My out of CONTROL garden..

I was kinda laughing last night, taking pictures of my garden... I've taken about 12 squash off there already and theres still a ton more... the corn is really starting to thrive, as are the peas.. FINALLY!  I literally just planted the zucchini on saturday and the pic below show how big they are after just 4 days!!  They were SEEDS!  The tomatos are doing well, so is the broccoli.  Dano's "gourds" (I still have no idea why she wanted these) are doing well also.  Now. I am fairly certain that I planted the watermelon, cantaloupe and the um.. oh pumpkin WAAAY too close together, as they have created their own intermingled bed of leaves.  It's been 16 days since the last post of pics of the garden.  It is out of control now.  For reals.  In the huge mess of the melons/pumpkin, I found last night ONE single watermelon growing on a limb that has grown OUT of the garden onto the concrete.  ONE. That's it.  In the whole jungle, one.  WTH!?!?!  Oh, and also, the pumpkin.  I really didn't think it would live.  The roots are in the ground and look pretty homely.  The vines have grown to the far left, and there, on that ONE vine, is ONE pumpkin.  Again, ONE.  Shit better start producing stat!  Now, when I get home today, seeing as the weather has dropped a whopping 10 degrees in the last day or so (THANK GOODNESS) I will get into the garden and check out the cantaloupe.  Haven't seen squat from that sucker, but a TON of pretty yellow flowers.  My grape vine LIVED!  I am soooo happy about that.  Haven't planted it in the ground yet, wasn't sure what it was going to do, so I need to do that pretty quick...  Anyway, without further ado... *Le Garden*

Just stuff..

So Dano was supposed to go with the donor to "the river" this past weekend. Long story short, she decided she did not want to go, rather get the rest of her "school stuff" together and relax before school starts this Wednesday.  Many of you know, they don't really get along.  Not surprising, I mean, I DIVORCED him for a reasons..  He was VERY upset with her, and threatened to tell her "friends" (his friends kids that he states she has already pushed away) to NOT invite her anywhere because she didn't go with him.   VERY adult of him no?  He also told her he is "SELLING HER STUFF".. no more bedroom for her to have.  She hasn't stayed over night for over a year, but this makes me think he has no plans to change that now.  :(  Had to rush around Friday and left work early to take her to the Dr to get a TB test so she CAN start school this week.. (Crazy day).. so He has to run her by the dr today before 5pm to get the result and papers to give to school.  WHAT a mess.. talk about pissy.. "Why do I have to do this on MY day!?  Why can't YOU do it!!?"  Um, hi, you are her DAD, it's part of YOUR job as a parent!  Ugh..  Back to my point.  
She stayed home with me.  (I was happy haha)  We spent saturday relaxing, for reals, and smoked porky pigs butt again.. OH MY GOSH DELICIOUS!!  Dano had the brilliant idea to use some of the roasted salsa I made last weekend on her bbq pulled pork samiches... WOW.. amazing flavors..  Then I took one of mine, and added .... Dill relish.  HOLY BAT CRAP it was amazing too! LOL  (I get the little dinner rolls and make small samiches with that... more fun and messy!)  Kira (next door neighbor BFF) and Dano and now the gal that JUST moved into the culdesac as well, Lauren were all running amock Saturday night..  You KNOW you are old when you HAVE to stay up late on a weekend night just to not worry about your kids... ;)  LOL  They had a great time..  VERY relaxing for her.  
Sunday am, we went to Wallyworld to get groceries.. and school supplies.. OH MY GAWD was that a hoot!  There was a poor dad there ALONE shopping based off of his 4th grade daughters hand writing... I could stop here.. but, no.. Dano walked with him helping him shop while I got her stuff..  School (7th grade) did not provide ANY type of list for supplies, so I just googled 7th grade supplies, and went off that.. Hopefully we are close. ;)   The guy was very grateful to Dano, and kinda hung with us in the supplies area still shopping, and I believe listening to Dano and myself..  I will embarrass her ANY chance I get, and she knows it..  She wanted something, and I grabbed the ELMO pencil box and Spiderman notebook and said if you use these, and NOT HIDE them, then you can have that.. they guy was cracking up.. He said to her, "You have a very cool Mom, be proud of her"..  um, ok.. thank you. HAHA   Then I was explaining to Dano about "Back in my day, things were different".. Dano tried to argue with me, and a teenage girl (closer to 20) said to Dano "Never question your Mom, she is ALWAYS right no matter what you think.. TRUST ME".  HA!  See!?!? Random strangers know I am right!  hahhahhahahaha  That cracked me up..  
So we go to leave, and the gal at the door checking receipts is looking at mine, and I glanced at her name tag.....   ~DANO~ is what it said!  I showed Dano, and the two were chatting as I went to load the car.. her name is Danielle too, and has ALWAYS gone by Dano..  Now, MY Dano has decided, "I am going to just stay Dano, Mom.. not Dani, and NOT Danielle.. It'll be cool, and different"..   that's my girl. 
After we got home from there, did some more gardening, and then I took all three girls to 'the river'.  Figured I'd look it up, it's just the Santa Ana River that flows down from Big Bear..  it's not deep right now, but man, when it floods..  The girls had more fun than anything I've seen in a long time..  we saw a FOX crossing the river.. really pretty animal.  Not afraid or anything, just played in the water and left.  The girls caught "guppies" and in their attempt to put them into water bottles to bring back to MY house (because their folks would flush them), they jumped OUT of their hands into their bathingsuit tops etc..  LOTS of screaming.. and laughing on my part.. haha  They had Mud throwing fights, wrestling matches, and chased each other up / down the river.   That spot is my new heaven.  The breeze is beautiful, it's like 15 degrees cooler than home (which is 5 minutes away) and just peaceful.   Asshole people left dirty diapers and trash, so I told the girls we are bringing a big trashbag next trip to clean it up since it's like "our spot" now..  They are happy to do it.   Oh, and the "next trip" is Wednesday.. after the first day of school.. They figure they will be so stressed they need to "unwind" for a couple hours..  Guess we'll be going back very soon.  THIS, is MY river... :) 

