Basil, Bobcats, and Spiders, Oh my!

Sunday in primary the kids sang the song, "The Prophet said to Plant a Garden," which reminded us that we need to blog about our garden . . . and June for that matter! As usual if you want the short version, view the pictures!


June has flown by! The month stared with a visit from my (B's) parents. My dad's talents were much appreciated while they were here. He put up 3 ceiling fans, a beautiful front light, back security lighting and other little "Daddy-Do" list projects our home needed. While they were here we showed them the metropolis of North Dallas. My mom visited her alma mater and some friends from when she lived here. We enjoyed having them in town and look forward having more visitors.

While my parents were visiting, I finished my first year to teaching 9th grade algebra! Holy moly! I could write a book about what I learned this year . . . and a book about how to parent teenagers from a teachers perspective. After months of complaining and comical stories from 143 little "darlings," my husband wondered if a career change was needed. However, I really do enjoy my job! The Lord blessed me with the gift to teach math, for which I'm very grateful. This week I'll finish teaching a 3 week summer school session, and get to go back to being a stay-at-home-wife! While June, July and August are good reasons to be a teacher, I'm looking forward to another year . . . but I'm fine with waiting until August!!!!The hot Texas weather and sporadic June showers have really helped our little garden take off! Since we didn't really know how to garden in the Texas climate, we decided that we would just have our garden in 5 big planter pots. Our goal with garden was to try to eat fresher foods and more organic. We are growing green peppers, attempting tomatoes (if the birds don't each the fruit first), romaine lettuce, basil, rosemary and parsley . . . oh, and a grapefruit . . .. C planted a grapefruit seed in the middle of the peppers. I noticed this little seedling coming up one day, and thought, hmm that's weird and went about my watering. Then a few days later we were out watering and I asked C what he thought that little plant was, since I must have forgotten what I planted! He started laughing and said, "I wondered how long it was going to take you to notice my grapefruit!" As the story goes he "snuck" a seed from a grapefruit to see what would happen, and lo and behold it's a good seed and has taken root! lol! So in about 5 years we may have a grapefruit, we'll see. The basil is really our prized plant right now, it's going nuts! I'm planning to make some fresh pesto this week, we LOVE pesto, so we're excited.

The last note for our June adventures is that C got a bike. When we moved he gave his circa 1970's/1908''s road bike away to one in need. While he wanted a $5000-Lance-Armstrong-look-alike-bike, it simply wasn't in the budget! So the GMC Denali 700c men's road bike was the next best thing -- a great buy for your buck if you are in the market! Now that we are both up and rolling, we love going for evening rides on the green belt and exploring more of our neighborhood. While on our ride the other night, we saw this,


Yes, a bobcat less than a block from our house! Wowza!

The Texas creatures are out and about this summer. When we came home from the grocery store we were greeted in the garage by this:
Yep, that's a black widow. Don't worry my studly husband got rid of that little guy!

That's a wrap of our June adventures! Until next time, we'll be on Cloud 9!
B + C