Sunday, April 29, 2012

An Open Letter

to the ants, flies, squirrels, dogs, rabbits, cats, deer, chipmunks, kids, birds or ANY OTHER pest that has been ravaging my garden.  Make no mistake about it: I will win this battle.

First you started with my lettuce.  My two buttercrunch plants disappeared over the course of one day (that's okay.... I didn't like buttercrunch lettuce anyways....)  But I was mad when I found two of my romaine lettuce plants gone down to the dirt.  They looked like someone sliced them off flush with the ground.  Or nibbled cleanly with one large set of buck teeth.






My strawberries were looking great this year, having gone through a whole season and winter - they've gotten much larger and set many, many berries in the early warm spring we had this year.  My kids couldn't wait to sink into some of these beauties.

Now we come home day after day and find this instead.

Countless times I have stared out my kitchen window waiting to catch you in the act and I've considered setting up a surveillance system to keep an eye out for my enemy.

I'm sure you are pleased to see that the garden is now stocked with even more yummy loot: cucumbers, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, yellow squash, butternut squash, zucchini and eggplant.

 These new additions have joined the broccoli, cauliflower, collards and carrots that were already there.



If you are searching for the lettuce that you have grown fond of, it has been relocated to a straight side, extremely slippery planter on the deck.  I dare you to try to scale up and touch my lettuce right outside my kitchen window.

I'm currently researching any and all methods to win this battle.  Rottweilers, snipers, electric fences, pet owls, smelly granules, repulsive sprays and critter traps are all under consideration.  For now I have settled on a net that may or may not be electrified.

It's time for you to move on to some other garden, because you are no longer welcome in mine.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

She's Four

This one.

The one with the dark chocolate eyes and the so-curly hair.

The one who loves broccoli, bunnies and swinging.

The one who is small for her age, but big in the heart.  The one who avoids taking risks and sleeps with her sis.

Yes, she's four now.  Overnight it happens; they get so big.  She's got her own favorites, ones that are too hard to choose between.  Like whether to have Tinkerbell or Cars on your birthday cupcakes for school.


Or switch it up again and go for Max and Ruby for your party.  (Try finding those in a store... these guys don't exist!)

Chloe did decide on her party theme, and she chose to do horseback riding and other farm activities at Whispering Pines stables in Mauldin.

While the sky gave way to rain at the end of the party, it held off long enough to eat cupcakes





And feed some chickens (avoiding all gamecock jokes)


And pet some bunnies, baby sheep and baby goats



And go on a hayride.  By the time the rain started it was time to go in the arena for horse brushing


And then came the riding









Happy birthday to our sweet Chlo-bot!

Friday, April 20, 2012

The Dirtiest Thing I Ever Did

I can’t exactly remember who suggested it, but I think it was Brooke while we were watching Clemson whoop up in the ACC Championship Game.  “You want to do the mud run with us in April?”  Heck yeah we do!  Jason and I had been doing Crossfit at that time for all of 5 days.  But April seemed a long way away and I felt sure I could master 5 consecutive push-ups by then.  Little did I know that 2nd Crossfit week we would do a workout with 50 push-ups (mine were girly style) and 100 pull-ups, where said work-out would render my arms useless for a whole week.  Useless as in: couldn’t steer my car, couldn’t reach my computer mouse, couldn’t dispense paper towels in the bathroom at work, couldn’t blow dry my hair.  Lesson learned, we continued our Crossfit and signed up for the Mud Run the day registration opened.

I didn’t think much about the mud run over the next few months and didn’t alter our training any (mistake… next time I’ll do some longer runs than the 200 – 400 meter sprints that Crossfit uses.)  The day did arrive, and we lined up with 650 other 4 person teams for Saturday’s start bright and early in the cool 48* air.  Our start time was 8:12 AM – a great time, meaning the course wouldn’t yet be completely wrecked but we would likely freeze to death.  I’m amazed at the size of this run – about 1,000 teams trekked through those woods over the two day event.  And now that I know how technical some of the obstacles are, I am more amazed that race organizers allow us street folks to attempt this.  I guess they have good lawyers who write really robust liability waivers.

When the clock ticked exactly 8:12, we were off into the 3.5 mile course …

#1: …and into a deep mud puddle/pit to crawl under a cargo net.  This pit is right in front of the starting line, so everyone else waiting their start time can wonder just how cold that mud really is.  Then we ran… and ran and ran down a gravel road, and around a bend on our way to the rest of the course.


