In my head, there are just a few things that I don’t think should go together. Pickles and ice cream, snow and my life, Paris Hilton and the front page of the newspaper are a few examples. But as pregnant women, my husband and major media outlets can attest to, what I think and what actual happens are two very different things.

Nevertheless, when I tripped across a reference for an award for a “hot” new magazine called Garden & Gun, my logic meter failed to restart.

Garden and Gun.

Garden and Gun.

Sorry, just trying to get the logic meter to restart.

While I have said that I fully intend to go hunting, these are really not two topics that I would think normally go together, unless their intention is to continuously publish stories about deer, squirrels and rabbits and managing them in your garden.

Their website says that this is a magazine that embodies the essence of “21st Century Southern America”. Really?!? What is it you people do down South? Topiaries of Uzis? I can see the articles now, “Getting a Bang out of Making Bean Pole Tepees from Unused Shotguns”.

I alternately have visions of a 65-year-old elegant southern belle grandma stalking rabbits in her back yard with a double barrel shotgun while wearing camo gardening gloves and apron to a redneck good ol’ boy with missing teeth pruning a rose bush with shots from a .22 (for the light pruning, of course).

Now, I am sure that this is not the case. Probably the target audience is a genteel gentleman who tends dahlias and participates in quail hunts. But the words Garden and Gun seemingly should not go together. I want to know what night of drinking lead to even imagining that there was an audience for this?

I have yet to read the magazine (but if you work there, feel to send me one), but I have to say that just the title may cause me to see if I can find a copy at the local Borders bookstore. Maybe there will be some good tips to help with ridding my garden of those damn deer.

By the way, I am not the only garden blogger perplexed by this:

• Garden and Gun, I kid you NOT!
• Garden & Gun - wha???
• Garden & Gun Magazine (No Joke!)

I am a big fan of the show the Victory Garden. Mostly because I am part of the rare 10% who does not pay for their television and when you only have 7 stations to choose from (8 if I spoke Spanish), your gardening television choices are limited.

This season sees a new host, Jamie Durie,  and he is Australian. Which perturbs me a bit. It is not to say that there is anything wrong with Ozzies, it is just they seem to be taking over the home improvement and gardening world here in the US.  Don’t they have gardens and houses where they live?

I have actually known quite a few Ozzies in my life. I traveled around Europe tortoise style for awhile and in that circle, Ozzies are abundant. Never in that time did they give me the impression of being a nationality steeped in knowledge about all things green and home building. Honestly, the impression I got was they were a nationality steeped in beer and knowledgeable about how to always find a good time and dodging the local police when a good time got to be a little too good. But those are stories for another kind of blog.

Part of what is bothering me is I am not so sure that Mr. Durie could have told you what a Victory Garden was prior to being hired by the show. It is an American idea that even to this day has influenced our home gardens.

So why is it that Australians are taking over the airwaves? Everything from my gardening shows to hawking as seen on TV stuff. Well, one can not deny that they are hot. Mr. Durie is no exception. And this is evidenced by the fact that the man made a living once based only on his looks… top to bottom… as a, ahem, male entertainment professional. Trust me, I am sure he made a good living at it (WARNING: you do not want to click on this link if you are at work). Rumors abound that this is a last ditch effort by the Victory Garden to save the show. Which saddens me. It is sad that gardening shows don’t do well on television and sad that they feel a sexy Australian guy is the only thing that can save the show.

I would say that if The Victory Garden goes off air, I will be forced to get cable, but I hear that the G in HGTV is gone as well. So that is it. I will just have to go insane in the dark winter month without gardening anything to sustain me.  That could be dangerous.

This morning, on Yahoo, one of the featured videos caught my eye.  ABC News did a piece on a group of quirky young NYU students how have devised a way for your plants to CALL you on your PHONE when they need something.  The technology has been dubbed Botanicalls. Not enough water and the plant calls to complain. Too much water and the plant calls to complain. Not enough sun and the plant calls to complain. Does like what you made for dinner and the plant calls to complain… no, wait. That’s my kids that do that. Yeesh… Close enough though. It is like adopting another kid or something.

Of course, on the other side, when you do something right for your plant, it will call you for that too. So, your plant could be calling like 20-30 times a day, if you are attentive enough or not attentive enough. Add it a jealous streak and I think you have a being that is on par with some of my ex-boyfriends in terms of annoyance and intelligence levels.

But all kidding aside, this is a bit odd. Brilliant but odd. And you know what is more unusual? This team used the Internet to make this technology possible. PHP and open source technology were major components. So great… Now the internet not only knows about that smutty, little site you like to visit, but it can now know if you are prone to killing your plants.  There is no privacy any more, ladies and gentlemen.

