Our Newest Endeavor

After a lot of discussion and a lot of fear that maybe we were diving in too soon, we decided to get another dog. It was a hard decision and one that I still have a lot of guilt over, but not one which either of us regret. We miss Radar every single moment of every single day and in no way are we thinking that we can ever replace him. But there are some things that have been hard that we didn't anticipate. We miss just having a dog: walking it, feeding it, playing with it, etc. In a lot of ways, we've gone downhill since we haven't had one. There's less cleaning up you do because there's no dog getting int it. A.P. started sleeping in later in the mornings because he didn't have Radar to walk anymore. That may seem like a good thing, but it made A.P.'s mornings harder. Not having Radar also made our evenings harder. It used to be that for both of us the end of the night signal was Radar's last walk. After he passed away, we found ourselves staying up later. But most of all, we just missed having a dog. Though our cat, Zuzu, was ruling the house and hanging out with us a lot more, which we loved, there was definitely a hole in our little family that a dog used to fill. Cats are wonderful, but dogs are a different kind of pet. And we missed having one.

So, after much discussion and debate, we decided to add a new member to our family. Meet Ollie! His real name is Oliver, but we call him Ollie (also a nice play on words since an ollie is a skateboard trick, too). He's the same kind of breed as Radar was (half Chihuahua, half Miniature Poodle) since we didn't want a large dog in our small space, but that's about where their similarities end. Ollie looks much more Chihuahua than Radar and his coloring and face are totally different. He's 3 months old and 2.5 lbs. of crazy. He basically spends his days running around, chewing the crap out of everything until he's too tired to keep his eyes open and he collapses. It's hilarious. He's pretty entertaining, particularly when he attacks his tail, plays fetch, or does somersaults because he's trying to attack his penis. Seriously. It's pretty cute.

I can't say that everyone in the house loves him. Zuzu was none too pleased to see there was a new dog in the house. Despite her hatred of the new beastie, she was very kind to him. But after about a week, she gave up on that. Honestly, though, that's Ollie's fault; he chases her around constantly, trying to get her to play with him. Hopefully, they'll get to a point where they get along fine, like she and Radar did. Until then, she waits until he's collapsed before she comes and hangs out with us. Don't worry, though! I make sure she gets lots of love, too.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our new buddy! Expect to see more in the future, like all the pets in our household, they're over photographed. : )

1st night home...before we fully learned the insane dog we'd taken in.

Note that most of these pictures are of him when he is sleeping. Sadly, that's the only time you can get him to be still enough to take a photo.

(Photos by me!)

Canning!

If you follow me on twitter (and you should...srsly), you might have noticed my tweet last night saying I was simultaneously watching the crazy broads on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and pickling peppers. Canning is something I've always wanted to do, but until recently, I found that the materials were rather a pain in the rear to procure. Until now. A month or so ago, I noticed that Target has a new line of Ball jar canning/preserving supplies, including pectin, pickling salt, jars, utensils, and an awesome kit, which includes a gigantic pot with a rack.

Because of garden overflow, I've been at a loss with what to do with all my peppers and tomatoes. I'm not going to lie that I was forced to throw some veggies out because I couldn't keep up with my harvest. Not anymore, suckafaces! I purchased the canning kit from Target on Sunday and got to work pickling my peppers! I used this recipe for pickled pepperoncini peppers, since that's what I had an overflow of at the time.

I started by washing and trimming the peppers, then cutting a slit in each pepper. I then soaked the peppers in salt water overnight. Tonight, I made the pickle solution, sterilized the jars, canned the peppers and then jarred those suckers. And it was easy as pie.

The cured peppers after soaking in salt water overnight

The pickling liquid

Sterilizing the jars

Packing the peppers

The pickled peppers cooling on a towel. They will have to cool overnight and I suspect that as the peppers absorb the pickling liquid more, they'll drop a bit. They were packed to the bottom but floated to the top during processing.