#2: Crawl under a Humvee – thankfully on some nice long grass.  Next year they’ll probably make it a bed of glass shards.
#3: Tire Flip – I huffed and puffed my way to the tires where Jason and Patrick were already flipping the giant tire.  Three flips up, three flips back.  I might have touched the tire for a second, you know… more like moral support.
#4: Knee High Tires – a la Football Practice style.  I make it through without eating rubber.  Brooke nearly bites the dust, but makes a nice save.  Onward!
#5: Mud Pit – hands and knee crawl through the gunk.  The edge was really soft and nearly took my shoe.  Scampered out, and we turned now to go into the woods…
#6: 6 FT Wall: Patrick gets down and sets his hands to boost Brooke over the wall.  You can tell he is ready to go – and launches her before she gets her hands set on the top of the wall.  Pow!  She lands on her butt on the ground and doesn’t move much for a few seconds.  Patrick picks her up, but she is in a ton of pain.  She gets her vision square and says she’s ready to continue, although I can tell she is miserable.  This time, the lift up the wall is a little slower and more ginger.
#7: 6FT Wall: another one… no one falls, and we continue on through the woods.
#8: Rope Wall: This wall is slightly slanted with a thick rope hanging down.  I grab ahold, and scamper up the front and jump off the back.
#9: Stretcher Run: Brooke jumped on the stretcher and Jason & Patrick ran her around a marker and back, 70 yards.  I ran on ahead to the next obstacle.
#10: Stream Crossing: We had to venture up and then down an embankment, cross through the rocky flowing water, then pull back up another embankment.
#11: Low Crawl: crawl on the forest floor (wet leaves) under a low net.  I see now we were supposed to be on our backs, but we army crawled on our bellies.
#12: Stairway to Heaven: Some kind of wooden ladder to climb up and over… I don’t remember doing this one!  But I know we did…
#13: Reverse Incline Wall: My zone must have continued… because I don’t recall this one either.  Old age, I guess.
# 14: Hip Hop: This one I do remember.  It was about 5 parallel beams that were chest high.  We had to jump up and over each beam, touching the ground between each ones.  Claire’s gymnastic “front support” came in handy on this one.
#15: Moon Walk: same kind of beams as the Hip Hop, but this time we were not allowed to touch the ground in between beams.  I bear walked over them and jumped down to go on…
#16: Rope Swing: After climbing up on a platform, we had to swing on a rope over a muddy trench.  A group in front of us was not clearing the trench well, so I grabbed the rope nice and high and gave a good jump.  Not only did I clear the trench, I managed to launch myself about 10 feet in the air when it was time to drop.  Whoops… I ended up sliding with my hands down the rope so I didn’t free fall onto the tree roots below.  I didn't need that palm skin anyways. Next time, grab a little lower…
#17: Rotator Cuff: These were a set of monkey bars over a muddy pit, and only one team member had to do it.  Jason was already in monkey position when I ran up, so on he went and we ran to the next obstacle.
#18: Uphill Low Crawl: We emerged from the woods and a pit carved into a grassy hill, and we were told to army crawl with our bellies on the ground through the pit.  This one was awful…. Rocks were slicing my knees and elbows to pieces! I made it about 2/3 through and started to bear walk when the army guy yelled at me to go back and do it again.  ARGH!  I heard later teams were instructed to Bear Walk through that one – the rocks were just uncalled for.
#19: Stream Run: Back into the woods for a long 100 yard stream run.  We waded along through the murky water – couldn’t see the branches or rocks or creatures below and had to duck and crawl under a few fallen trees.
#20: Cargo Net: Now that we were soaking wet, we came to the high cargo net where we had to climb the wiggly net, climb over the top of the frame (12’ high) and back down the other side.  This was not for the faint of heart, and I thought about the lawyers and their waivers while I was straddling the top of the frame, looking down at the hard ground and rocks below.
#21: 6FT Climbing walls: We’re experts at these by now!
#22: Tire Thru: This one we knew would be trouble, and we heard that we should try to go feet first through a hanging tire, about 5’ high.  The boys picked us up and threaded our feet through the tire, but getting back out the other side was tricky.  It was even trickier for Jason & Patrick to get themselves through, but we all made it.
#23: Stream Run: Another 100 yard stream run.  I tried not to think about what was lurking under the surface.
#24: 6FT Wall: Piece of cake!
#25: Balance Beam: Two sets of multi-level wood beams to walk through – nobody fell, so we zipped right through.
#26: Tire up and Over:  Jason & Patrick grabbed the regular size car tire and tried to throw it up in the air to thread it on a wood post that was about 12’ high.  They missed once, then caught the edge of the tire on the top of the post.  Three jumps later, Jason tipped it onto the post and it fell to the ground.  Getting it off the post took a couple more throws, and then a couple more tips.  Brooke and I cheered them on.
#27: Hurdle: 3 sets of 2’ walls we were supposed to hurdle over, if you call jumping to a support position, slinging a wet leg over the top, and falling over the back side a hurdle.
#28: Balance Beam Wall: Walked up and inclined beam to clear a 5’ wall… it was a little shaky on the downward beam on the other side!
#29: Rock Climbing Wall: I went first on the rock wall, which was a flat wooden wall with oh… about 4 rock climb things?  And the lowest one didn’t have a finger place!  Got up to the platform (about 10’ high) and climbed down the wide spaced rungs of the back side. At this point, we came back out of the woods after a big grassy hill and started a long run back towards the start and finish area.  I was tired.
#30: 7 ton up and Over: After the felt-like-forever run, we had to climb up the side of a huge military dump truck thing.  My foot couldn’t reach the tire, and there wasn’t anywhere for my hands.  I still don’t know how I got up on that thing… I think Jason launched me up there.
#31: Mud Pit: Another run stretch, this one a little shorter and took us into the finish area.  First we had to jump into the mega-mud pit, the one where the photographer is there to get your expression as you sink in.  I couldn’t decide whether to trudge through or swim – either would have worked.  Once out of the pit, there was a huge mound (6’ tall maybe) of wet, slimy mud to crawl up without losing a shoe or arm.  Once at the top, I slid down on my feet in a crouched position to the bottom.  The army guy monitoring the obstacle said he was impressed.
#32: 8’ Vertical Wall: Now to the granddaddy wall, the one we actually halfway strategized on in advance.  Our plan was to put Jason up on the top platform, have Patrick boost girls from the bottom while Jason pulls from the top, and then somehow Jason pulls Patrick up from the top.  For my turn, Patrick boosted me and Jason had my arm.  I was trying to sling my leg up to the top and missed about 3 times – finally got it hooked and rolled up.  Brooke gave Patrick a shove in the rear to push him up from the bottom.


