MY HANDS ARE DIRTY~I LIKE IT THIS WAY!!

My Hands Are Dirty

And I love it!! I now wash my hands several times a day, knowing the dirt washed off might be back very soon, maybe within minutes of washing them, and my finger nails will need some extreme cleaning as well. This seems to happen to me many times lately, the need to get my hands dirty, and the need to clean the dirt away. Especially on a beautiful day!!! Such as noted within the picture below (BTW, this blog will have several pictures, as I am hoping they will express my words within the story I am telling!)

The country life of the deep south has made a mark upon me, and the gardening aspect of life has hit me with a bigger picture. Especially since before my move here, I really did not even believe it was important to garden. (Silly me, as I had no idea that it might actually save me money, not to mention give relief to my soul for the pure enjoyment of it all!) Things with me and my family have really changed on that attitude. Probably a good thing, and an important one, considering the move was very deep and will be remembered, at least to me as an important MILESTONE.

It is totally amazing what a move can do to one. I have read and even watched per TV a great deal on this subject, concerning a move, and it is a very personal experience, not to mention so much more that it directs on our lives in the move as well as in the long run. I understand this, as our move to our new home was extremely traumatic! While we made the move, I even questioned if I would survive it emotionally, just survive the move period, and the costs, and in the long run of the future. We had to give up so many things that at one time we thought, using the expressions of our children "ROCKED OUR WORLD!" And I understand more deeply Mark Twain's words of "7 moves equal a fire!" (And now I even have to question that, or find the book with that statement, as my Internet search is now telling me that Mark Twain said that 3 moves equal a fire. Boy, am I am trouble now!!) In my lifetime of 52 years, I have faced many fires if this statement was true of Mark Twain's just considering 7 years, but this particular move to me was tremendous, stressful, heart breaking, sacrificing so much that I was afraid of, which left me desperate, new to things I was not ready to face, plus so much more! And in the course of this move, I felt the burning of the fire~so to speak, and worried about water and such to make the fire go away! But, just for a little while, thank goodness. As while the move was so extreme, my life changed extremely, seeing good things on the way, in within the move, my life headed in new directions, and therefore, I am thankful! (Hope I can keep up with this new life experience, since I am still not sure, but some what confident!)

As it turned out, I think it might have been the most important move of my life, even with all the hell and brimstone. My entire life still continues to change while here. Especially concerning gardening. (Which is by the way, why I wrote this blog in the first place!) Since our move, and with the property available to us, I want to so much with our new surroundings express my feeling! This, at last, is one of the times I am happy with the Internet and the knowledge I can get from it! (Especially since I cannot afford, or find the time to buy all the DANG books I need to help me with this search, and thankful I can find easily on the Internet! Appears, I am not alone in my search for my desires and dreams concerning Mother Earth, and what part can I play in chords in positive ways!)

I WANT TO KNOW what is in my yard! And I want to know the names and games available for me! When we lived in Huntsville, before our move, I knew all the things growing in our yard. And they were easy to remember, GRASS and PECAN trees. Our responsibilities were to CUT the GRASS, and pick the PECANS (Most of the time, we just gave them away. What a mistake that turned out to be. Miss them now! Trust me!! Especially when you are making cookies!)

My question now with my life is how does MY garden grow. "Silver bells and cockle shells and maidens all in a row" sound real nice, but I now understand the joke of "silver bells and cockle shells and one DAMN petunia!" It seems to fit well with me, and makes me want to explore more to change this, so that this is more a joke and not a reality! In other words, I want to know how to plan and plant a successful garden! How do I take care of banana plants that are 20 feet tall in my area instead of when I look it up on the Internet, 12 feet is good! And once again here is a picture (take~Georgia skies on a beautiful day but captured the banana plants above the 5 foot pool, and over the 5 foot deck stand , as if in competition with the pine trees! Guess what I learned! The pine trees help the banana plants!)

My new way of thinking and learning is HOW do I care and make sure the elephant plants grow and survive during the winter months? What do I do about the rose bushes that have brought me sweet smelling and fresh flowers each day? I have learned much about that! My pictures prove that! For example, here is my first picture of roses placed in my house, that I picked with excitement and care and I was so proud of them!