I've tried my hand at canning before, but didn't feel like I really had the right utensils/materials. Now I do and I'm excited to can the remaining crop from the garden which I am pulling this week. I was supposed to do it last week, but honestly, it was hard for me to go into the garden last week having spent my whole summer there with my dog. I'm pulling the rest of our tomatoes, zucchini, spaghetti squash, a few errant carrots, and whatever other veggies are remaining. I'm also going to cut the remaining flowers and have some pretties in my apartment. Then, I'm letting the sweet potato plants dry up so that I can pull them. My team and I will ready the hoop house for a fall lettuce and spinach crop that we will plant next week. And then everything else will be pulled in a few weeks when the plants die off and are dried out a bit more. I'm sad to see my garden go, but am excited about the expansion that I'm trying to make happen for next summer and what I'm going to grow next year. And now with my canning skills, I'm even more confident about what to do with my large harvests.

(Photos by me!)

Marriage Mondays: Loss

First of all, thank you so, so much for the overwhelming outpouring of kindness and condolences. I cannot tell you what it meant to A.P. and I that even people we've never met were wishing us well and could understand what we were experiencing. It was so very heartwarming at a time when we were completely heartbroken. I'd also like to thank you for being understanding about my need to take a blogging break. It was much needed as we got over the shock of losing our sweet, sweet, little dog. That being said, I'd like to talk today about an issue that affects all marriages at one time or another: loss.

When A.P. and I got married, I gave a toast to our guests during the reception. I explained to people that we had endured so much during our short engagement: family members in the hospital, job loss, and worst of all, the death of A.P.'s mother. I explained to our family and close friends that some might see these things as signs that things were not meant to be, but we chose to see them as proof that not only could we endure such terrible things, but that we could endure them together. I never lied; I never said that it was easy, or that we didn't cry, fight, yell, and scream. I didn't say we had endured these tragedies well, but rather that we had simply endured.

Losing our dog last week, who we have had as a pet for four and a half of our five years together, is yet another loss we have dealt with together. Just like any great death or tragedy, losing Radar was not easy. Our home feels impossibly empty despite two other pets filling it. We are constantly trying to find him, looking for him in our bed, on our couch, and worst of all, waiting by the door every time we come home. It's a terrible feeling and a grief I've never felt before. I've lost pets and family members before, but never a pet like a dog. He was such a part of every facet of our life in ways that parents, grandparents, and other family members just aren't. And anyone who has experienced the loss of a family pet knows that losing pets is different than losing humans. You take in an animal knowing that you will inevitably outlive it. And unlike humans, animals never question your love or affection. They hang on your every move and love you unconditionally, in the truest sense of the word.

This loss, though, we dealt with differently. This loss was met by strength on our parts. Because we've coped with death before, we know what we need in times like this. We know to check in with each other and ask if we are okay. We also know that we need time together and lots of it, which is exactly what we've been doing. If a marriage is two lives being stitched together, then the incredible tragedies and difficulties that we've had to experience throughout our relationship are the things tightly bind us to each other, making, as much as possible, the fabric our lives together unbreakable.

I said to A.P. the other day that I feel bad for my friends or people in general, who have never had to deal with a single, bad thing in their relationship. It's misleading. Life is filled with sad events that are out of our control and hit us like a ton of bricks. Having been through those things early on and before marriage was key in preparing us for how to help each other through these things now. We know how to talk to one another and carry each other when the other is too weak to walk (that's a metaphor, people, we're not handicapped...yet). That's not to say that those people won't survive at all. I just think it's harder when you've had no problems for so long to know how to deal with the big stuff. I certainly don't wish we had to experience these awful things, nor do I wish that they happen all the time, but having been through these things before has brought us closer and made us learn more about each other in ways we couldn't have foreseen three years ago. They have made us love each other more and in a deeper way that I can't fully describe.

A.P. was devastated by Radar's death, but he told me two things several times, 1. that he was glad it wasn't me, and 2. that he was glad he was married to me to help him through it. These are things I am grateful for as well. And I know that with time, these wounds won't heal completely, but they will hurt less. I'm so happy to help A.P. hurt less each and every day and I'm so happy he does the same for me.

Have you dealt with loss or tragedy in your relationship? How has it brought you closer?

Radar

Hi guys,

I will be taking a blogging break, at least through the end of the week. Today, I came home to find our dog passed out on the ground, surrounded by a pool of his own blood/vomit. He suffered cardiac arrest as a result of his heart murmur. This somehow pushed fluid in his lungs, which basically caused him to drown in his own fluid/blood. I rushed him to the emergency vet (and almost got into an accident with a cop car on the way) and they were able to resuscitate him, but he suffered another cardiac arrest and his little heart stopped. It was by far one of the worst experiences of my life. I had his blood all over me and had to carry his limp body into the vet as I was sobbing and thinking he was dead already.

