Milly dragged me and the kids to go visit a friend of a friends place today. Milly’s friend “Lucy” and her daughter “Emma”  (new additions to Who’s Who) offered to take us out over hill and dale to visit “the best gardener she knows.” We piled into the van and I was relegated to the back seat behind Molly and Polly who got first dibs because of car seat placement. Ringo, Emma, and I sat scrunched in the back and I had flashbacks to previous upsetting times as a unsettled, spewing participant. *************************** Side Story – I have a very weak stomach. One of the first dates I took Milly on was to an amusement park in a nearby town. As any courting animal naturally does I was showing off trying to catch the attention of the challenge in question. I suggested we go on the craziest ride in the park in the hopes that my date would hold on just a little tighter as we swung around and around and around the ride. I knew I was in trouble the moment the ride started. A few seconds in I was holding tight to my date. By the end of the ride I was swaying and moaning and squealing and howling. I made it off the ride with dignity intact, albeit a little diminished, but within a few steps of the spinning iron prison I leaned over and ejected all hopes of romantic endeavors onto the black pavement in front of my date and several competing suitors. How in the world I got her to marry me is still a mystery to all involved. Another side story – Milly has seen me hurl out the window of about 10 vehicles. It usually happens when I get sent to the back seat and the road is long and windy. Never fails. I start to get sweaty, I feel my guts turning and I start to hesitantly look for potential open windows. Milly is used to it by now and just has me poke my head out of the car so she doesn’t need to stop the adventure. ***************************** Luckily for all involved the road wasn’t too windy and I was able to do my best yoga meditation in the back and we arrived without mishap. The place we ended up was in the middle of nowhere at least that’s what I remember having closed my eyes the whole trip in the hopes of keeping a steady stomach. The garden place was pretty neat. They had tons of animals there and the area was in full bloom. It was amazing to see how effective a proper perimeter makes when trying to grow things. They had Caragana’s all around the property and that made a great wind break that allows all the plants inside the perimeter to grow fairly early. I haven’t seen another place around here that is as far along as this place is. Another interesting strategy is the people don’t water anything on the property besides their annual garden and newly planted plants. If it doesn’t make the grade the plants will be replaced by ones that can survive this climate and weather patterns. I like that concept. Why waste time and effort watering and protecting things that shouldn’t really be there naturally. They’ve found several plants that can withstand the normal weather patterns for this area and they are thriving. Mother goose hiding out hatching eggs. The hissing really put Molly and Polly on guard. These goslings are like 3 weeks old. They grow pretty fast. They haven’t mowed the lawn yet. The geese take care of it all for them. We took this picture in Waterton this afternoon. I took it as it reminded me of the other picture below. Something interesting all the girls gathered around. I’ll probably get in trouble for that comparison but I thought it was funny and have been waiting to post the pictures all day. ha. All in all it was a successful field trip. We got to see what another person is doing to make her Garden of Eden and I didn’t loose any of my dignity in front of Milly’s friends by erupting all over the place like Mt. St. Helen’s. After all, Milly did know what she was getting into when she married me but I’m sure her friends still think of me as the manly, quite type. Not the squealing, throw up kind. I hope none of them read this blog or I’ll have to pretend Milly wrote this post.