Since I took the pictures of these flowers, even though still beautiful to me, my husband did the research, and found out when and how to prune them to place in the home, and I am so proud that he passed that knowledge my way, not to mention that it was important to him also. I did research with his directions , and cut the stems on the plants that had buds, but had not budded yet, but would do so while in the vase, and the results are below. Such a big difference!
And a big one at that! Good thing I have learning capabilities and still strive for success! Especially for the roses, as their colors and smells go a lot further doing it this way!!

What about the cactus plants, now that is a new one on me! See that tiny thing growing up among the other cactus? Well, according to what I read, this was not supposed to happen!! From what I read, this plant needed a lot of light to do well, and it got neither, yet grew in leaps and bounds! My question to myself is "do I leave it alone now, or water it? Or listen to music from Outer Limits of the sound track and make decisions from there!!! Do Do Do Do Do DOOOOOOOO

What about the morning glory that finally peeked my interest so much that I finally found it this particular plant on the Internet, even while and about it in my sleep and dreams! I even went so far to take pictures of it, which did not turn out well, as evident, and considered to delete them, and thankfully I could not delete the smell that still reaches my chair of where I sit on my back porch! And I so still love the smell!! I do know the plants above are morning glory. Bad pictures, need a new camera, but still I try and capture some resemblance. At least in the bottom picture, some of the lavender finds away to peek out in glory in the morning (which BTW, in the moring, it was taken) to give a good idea of the art I try to explain in my words, and need for a new camera.









What about the Palm trees that give personality to my front porch, and things that grow around it that I have no idea of what it is, but WANT TO Know?

For example pictures below, that I am looking for answers on, and have no idea of the names, and what they are called yesterday and now today! (BTW, any help is appreciated within my search!) Is this a weed, and something I need to weed out? Seems awful pretty to me!!! (Also, I read and researched on the Internet, about rocks and shells and how they help with gardens. I had no idea how special rocks and shells worked well with keeping plants healthy! Something I should remember!!! Are they just another weed? Or a neat plant? Personally I like then all. Pretty much explains the book I read from front cover to back cover or plants and weeds! Still not sure of what every thing is, as many are not mentioned or pictured, but has me going with curiosity, especially thinking do I pull it, or replant it?

I have so many more pictures on hand, but afraid now that I might be boring and redundant, (not to mention time is closing in to whelping puppies, and that is not a pretty picture, but a needed and loving experience), so I will end this blog, or so to speak! And at the same time, as my life goes on, I am sure I will speak about this more, and hopefully with new knowledge, and ideas.

So, yes, my life with the Internet has been a very useful and needed tool! Most of my time on the Internet has been searching for gardening questions and answered, which is on a positive note since I spend a lot of time saving them to my favorites and to my journal!! (spending less time on troll behavior, yet that is still a very important part of my life, that I do not forget!) My life has found new soul mates in silly things such as COMPOST piles, or knowledge or fertilizers, soil and soil testing, and DIRT DIGGING!!! But most of all dirt digging in relationship to experimenting! I am digging up all I can find (And some I do not want to find, such as ant bites, other bites, red marks on my body) in hopes of discovering of what it is, and to see if I can make it grow, and learning while I do if it is of significance importance!

Actually, it has turned out pretty well, in the long run, and I am happy about that! Dirty hands can be cleaned. And right now, I love the dirt and the cleaning!

This whole move has changed my way of thinking in many ways! Especially concerning Mother Earth! I now wake up each morning deciding of how I pick and chose of what I want to do today, (or this) day! And trust me, it caries it own dilemmas! Writing use to be my main goal, my personal baby, one I loved so much! And in the long run, I will not give up on that (hopefully), but will allow myself to "relax" and not make it my entire life, as I use to do! Mid, you were right in your words of the "gardening bug would hit me. It did, like the flu!! And I hope I do not get over the sickness, as it is one I really need!!!

With that, I will end this blog! My fingers are clean right now, and that will change! I need dirt! WHY, BECAUSE IT MAKES MY GARDEN GROW, AND I GET TO GROW WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!

