It's Not The Stork

Laurie sent me the most interesting text message on Thursday (that is the main means of communication for couples today, isn't it?)... Let me share it with you:

"Ok I made big oops yesterday at book mobile. distracted by S (Savannah) didn't see what book A (Andrew) checked out til he brought books down that he read during rest time. Called "It's Not The Stork." Yep it's the sex book for 4yrs & up. Sorry u get 2 do damage control."

So... tonight Andrew and I had our regular "boys time by the pond" and I asked him the regular questions I ask, "What all did you do today?" "What was your favorite part of your day?" Then I asked, "Did you read during rest time today? Or just play in your room?" He said he read... "Did you read your new library books you got from the Book Mobile?" He said yes and went on to tell me about a book that had started... but, not the "Stork Book."

So I asked... "Was there another book, something about a stork?" "No," he answered, "I don't remember that one." "I think it was called..." "Oh yeah, I read that one, too." (At this point I swallowed... almost a "cartoonish" sounding "GULP!"

So I asked... "Did you like that book?" "Oh yeah, it was very good." (OH GREAT!!! He's a boy, that was a DUMB QUESTION!!) And then he started talking about the book... "Oh wait, Andrew... I mean the "stork" book." (He thought I meant the other book he had been reading).

"Oh, yes it was good." "What was that book about?" I asked. "It talked about our bodies and body parts." "And where babies came from?" "Well, mostly about our bodies." (Ok, where do I go with this????)

"Was there anything in the book that you didn't understand or have questions about?" (I looked at him and saw complete innocence and honesty) "No, it was pretty easy to understand."

And then he went back to talking about his other book and then on to Star Wars (of course... which is somehow part of every conversation that Andrew has with anyone).

I told Laurie earlier today... 10, I was hoping for at least age 10. Knowing Andrew I just couldn't imagine what questions he might have come up with knowing his inquisitive mind. But... I guess that will be for another day. (THANK GOD!!!) And to think that's ALL I thought about for several hours that afternoon preparing for "THE TALK" with an almost 7-year old!!

Rain, Chicago & My Gardens

What a wet week. But, that's ok... we're needing the rain. And... :) I need the rest. This 41 year old body is sore. Aleve can only do so much for it.

Let's see... What to blog about...

Kids are doing awesome in their swimming lessons. They LOVE going each Tuesday and Thursday night... The monthly payment for the lessons has pretty much been set into the budget now for the next year... We can see a big difference in how they play in the city pools compared to last year. And, it's so awesome to watch them actually swim now rather than just splash around. Especially Andrew... he has very little fear of the water now and doesn't mind getting his head wet. Last summer he could be at the pool for 3-hours and never get his hair wet. Andrew has a pretty goood breast stroke already and Laurie say she does very well with his back stroke, too... but, he only does it at swim lessons.

Savannah is enjoying being back in dance class... though, this week she was honest with Laurie and told her she doesn't like the tap part of the class, only the ballet. We always knew that the ballet was her favorite of the two, but this week was the first time that she actually made it very clear. Laurie talked to her teacher and beginning with the next session we can pay half price and have her only do ballet. She (and we) were happy to know that.

We're planning a mini-vacation to Chicago the first weekend of August... Brookfield Zoo on Friday, Botanical Gardens on Saturday and Shedd's Aquarium on Sunday. Hopefully it will be good weather... but, we'll have an indoor pool if it rains. The Botanical Gardens has a "garden train" exhibit that I think the kids will really enjoy.

My gardens this year...

Front of house:

Here's what our designer daylilies looked like this year at the front of our house...

They started blooming on 6/17 , exactly one week earlier than last year. They finished within about 3 weeks... they usualy go about 4-5 weeks. Though the blooming period was shorter we had a many more blooms than other years.


Back of house:

Above is a bamboo plant that started to come up this spring, but the late freeze put it back into dormancy. At this time last year it was about 12-feet tall. FINALLY a new start made it's way through the ground early this week. However, it's like the plant is starting over as a seedling... the new shoots are usually much thicker. It's been a test of patience for me... but, looks like something is FINALLY going ot happen.

Side of house:

Since we have such a small backyard and our garage is too small for our car, we use our driveway for more plants, grilling, and for the kid's swimming pool. doesn't everyone grow a coconut tree next to their tomato plants? :)

Well... enough for tonight... I need to head to bed. I'm going to upload more picture to Webshots this weekend of our gardens and the kids.

Sad Hostas & Verocious Voles

What do you get when you have hostas in lots of sun and the irrigation isn't working right? See above picture... :( One of my customers has LOTS of hostas and they receive a lot of sun, but the irrigation has always kept them moist enough that we've never had a problem with them scorching... UNTIL THIS YEAR.

