Joely Sue Burkhart

I’ve seen a lot of horrible things.  But never anything as disgusting and ridiculous as Brian Dennehy as Kublai Khan in the new Marco Polo.

Okay, maybe I’m biased.  I’ve never liked Dennehy in anything.  But seriously.  Having him play the great Khan?  Might as well put John Wayne in a dress.

The tomato and zucchini plants survived long enough for me to get the hay bales prepared.  I bought two huge bags of manure compost Friday night.  MM thought it was hilarious that I actually *bought* poop.  PM told me she wasn’t “comfortable” eating anything with poop on it.  Then all three monsters proceeded to change their favorite songs to include “poop” and “pee” while giggling shrilly.  In the middle of Zio’s for dinner, no less. 

Why are kids so fascinated with bodily functions?  Oh, well, they don’t like zucchini and tomatoes anyway.

Just a note for anybody trying this hay bale gardening.  A steak knife is not sufficient to cut holes into the hay.  Maybe if I left the hay out in the sun and watered it heavily for a week, then pulled it apart by hand just enough to wedge plants in–that might have worked.  But actually *cutting* a hole in the hay took That Man’s saws-all.  I’ve still got the 4 bags of plain dirt–two 40 lb bags of compost was enough, although it started to wash away as I watered.  I’ll likely need to add more dirt after a few days, especially for the basil plants.  I just made mounds on top of the bales for them instead of cutting holes.

Just in the few days of watering, the wheat straw had started to sprout.  It was actually kind of pretty.  I’ll try to remember and take some pictures today.  The hard thing now will be keeping it watered enough while I pray the plants don’t die.