Spider Season

Water droplets illuminate this web in my garden

I am terrified of spiders, which is really inconvenient as I'm a gardener.  I've worked hard on overcoming this fear, and I don't freak out about them quite like I used to, but still, spiders give me the heebie-jeebies.

Rationally, I know they aren't going to wrap me in their webs and suck my blood, but still, I feel that they would if they could.  And I know it's completely irrational to be afraid of something that is so much smaller than I am.  But then again, these types of fears are rarely rational.

I do OK with spiders in the spring time.  They just aren't as "in your face" as they are right now and they seem to be smaller. Throughout the spring and summer, we get along fine.  At least outside.  Spiders in the house, or heaven forbid, on my clothes or bedding, literally make me shriek and call for help. But outside, I see them as part of the whole garden and I politely work around them.

Come August and September, the spiders get bigger and build their webs seemingly overnight.  And frequently they hang their webs right outside my front door, between paths, on my car--pretty much every place where I run right into them! Each year, I have to mentally work myself into this spider season. I remind myself of the good they do and their right to spin webs where they like, even as I shudder and shriek when I walk into one of their webs.

The ironic part of my spider fear is that even though they absolutely terrify me, I actually don't like to hurt them.  The truth is that I'm strangely fascinated by them.  I watch them weave their webs, and wonder at how they seem to know exactly how long to make each strand of web before connecting it to the whole piece.  Their webs are nearly perfectly symmetrical.  An engineering marvel.  And of course the gardener part of me is thankful to them for the work they do.  I am happy they eat their way through annoying flies with their delicate but strong traps.

But until this spider season is over, I will continue to walk around the garden with my hands in front of my face, shrieking if I end up with a spider on my shoulder.   And, entranced by the beauty of a web lit up with rain droplets.

Goat Wisdom

A day in the sunshine.  And I should clarify, a warm day in the sunshine which is a bit rare for mid-October on Bainbridge Island.  It was a gorgeous day today and because we know we are headed into the dark and rainy days of winter, it can be easy to spend a day like this "getting something done".  But the goats showed us today that we don't have the right idea at all.

The goats know exactly how to spend a day in the sunshine.  Around lunch time we found them all snoozing, sound asleep.  Sweet Pea was sleeping standing up, with her head pressed against the tire for support.  Silver was cashed out on the upside down metal feed trough, with sound asleep Lily cuddled next to him.  And Blackberry had a coveted spot on the goat version of the sun porch.

The goats don't think, they just do.  The sun warmed up their fur until they felt nice and drowsy, and so they dozed.  Right where they were.  They looked so peaceful and happy.  And once again, I found myself thinking that they are very smart creatures.  I still have a lot to learn from them.    

The Most Amazing Music Teacher

We have the most amazing music teacher.  She comes to our house.  She is young.  She is fun.  She is a fantastic teacher.  The kids love her.  And she is completely OK with the chaos of our home.

For our first lesson with her, which was over a year ago, I made sure the house was somewhat orderly.  I did the dishes, tried to move the stacks of homework and mail into a corner, and made sure the family room couch was cleared of toys.  This was so new to have our piano teacher come to us, and of course I wanted her to feel like a guest.

By the next lesson, my veil of "cleanliness" was already slipping.  The dishes were all over the counter and I apologized for the mess.  She insisted that she didn't mind and actually felt most comfortable in houses that were messy.  She said the really clean houses freaked her out a bit--they weren't normal.  I loved her even more.

And by the third lesson, my charade was done.  Not only did we have boxes stacked in the hallway as a result of trying to sort out the girls' clothes, and stacks of paper everywhere, but we now had the look of construction too.  We are finally done with our big remodel project (and she missed the phase where we had a huge hole in our house) but for the past year, she's seen a lot of projects in process around here.  In fact, she comes each week and says she looks forward to seeing what we are working on.

And now today, as she arrives for Grace's piano lesson, Emily and Sophie are in the midst of trying to fix the computer problem that Sophie created on Emily's computer.  They aren't arguing exactly, but our house of three girls is about as noisy as they come.  Our music teacher, as happy and positive as always, stands in the doorway, sees our chaos and says with a smile that she loves our noisy family.  She comes from a big family and says that she feels at home around families with at least three kids.  How could I love this girl more?  Not only does she share her knowledge and love of music to our kids, but she also manages to put a smile on my face as I look around and think yes, this is all good.  It truly is.

Bad tempered Bunny

He looks like such a sweet bunny.  So cuddly.  And also so quiet.  In fact, bunnies have this reputation for being quiet and calm--at least among people who have never kept rabbits.  And when you see rabbits at the fair, all in small cages, all sitting very quietly, that stereotype holds true.