Hugs,
Katie

I Have Ignored My Fellow Bloggers & I am Sorry

I have been so wrapped up in the last few weeks on a blog that I am considering placing on my other blog, that I have ignored my fellow bloggers when I have had Internet time, and I hope this will be something I never do again.

It has just come to my attention that Indigo Black's father died suddenly the 16th of this month.

I know she must be grieving and heart broken, and I wish there was something I could do to ease her pain. Indigo, when you get a chance to read this, please know that my sympathies are with you, and my thoughts are with you.

For those that do not know Indigo Black, she is one of the most wonderful people I know, and cares greatly for so many. She is the one that has spent hours that she did not have to spend putting my blog templates together and offering me advice many times.

There is so much more I want to say when it comes to the death of a loved one in ways to hopes of easing the pain, but I know nothing can ease that pain for a long time, and never completely.

My thoughts are with you Indigo.

Hugs,

Katie

Written below was some thoughts my mother wrote, though I know not when as she did not date it. She died in August 2003, and my family has several times shared this with others that lost a family member. Many found it very comforting, and I hope Indigo and others do also.

Death Can Be Beautiful

Death can be beautiful - when it gives release from suffering and pain. Death can be beautiful when it magnifies love through the comfort, the compassion and sympathy of friends and relatives.

Death can be beautiful when it binds those yet living more closely together, when it revives memories of a life which in its totality displayed a richness of texture and a strength of design in which the selflessness, tenderness compassion and generosity were merged. Death can be beautiful when in coming it opens the doors of life again - a life revealed in God's beyond and evermore. Death can be a gift, a reward, a promise fulfilled, the essence of God's love. The sorrow itself, that trails the wake of death, is a quality and measure of love that is creative in that it requires us to re-examine the values we hold. It causes us to question the validity of our lives, it opens our hearts to renewed appreciation of those whom we still have to love and underscores the possibility of unpredictable loss.

Addie W. Williams
Undated

HALLOWEEN FUN~PICK A NUMBER

My husband found this site http://www.break.com/games/pick_a_number.html and it is just amazing and will freak you out. Really neat since it is close to Halloween. You have just got to try it!! It only takes a second, but you will do it over and over again, as you just cannot believe it! Do computers now read minds or your thoughts?

Katie

MEET OUR DOGS~A FAIRCHILD STORY

This is ZOSHA, a 2 year old mix breed of pit bull, Pomeranian and lab! She belongs to our youngest daughter, which we have custody of her right now! (The dog, not the 21 year old daughter who lives where no dogs are allowed at the time!) Zosha is fat, dumb and happy, and sleeps and snores a lot on our back porch! Why? Because she is pregnant! Pictured below!!




Meet Silas & Precious! Parents of Zosha!
Silas is 3 years old, has a great deal of pit bull in him, and goodness who knows what else! Precious is 7 years old and her mother was 100% Pomeranian and her dad was a lab!




Precious is also fat, dumb and happy right now! As pretty evident below, she is also pregnant! She got this way 3 days before ZOSHA! (When it comes to luck, we must not have any, as both these dang dogs went into heat at the same time!!!!)




Silas is the king of the dogs! And father of both the girl dogs! When Silas is not sleeping, he is doing something that causes us alarm! Always! Although he is 3 years old, he still chews everything in site pretty much, and has taken over as number one in the family! That includes Jim and I! Why did we let this happen?




And if that ain't bad enough, just throw in the fact that all three dogs are alpha dogs! Especially Silas! Don't let anyone tell you that female dogs cannot be ALPHA dogs, especially if they are in heat or pregnant!

Zosha and Precious, even though they are mother and daughter, hate each other, and we have the destruction and scars to prove this! And each day, we play what seems to me like "musical chairs" to keep them from killing each other. Letting the dogs out to do their business is not an easy chore at all!! And a few times we have not succeeded, and had to save the dogs from ripping each others throat out! Twice we have had to yell at our daughters while the dogs were fighting that THROWING WATER ON THEM DOES NOT WORK!! Doing so just makes the dogs wet and smelly like a wet carpet! (Even our grown daughters, both pass the age of 21 had to try this at least once, because they saw that it worked on a movie!)

