Me, a Squirrel and Zea Mays

So my neighbor feeds the local St. Paul wildlife in his back yard. Since his town home – a corner unit – is on the extreme end of the lot and abuts the woods, it's somewhat peaceful back there. I don't know how long he's been feeding but he's acquired quite the menagerie. He has a couple of bird feeders there, plus two flat feed pans on the ground (heaven forbid his animals eat off the dirt). In the bird feeders he puts a couple varieties of bird seed and on the pans it's feed corn.

I think the main reason for the corn is the deer, but other fauna partake in the tasty meals: turkeys (we're down to only 3 this year, from the gang-like rafter of 31 we had two years ago), rabbits, ducks (they wait on his roof and quack at him until he puts the food out), and of course, squirrels. Always the squirrels.

For those of you who've never paid attention, the grey squirrel has only 5 life activities hard-wired into its pea-sized brain:

1. Eat
2. Sleep
3. Breed
4. Store food for winter
5. Scrabble about and run in front of traffic

When food is plentiful – as it is here in our neck of the (city) woods – squirrels have ample time to cache enough to see them through winter. Now, it turns out squirrels are quite resourceful and sneaky when it comes to hiding their food. It seems these "scatter-hoarders" can have up to "several thousand caches each season." Holy cats. 

Originally (until I just checked at Wikipedia – the source of all trustworthy online data) I thought the mature ones cached food in their "dreys" while the young, immature squirrels were the ones digging holes everywhere on the lawn for hiding acorns, corn, etc. Not so.

Which brings us to the point: since the neighbor puts corn out every day, and squirrels love corn, AND they hide their food in thousands of places...obviously the lawns around our town home complex are riddled with squirrel caches. Many of these containing – you guessed it –  corn seeds. 

What happens when you bury a seed and it receives plenty of water? Why, it grows, of course. Now, the lawn service does a wonderful job of keeping the grounds looking very neat, but they're only out once a week and the tiny little corn shoots keep popping up – everywhere – in the grass.

One morning while out with Zada, I noticed a couple little 4-inch corn shoots waving gently in the breeze. Cursing the squirrels I ripped out said shoots (including their little roots) and walked back towards the house. I'm not sure if I meant to throw them away or what, but as I got to the door I realized "now what do I do with them?" 

As I pondered this (this all took place in about 2.4 seconds) I was gazing at the big, empty flower pot leftover from last summer (I'd used it for one of my spruce tips arrangements this winter) on the front stoop. All of a sudden, unable to quash life, I dug a quick little hole and tossed in the minuscule shoots. 

That was sometime in June. It's now mid-August, and my corn is flourishing. I'm not sure how the squirrel I stole from feels, but I'm loving my little crop. At first – since it was sort of a joke – I didn't really water the pot or take much notice. That quickly changed when the stalks started shooting up over the plant growing in the pot in front of it. 

Now I water the corn first – before all my other plants – and check its progress daily. The latest development: TASSELS! I feel like a proud mama.

After all, I sort of adopted Zea (from a squirrel, no less), and he's doing so well...how can I help but feel pride?

What's that? Yes, I've named my corn. "Zea Mays," of course. What else?

 I'll be excited to see the next step – evidently called "silking" –  and whether or not my lovely corn will develop corn cobs.

Auntie Sarah/Sophia Day #3: A Visit to Como Conservatory

This past Monday was Sophia's 3rd Summer Day With Auntie Sarah. Michael brought her over at 8:30am – accompanied by her bike, helmet and camera – and our day started.


I had a few things to finish up before we could start out on our destination: a trip to the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory (also known as just "Como Conservatory") to photograph the flowers. Since Clint and I live less than 4 miles from the Conservatory (as the crow flies, anyway), I figured the day would be a snap. We'd get there early (it opens at 10am) and beat the rush. Even on a Monday, I knew it'd be busy.

Well, it didn't take long to realize that Michael had forgotten to leave Sophia's booster car seat dealy – which meant until he could come all the way back across the city and leave it we were stuck at Casa de Danks (he was waiting for the cable guy). I improvised by bringing out the Play Doh, which is a great time-consumer. I watered the plants, picked up a bit, and tried to get Sophia's camera battery door open...of course the batteries were dead.

After the novelty of the Doh wore off, I figured it was time for a glamour shoot. I put some "make-up" – blush, lip gloss and just a tad of my favorite hair product: whip – on Sophia and asked her to strike some poses. Per usual, she happily obliged me. While only (already???) 6 years old, I've caught some of the most "grown-up" expressions on this kid's face. It amazes me. (Good luck with that, Amy, when she turns 16! Gonna be a heart-breaker.)