But rabbits kept in cages aren't behaving normally.  That quiet pose is somewhat deceiving and might make you think that rabbits don't have much personality.  That would be a misguided perception.

Our current bunny, Parsley, is almost two years old, and he doesn't live in a cage.  He has a rabbit hutch with a very small rabbit sized door--designed to keep curious goats out.  He gets to roam freely around the fenced-in yard and go into his hutch when he feels like it.  So he leads a pretty good rabbit life.  And he communicates with us and the goats very well.

We feed him some rabbit chow and one yogurt treat in the morning and the evening.  But it is the yogurt treat that most interests him.  When we go into the animal yard at feeding time, we practically trip over the crazy rabbit because he hops so close to our feet!  It's his way of telling us that he is hungry and please not to forget him even though he is smaller and quieter than the goats.

Last week we ran out of yogurt treats.  And our bunny went without treats for a few days because honestly, buying rabbit treats fell down to the bottom of my "to-do" list.  Parsley was angry about this development and we all knew it.  Every time we went into the yard, he would hop around our feet and make growling sounds.  He was harassing the goats too, hopping around their feet and maybe even nipping their ankles.

Because of his behavior, buying rabbit treats moved up on my "to-do" list, and now he is back to being a somewhat sweet rabbit--as long as he gets his yogurt treat.  But he is not above being a bad-tempered bunny when he needs to tell us something.

Rainy skies/Sunshine plants

I'm not even sure what season it is.  I know the calendar says September, but the weather is so far away from our norm, that it just doesn't feel right.  The rain showers have felt more like spring, the sky looks more like November and the humidity doesn't feel normal for us in any season! All in all, this weather is throwing my natural sense of the seasons.

I've just read Cliff Mass' post on the rainfall records we have broken over the past few days, and though it's amazing to read the data of our weather, I'm not reading anything I couldn't have guessed.  Deluges of rain are just not normal for a Northwest September.

Yesterday afternoon, after watching Sophie and Grace play soccer games in intense humidity on very muddy fields, the sky darkened and the rain fell.  Oddly, the temperature was still close to 70 degrees and the sky took on a strange orange/green/gray color.  In fact, the sky looked so odd that we had to go outside in the rain just to see it.  And I'm so glad we did because the garden took on incredible shades of red.  Every plant that is naturally red in color looked particularly bright; almost as if the plants decided to glow with sunshine.

Blackberries!

 For eleven months of the year, I curse the invasive blackberry plant.  It is ugly.  It is predatory.  It climbs native trees, and smothers native shrubs.  It is a runaway plant which takes over our woods and road sides and I spend hours pulling it out of flower beds and woodland gardens.

But come August and September, I am drawn to the blackberry thickets that dot our island.  The sweet, juicy berries hang on the branches and are free for the taking.  The taste of one sweet berry takes me back to my youth where I would play with my brother and neighbors, and graze on the bountiful blackberries--a sweet, free snack.

I love to eat them sun-warmed right off the canes, but they are particularly good in jams, smoothies, cobblers and sprinkled over vanilla ice cream.  So this time of the year, when we are wanting a dessert, all I have to do is send the kids to the end of the road to pick a few cups of blackberries, and within an hour we will have a delicious blackberry dessert.

My favorite is blackberry cobbler and the recipe I use is easy and delicious.

Blackberry Cobbler

Step 1:  Send the kids out to pick blackberries (3 cups will make a nice size dessert for a family)

Step 2:  While the kids are out, mix the batter together:
 1 Cup flour
 1 Cup sugar
 1 tsp. baking powder
 2/3 Cup milk

Step 3:  melt 1/2 stick margarine or butter and pour into the bottom of an 8" square baking dish.  Next pour the batter into the butter, stirring it until almost mixed.

Step 4:  when the kids get back with the berries, pour them on top of the batter and place the cobbler into a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.
(*If you are having company, double the amounts of berries, butter and batter and use a 9" x 13" baking dish.)

Step 5:  Enjoy!!

Earth Day Sunflowers

Last Spring, the children of Wilkes Elementary on Bainbridge Island gathered together on Earth Day to plant sunflower seeds along a narrow strip of soil near the parking lot.  All of the kids, from Kindergarteners through fourth graders, planted seeds, watered them in, and then wished them well.

It's a sweet tradition and gives the kids hands-on science and the school a beautiful parking lot.

Gracie in front of Sunflower Row!!

I shouldn't be surprised by how big the plants get, but every year I am just as amazed as the kids to see the towering row of sunflowers!

The row of giant, golden flowers looked particularly happy in the sunshine today. And I can't think of a better back to school welcome.