Needed: A Limp Lizard

Apparently, our household is in dire need of a "Limp Lizard." What is a Limp Lizard, you may ask? I asked the same thing of Unruly and discovered a Limp Lizard is a handy dandy little device that picks up dog hair, cat hair, dirt and various other little nasties that congregate on the carpet. Because, obviously, the five year old thinks very little of my housekeeping skills. Unruly even needs one of these little dirt eaters herself, according to her sage advice.

I finally figured out a "Limp Lizard," is really a "Lint Wizard." It's funny how some little things get lost in translation for a five year old and leave mom in stitches trying to imagine what a Limp Lizard might actually look like. Oh, you can't even begin to imagine the pictures that formed in my pervy little mind of such a fine product! She has become quite the commercial watcher, and the little bugger remembers damn near everything she hears/sees.

This morning she told me "Mom, paper towels just force the dog pee deeper into the carpet, they don't actually get it out. We need a Spot Lifter, the one from Bissell, and it will get it all out and leave the carpet smelling fresh and clean." Uh huh. The power of the media out of the mouths of babes. Yes, I am a paper towel user. Akasha has had a few little accidents in the house, but nothing requiring the purchase of a Spot Lifter, just a bottle of urine eating enzymtic cleanser and lots of super absorbent paper towels. She isn't a very big dog who has a fairly tiny bladder. I think Unruly peed on the floor more often between the years of 2 to 4 than the dog has, and she has a large, human-sized bladder. The paper towels seem to work just fine and Akasha is getting better about letting us know when she needs to go out.

Unruly and I dug through a few more layers of brambles in the woods where we are putting in a new path. Once I get past the biting, scratching, grabbing, blood-drawing brambles, the woods are actually very, very nice. My arms look like I tangled with a cougar. There are so many big, old trees: Oak, elm, maple, pecan, black walnut, birch and some persimmon. I'm looking forward to the day when I have the entire path done, edged with native woodsy plants and flowers, so I can just wander through the woods, enjoying them in their ancient wisdom and breathing deeply of that rich, loamy soil. Hopefully without any ethereal beings following me or watching my every move.

Two owls have been hooting back and forth to each other all night long, starting before the sun has fully set, and last night, I heard the coyotes yelping at each other in the wee hours.

I managed to get (with Unruly's fabulous digging help) about 40 spring bulbs into the ground Saturday. Daffodils (a variety), hyacinths, anemones and these big, globe-like purple things that I've forgotten the name of. It feels good to have some of it done, and it felt fantastic to have dirt beneath my fingernails and rubbed into the creases of my fingers. Not the greatest dirt, it's very clayey, but it's mine, dammit, and it's nothing a few years of adding massive amounts of horse poop, eggshells, coffee grounds and compost won't amend.