Rabbit and pear tree

Do you remember the moral stories I told you last time from the experiences we had with a rabbit getting out and the pear fire blight?

Update #1: not only did the rabbit (hereafter known as Houdini) give up all his rights to relative freedom after escaping twice by being stuck in a cage by himself, but Alex discovered two days later that his poor little head was covered with engorged ticks. We figured he must have gotten them while he was roaming around in our garden. Which also helps explain why last Sunday while we were sitting in sacrament meeting, a tick crawled across Alex's leg!! He killed it (or so he thought) and 5 minutes later either it or its twin was crawling up my skirt! Ack! In the middle of church! Alex had been out to pick rhubarb right before church. I picked all the ticks (18) off of poor little Houdini with Alex helping to hold him. Then I promptly applied Advantix to my dogs. To tell you the truth, I kind of like picking ticks off of things that aren't myself.

Update #2: the fire blight we thought was controlled with a massive pruning continues to plague the poor pear tree. We have had to chop off many other branches and the tree, consequently, looks gutted. We are hoping it will survive the onslaught. The moral story is that you will keep getting chopped to pieces if you can't rid yourself of an aggressive bacterial disease.

Some remaining pears

Alex took a few pictures of our yard today. Every spring I am so grateful that he had the foresight to plant so many wonderful things in our yard. We have been blessed by all the fruitful plants that have grown on our little 1/3 acre. It will be very hard to leave this place. We will miss the people here too. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Here are a few pictures.

And the patio...

I guess I've arrived

Yesterday Alex told me that he didn't marry me for my baked goods but if he knew then what he knows now, he would have. I'm not sure now if that means he realized that all the other qualities he thought I had when he married me actually were fake or if he just really likes my baking. I should ask him about that.

The day before yesterday Alex and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. We celebrated by going to the 1st annual Homer Bottled Glass Soda festival and sampling 16 different kinds of soda. I met Elvis there and realized I like a good ginger ale.  What better way to celebrate the anniversary of two people who drink soda about twice per year than to go to a soda festival.

A few of the things I have learned from Alex in the past 6 years:

 - how to argue/fight more effectively (I mean this in a good way)

- how to forage for food (wild mulberries and black raspberries anyone?)

- that 1/4 acre can be amazingly productive if you plan ahead and plant some stuff and take care of it

- how to cut men's hair. Kind of. I mean, I kind of learned. And Alex didn't teach me, but he does let me practice on him. 

- the best way to feel peace and happiness is just to do what God wants you to do. Then you don't need to worry about the consequences.

A few of the things Alex has learned from me:

- that he should do the dishes. 

- that he should rub my feet.

- that he should buy me earrings :)

Thursday last week we were in Chicago for a practical test Alex had to take at the medical school there. We were able to visit the temple that morning which was a peaceful experience, then I dropped Alex off and had a few hours to wander around Chicago by myself. After walking for miles I found myself at the Field museum and decided to go in since I was sick of walking. I got plenty of practice taking pictures of myself. I also met my arch nemesis, the Common Opossum.

Alex taught me an object lesson that he learned from our rabbits yesterday. We had a rabbit that kept getting out last week and chomping on our garden so he put it in solitary confinement (a cage). Which goes to show that if you are disobedient and make bad choices, you give up freedom. I taught him an object lesson from our pear tree. Recently, our pear tree was afflicted with fire blight. We had to cut off three big branches with a lot of fruit on them to save the tree. Which goes to show that if you have dead parts they should be cut off.

IMA and an announcement

I bet you are all wondering what the IMA is and what my announcement is.

First of all, the announcement. Alex and I have nice Abs. I have to admit, I am especially fond of Alex's IgE.

The IMA is the Indianapolis Museum of Art and Alex and I had the good fortune to be able to go on a date there today. 

 I would recommend the Ai Weiwei exhibit to anyone. It makes you stop and think for a bit, which is what all good art does I suppose.

Rabbit mystery solved (we think) and more half marathon pictures

Here are a couple more pictures from the marathon. They were taken by Alex's friend Daiva that we saw along the route. This was about mile ten.