A.P. and I are beside ourselves with grief and are wondering how in the world we are going to get through this. We both loved that dog more than life itself. I had a lot of great things in store, but they will have to wait. Please think of my little dog and keep us in your thoughts.

<3,

Marty

Marriage Mondays: Figuring out What Type of Parent You'll Be

Before we got married, we had the whole "Do you want children someday?" discussion. And for both of us the answer was yes. The conversation we never had (and which I think is fair to say most of my married friends also didn't have before marriage) is what kind of a parent do you want to be? Having pets inadvertently lets us answer that question, specifically our dog, Radar.

As cute as our dog is (see link above), Radar has some bad habits, including peeing (and occasionally pooping) in the house, eating the cat's food (and her poop on occasion), and the guinea pig's poop that's always flying out of his cage when he bucks. I know. I can't believe we let him sleep in our bed either. A lot of this has to do with the first half of his life and his old owners, who, because he is a tiny, little dog, never really trained him (or walked him). A.P. was around for these years and was pretty much the one who always walked him when he visited and then later lived with Radar.

When we took Radar in, we tried to change as much of that bad behavior as possible, but there are some things we can't change at all. Like the peeing in the house. A.P. can walk that dog at 10:50pm and an hour later, he'll still pee in the house (at least now, though, he pees on a pee pad).

But dealing with these problems has made us realize how we might deal with our children one day. And let me tell you that this is how that shit will work out: I will be the disciplinarian and A.P. will be the one who consoles and comforts (and probably is their BFF behind my back). In other words, I'm the bad cop, he's the good cop. And here's how we know: every time Radar does something bad, I reprimand him and then two minutes later A.P. scoops him up and fawns all over him. I get so mad because it basically undoes all my reprimanding and gets us nowhere. And don't think all I do is yell at the dog, because I love that dog sooo much, but I'm just a big believer in discipline/training. My cat, Zuzu, is a bit bad now because this apartment is bigger than my old one and it's harder to catch her doing bad things. But in my old apartment, she was never the type of cat to jump on the kitchen counters or tables or bookshelves, because I trained her not to do those things. Even now, she's pretty good about staying off the those things.

The thing is, I don't mind this sort of thing with a dog, but I worry about it with kids later on down the line. I guess I don't want to be the bitch who the kids hate because I'm always the one disciplining them. I worry that we'll become Claire and Phil Dunphy on Modern Family and A.P. will always be "peerenting" while I'm the one grounding children and forcing them to do chores. Because as much as I do want to make sure my kids are disciplined and respectful, I also want to have fun with them. I know I'll do that, too, but if I'm always the one enforcing the rules, I worry that I won't be the "fun" parent. I'll be avoided like the plague when it comes to asking for things. But most of all, I'll be the one who gets yelled at when the child is a teenager. I'll be the mean one who never gives the kid their way. Dammit. I guess all I can hope for is that I do enough fun stuff to even it out.

What kind of parent do you think you'll be? Have you and your significant other figured out the roles you'll play with kids later on down the line (or now if you have kids already)?

Check back later for some more Marriage Monday, but in the mean time, enjoy some Modern Family:



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(Modern Family clip via Hulu)

Me vs. The Beetles

The doggie in the garden. They were mowing the lawns, so I had to stick him in with the sweet potatoes and broccoli plants. At first he didn't like it, but after a while, he took shelter under one of the sunflower plants. Hilarious.

I've been taking some pictures the last couple of weeks so that I could update you guys on the garden. But this week, a war started. And I've been fighting it all week. And it is BREAKING. MY. HEART.

I noticed them last Thursday on the pumpkin blossoms, but didn't think too much about it until a couple of days later when it occurred to me that they weren't really hanging around the plant so much as they were MUNCHING on my beautiful pumpkin blossoms. So, I did some internet sleuthing and figured out that they were some kind of squash loving beetle. I decided that when I went back in on Monday, if they were still there, I'd attack and conquer, as well as take some more photos so I could really identify what I was dealing with. I'd at least identified them as a beetle, so that would be enough to start looking for an organic pesticide of some kind.