In fact, the technology is so easy to use and recreate, that these guys (well, mostly gals actually) are not even going to be packaging these puppies up and reselling them on late night television for only $19.95. Instead, they are going to give the whole thing away. The team is planning on releasing a DIY kit here shortly. If you are interested, you can sign up for an email that will let you know when the kit is available.

I don’t know if I will be putting this together or not. Knowing my luck, the plants would probably just call to gossip about what the hollyhocks did last night, who is pollinating with who and who they would like to be pollinating next. Really, folks, that is way too much information about my plants’ personal lives.

I have to admit, I have attended more than a few fetish balls in my lifetime. I actually have no interest in the fetish activities themselves, I just really like industrial music played at high volume on a good sound system and over a very large dance floor. Just about the only venue to find this particular combination of things here in Cleveland is at a fetish ball. Besides, it is just a night of deliciously fun people watching as well, and that is never a bad thing.

But, my personal life aside, as I was again marveling over my baby tomatoes in the veggie garden today, it occurred to me that my vegetable beds are very similar to a fetish ball (sans industrial music, 6 inch stilettos and whips… that is unless my vegetables have contracted a DJ and some dominatrix without my knowledge, in which case I need to have a little talk with my vegetables).

Stay with me here…

First of all, in a vegetable garden, there is all kinds sex going on just right there in the open. There are boy flowers and girl flowers and flowers that have both boy and girl parts. In the vegetable garden, plants get pollinated by creatures not of their kind, some are pretty, some are comical, some are mean, and occasionally some are just plain scary. But they all wear fascinating costumes. All of them may be pollinated by dozens of partners in the course of the party. A vegetable garden is a riot of plants that have different ways in which they get pollinated, but anyone who wants to get pollinated will be pollinated.

See, not so far off from a fetish ball after all, is it?

It was a chance of fate that had brought her into my life and it was cruel fate that had taken her away again. It had been eight long months since Old Man Winter and his heavies had snuffed her light and I had missed her every day since.

I shoulda’ know better than to fall in love with a dame like that. She was nothing but a drifter and no good ever comes from those types. Pretty faces are a dime a dozen in this garden and if you don’t make nice to Old Man Winter when he sets his eyes on you, than no pretty face in the world will keep you from facing the cold hard consequences.

Ours had been a short affair, but it was certainly one to treasure. Tall and slim, with curves all over the place. God just doesn’t build creatures like that too often.

Then one day, she went all cold on me. Wasn’t too long after, that this garden did what this garden always does to the pretty ones.

So eight long months and I am still holding a flame for her. Go ahead, call me a fool. Tell me that dead dames are not something I need to be romanticizing over. But even we tough gardeners sometimes have a soft spot.

But that’s not what has got me talkin’ about her today. You see, I was walking past the corner where she use to live and I see this little sprout. You know the kind, not much past the gangly age but still not quite filled out. And I swear that this little thing is the spitting image of her.

Then I see another one and another one. Wouldn’t you know it but the broad had gone and gotten herself knocked up and these were her tots. She must have thought that I’d have turn tail and run if she told me and that’s why she gave me the cold shoulder.

I stopped by her resting place and told her that her little girls are growing up fine. At least as fine as can be in this garden. Who knows, maybe these gals will figure out a way of making it without having to give in to Old Man Winter.

Let’s play a game. It’s called Guess that Lawn. Take a look at these pictures I took of lawns in my neighborhood and guess which one is mine.

Hmm… Is this Hanna’s lawn?

Nope. Not this lawn.

Is this Hanna’s lawn?

Nope, Not this lawn either.

Could this be Hanna’s lawn?

Not even close.

How about this lawn? Could this be Hanna’s lawn?

Angngngng. This is not Hanna’s lawn either.

Surely, Hanna would have a lawn like this.

Nope, wrong again.

This lawn has got to be Hanna’s lawn.

Wring, wrang, wrong. Not Hanna’s lawn.

Maybe this lawn?

Yeah, right. Hanna just wishes. This one is Hanna’s super gardening neighbor, Kristen.

Oh… Um… Gosh… This is the last one.
Is this what Hanna’s lawn looks like? Have I mentioned that the neighbors have sent around a petition to have me lynched on the grounds that I don’t fit in well with the whole suburban lawn mindset?

Come one! Come all! It’s the Hanna’s Garden Oddities Show! Two pence a visitor and we promise that you will see sights that will make your very tailbone shudder.

What you see before you is a freak of nature that is so awful… so terrible… that gardeners the world ’round would shudder to see it. We will tell you that women faint of constitution and anyone pregnant or suffering from a heart condition should best avert their eyes now.

