Pixie Fun...For Us!

 Pixie had a so much fun over the last few days, that I think it left her a little more tired and irrational than usual. Doesn't help that she developed some sniffles on the journey home, but thankfully it hasn't progressed.

It was nap time and she really didn't want to go, but the only way she could comply in her mind was if I took a picture of her. I decided to take video of her silliness first to keep, but also to show her later on how goofy she looked. It didn't really work. She loves to watch the video now.

Happy that her wish was granted. Crazy how she cranked out a pose so quickly for the camera!

Then I just thought this was funny. Having straight hair that looks the same, whether I am entering bed or rising from it, I find Pixie's curly hair amusing. I had given her a bath before nap time and this is what we found when she got up.

Strawberries!

 Pixie loves strawberries. She would ask for them and gaze in awe of them at the grocery store. I have fought myself on it because I know they are on the "dirty dozen" list of conventional foods, but I have even more gained the desire to have my own patch after hearing about the possible approval of a new pesticide to be used on them.

“I’m not in blanket opposition to the use of pesticides, but methyl iodide alarms me,” said Theodore A. Slotkin, a professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University Medical Center and a member of the scientific review committee. “When we come across a compound that is known to be neurotoxic, as well as developmentally toxic and an endocrine disruptor, it would seem prudent to err on the side of caution, demanding that the appropriate scientific testing be done on animals instead of going ahead and putting it into use, in which case the test animals will be the children of the state of California.”

Full article here.

Besides all of that, they are simply so expensive to buy in a constant stream from the local grocer. I would love to have a bumper crop of my own and stuff ourselves silly with strawberries every year. 

Moving a few months ago, with all the many things that have to be done inside and out in this house, I have attempted to get a strawberry patch. At first I tried to put some in one of those Topsy Turvy things that we found for almost free at Menards. Some of the root balls never grew and all but one of the plants died. 

I discovered that on the less sunny side of the house, a previous owner had planted lots of strawberries, but I wasn't sure how much sun they got on that side, so I wasn't in high hopes for a good crop. 

I took a look at the other side and decided to shovel out the rock garden, rip up the plastic, cultivate sand from the pit and peat moss into it.  

I was pleasantly surprised when the rocks and plastic came up easily and almost in one sheet, then horrified when I found a horrendous colony of ants beneath it. Sadly, I had to wait. I bought those granules that can be used around gardens, then had to endure torrents of thunderstorms until my patch was ant-free and dry enough to dig in. Yesterday I worked outside for hours and hand cultivated the patch. I planted my lone alive strawberry plant, along with three others I got at a local store. I meandered to the other side of the house to see if those part-sunned strawberries were, in fact, going to ripen.
And this is what I found! 

They were delicious! And I say 'were' because Pixie at almost the entire bowl. There are more ripening and I'm planning on taking some cuttings to plant in my new patch on the other side of the house. 

Hooray! Get rid of your rock gardens and plant strawberry patches!

Memorial Day Getaway

 We had just bought a couple of kayaks off of Craigslist, when we realized we might not be able to go on a far away nice vacation. Why not set ourselves up with fun for years to come instead?

The only thing we needed, was somewhere fun to take them. Scott asked around at work and found that a co-worker's sister owned a small house a block from a very nice (and large!) lake near the Ozarks in central Missouri. We found a really nice and affordable place to board the dogs, and took off on Sunday afternoon.

We were impressed with the amenities and the cleanliness of the house, even after not being used since last season. We settled in for a nice quiet evening and decided to do the bulk of our kayaking on Monday.

We relaxed on the back porch while waiting for the coals to turn ashen and ready for our homemade veggie seitan polish sausages. I really outdid myself there, changing up the flavor and adding more moisture so the middle stayed tender. The best I have made so far!

In the meantime, some odd close up pictures were taken....

Don't you love the contrast of our eye color? It'll be so much fun seeing what our kids get. We thought Pixie might be taking the green from Scott, but recently I'm not so sure.

(Ignore my melted make-up look. It was hot and humid that day!)

Pixie found some sticks to play with..

..and I realized I had packed two different colored flip flops. At least they were the same kind of shoe and the right feet!

Scott and I went to bed at around 9:30pm on Sunday night. It was lovely to get a good night's rest. Even better for him since he only gets to sleep in once a month or two, during holidays normally.
We had a leisurely morning and headed out to kayak at around 10:30am. The weather was perfect. It was so nice of it to go on hiatus from the thunderstorms and tornadoes we've had for weeks on end.

We weren't sure how Pixie was going to handle it. She had been asking to go boating ever since we got the first kayak a few weeks ago. She took to it immediately.

My kayak is made for the ladies. It's an eleven foot ocean kayak, so it does better with choppy water.

Scott's looks like a canoe hybrid and is fourteen feet. It's more suited to lakes and hauling children in the cargo hold. :)

We had such a blast stopping at inlets and exploring the area. We waded around in the water some too and I found two small white snail shells for Pixie. She's still carrying them around the house now. It was the least I could do to give her a fake beach experience!

She was not happy when she couldn't reach the water. We had to situate her so she could.

We had a fun and relaxing Monday evening. We went back out to kayak Tuesday morning, got into some windy and choppy water, so we turned back because we weren't comfortable getting into that with Pixie. I had fun crashing over those little waves though.
We paddled around the sheltered inlet for a while, until Pixie asked to go eat.

We returned home that afternoon, picked up our doggies and went home. 

The next day, yesterday, Scott called into work because the sunburn he got was worse. On Monday we all slathered on the sunscreen, but while we waded around it must have come off. Pixie and I didn't get burned at all, but look at what happened to Scott's delicately white legs. Can you see how swollen the left one is? He's home today too. Poor guy couldn't even walk on it!