This and That

So Pearl wants a new nom de blog, she has decided that she wants to be called Mei. Don't know if she actually wants to have it spelled like that, but since she keeps insisting that she wants to be named "May" like the girl in "My Neighbor Totoro," she gets "Mei."

Have you ever seen a Miyazaki film? You really ought to. They are dreamy and beautiful and the girls adore all the ones they have seen. We actually went and saw Ponyo in the theater. Just, wow. So when I finally remembered a month or so back that my brother and his wife had given us a substantial Amerzon-cot-dom gift card for last Christmas, I dropped a goodly chunk of Christmas change on three of our faves: "Totoro," "Spirited Away" and "Ponyo."

Summer has really set in around here, and once again I have all the best of intentions... so we spent a Family Home Evening having a family counsel and coming up with daily schedules and check lists. Basically just stuff that needs to be done before they run off and play or watch a show. Like, how I insist that they put on actual clothes and eat a breakfast. Seriously... you have to put that on a list for a four year old or it won't happen. Eight and six year old's too, apparently. There are other things like chores, piano practice, yard work, art and reading that are on the lists too.

I so understand my mother now. Awesome woman.

So I guess I need to consider purchasing stock in calcium tablets. I go through a bottle in no time at all, and I keep spacing off getting a new bottle. Of course... then I get sick at that special time I always get sick and I kick myself for having run out. I cuss too. The thing is, half of the frakking pills I have to take interfere with half the other pills, and some I can only take on an empty stomach and some I have to take with food. So I have to remember to take pills about four times a day, and that on top of everyone else's meds and guess who's meds are the most likely to get missed? So I am coughing and hacking and feeling run down, as well as bloating and cramping and generally feeling like someone is gonna die. Maybe me, maybe the next kid to whine at me? Who knows?

Winner, winner chicken dinner!

We replaced the window in our darling shabin out to the land. Or maybe it's The Land now. That seems to be it's title; The Land. On Memorial Day we went up and put new boards around the outside and then stained them.... missed the color pretty good, I got Natural Cedar, and I suspect the rest of it had been done in Redwood... but then I didn't even take a shot of it after staining. The heck?

Dadguy has taken the most pictures, his iPhone has a functioning camera (mine took a powder when we replaced the battery and it has not yet decided to fix itself) and I only just thought to take our actual household camera up. STILL didn't even take many pictures! Below you will get to see what I did get...

The supercool bit? Our brother-in-law is one of the head guys in charge of wilderness in the southern part of UT. He's gonna come have a look and do some research and let us know exactly what can be grown up there. We are seriously thinking about taking a chunk of next years tax refund to rent what is called a "Bullhog?" and turn most of our sagebrush and juniper trees into mulch. BIL tells stories of the agency he works for taking bullhogs and doing just that to the junipers in huge tracts of land, and then finding underground springs popping up out of nowhere. Apparently while junipers are really good at getting by with very little water, they will suck down whatever is available, leaving nothing else for anything else. Since he has told us this tale, Dadguy and I have begun to notice land around our spot that has been cleared. There are several places where the owners have cleared out all juniper and sage, leaving only pine. Right now it looks amazing because all the grass is green and it looks like pines out in a meadow, but I want see what it looks like near the end of July. Plus I tend to think that I'd like to leave most of the scrub oak; I like the idea of some color in the fall.

Still thinking and looking. And even though we are pretty well tapped financially, we are keeping our eyes peeled for water shares too. Some day. Some day!

Have y'seff a turrrr of the shabin:

front

standing in the door looking left

back


shelves we put in

the window!

the door! (betcha couldn't tell)

20 X10 pad... maybe home of new, prettier shabin?

firepit

Next up, I'll take y'all on the wee nature hike.