The irrigation wasn't working correctly due to a leak in the line and this large area of hostas and geraniums weren't receiving the moisture that they usually do... the hostas were scorching and the geraniums were not flurishing as they usually do. The leak was fixed a week ago, but it is pretty much too late for this year. The geraniums will gain some growth for the rest of the summer, but the hostas will continue to look pretty poor.

And then there are these...

He might look cute, but he's not a hampster or mouse... he's a vole, and he (and LOTS of his brothers and sisters) have been terrorizing the hostas & geraniums at the same customer's house. I've never seen something so small be able to take down a 3'x5' hosta so fast!! I had a company install several P3 Super Sonic Molechasers - a 16"x2" battery operated unit that produces a sonic sound of 300Hz over an area of approximately 11,250 square feet, 1/4 acre, at approximately 15 second intervals. It's worked well in some areas, but... not so well in others. I've replaced the geraniums that had been eaten down (25 in total... 5 groups of 5), but they all are getting eaten again. Within a couple of days of replacing the geraniums I saw a new burrow appear leading right into one group of geraniums. I'm sure they were thrilled that I gave them fresh food!!

So, now we move on to the next level of vole control... TRAPPING. Now, my history with trapping has not been good... see http://strouthion.blogspot.com/2006/10/visit-from-conservation-officers.html to understand what I'm referring to. I'm suppose to have a "professional" meet me on Monday to review the situation and install the traps, but... he sounds a little over-committed, so I'm prepared to do them myself. The problem is... we have no idea how many there are. From what I've been reading, a colony can be 30-1000 voles. GREAT!!!!

Anyway... we'll see what happens with that situation... Hopefully I'll have time in the next few days to update everyone on that. I'm not looking forward to doing the trapping myself, but... if that's what it takes.

Long Time

Wow... it's been forever since I last sat down and added something to my blog. Laurie will be gone this coming weekend, so it'll be just me and the kids. I'm going to find time to get back on here and add some pictures to my picture site (Webshots) and let everyone know what we've been up to.

Laurie is enjoying her summer this year... no teaching and lots of time with the kids. We bought a small pool for them last weekend and that's all they've been wanting to do since I got it up (which took WAY too much time to do on Sunday!!). Andrew is involved in soccer and Savannah is involved in dance class (ballet & tap). Andrew has a summer science class he's taking and Savannah is taking an art class... both are offered thru our parks & recreation with Bloomington.

Work has been going well, but I'm always behind on things (what's new... just like a real job, huh?). It's been hot and haven't had a lot of rain until just the last few days. Not much interiorscape business yet... but, I haven't really had any time to try and get the business. But, hopefully during the month of July I will have more time to try and get more interior business.

More later, right now I need to get back to work... took a little break to check emails and such.

Little Visitor

New Heart

Funny how a simple visit to the doctor for a cold can turn into receiving a new heart within a week.

A friend's husband from church went to the Dr last Friday (I think) about a cold that he couldn't seem to get better from. They ended up hospitalizing him due to a blood pressure concern... leading to bypass surgery, which he did not respond well to... which lead to him being rushed to a hospital in St Louis to be put on a heart and lung machine. It finally came down to an immediate need for a heart transplant.

The amazing thing is... a heart became available immediately, and it was a match. They completed the surgery today and we found out tonight that everything went well. They'll wake him up tomorrow and begin watching for any possible complications like rejection, stroke, pneumonia, etc.

Anyway.... it's what I've been thinking about a lot the last couple of days... What if this happened to me? What if it happened to Laurie? How would we be financially? What would life be like afterwards? How would I change after something like this?

Ok.... I have to go to bed. I'm tired from all work and no play.

Rainy day bloggin'

What a difference a few hours can make... yesterday it was 90, humid, hot, windy (VERY windy) and now just a few hours later, it's cold, cloudy, wet, slight breeze. If I could have a day in between that would be great!!

I can't complain, though... it's been a good spring for planting and such. A little too hot the last few days for this time of year for several annuals, though. And the wind... WOW... some of the gust had to have been over 50 MPH.


Feeling less stressed about getting everything done now, but I still have plenty to keep me busy over the next week. I have to have all of the annuals/tropicals done by May 31... My first goal is always by Memorial Day (going to miss that one)... but, that's ok. One year I was still planting annuals late June for someone (but, that wasn't all my fault).



Here are a few more pictures of arrangements I've done this past week. They need a couple of weeks to start filling out more... they always look so thin when they're first planted. I did a few more conainers at this same residence on Thursday of this week... was to have finished everything, but the wind kind of cut me back on what I could accomplish. More pictures to come in the next week or so.




