Life is Dirty.

And so are backyards.

Let’s see, where to start…

I was gone, but now I’m back. Sort of.

The battery-whats-it-thingama-jig on my laptop shouted its final “Hoorah” Tuesday night, so I’ve been sort of MIA for a few days (until last night, when I received a loaner laptop from a wonderful company I work for — God bless ‘em!). It’s been a few long, soul searching days…

Still in the funk of it all, kinda, well it’s hard to explain. Isolated would be one word. But only one. Misunderstood, insecure, questioning, worried… there are more words.

Oh, life.

Anyway, sorry so cryptic, just not really ready to articulate the happenings of my heart tonight.

Beautiful weather around Portland (ah hah: clever topic switch to weather – nice!) has blessed us with a weekend to plant. We’ve got roughly 30 or so tomato starts, 5 cabbage, 2 broccoli raab, onions and scallions to get in the veg bed ASAP. We hope to plant a few other things this weekend if I can bring some of our tomato starts to the neighborhood plant swap tomorrow and exchange our abundance of tomatoes for some more variety… peas, corn, pumpkins, squash would be nice!

The veg bed was dug out by a 7 month preggo (no, not I said the fly! I was slightly GINORMOUS at the time so Lacey- bless her hard workin heart- got the project underway) and now we are pooling our energy and muscles together to get new, slightly healthier but much more expensive topsoil and compost BACK into the “pit” before it rains and washes our 2 yards of delivered DIRT down the driveway.

The 12′ x 12′ “Pit”, approx. 3′ deep (reminds me – any body watching “Parks and Recreation? Hilarious.)

Old Dirt, complete with weeds, seeds, debri, and weed gaurd.

New Dirt, complete with wet clay and rocks that are heavy as he**.

Ethan collects worms and slugs for the chickens…such a BOY!

Verity naps from the shade of her sun hat… such a GIRL!

So, again, I am very thankful for the weekend. Not that I will be doing a bunch of shoveling, however. Nope. I tried, I really did, and I sort of made some progress on the early stages of the venture. Just before my fractured/whatever rib cage SCREAMED AT ME and I realized my limits. I suppose I did have a baby 2 weeks ago, maybe I shouldn’t push a wheel barrow that weighs more than I do back and forth across the yard? Probably a good call. Anyhoo; no, the guys will handle this one and us gals will do the gentle planting stuff. Much better plan!

Speaking of babies – there are some pics below. (I couldn’t decide which one so they look kinda the same. If you print them out and make a little booklet and flip through it really fast, maybe you can make a little old fashioned home movie!) She’s sporting a crocheted hat, a handy talent of Lacey’s younger sister.

She is sleeping great, nursing great, just, all, well, GREAT! And since I’m not coughing up hairballs all night, I am also feeling- physically anyway – bran (?) spankin’ new! It’s amazing how quickly the body recovers the second time around.

Okay well, I’ll be back to write more when there is more to write about. Chow for now.