By the time Michael made it back over, it was already mid-morning...while he ended up getting the stubborn kids' camera to open, I realized I didn't have any batteries in the house – we'd have to make a stop at Target. At that point, it was easier to just let her use my old point-and-shoot camera (it had served me well in the past, although it's time to start looking for a replacement, poor thing) but THAT needed juice, too.

We headed off to Target, and by the time that was done it was lunchtime. I'd originally planned on heading to Como first, followed by lunch, but we were both hungry (and neither one of us is pleasant with low blood sugar). We headed to Keys Café to sit on the brightly-colored "bar" chairs and had a tasty lunch (beer cheese soup and tuna fish sandwich for me; mini corndogs, fries and applesauce for her).

Satiated and ready to photograph the flora, we made our way to the Como grounds...where it took me 15 minutes of driving around (and around) to FINALLY find the last parking spot. We had to walk quite a ways to get to the buildings and Sophia only needed to be carried for a few minutes :)

When we finally got in, I was worried that we only had ~1 hour before I'd need to bundle her back to my place (to pick up her bike) and we'd have to head back to her house. However, with a 6-year-old – even one interested in taking pictures of all the flowers – an hour turned out to be the perfect amount of time.

She wasn't interested in seeing the Bonsai Room, but we did hit the Fern Room, the North Garden, the Sunken Garden and Tropical Encounters. Last – but certainly not least – she wanted to play in the room designated for kids where they can learn while they play.

When it was time to go home, there were no tears...but that didn't deter me. I'm already planning what our next Auntie Sarah/Sophia Day will entail!

Auntie Sarah/Sophia Day #2: The Sleepover

A week ago this morning I dragged myself out of bed after a night of fitful sleep. Clint had already let the dog out so I tiptoed into the kitchen to get my coffee. Sipping it groggily, I contemplated stealing downstairs to sit at the computer – but I dared not. I opted instead to slink back into my room to grab my book, and made my way stealthily to the upstairs couch to read for a while.



Why all the clandestine creeping? Was I hungover? Sort of...Sophia was still sleeping in the guest bedroom downstairs and I wanted to keep it that way. It had been her first sleepover at our house and while overall it was successful (i.e., everyone lived and everyone – especially Clint – got some sleep), it was somewhat of a very long night.






The night preceding bedtime went well: she played with Play Doh at the counter while I made tacos, then we watched Toy Story 3 (my first time seeing it...I had to hide my tear-streaked, snotty cry-face from her because I BAWLED at the end!) and got ready for bed. That's when it got interesting.


First of all, Sophia's at the "what's that strange noise" stage, evidently. Plus being in a strange bed at a strange house...not to mention the omnipresent trains that rumble by not even a quarter mile away; she came upstairs to ask me about all sorts of noises many times before I turned out my light. Each time I sent her back down with a logical explanation.




But at 11pm, I couldn't turn her away – the lightning was flashing like paparazzi cameras and the thunder was crack-boom-banging away. I myself don't like thunderstorms, so I completely understand this kid's fear of them...with Clint snoring away obliviously next to me I invited Sophia up onto my side of the bed, where she promptly curled up next to me into the smallest possible ball a skinny 6-year-old can make.



I tried to get some sleep but of course with a little body twitching, twisting and curling around under my arm it was more a case of staying comfortable. After dozing in and out for a few hours, I woke to see the storm had finally abated...it was time for Sophia to crawl back into her own bed. I led her downstairs and tucked her in – the addition of a teddy bear and a small lamp on inside the room aided in calming her – and finally fell back into my own bed, exhausted, for a few more hours of shut-eye.


Let me say here now: I wasn't mad or annoyed with her, poor thing...I was just a WEE bit tired from my own night of restless, broken sleep and needed some coffee and a little quiet time that morning :) After a little while she did come up and wanted to cuddle a bit...soon it was time for breakfast, playing with her camera and then we had to get started with our real plans: a day at the beach with the Van Tassels!



We donned our suits, I packed up a picnic lunch (PBJ sammiches, raspberries, rice krispy bars and juice), got sunblock and towels, grabbed my camera and we were off to the Lake Elmo Park Reserve. I'd never been to a man-made "lake" before so it was quite interesting to see a sandy bottom, the odd water bug and then drains and filters.




We had a great time! The day was hot, a tad humid and the sun was shining; all 3 girls played in the water, built lagoons and had numerous foot races. Christine and I had our fair share of entertainment –  watching the cute girls and also doing quite a bit of chit-chatting. At the end of the afternoon we bundled up and left, a tad sun-burned but tired and happy.