Unfortunately, there was not a single picture of us getting close to or crossing the finish line, for which I was sorely disappointed. It is always fun to see how pained your expression looks at that point. Alas. 

The mystery of who was killing baby rabbits was solved. I caught a possum nearly red handed late one Friday night when I had just finished making an enormous cake.  The cake is irrelevant except for the fact that it explains why I was out feeding the rabbits at 10 pm. Alex of course had the good sense to be gone that night or I would have made him take care of it. I had a head light on and as I walked into the enclosure where the chickens roam and right next to the rabbits, I saw a possum in the very act of climbing down into the pen from the chainlink fence. I had never seen a possum face to face. I knocked it back out of the rabbit pen with my water pitcher. I hit it hard enough I expected to unseat it from the fence but instead it stood there looking at me. We stared at each other for a good two minutes while I considered my options. Unfortunately, there was too much adrenaline in my system to think clearly and I even considered grabbing it by the tail and throwing it into the open rabbit cage that was nearby. Fortunately, my cerebral cortex was functioning well enough to realize that was a bad idea. I finally decided to grab the pet crate we had on the porch and a garbage can lid and try to scoop it into the crate. Which would have been great but possums have very good hanger onners and there was no way I was scooping that possum anywhere. Eventually the possum waddled off to where I couldn't reach it and then ran off (why it had stuck around that long, I have no idea). We don't know if I scared it off permanently or if it has visited our pen again. We took out the one wooden box where the rabbits were seeming to be trapped. We haven't had any losses that we know of since then. 

Here is a picture of possums if you don't know what one looks like (Ed). 

I admit these possums are kind of cute. 

I want to clarify that the possum I saw was NOT CUTE. In fact I think it was pregnant. I didn't palpate it but it had a humongous abdomen. 

Update: Alex informed me that possums are technically a different group of Australian marsupial species and while everyone here calls the animals here "possums", they are actually "opossums". Wikipedia has all sorts of fun information about opossums, including a creepy picture of one hiding in a piano.

Half Marathon

Alex and I just finished a half marathon. This time, I left the rocket shoes at home and did not beat Alex by 2 minutes. He also did not come in just behind a pregnant lady.

Here are a couple pictures.

St. Joseph Animal Hospital Crew. From left, me in red balloon pants apparently, Gilly, Heather, Mary, and Susannah

Post race. Tired! But feeling oh so good. 

More pictures to come, I'm sure.

Spring pictures and a casualty

We have finally had a hit. I found a half eaten baby bunny this morning when I did the farm chores. It has been a good two years and I guess I figured we would face this problem eventually with all the cats I see roaming around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, there is not much to be done short of building a predator-proof enclosure or going back to the cage model, neither of which is appealing at this point. So, we will wait and see what happens.

The remaining bunnies are happy and healthy:

For Easter this year we were able to get together with a few friends and attempt to decorate eggs po Ukrainsku (sometimes Polish phrases work so much better - it means in the Ukrainian way). It consists of using wax pens to protect areas of the egg you don't want to be dyed, and then repeating the process a few times with different colored dyes. There was some hugging involved.

I got to hold baby James

The apricot is blooming! I was going to try to hand pollinate this year since last year we had no pollinators and no fruit. So far, I have been frustrated by the rain.

poor little rain beaten apricot blossoms

Finally, I was bit by a cat (again!). This time, no cool pictures except to show that my finger swelled up a fair amount.

you can see where the canines punctured my skin. 

I couldn't flex my finger very well for a week.

My dad sent me Kevlar gloves so I will not keep getting bitten. I think he secretly would never hire me to work for him because I would keep getting hit by a steel beam or something.

He is probably right.

There is a picture I feel compelled to share

It is a naked chicken.

I originally saw this photograph in Tim Flach's book of Photography More than Human, which is an amazing book. This is an actual breed of chicken bred to be more heat resistant and easier to pluck than your average chicken. Thanks Susan for inspiring me to find it online.

I am going to have a naked dancing chicken someday and I will knit it a sweater.