When Precious was young, she was just as sweet as pie and loving to all animals, even cats as evident in the pictures below!








When she had puppies of her own and she was tired, she was very patient, but now, with them being pregnant together, (mother and daughter) she displays the theory of EATING HER OWN YOUNG!!

This is what our back porch looks like now! (Actually, I love it, as it gave it more personality I think! Thanks dogs!) Before it was just cheap screen that has had to be repaired several times over, as if one dog was out in the yard, while the other locked in the back porch, they discovered that they could just jump through the screen! ARRG!





Katie has been busy SEWING SCREENS of all things!





And now, I have to sew again it seems as SOME DOG (Precious while she was outside) decided to eat through the screen, only to realize she could not eat the wood on the other side! As evident below!





Of course my husband, needing to do many things with a new move, still shakes his head that he had to pretty much put everything on hold while he cut and placed boards on our back porch so that the female dogs could not kill each other!!!
And Silas did not make things easy for anyone! He had to always be a part of the fight, never even thinking about whom he was sticking up for. He just had to get involved. Sometimes he stuck up for Precious, and sometimes Zosha. I think it depended on who was closest when he got involved!

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Well, Silas knows how to open doors by denting the door knobs with his teeth so that he is able to turn the door knob! (We are in the process of ordering glass door knobs now!)





For readers that know some of our history of our move of the GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY, well, this falls under the bad and the ugly, and I have scars on my finger from a fight to prove this!! (and it is just now healing!)

But, with trial and error, things are getting better, and we have come up now with a pretty good routine of letting the dogs out to do their business without a fight!
Anybody want a puppy? They are due in 4 more weeks, and would make a great Christmas gift!!

I am thinking about putting a sign out in front of our house once they are age enough to give away that reads "FREE PUPPIES, and take the MOTHER'S & DAD TOO!!"
I could never do that, and if nothing explains anything better to me ever, it does now for my sanity! Once this ordeal is over, SPADE and NEUTER as soon as possible and hope we can survive!

I realize that it has been a long time since I have blogged, and have wanted to save the world from certain people, but right now, I am enjoying my new home and adjusting to "the country living" not to mention the dogs! (this is all new to them also, so I just have to smile and say OK! Choking them seems easier, but I love my dogs, and my life, and will get back to other things when I fill fit and good for me.)

In ending, is a picture of Silas not long after we got him, and his eyes are still close to this color of blue! Also is a poem I wrote about him that still fits pretty much today!!






Silas~Our Grown Up Puppy

Silas is our grown up puppy, with a
Long black wagging tail!
He makes us warm in bed, reluctantly
As we want the room as well.

Honestly, though, he puts smiles on our face,
And expects some embrace. Which he gets, even with my fits.
As we get older, our children still make their place~
And he also, does with his bark, his speak.

His bark is loud and obvious,
But his body language is louder.
Curling securely between legs, with the comfort of warm,
Makes you somehow forget fleas, but instead
Reaching love in emotions with pets.

Who am I kidding? Sweet dog kisses and slobbers on the face,
And anger with chewed up clothes, shoes~
And things you once embraced.
Anger and frustration, entered with Silas,
Or your pet as well, and their name or names! But love!

He is just a dog, and became somewhat my baby, my child
And the life of what I live with my husband. Who actually loves him as much as I.
Silas depends on us, and we, as him as well.
Never do we have to worry about what he has to tell.
His tail does that, and in his own way, his emotions as well.

His story is written with a wag of a tail,
And a wet ear, that has to be wiped off as well.
Or of a slobbered face, those kisses do tell.
Just a dog, a companion, and a child as well.
Only Silas can tell, and we listen!!

So, it is as we grow older~
That we let the ones that cannot speak tell us~
Of how we deal with our lives, and think about and
What our loved pets teach us!

Silas, our hero, in so many ways, saved
Us from depression in many days.
Kept us sane, while we thought we were going insane!
The story pets can tell!
And we should listen, and LISTEN well.