Michael was waiting for us when we drove up to the town home; Sophia's big eyes filled with tears at the prospect of having to leave. It was at once sad and cute: she SO didn't want the day to end; it was a good feeling I'd been successful at yet another Auntie Sarah/Sophia day!

First-Ever Auntie Sarah/Sophia Day

Earlier this spring my sister approached me and said she had a handful of Mondays on which Sophia didn't have "camp" (whatever that means) and would I be willing to hang out with her for one of them?

I immediately said I'd take them all – so we marked our calendars and I dubbed them Auntie Sarah/Sophia Days – while secretly wondering in the back of my mind, "what does one DO with a 6-year-old all day long?"

Well, I'll tell you. The first-ever (long-awaited) occurrence of Auntie Sarah/Sophia Day #1 was this past Monday, and here's how it all went down...

Michael brought Sophia over around 9am, accompanied by her car booster seat, bike, helmet, sweatshirt (just in case), the plate I'd left at their house from the grill-out (Michael's graduation party!) and a sticky note that said "DEXTER DVDs!"

After waving Michael off to the car – greedily clutching 4 seasons' worth of Dexter – it was time to start our day. She promptly showed me how she'd lost her second tooth the night before and then asks me, "what're we going to do today, Auntie Sarah?" I had a general, vague idea of how things (I thought) would go down, but of course the weather wasn't looking too promising so I was hastily revising ideas on the fly.

First and foremost, we had to head to the grocery store (Clint and I are sort of day-to-day shoppers so we had no kid-friendly food in the house), with Sophia helping to carry the basket and preening for the checkout lady. We got back and she helped put things away and then it was, "now what?"

I'd planned on driving over to Lake Como for a walk/bike ride, but the ominous clouds quelled that idea so I said we should probably hang out near the house just in case. We ended up cutting a bunch of flowers off my potted plants, choosing vases, arranging them and then deciding where in the house to place them all. Then she thought it was time for a snack so I got out some pretzels and milk, which evidently was the perfect combo because she said she likes dipping the pretzels IN the milk.

After that it was time to get out the sidewalk chalk and get to work decorating the front stoop. She kept looking up at the clouds saying, "but what if it rains? That cloud is darker than the last one...if it rains can I watch a movie?" I had to put the kibosh on this line of questioning and re-focus her efforts on the task at hand. I think we did a pretty good job with our artwork and afterword it turned into a game of getting-from-one-side-of-the-sidewalk-to-the-other-without-touching-the-chalk-lines. Lots of jumping, pirouetting, and chalky feet :)

It was STILL cloudy at that point so I said she could choose some fingernail polish and I'd paint her nails. She settled on using all 9 colors I had and wanted each nail a different color, so I set up shop outside on the deck and went to work. The sun ended up coming out and helped dry all the little colorful nails.

It was almost lunch time at this point so I told her she could color for a bit and then I began preparing lunch: grilled cheese sammiches (mozarella for her; pepperjack for me), pasta salad, pickles and a drink (Gatorade for me; milk for her). For dessert she was pumped to devour a yummy ice cream bar.

Since the weather was gorgeous at this point, she was excited to head to the park – I bundled her, the bike and myself into the car and zipped over to Lake McCarrons where her first observation was, "you said there wasn't a playground here, Auntie Sarah, but there IS." Oops. Guess I don't pay much attention. So she played around on the jungle gym for a while, and then wanted to go put her feet in the water (she didn't have a swimsuit plus it was so windy it was just a bit cool). Then it was being pushed on the swing for a while and right back in the water. She ended up getting all her clothes wet – how could I tell her not to have fun and splash around? – but at that point we were at the end of our day, anyway. All played out, we headed back to my house to get the rest of her stuff and I gave her a t-shirt of mine to wear so she wasn't sopping wet.



We got in the car and headed over to Robbinsdale, her chattering away in the backseat and me still trying to keep up with all the "guess whats." After hanging out with her all day, then standing in the chilly wind, I began to feel nice and comfortable in the sun streaming through the windshield and all of a sudden it hit me: I was exhausted.

I began yawning and couldn't stop. Sophia asks from the backseat, "why do you keep yawning?" I replied, "well, I guess I'm tired from today's activities." There was silence while she contemplated this for a few seconds, then she pipes up, "my mom never yawns."

Too defeated to think of a proper response, I merely smiled and thought, "yeah, but your mom's USED to this!"

Arriving at her house, it was off to tell her dad all that we'd done that day and then I said my goodbyes and headed back home. Amy said for the next few days it was "Auntie Sarah this," and "Auntie Sarah that"!