#33: Mud Bog: Looooong belly crawl through a wet mud pit with barbed wire overhead as motivation to keep your body low. 

Only one more thing left to complete… we ran out of the pit towards the final obstacle…





#34: Fireman’s Carry: And Brooke and I jumped on Jason and Patrick’s back to be carried about 30 yards to the finish line. 
 
We made it!  Time of 50:51, good enough for 56th place out of 310 teams of 2 males/2 females (240 out of 904 overall.)




Hindsight is always 20/20, but I’ve broken down our weakness into 2 main areas to improve our time for the next one:
1)      We need to run faster
2)      We need to complete the obstacles faster.

We’ll be back in September!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Florida Spring Break Part III - Happy Easter!

OK, last Spring Break post.... promise.  Greenville County tends to have spring break fall in line with Easter, so we were able to spend it down in Florida before traveling back to reality on Monday - also a school holiday due to no snow this winter.

When my kids found out we were not going to be home for Easter there was a lot of concern about the Easter Bunny finding them in Florida but I assured them the bunny would know where they were and show up with no issues.  Chloe had another fear about the Easter Bunny coming alllllllll the way to Florida, "Mommy, won't he get tired of HOPPING??!"  No, don't worry ... have you seen the size of the Easter Bunny's quads?  No worries there.

Saturday night we spent dying eggs with all the girls after wearing them out at a park and on the tennis court.  They had a great time and took turns writing everyone's name with the crayon before dropping it in the cups.





Easter morning Jeff and the girls showed up bright and early to hunt for the eggs the Easter Bunny hid.  Claire told everyone how EB had knocked on she and Chloe's door over night (they didn't dare open) and crunched loudly on not only the carrots we left out, but must have gotten more carrots from the fridge based on the crunches she heard.


By my count, all the eggs were accounted for and we spent the rest of the day back at the pool in the sunshine.  Happy Easter to all!