Behold, I present to you the beast known as The Dandelion Hydra.

*Shock* *Gasp* *Horror*

Ladies and gentleman, contain your panic. If you will just calm yourself, we can hope to keep this monstrosity contained.

This gruesome example of Mother Nature gone wildly wrong was found by one brave man while performing mandatory lawnscaping duties. He saw this abomination and wisely ran for the nearest expert… his wife.

Never before has such a abomination of nature been seen, at least not in my yard. Hopefully a misshapen creation of this design will never be seen again.

Remember fair citizens, you saw it here first. At Hanna’s Garden Oddities Show!

I am thankful I don’t live in South Africa… where they have slugs bigger than my hand!

I was directed to a rather odd article in the New York Times about the fact that worms will be the end of the forest as we know it, or some other some similar media derived disaster.

But I know a very simple solution to this problem. It is one that has worked for centuries. We should simply create a demand of earthworms as a delicacy. The problem outlined in the article would be resolved in just a few decades.

I know what you are thinking. “Earthworms! Eat earthworms! Only if you do it first.”

This, I do not have a problem with. I have not only eaten earthworms, I know how to prepare and serve them. When I was in college, I was forced to take a speech class with a professor who was apparently fed up with teaching and sought only to to make everyone as miserable as she was. One of our assignments was to give an informational speech on any subject we wanted provided we could find 3 sources to support it. Boy, I was never happier to be able to participate in the fledgling beginning of the internet because I found 3 sources online on how to prepare and serve fried earthworms.

I went down to my local bait shop and bought a container of worms. I soaked them in milk. I squeaked out the gut contents. And then in front of the class, I prepared, served and ate fried worms.

Oddly enough, I got a D on the speech. It was a flawless presentation but apparently the professor felt that the material was inappropriate. Can’t for the life of me see why.

Gee, we eat shrimp and lobster and they are really no more than seafaring bugs. Heck, we even consider them to be delicacies. What’s the difference between on invertebrate and another. And for the record, earthworm tastes alot like calamari.

If we were to make a nation-wide effort to turn earthworms into a delicacy, we could turn the whole earthworm overpopulation issue around. Market it as a good side dish to have with beer and serve it alongside peanuts. We would need a good spin doctor on this, but I think we could make it work. It would not be the first species we ate into extinction.

In the mean time, I will just say… “Do your part and just start eating worms!”

Like 90% of the residents of the 12 states that participate in the Mega Millions lottery, I bought a lottery ticket today. The other 10% are either dying in hospitals and unable to express their desire to buy a ticket or living in Florida for the winter and were unable to buy a ticket.

Now, I normally don’t buy lottery tickets. But today I bought one. Really, I only bought a chance. God knows, with my chances being 1 in 176,145,920 of winning, I didn’t really buy a chance to win. What I really bought from my friendly neighborhood lotto and liquor dealer was the chance to dream.

Now most people, when asked what they would do if the won some overly enormous lottery, gush on and on about how they would open a home for wayward kittens or honest politicians or other members of society who just don’t get a fair shake in life.

But as I don’t really think I am going to win, I am certainly not going to waste my chance at dreaming by thinking how I could help other people. If I won the lottery (which I know I won’t) I would spend every last little penny on me and my gardening.

The first order of business would be to buy a new garden. Granted, I love my little postage stamp garden, but bigger is better, especially when you can afford to buy… I mean, hire a few dozen landscapers to help you out.

I have always had an eye on Martha Stewart’s Skylands estate, once home to the Ford family. She paid a mere $5 million for it and I am sure that I could convince her to part with it for a few million more. Let’s face it, I would have money to spare.

Then again, it pays to shop around. I could just pick up the latest Open Days Directory and do a little window shopping, so to speak, and have my pick of the best private gardens in the United States.

I would most defiantly have to become eccentric. One just can not go through the shock of becoming richer than 50% of Paris Hilton’s closest friends without experiencing some sort of mental damage.

And in my newly found eccentric ways, I would build gigantic garden decor. 30 foot gnomes, bird baths suitable for pterosaurs and a plastic flamingo that would frighten any life loving alligator.

And a green house. Aw hell, I might just stop living in a real house and just take up permanent residence in a green house. You know what they say about glass houses though… The maid just has fit when it comes time to wash the windows.

I suppose I would have to do some acts of charity. Let me see, what would I do? I would make my garden a private hunting reserve for deer hunters. I would create a refuge for abandoned and abused house plants. And no school or educational garden within a 100 mile radius would be without plants and supplies for their projects.

Yep, there are alot of things that I could do with $370 million dollars. And for the low, low price of a dollar, I get to dream about what I would do with it all when (not gonna happen) I win.