It was a VERY fun day, and she's a great kid...but I sure need to build up my kid stamina for the next edition: a Sophia Sleepover!

Rain Is Good For Growing Things

If the human body is 70% water, then surely the plants in my little "garden" are approaching humanly grace on account of all the rain Minnesota's been receiving this spring and summer.



You might remember my foray into gardening last summer – my first, true attempt at keeping plants alive – and how excited I was that I not only had pretty flowers to look at, but also fresh basil to use in Clint's favorite chicken recipe.

Well, THIS summer I've stepped up my game.

Not only do I have more plants and variety, but I actually put all of them – except the monster on the front stoop and the hanging baskets – into their own cute pots (some of which I found on a recent antiquing trip with The Girls). I brought over the cute little shelves residing at the Mini-crapolis house to use as supports for all my cute, new plants, but after a few days' worth of rain the pots were so heavy I had to remove most of them. No biggie. I still think it looks cute.

So, what do I have in my little garden this year? Clint of course got me a couple of huge "ready-made" pots that I like – those are mostly petunias, mixed in with some other cutesie stuff (threw away the little name tags :). I even have the very popular and (this year) brand-new black velvet petunia. They're very pretty and actually look like velvet! But the rain we've had tends to mush them a bit and beware – they "bleed" a dark purple and will stain your hands when wet.

I also have geraniums (those haven't been doing very well this year), daisies (spreading like crazy), vining black-eyed susan, calibrachoa (in orange! they're so cute), a couple different varieties of coleus, red-leaf lettuce (donated by my good friend from her garden), basil, cilantro and chives. Whew. I might not be very diligent with dead-heading this year,  but in spite of that most everything is thriving...in fact, I'm thinking I'll have to split some off and add more pots because they're doing so well they might start cannibalizing everything. It's a good problem to have :)

Another good way to "stem" the flow of growth – especially with leggy petunias – is to chop them back and create little flower arrangements. It's fun to cut the different flowers and throw them into cute vases for around the house.

And of course there are the herbs that need to be used in cooking! Last year I put my 2 little basil plants into dainty pots that I then placed on the windowsill inside. While they grew and were healthy, they just didn't yield enough growth to use very often. I also tried a pot's worth of oregano but I just didn't like that one as much.

This year, all herbs are outside and are not only thriving, I can barely keep up with the production! Again, a good problem to have. My 4 basil plants look like they're on steroids; I've cut back my chives and cilantro at least 3 times already and they just keep coming. It's fun to have my own little "herb garden" for once!

I'd say this year I'm measurably better with my plants – with a lot of help from Ma Nature – and am enjoying the ambience they impart to the deck. (Just this past weekend Mom and I sat out there with our morning coffee and chatted...it smelled nice, looked lovely and is as close to a real garden as I can get in a town home.)

PS: Let it be known that Blogger was NOT playing nicely with my images. Not my best work in organizing photos on this blog.

An April Weekend Up North

At the end of April I headed up North to Mission Narrows for a weekend of family time. My sister's brood went, too, so it was a full house. While we were slightly miffed Ma Nature decided to dump snow on us yet again, we didn't let it bother us. The kids bundled up in snow/rain gear and we waded out anyway.


We didn't mind the cold and snow the first day...of course we ate great comfort food – Mom never disappoints – and cozied up to the cheery fire. There might've been a couple movies watched and a few card games played.

We walked out to the barn to visit the horses and give them a few treats and the girls stomped around in the slushy snow while the dogs chased sticks.

The next day was warmer and sunny, so we headed back out to see the horses and Amy took the kids for a few spins in the arena on Ben. After that it was time for a little trail ride – Amy & Sophia rode Ben while I acted as "guide" by walking in front. Mom & Charlotte met us on their Gator ride, so everyone got to get out on the trail. (Zada put on twice as many miles as the other dogs, running between the horseback faction and the Gator faction.)


After being outside in the fresh, chilly air we wandered back inside for snacks and then spent the afternoon playing Legos...well, you know, Amy and I weren't playing; we were helping the girls with assembly. Even Mom got in on the action :)

After that it was time to put on some make-up and do glamour shots for the girls – Charlotte's a TAD harder to photograph since she's always moving but I think both girls enjoyed getting their pictures taken!


By Sunday afternoon it was finally warm, sunny and all the snow was gone...but everyone else had to head back to the Cities.

I stayed behind and enjoyed a nice "photography walk" around the property with the dogs – my ever-present companions. From snow and cold to warm, spring sunshine; from bustling noise to quiet solitude, it was a very fun-filled family weekend.