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I’m not sure how to feel about this latest scientific development:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090428/ap_on_re_as/as_skorea_cloned_dogs.

Happy Birthday, Handsome! He is 28 today.

This last weekend was nonstop…Saturday Handsome and I worked a tiny bit in the garden and then went food shopping. When we got home we did a bunch of house preparation (read cleaning) for Handsome’s birthday party that night.

The party started around 5pm when the first attendees arrived. We made a big pot of homemade chili while things were kicking off – it was delicious. I can’t wait until the scallion and peppers are fresh grown from our garden! All told, 8 people and 1 dog (plus the roommates and our dog) came and enjoyed the fun, of which there was a lot. We also had brownies with candles in them and sung “Happy Birthday” and also crumb cake. Both were devoured eagerly.

Yesterday, then, ChickenSox and I worked in the garden for 4-5 hours. We planted the rest of the lettuce (in a shadier area) and started to hand till the garden area. We quickly realized we weren’t denting the clay much, so we rented a mid-size tiller from Home Depot. Even it had a hard time cutting through the compacted clay! I ran the tiller while ChickenSox removed rocks from the tilled earth. I went over the area multiple times. We found a tree buried near one edge of the garden. We also found a sprinkler head that wasn’t attached to the system. And a Spiderman cup. And rope. Luckily, however, we had no incidents. It was a lot of work, though, to wrangle the tiller, and my shoulders and arms are quite sore today.

Today: Handsome’s birthday. We are going to spend the day together doing whatever it is we feel like. Yay!

We planted our very first plants in the garden last weekend! (beans and peas) I also moved the remaining two rose bushes (and have the scrapes to prove it); they were looking rather unhappy this afternoon but I watered them well and I do hope they make it. We bought starter plants for two types of lettuce, peppers, chard, and tomatoes and potted them in the soil they will be grown in. AND! AND! AND! I got to use my rain barrel. I need to get a hose for it, but right now I’m watering all the plants with stored Oregon rain water (rather than pay the city for water) out of a watering can.

Up next: buy a hose, finish the tiny bit of pulling sod up out of the garden, rent a tiller…till!, buy soil, rework layout of garden area, buy stepping stones, and grow organic veggies!!!

Havok, Sean, Handsome, and I went to the beach on Saturday, and it was just fabulous. We went to our “usual” spot just north of Newport, Oregon, and the weather was absolutely wonderful. We strolled along the beach and found crustaceans buried in the sand, jelly goo eggs, shell fossils, beautiful sand patterns, and crab shells. The sun was shining, a nice chilly breeze blew through the air, and it was perfect. I got some wonderful pictures! Check them out on flickr!

Jen and I worked on the garden this weekend. We dug up over 2/3 of the garden area until 1) we filled up all of our available grass holding apparati and 2) it started raining more than we were interested in weathering. In other garden news, the utilities run in direct parallel to where we wanted to put the retaining wall, so no wall. However, we altered our plans (again!) to allow for a garden without a retaining wall. This means a LOT less engineering and therefore a lot less work. This means plans are on the fast track: once I/we finish getting the grass dug up, the new organic happy garden soil can go in. Hopefully this weekend the soil is laid and we can let it prepare itself for veggies! I also need to determine what kind of short fence to use to deter uninvited guests.

The other dirty news is that softball season is starting! We had practice ummm, heh, last week sometime? We were rained out tonight, but hopefully Wednesday will be our first games. This year I’m a substitute for Monday night co-ed and am playing Wednesday night Women’s league. We have a great group of women again this year and I’m excited. I’ll most likely be in the outfield this year; I’m guessing either center or right center.

PS – Did everyone have a good Easter?

I believe it’s a sign that happy pills aren’t working when it seems like the news is littered with mass shootings ending in suicides. Either that or kamikaze has become the new fad in unstable, unhappy humans.

Perhaps we as a society should start finding solutions to our problems rather than masking them with the latest antidepressant.