Here comes the rain again... glad I'm inside and not outside :)


Kids are doing so well with their swimming lessons... Why we didn't do this earlier I have no idea. As much as Laurie and I love to be in/near water it was killing us knowing the kids didn't know how to swim. Andrew has come so far in putting his head under the water... but, he complains after swimming that his neck hurts. We figured it out that it's because when he's swimming his trying to hold his head above the water rather than putting his face down into the water. He's doing better, but he's got a ways to go still. We think he just has very sensitive eyes... he's always hated getting water in them and really rubs them when he does. Savannah... she'll dunk her head under with no problem at all. She's already talking about wanting to be on a swim team soon... Laurie LOVED that idea... she has some very good memories of her swimming days as a coach and lifeguard.


Ok... need to get some other things done... hopefully the rain will stop soon so I can get some things outside. Won't be able to do any in-ground planting, but can at least possibly do more containers.

Sample Work

Here's part of what I worked on Thursday... petra crotons, variegated ginger, pink futurity canna, alocasia uprights... will be installing a few "fillers" on Friday in the open areas of each bed. I'll show more from this house in the near future. I do several large annual containers, tropical containers (all outside) and also upkeep their landscape. I also do a few other odds-n-ends as requested (usually not gardening related, but... oh well).

Savannah graduated from pre-school today... She was so excited about it. But, Laurie told me the other day that Savannah asked her, "Mommy, why can't I go to pre-school for two years like some of the other kids?" She's going to miss Miss Linda and the other teachers she had. But, she's so excited about Kindergarten... she got registered a few weeks ago. We're still hoping that she'll have the same teacher that Andrew had in K.

Laurie is all done with school... she finished up earlier this week. She's looking forward to being a stay-at-home mom from now thru mid-August. She's taught summer school the last two years, which took up her evenings a couple nights a week for about six weeks. She's got the kid's summers all planned out for them... they both are taking swimming lessons, Savannah has dance classes, Andrew has soccer, we'll have a family pass for the pools, and... I think Andrew has a science class of some type and Savannah has an art class.

Hopefully I'll have my planting done soon so I can begin enjoying the evenings with the kids and Laurie... I'm working late every night right now. But, probably only for another week.

So busy... no time to blog

It's been CRAZY the last two weeks... I haven't had much time to do anything except work. but, I think I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just a few more days of intense annual and tropical planting and then projects begin and daily maintenance of beds & containers. I can then begin to market my interior business more again. I haven't had any time to do that lately at all.

I'll be sharing pictures of what I've been doing soon... people ask a lot, "Just what do you do?" That's always a good question... so I'll show everyone on here in the next few days.

Off to work...

30-Hours In A Day Needed

I sent Laurie voicemail this week asking her to PLEASE start praying to God for 30-hour days... I REALLY needed it this past week. I was (and still am a little) SO stressed out about getting everything done for work.

This past Tuesday all of my tropical plants (I still don't know exactly how many, but A LOT!) came into the garden center that I'm working out of, and I became overwhelmed, to say the least. I ordered more than last year and had to do more myself in getting them organized, delivered, unwrapped, verified and ready to go for planting. I was delivering until about 1 a.m. Tuesday night and then still brought home a 17' U-Haul truck load home with me to be delivered Wednesday-Saturday. Actually, I still have several plants sitting out along the sidewalk on the northside of our house to be delivered Monday-Wednesday. I haven't lost any yet, so that's what's important. By this coming Saturday (May 19) all plants should be at their location and either planted or ready to be planted by the first of the next week.

I didn't get as much for myself this year... except two coconut trees and (of course) some bananas). Oh wait... that doesn't include the annuals and perennials that we planted last weekend... designer salmon geraniums across the front of the yard in groups of three, low-grow phlox (for Laurie... she's been asking for some tucked in here and there in the front for about five years), lavender in front, snow-in-summer by the pond and a few other little things.

I'm doing my first post from my new laptop computer... After getting done with work last night I stopped by Circuit City and got a HP laptop... LOVE IT!! I've spent the afternoon today loading software (Office 2003) and downloading the updates. We won't switch to Office 2007 until it becomes available thru ISU this next school year. I'm trying to avoid having to buy any software... most can be used on up to three computers. We'll see how it all works out. I'm hoping to at least have all of my "My Documents" transferred over tonight and all of my accounting items transferred over. I want to be able to start using my laptop for email and all business related items ASAP. I just hope and pray I don't have any problems transferring over all of my information.

Banana joy :-)

It might not look like much to everyone else, but it's great news to me! My bananas are popping thru! Woo hoo!! Here comes summer!

Chickadee Bouncer

We've been having several gold finches visiting our thistle feeder the last couple of weeks... their color changes are complete to all yellow now. This morning I saw a gold finch eating peacefully at the feeder... after I walked away from the window I started hearing a lot of "yelling" by a bird. I looked out and saw Mr. Chickadee "chasing" the gold finch near the feeder... which is right near the house that the chickadees have been nesting. Mr Chickadee was NOT happy that the gold finch was so close to their house.

I've seen the gold finch back several times this morning since their little squable. But, I guess I need to find a new location for the thistle feeder... I dont want the chickadees to feel "crowded" and not come back to the house.