German Ivy

Plants have been calling to me lately. Every time I leave the house I return with a green leafed member of our biosphere, much to the consternation of my wife who notes the containers full of dirt and scraggly plants popping up around the house. Seeds seem to be demanding a go at life, too. I have several seeds from Avocados to Almonds thinking about sprouting, or at least I'm thinking about them sprouting even though they appear to just be molding. At least they had their chance.

I had been really wanting to get an ivy (a strange thing to be wanting, I know), and I randomly came across this little plant called German Ivy, and I thought, "It's German. I'm German. Maybe we can have some kind of understanding and camaraderie between us." I do not know what makes it German Ivy. It doesn't seem to respond to sour Kraut, require continual refreshments of Beer, or acknowledge Polka music in the slightest. Definitely not your typical German Plant. It makes me think that it has not spent that much time out of the wild. I like to think that it hales from the Black Forest, and that there is something mysterious bound up in its roots that time will reveal.

In other news, since I've done such an amazing job of keeping up with this blog, I thought I would start another blog, but I won't tell you anymore about it right now. I want to focus my content more plus shift out of this blog anyway since the name is based on our old address. More news later.

Squirrel Nostril Size

I noticed a squirrel pilfering through our compost pile today. What a city squirrel could possibly want out of pile of eggshells, yam peels, tea bags, orange peels, apple cores, bannana peels, and egg cartons is, to me, mysterious. He is probably just studying what kind of lifestyle we lead, analyzing our threat level since we are newer on the block than he is, and reporting back to squirrel HQ where, I'm sure, they keep a neighborhood diagram with pinned-up bits of food and dog intellegence.


I kind of want a squirrel-sized landmine, but I'm sure to get a neighbors cat or child or granny or something. Rebekah told me that her boss puts cracked corn out to glut the squirrels on so they don't eat the rest of her garden. Though that may be wise, it doesn't sound like my immediate line of thinking at all. “Hey, I hate what you do to my garden. Here's some cracked corn instead.”

Kyle and Rebekah thinking: “Hey, I hate what you do to our garden. Climb in this trap so I can skin you, roast your body, and wear your pelts as a warning to your brood.”

Actually, as much as I want my thinking to be just that, I don't have a garden, it's the middle of winter, and he sure looks cute. He can have all the compost he wants as long as he doesn't spread it around or come knocking on the door asking for seconds. It's going to be another story come Summer and he's stealing my strawberries though.

I do think that he is stealing berries out of the loose-leaf tea I bought Rebekah. There are whole, whole I tell you, craisins in her tea. Who puts whole berries in their tea mix? You can eat it like a bag of granola mix. Actually, it's really good but still?

Rebekah's and my conversation about supplying the squirrels with cracked corn devolved into just supplying them with straight Crack, forget the corn, which, of course, lead to a conversation about squirrel nostril size. Now, the more I think about the words squirrel and nostril together, the funnier I think it is. Please enjoy those two words together at least a dozen time today.