The dog and I went to the garden on Monday and I noticed they'd spread to the squash plants on the other side of the garden. I noticed that one squash was rotting (it wasn't like that last week). I took some photos and then the dog and I headed to Home Depot to find a solution. I managed to find one pesticide spray for fruits and vegetables, which I told the guy who was helping me, "should help me kill those bastard beetles the way they're killing my beautiful garden."

I then returned to the garden and drained 3/4 of a bottle on all the squash plants (there are 13 total and they're HUGE). After that, I felt satisfied enough with my attack strategy that I returned home to do some more internet sleuthing. After some googling of "squash beetle," I finally managed to find a picture and identify my bastard beetles as cucumber beetles. I prefer bastard beetles. It sounds kinder. Here are some pictures that I snapped of the bastard beetles attacking my squash plants and my watermelon plants.

I then went to one of my favorite gardening blogs, GrafixMuse's Garden Spot. I left her a comment about my problem and she was kind enough to give me her email address and offer assistance. After she saw one of my photos, she confirmed that I was dealing with cucumber bastard beetles. She then suggested Bonide Garden Dust, said she'd had the same problem and one dusting fixed it. She told me it used to be considered organic, but to double check. So far as I can tell, it is organic, and frankly, at this point, a semblance of the organic stamp of approval is enough. After terrible spring weather, bunnies, storms galore, and squirrels feasting on my tomatoes and then strewing the half-eaten remains around the courtyard, I have HAD IT with shit ruining my garden.

Last night, I went to Home Depot again, bought some more spray and some of the Garden Dust. I figured if the spray seemed to be effective, I would use that again. If not, I'd crop dust the shit out of my, well, crop. Lo and behold those bastards had spread to my cucumber plants! So, I spent an hour in the dusk, crop dusting the shit out of my squash and cucumber plants. You reapply every 7-10 days, so I won't reapply until next week. Luckily, there aren't any fruit worth picking right now (you can't use RIGHT before a harvest) and the weather here has been really mild (you're not supposed to use it during high temperatures). I'm crossing my fingers that when I go into work tomorrow and check the garden, the bastards are gone. Otherwise, I can pretty much scrap any kind of pumpkin/squash crop. Ugh. Do you know how depressing this is? Some of those plants were grown from seeds. Farming is hard, y'all! In the mean time, here are some photos from the last couple of weeks:

The last squash we enjoyed before the bastard beetles attacked

The squash and green beans. I've got a million green bean blossoms, too. The beetles haven't affected them too, too badly, but they're certainly not helping.Some pepperoncini

Some more cucumbers growing. They haven't been affected too bad by the infestation. It's the squash and melons that have suffered the most. Bastard beetles!

Some pretty poppies and celosia

The empty hoop house. We'll start readying this for the fall garden, soon. We'll be planting lettuce and spinach.
The sweet potatoes, broccoli, and three sunflower plants.
The tomato plants are completely out of control. I finally pulled the onions because they weren't even growing well anymore. The tomatoes have completely overtaken this bed. I can't even weed it anymore.
The watermelons and one errant squash. I yanked the corn a while back. They never took off since they were stunted from not getting transplanted fast enough. Ugh.

The poor pumpkin plants, which I've had the hardest time with this year. I'm not giving up yet! You can see my pesticide in the background. I took these photos right before my attack.

(Photos by me!)

The Garden

Hi there! I'm trying to find out what works best here on Not the Marrying Kind, and I'd really like your help. I've created a short survey in order to get some feedback on what goes on with my wee small blog. I have a lot of lurkers that visit, seemingly consistently, but are silent observers. I respect silence on blogs, but if you could please break your silence in a completely anonymous way and let me know what you think of some stuff around this, here stretch of the internet, that would be oh, so wonderful! You can access the survey here and it will be up until July 15th. I will probably remind you about this on a daily basis, so please don't get mad at me, k? (PS. A.P. told me that nobody would fill out my survey. Help me prove him, and all men, wrong by sticking it to him. Seriously. Go here.) And thank you to those that have already filled it out! Your feedback is very helpful!

So, I've had some people ask me about my garden, and what I'm growing, what I'm growing them in, etc. I had to go into work today to do some gardening, so I figured today was a good day to take some pictures, and check on the bunnies.