@Katie Fairchild
Jan. 7, 2005

What A Way To Meet The Neighbors!!

Since we have moved to our new home in the middle of TIM BUCK TOO, BOON DOCKS, BACKWOODS, etc. whatever you want to call it, it still seems nothing goes as planned. (But we still hold out hopes!)

For example, yesterday a HUGE pig -I mean HUGE, was in our poor garden, the garden we started only a few weeks ago (actually things were peeking out from it, spinach, collard's, etc.) Our daughter on her way to work so early yesterday morning, chased the monster pig off and felt guilty that she had yelled at our dog for her constant barking. Especially since the dog resorted to the chair crawed up with a sad look on her face, of "I was just trying to alert you!" Reminders of the pig were evident of the huge hole it dug, the footprints of the pig, actually the smell, which attracted all 3 dogs, even though the pig had left hours ago. DANG it, I had just gotten use to the chickens and roosters in our yard that made our dogs go into fits, but I had no idea that a huge pig lived or was loose in our vicinity. Well, to make a long story short within this paragraph, my husband spent all day yesterday repairing the interrupted garden back into its proper shape and building a fence to protect our little garden. (which by the way, we are still not sure how to grow!)

Speaking of my husband, today is his birthday of 51 years. Last night I went to bed with thoughts of how to make today very special for him. You know what I mean! Romantic stuff. I had planned the entire day ahead of time for his birthday to pamper him, make things special for him, make it a day that he would remember. And it started off well, with breakfast in bed for him covered in a tray of sweet smelling rose petals from our rose bushes in grand colors laid upon dishes of his favorite foods. I was so pleased with my effort and his gratitude expressed upon his smile. That was just the first of things I wanted to do for him on his birthday. (I love romantic things, and he also does.)

But then the calls came (which will explain why this story is about meeting my neighbor via the phone.) The first time it rang, I answered and the other party said "Angela?" I replied "No, this is Katie, and I am sorry, but I think you have the wrong number." I set the phone down (we were on the back porch) and it rings again, and my husband answered it. Again, he tells them it is the wrong number. And again, and again. (Actually he is now become irritated, and sounds close to being rude!) Around the 5th ring, the caller tells him that there is a problem, as she is trying to call her own home, and each time she does, we answer the phone. I am standing in front of Jim and saw his facial features change with concern, and a much nicer tone entered his voice. When he said "Oh, really?", I knew we were once again a victim of Murphy's Law, and possibly the one on the other end of the line talking to him.

To make a long story short (well, sort of, as I did leave a lot out, as not that real interesting) I found out that my area did include broadband instead of just TURTLENET (dial up) and it was to take place yesterday for my insulation. My phone service was cut off yesterday for about 20 minutes, and then right back on without any problems (well, until today). Yet, it turned out that the phone service made a mistake in my order and switched lines to my neighbor 2 miles down the road. And all calls coming in to us, were actually for my neighbor. It was so confusing for awhile.

Yet, it actually turned out to be quite funny (at least now) as the first call that we answered was from the grandmother hoping to talk to her granddaughter. My husband kept telling her she had the wrong number. Grandmother sees red flags and calls her daughter that a strange man is answering her phone, and the granddaughter is home alone!! (Not so funny right then!)

When the mother of the daughter called, we realized something was amiss. Phone calls from me and my new neighbor stopped and we both started calling our phone carrier. (I was pretty angry as an add went into effect today that cost a pretty penny to place, and the idea was to sell the majority of my daughters possessions of furniture, etc., in her efforts to make her move to Iraq. And if any callers answered the add, the got a dead number!)

In the ending, it was fixed, and we laughed and joked together about it, exchanged numbers and life experiences. We just clicked, as if we had known each other all our life. As it turns out, her family has been here for ages, (in this small community of only 500 families), and told me many things that were helpful to me as a newcomer to this community. We actually have a lot to talk about, and it is good to meet the neighbors.

It just goes to show, that when things do not go as you hoped or expected, and things interrupt your life, the silver lining that we always hear about behind the black cloud still shines through. Sometimes we just do not see the shine. But, I did this time, and loved every minute of it.

Katie