After the river, we had a nerf gun war... Of course I lost.. ;)  Anyway, we had a FABULOUS relaxing weekend.. She's less stressed out about school, she's ready to go for that..  Now if she would just relax seeing "him" today.  I feel bad for her... Why are people the way they are... 

My dogs... and my garden..

I've been inspired to share a post about my dogs and my garden.. by my friend Nikki Crome..  She has her dogs on a diet to feed them the same healthy foods she likes to eat..  As much as I love my dogs, I never thought about this..  I mean, I've fed them stuff from my garden, but always more as a treat I think.  Included in this post are pictures from my garden.  Started it the second week of July and it's growing beautifully..  Inside my little haven are, Roma Tomatoes, Tomatillos, (a TON) of Broccoli, Watermelon, Cantaloupe, Pumpkin (won't be ready for Halloween tho I don't think  BOO!) Jalapeno, Serrano chile's and habanero as well.  Then there is some Gourds (Dano REALLY wanted to grow them, no idea why) and squash, which are already sprouting about 20 of them!  Then there is a BUNCH of corn, and lastly peas.  (Seems like so much more when I look at it haha)  OH! Forgot the Avocado tree, and my grape vine.. :) The corn.. that didn't take off too well.  The ones that were already growing, only one really "took".  Planted a bunch of seeds, and holy crap within 5 days, they are all sprouting, and now they are a few inches tall already!  I still want to plant Blackberry vines but those won't produce anything for a couple years.  It's relaxing to be out there during the summertime, but damn it's HOT.. Gotta wait til the shade kicks in to get in there..  I think I will head back to the farmer's market and get some more veggies, and eggs, and slowly wean my furry kids off "dog food" and see how that works..  Raw meat with bones... THAT I will continue to research today as well.  I knew about the cooked bones, they can't have, but raw makes a bunch more sense!!  Anyway, thank you +Nikki Crome  here are some pics of my garden. :) 
Peace!