It is a hot, sunny day in Chicago today, and even though rain is in the forecast, it's clear out right now. It was the perfect day to garden, and I was happy to get out there and take care of some stuff.

So first, let me tell you about what I'm growing and what kind of space I'm working with. First off, I should tell that I inherited this space, and though I plan on expanding the garden this year, I'm only planting in the raised beds I inherited. The beds are 8.5 ft x 4.5 ft, and are not in the best shape. I anticipate they will last me for another two or three years before the wood in some of them needs to be replaced. Total, I have 9 raised beds, one of which has a small tree in it. Ideally, I'd like to get that tree out, but my team and I decided to put flowers in there, which made them happy. Am I the only one who likes to garden mostly vegetables and fruit?? Flowers are nice, but not at all what I'm into growing. I like plants with a purpose.

We started all of our seeds inside the greenhouse, and everything that we've grown has been from seeds, with the exception of one tomato plant that A.P.'s coworker donated. We put it in the garden since a storm a few weeks back knocked out one of our tomato plants. We've lost all but two of our squash plants (we had something like 10 or 15), and we've lost all of our pumpkin plants (we had about 10) due to storms, pests, and shock from being replanted in the garden. We also lost about five corn plants because of a violent storm that hit Chicago last week (the one that made everyone pile into a tunnel at O'Hare). Since then, I've taken more precautions against both pests and storms. We still have about 7 corn plants that are waiting to get transplanted, so hopefully we won't have our pumpkin problem with the corn. We also lost a couple of cucumber plants RIGHT after I put them in last week. So, this past Monday, my team and I worked to secure bird netting around those plants. They are looking good, now. Here are some pictures of the plants when they were still in the greenhouse.


Here are some pictures of the garden, and what's growing in it.


Here's me with the peppers and cucumbers in the background (I forgot to take a picture of this bed). There are three cucumber plants on each end, and 12 pepper plants in the middle. There are six regular sweet pepper plants, and six peperoncini plants. They are in milk jugs for two reasons: storms and pests. Those will be removed later when the plants get a little bigger and stronger.

These are our tomatoes and sweet onions. You can also get another view of the cucumbers and peppers from this angle. The tomatoes on the left are cherry tomatoes and on the right we have green zebras, with one red Roma that was swapped in after a storm knocked out a green zebra. These plants are currently caged only on the sides with sticks holding up the tomato plants. Next week, we're swapping out the sticks (which the plants will outgrow soon) and the cage for tomato cages only. From everything I've read, rabbits and squirrels won't mess with onions. We had squirrels digging up the bulbs when we first planted them, but they wouldn't do anything. They just left the bulbs there, so I would just replant them. Since then, we haven't had any problems.

This bed houses our squash plants and our green beans. The green beans are just peeking through the ground, so you can't really seem them, but all but one is growing. The squash plants are...sad. You can see the two on the right are yellowing and not doing too hot. I put five of those in last week as seedlings, and something pulled out three of the plants. Those are the only two left and they are not looking too hot. I'm hoping they'll go the route of the tomatoes and look lousy for a week, and then get nice and big. There is another plant on the right which you can't see, but which is looking really good. And the one on the left is looking okay, too. I bought about five replacement plants from Home Depot, but the heat of the past two days knocked 'em out a bit. I am reviving them and will put them in next week.

So, this is the hoop house, or the bunny birthing center, whichever you prefer. If you remember, it had plastic on it when we first built it. But now, what survived (a handful of beet plants, a row of radishes and a row of turnips) is growing nicely and loosely covered by burlap to shade the plants a bit. The radishes are beyond ready to pull, but the baby bunnies are preventing us from going in there and pulling them. Hopefully they won't be nibbled on by the babies! (Don't worry...I have a ton of baby pics from today...I'll post them a bit further down, along with story of the one we named Scamper.)

These are our watermelon plants. Again, they are currently growing in the milk jugs. They are still fairly small, which will be interesting. It seems like these plants look like such little things and then one day I will go in and they'll have boomed. That happened with our beet plants. They were so small and sad and then this week, they just boomed. They're huge now and have big, beautiful leaves (perfect for bunnies, I'm sure). So, I'm hoping that these guys boom soon, otherwise it will be a sad, little watermelon season. There are only four, though we have two more we may put in on the other side. Corn will be planted in the middle of both this bed. I read that corn and squash or melon plants grow well together. As much as possible, I've tried to do some serious companion planting here. The onions and tomatoes were another companion pair I'd read about.

