rain, no thunder and lightning and a full nights rest made for a nice morning of slowly packing up camp to go home and back to reality.

     One small twist was Evan, Vanessa's oldest, locking both sets of her keys in the trunk of her car, an hour before he had to be at work, 20 miles away. No locksmiths seemed eager to drive all the way into the park and Vanessa began to panic, but then Jocelyn started inspecting the vehicle and discovered an access point for the trunk that was under the speakers, behind the rear seat bench. It took four people with four different arm lengths to finally fish the keys and the bag through a tiny hole in the frame of the car. Evan got to work with about a minute to spare.

       I know I had a great weekend, was entertained and the trip really helped relax me after a busy semester. I can't wait to do it again, minus the storm and car key mishap. I just wish that I had taken more pictures. Now it's a race to May 17th, the day we leave for NJ this year. The kids and I are gearing up for long summer beach days and pool-side nights at my parents house. I can't wait to hear the waves and the seagulls. I even miss the smell of the bay, the shoebie traffic and roadwork detours. Johnson's Popcorn  is at the top of my snack list with Mac & Manco Pizza and Mentos Italian Ice. I only wish I could pull Kentucky up next to New Jersey, my life would be perfect!!

Some highlights.......

 

    

When I Grow Up

Today marked the official end to my semester and the end of this phase of my education. If my credit audit was accurate, I have an associate in the arts from ECTC. This afternoon, while discussing the semester with a friend, she asked if I planned on going to the graduation ceremony. I pretty much just considered the AA degree a formality to make the transition to a four year, contractually bound, college easier. After giving it a little more thought, I'm very proud of myself for coming this far. In 1997, I never could have imagined being here today. A new mother at 19 years old, living in a seasonal apartment and contemplating my next move. It wasn't awful though, I was employed and trying to be the best mom a naive teenager could.

     Since Ethan (my son) was a baby, I have been trying to obtain a degree. First, there was dental assisting school which was a one year course. Becoming a Registered Dental Assistant definitely helped support our little family, but I wanted more. Working in a small office with several other women was not as fun as I had hoped for. The biggest gripe was the money and it wasn't enough for the cost of living for the Jersey Shore area in 2000. I enrolled in community college and very slowly started chipping away...in retrospect, going full time would have been easier. Hind sight is always 20/20.

     Having a relationship that was on the rocks at all times was a thorn in my side (and probably his too). As teens we always know all the answers and can't be told otherwise. I don't regret a thing though. Life dealt me some different cards than other kids I knew. My family is one of a kind and when I sit and do a playback in my minds eye of my life's montage, I feel all warm, fuzzy and nostalgic. It's so strange how with all the meandering my path has done, that I wouldn't trade one second of it...mostly.

     Now, in my thirties, I have these goals and all of this catching up to do for the years I parented while all of my schoolmates kept going to school. Yet, I am parenting and learning, both in parenting and college. My son changes with every moon, leaving me scratching my head. My daughter is a little firecracker and thankfully, only five years old. I can't help but imagine what college at the "college age" would have been like for me. Would I have been able to maintain a high GPA, joined a sorority, played sports, failed, fallen in love, graduated, or made it out alive? I honestly can't even say I would have known what to even major in at that time because it wasn't until a month ago I really knew! Obtaining an education will be instrumental in the proper guidance of my children. If nothing more comes from it, they will at least have a mother who can get all of their t's crossed and i's dotted for their transition into and out of high school and college.