Welcome Xander!

My brother and his wife just had their first babe yesterday! Yippee! I'm a real Auntie now, not just a pseudo one for all my friends' children ;-)
Welcome Welcome Sweet Xander! Happy Birthday!



There's a trend here.... The last baby born in my family was a boy too! Happy Belated 1st Birthday to Wyatt!!



Makes me wonder if the next lil cuz will be a boy too! ;-) Hmmmmm...

The Quick & Dirty Catch Up...

So the last post was February was it...? Sheesh
Well... Since then the outpouring of support from my friends, family and co-workers for my decision to become a Choice Mom has been down right amazing! I am so blessed. I feel like the countdown is beginning, what with the school year wrapping up here in the next couple weeks and summer always going by so quickly. August will be here before you or I or anyone else knows it! I feel excited and scared all at once! I have so much to do before I get pregnant. Ack!

The highlights of March were my birthday and our annual trip to the Renaissance Fair, which it just so happens were on the same day! Pictures will be up soon. I figure if I got the blog post up then I'd be more motivated to get pics transferred from Kristi's puter to mine since one of the other events of March was the complete and utter crashola of my dear computer. sigh.

Then we have April.... hmmmm.... Oh yeah I made a didgeridoo out of plastic sewer pipe from Lowe's for less than $4 and learned some more in-depth tricks on how to play it from this local didg guy as well as from tutorials on YouTube :-D
The garden got planted by the community college class that's been using our garden for their class project.
AND we had the Great Bee Hive Moving Adventure out here at The Retreat. Many many many thanks to Andy, Ana and Matt for helping to make it as successful as it was!

This is the hive in it's final resting place in all it's ghetto glory-netting attached w/duct tape-so the bees couldn't swarm out during transport, tarped-that's what we dragged it on, braced and tied off-so it doesn't fall over. We didn't get it as far away from civilization as we had wanted but it's at least out of the way and now is draped w/a brown tarp so it 'blends' a smidge better... or at least that's what we're goin for lol


This pic is layers of honeycomb that had cascaded from being tipped and righted twice (with a couple inches of bees in between each layer). It. Was. Awesome.

And caught up to May!
We had our school May Day Festival at Granite Creek Park. It was a perfect day!



This is my co-teacher, Etsuko and her youngest son Oliver. We had fun playing with our cameras between each class's may pole dance.

Since I didn't get a say in what was planted in the main garden I decided to put my own garden in. There's a sweet little nook behind the play house that I can fence off pretty easily, I think. I've been working to clear out all the weeds and I got 3 loads of good soil from a guy on FreeCycle that I will use for my little garden.


Ever the Girl Scout... used the Jeep as a pick-up


Mayana supervises as I unload dirt form the Jeep

So far I've bought seeds for cosmos, hollyhocks, peony, sweet peas, snap peas, moss rose and I have sunflowers from last year's garden. I also want to get some zuchs, bell peppers, onions and garlic.
The main garden has wildflowers, corn, beans, squash, watermelon, and maybe an artichoke if it will grow back from getting munched down to nothingness for the 2nd time this spring.


Charlie snoozes while I get my blog post together on this sleepy sunday.

Big News & SNOW!!!

Sheesh! What happened to January?!?
Oh yeah, I was overtaken by the urge to make sure all my friends and family heard word of my big news directly before I started blabbing about it online. So now that they all know... I'm Back!
The Big News, in case I have followers that I don't know about, is that I've decided to start my family later this year as a Single Parent by Choice via sperm donor!
If you want to learn more about this parenting option just ask! or visit: http://www.choicemoms.org/index.cfm/home/2/home.htm

So, before... when I said that winter had come to The Retreat...? Well, I was really just fantasizing and wanting measurable snow very much. My wish was answered yesterday and through the night. I stuck a ruler out several doors into the snow and they measure 4"! Though it's deeper in many areas, maybe just from the high winds...? I went for a tromp to the mailbox this morning since I wasn't sure if I tried to stop last night on my way home that I'd truly be able to stop. The roads, all of them, were slushy, sloppy, icy messes! I almost had to stop and put chains on about 5 minutes from home, going up the hill to my house. I had virtually no traction and was practically driving up the middle of the road sideways! Good times here!
First things first. This is what I saw when I opened the door at 7:30am this morning!

That's about 4-6 inches of snow that had drifted up against the door that stayed intact when I opened the door to look out!

Looking out the front of the house




Looking out the back of the house


Back Patio


Hmmmm maybe I'll just wait right here...


Exploring


Ok, I ventured out... now what's the fastest way back in...? Up?


The sun is up!


The sun is shining bright!


It chased away the moon and stars and night!
(I was overcome by a Girl Scout camp song there. I'm back now)


The snow angel I made after I returned from my morning tromp to the mailbox.


Icicles of doom.


Baby icicles hanging from each valley of the Spanish tiles.


I LOVE icicles :-)

The Effects of Cosmic Catnip

This plus


The wooly gnome

Equals this ...


And this


And then this


And this...

Winter Has Come To The Retreat

We've had lots of snow teasers, but so far no accumulation beyond a dusting at least in this part of town. Other parts got about a foot, lucky ducks.

The front yard/garden



Looking out a living room window to the "back yard"




An amazing sunset



Mayana the Christmas Kitty, helping me decorate ;-)

Stinky Excitement!

I've known since Tuesday or Wednesday this week that we had a skunk who decided our laundry room was it's all you can eat buffet. I had moved the cat food in there from the garage because the mice were getting at it, not that they'd live long with Mayana the Mighty Huntress around, but still...
So the cat food and water was stationed up on the clothes dryer and our skunk was climbing up the back of the washer on pipes and tubing to get at it much to the disbelief of 2 different critter catchers I called. Skunks don't/can't jump I'm told... Well all I know is that there's a skunk and it's eating the cat's food cuz they don't go through this much food normally and it stinks to high heaven oh well and there's a puddle of pee on the washer too and the cats don't do that!
Thursday morn I saw the little devil scrambling down the pipes behind the washer. It was really small. I thought maybe it was a baby...
So the critter catcher, Bryan comes out Thursday afternoon and we look all over and don't find it. I had left the back door open in hopes that it would leave voluntarily which is what we both decided.
Friday afternoon I heard from Daniel, the houseguest, that he saw it early that morn up on the washer eating the cat food. Drat it's still here! I realize that it's probably going down the pipes in the wall and chillin under the house.
So Bryan comes back out Friday afternoon, sets a trap w/bait, and the skunk finishes off what little cat food was in the dish and bypasses the trap-fooey.
Saturday I put the cat food and water dish away and sprinkle cat food in the trap before heading out for the evening to listen to some live folk music and I come home to a sprung trap complete with skunk! Wahoo!!
I called Bryan this morning to let him know and he came out this evening and was so excited by what we caught! Not the common striped skunk, but a Western Spotted Skunk instead, and fully grown, oh and come to find out they're climbers ;-) Yeah, coulda told ya that! I'd say they're about the size of a guinea pig...? but w/a bushy tail ha ha.
So cute! Here's a pic from the web that I found that looks just like the one that was here.

Tennessee Trip!

I just posted all about my trip to TN and the conference and lots of pics on my Genotype Blog. Here's the link http://genotypes.blogspot.com/
I don't know what I was expecting... But it was soooo gorgeous! Go check it out! :-D