Pseudo-Farming Updates

Well, now for an update on my lame attempts at farm "stuff"

Exhibit A:

My wildly overgrown and mostly unproductive front porch garden... I vow that by spring next year i WILL have an in-the-ground garden! Which means we have to move.... whatever.

Exhibit B:
Another of the surprise garden flowers that happens to pop up where I'm least expecting it. Aaah, the joys of rental...

Exhibit C:

Camilla is the more fearless of the two... just walking up to tough Nova while her nose is to the bowl? Not unheard of chez Lacy!!!!

Exhibit D:

All of the cute things I took from my parents garage about.... let's say...... 2 months ago, that are still sitting on my front porch looking for a home. Me? A procrastinator??? You must be joking!

So my camera is up and running again for the time being, so posts should be slightly more frequent. I'm going back to Canton on Saturday (where this post is from) ...

As for the girls, they've yet to lay, but I'm hoping the chilly 80-90 degree weather we've been having lately will remedy that.

CANstruction 2006

Well, part of the reason I've been terrible about writing is a charity event that's been taking up most of my free time, CANstruction.

In this event, architectural and engineering firms from all over the city compete in building objects out of cans. After all is said and done, awards are handed out for things such as "Best Use of Labels" and "Best Meal", and then the food is donated to the North Texas Food Bank to make over 60,000 meals!

I was nominated to head up my firm's team this year, and our entry was a Volkswagen bus composed of over 5,500 cans of sweet peas, evaporated milk, fish, and ranch style beans, 3,000 packages of ramen noodles, 500 bottles of water, and 600 cups of applesauce. It was so much fun (and so stressful!) and we ended up getting "Honorable Mention" in the competition. Not too bad, kind of like third or fourth out of about 15 entries. And we were second in line for most cans!!

Anyway, let this serve as a reminder to us all about how there are still hungry people in every city in this country, and these food banks (part of the national Second Harvest ring of food banks) do AMAZING things with the food and $$ that is donated.

Our entry, The Van of PEAS(Peace): On the Road to Hunger ApPEASment

A few other entries:

Dog-Chickens

Well the chickens are doing well....

They get along well with the dogs, except for the rare occasion... when they attempt to species-jump and go after poor Frisco's food.

He's just a mini-poodle! But regardless of size or number of teeth, every day when I get home from work, let out the girls, and feed the dogs, there Camilla and Piggy are--- taking advantage of their poor co-habitators. The dogs have gotten lazy in this heat, and don't always go after their food with the gusto they used to. This is rapidly changing as two feathered lovelies make a bee-line as soon as they hear the food hit the aluminum bowl.

Frisco will occasionally bark and growl, but since I have severely disciplined the dogs in the past for messing with the chickens, I think the girls have no innate fear. They glance over their shoulders at the annoyance, and continue to chow down on his dinner. Sad? yes. Funny to watch chickens steal food from a poodle? Oooooh, yes.

Also, I'm sorry about the lack of posting, but my camera is KAPUT, and I really don't like posting without a photo-- hence the appearance of the terrible photos from my phone. Soon I will get a new camera and be excited about posting, but until then........

Rain and 105 degrees

Where else besides North Texas can you be sitting in your blissfully air conditioned bedroom at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, enjoying the perfect sunny light coming through your beautiful 7 foot windows, and be suddenly distrubed by a loud "rat-a-tat-tat" sound?

Is it the hubby watching something weird on TV? Are the dogs running over the wood floors?

No, it's ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE degrees outside, sunny as all get out, and POURING RAIN.

Run out, gather up the chickens, lock them in the coop, and sit in said bedroom in complete disbelief as we get a much needed downpour concurrently with lovely bright Texas sunshine. Have I just been gone too long to remember freakish Texas weather? Apparently so...