[quicktime]http://surferboi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/mom_tiller1.mp4[/quicktime]

I was home the other weekend, helping my brother strip my Mom’s deck to restain it. It’s a big job, and we didn’t even finish in one day. Messy too, with a lot of crazy toxic goo to get that stain-that-was-surely-paint off the 20 year old deck. Never one to let grass grow under her feet, my Mom decides to break out the tiller and get her garden broken up so she could plant. “It’s been too wet!,” she told us, with the same disgust that I would have had as well if I had to wait so long to start my own garden.

So while we are slopping goo on the crusty old deck, my Mom heads to the shed and cranks up the tiller and to get her garden rolling. I turned to my brother and said, “You know, we take it for granted sometimes how great it is to have a self-sufficient Mom.” He couldn’t agree more.

My Mom is 70+ and she is as spry as people half her age. Growing up in farm country will do that, I guess. Hard work was no stranger to either side of my family, and I think it kept many of my kin young for years. My grandmother is 100 and showing few signs of leaving this world for greener pastures up on high. I think my brothers and I are so blessed to have a mother like her. She has done so much for herself, not only since my father died more than a decade ago, but even before then. Always curious, never backing down from a challenge, and using her faith as the strength to keep her going, she has done so much with so little. Tirelessly taking care of my grandmother, managing to keep her roots in the community, and always making time for family and friends. Not to mention the cooking. Geez! Fried fish & cornbread like you never had. And we had it all the time. Yumtastic!

So never let it be said that we don’t appreciate our Mom. On the contrary. She’s got so much awesome, she has plenty to share. I only hope that this Mother’s Day, everyone remembers that no matter what, all mothers are awesome, since they are the reason we live and breathe today.

Love u mom.

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Lemon cucumber parade!

Ok…two garden posts in a row. Deal with it.

I have something yummy to share…it’s the Winner of the 1st Annual UFO Garden MVP, one of the most coveted prizes in ufo gardening During over 15 years of gardening, I have had problems with growing cucumbers in this area. They grow fine for 1-2 months, then they wilt from a pesky fungus carried by the cucumber beetle. I try not to do too much to kill off bugs…except these guys.

This little lemon cucumber from Gardens Alive! is an amazing little plant. It resists the fungus that usually kills the more common varieties, but this guy keeps on rolling. We get about 20 of these little guys a week, and if you pick them really early, not only do you get sweeter fruit, but the vines produce so many more of them.

Really dig this plant. Enjoy =|>

Well folks, it’s been a long time since I have graced the intertubes with my nutty missives, but as you can see, technology has to take a back seat to eating. And I love love love fresh veggies. We have a crazy good crop of all sorts of alien veggies, so we decided to name our little corner of the the planet “The UFO Garden.” And I would like to introduce you to a couple of recent additions, Gabby & Gort from Glopp (thanks to my honey-bunny). Somehow Gort’s Transdimensional GPS blew a flux capacitor and they crashed landed knee deep in my strawberry patch. And Gabby is none too pleased, I can tell ya, probably tapping her feet under the mudd. Well, if the fusion reactor leaks and causes my berries to grow up to the point of eating us in a twisted turn of fate, somebody come by and water, and be sure to enjoy what’s left of the goodies.

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