This is what's left of our corn/pumpkin bed. Monday we had about two pumpkin plants left, and today none. It looks like something got to them, since the containers also had two in them, and those are knocked over and empty. We have giant crows and hawks (yes, we have hawks in the city) that litter our area, so one of them could very well have helped the squirrels or rabbits decimate what was left of an already decimated bed. Last Tuesday, this bed had four or five pumpkin plants, that were looking okay, and five corn plants. We have about three sad corn plants left, but I may be pulling them next week anyway. They're not in very good shape. There's one I think will hang on and survive, and it's right smack in the middle. The pumpkins are a huge disappointment, as we were planning on selling them in the fall as a fundraiser. This means I may have to either plant directly in the garden OR cave and buy some from a nursery. I haven't seen any so far, though, so we'll see if that's even a possibility.


Finally, this is the flower bed with the tree in it (and a team member's arm and leg). You can also see the sad replacement squash plants I bought at Home Depot. I watered them all morning, and brought them home to care for them over the weekend. Now, they're all perked up and happy. So far, there's not much in this bed. We're still hardening off some Zinnias and Marigolds, which we'll probably get put in either next week or the week after. We're a bit lazier about the flowers, no doubt. What is planted in here are some Begonias and Petunias I bought at Home Depot last week so I could blow the last of the grant money. We also have some Celosia, Poppies, and Painted Daisies that we grew from seeds. It's going to be a hot mess of colors and not one matching shade! I'm not a very good landscape artist, I suppose.

We have two more beds that are waiting for some plants. One, we planted in today. We planted spinach, mesclun greens, Four Seasons lettuce, and broccoli. Those will hopefully nice and big when I go back into work after the holiday. In the mean time, we watered the hell out of the bed, and laid plastic over it to create a greenhouse-like environment for the seeds to grow. I'll go back and water between now and next week, but I'm hoping the seedlings will pop a little bit quicker, like they did in the hoop house.

The last bed is a bit of a mystery. It might become a weird mishmash of leftover plants, or I might break down and buy some new stuff from Home Depot. We for sure have some baby broccoli in the green house, along with cherry tomatoes, a couple of leftover cucumbers, and watermelons. We started out with so many plants (see some old pics below), it made my head explode a bit, and now, we've had so many problems (cold snaps, thunder storms, tornado-like winds, rabbits, squirrels, birds, etc.) that I'm almost like a plant hoarder, keeping them in the greenhouse just in case. I'll take some more pictures of the garden again in a couple of weeks so you can see the progress and what else we decided to put in.


Now, on to the thing you really care about: the baby bunnies! Today, when we checked on the bunnies, their eyes were open! They were so cute, and the mother had removed the grass/fur ball that covered them. They were just there, ready to roam my bed.


I took my dog Radar in to garden, too, which he loved. He's now a pile on the couch as I type. He's absolutely exhausted! He wore his little gardening/camping vest, and we put him in things to amuse ourselves. He helped us out by following us everywhere and being super cute. We were worried he'd find the bunnies and attack, but he was very good.

When we finished gardening, we went back to check on the bunnies one last time, and they were everywhere! They were wandering around the bed, exploring everything.


I was worried about watering the plants, but figured I'd just do what I'd been doing which is to sort of drown the one side and hope it would seep over. So while I was watering the plants, I see one rabbit jump out of the bed and go running towards the building. I was like a surgeon people! Code red! I yelled to a team member, "Get me some gloves!" so that I could touch the thing without my scent getting all over it. Then we cornered the little thing and after struggling with the quick sucker, I scooped it up. At first, he was super freaked out, but I pet him a little and he chilled out. We took some pictures before putting him back into the bed with his brothers and sisters. We then named him "Scamper," and said good-bye. We don't anticipate the babies will be there next week, but we'll see. I will probably go back between now and then and take some more photos, but it definitely seems like the mama wants them to explore the world.


I hope you guys will forgive me for this long post, but I figured it's best to get it all done in one post. Then anything else will be a quick update! Perhaps next week, I'll give you a proper photo tour of the greenhouse, too! It's a little bit messy at the moment.

(All Photos by me!)