Hi Gypsichic!

The forum always gets fairly quiet in mid-summer, so it is good to see you back!

All is well here. We made it through the rains and floods and most of the garden survived. We have been getting tons of tomatoes, peppers and herbs. We had a huge harvest of onions and leeks. The deer and raccoons got the corn. The rains and wet soils killed the sweet potatoes and green beans. The okra is fine, although is has been slow to grow and produce--it doesn't like the excessively wet soil. We are getting pumpkins, winter squash and squash. It was a great year for peaches, plums, apricots and blackberries.

The lawn, shrubs, vines, trees, groundcovers, perennials and annuals have mostly benefitted from the heavy rains and cooler temps. We did lose 1 young oak tree and one sweet autumn clematis vine--both apparently drowned. The wildflowers have been blooming like crazy, and it has been hard to keep up with all the mowing. Weeds, of course, have loved the excess moisture and coolness as well.

The roses have struggled with black spot, but still have provided lovely blooms.

I still have a lot of plants that I never got into the ground in the spring because the ground was waterlogged. They include shrubs, perennials, annuals, peppers and tomatoes. Some of them are slowly going into the ground on cooler, cloudier days. Others remain in their containers, anxious to have a real home.

The fire dept. has kept us busy, but not as busy as the wildfire season of 2005-2006. Mostly we have worked a lot of auto accidents and lots of flooding-related calls, including preventatively pumping water away from houses before it could get inside and flood them. We have had a few structure fires and a few farm equipment fires, but it has been a quieter year than we expected--only 109 calls so far (although, I admit, that is a high number of calls for a volunteer dept.).

I have been on a homemade ice-cream making binge, and that has been fun, though fattening! We have made 8 or 10 different flavors this summer, and Vanilla with Oreo Cookies has been the big fave.

I have just about finished all the chores on the July Garden Chore list thread that I posted next week, and am ready to dive into the August chore list.

While driving through Thackerville today, I noticed that school enrollment is going on this week and the kids there start school next week. It makes you wonder where summer went.

We have a new dog, rescued from a Gainesville shelter following the June floods, and a new kitten who was found in our pasture following rains and flooding. We think the kitten may have washed down from higher ground somewhere. He was skin and bones, covered in fleas and had a mouth infection. We have had him 3 weeks now, he is fat and sassy, his mouth infection has been treated and has cleared up, and the fleas are mostly gone (he is too little and has been too sick to dip, so we're still working on that). We didn't need another dog or cat....but they needed a home.

I need to mow and weedeat about 4 acres...desperately, but it rained yesterday so the grass is still too wet to cut today.

The flowers have been gorgeous--both the native wildflowers in our pastures and the perennials/annuals that we plant and maintain in the 'civilized' zone around our house.

It has been a wonderful year for birds, butterflies, moths, frogs, turtles, dragonflies and bunnies. We have seen fewer than usual bobcats, foxes, coyotes and other predators. Lots of non-venomous snakes have been hanging around, but very few venomous ones, so that has been nice.

What's new with you?????

Dawn

Gypsichic! Where have you been? We are all going to have to get together this fall again. My daughter made your wonderful salsa for a church event she went to and everyone LOVED it!

My time has been mostly spent on the Butterfly Forum and raising butterflies and moths. This year, so far, I have raised:

Hackberry Emperors
Question Marks
Red Admirals
Black Swallowtails
Silvery Checkerspots
Bordered Patches
Pipevine Swallowtails
Giant Swallowtails
Buckeyes
Gulf Fritillaries
Sleepy Oranges
Nessus Sphinx
Eumorpha Sphinx
Walnut Sphinx

Whew! It keeps me busy cleaning cages and containers, hunting and gathering eggs and baby caterpillars, fertilizing the plants to make them grow MORE foliage for the cats, photographing them, gathering food and feeding them, and doing the garden chores like weeding and watering, too.

I'm gonna have seeds before long of some host plants if anyone might want some. I'll post a message when the seeds are ready.

Other than that, I read a lot, too. Butterfly books mostly.

Good to see you pop back in here!

Susan

glad to hear the salsa was a hit! i was just thinking today i need to make another batch.

i've been busy with life........never enough hours in the day it seems.

there seems to be more butterflies around our place this year but i haven't seen one hummer this year! and we usually have 4-5 regulars

i've missed watching them this year

yes we will have to arrange another gab n' eat meeting when it cools down

Hey gypsichic!!

The only casualty from the construction guys was one of DH's "Blue Haired Trolls" (Blue Fescue to the rest of us LOL!)

Life has been wonderful here. The little man is growing - as well as his vocabulary. Dad's a sailor and talks like one too. The little man has picked up a few naughty words, but now he knows which ones are naughty and won't say them anymore. When one of his sissies make him mad he'll come and tell me to "call her a naughty word!" LOL!

We have one little hummer that visits everyday. He's getting more brave around us. At first he'd take off if one of us came outside to see him, but now he'll go about his business and ignore us. Yesterday he perched on a lower tree branch for a while, and I walked right up to him. I was close enough that I could have reached out and touched him!

The little man is much more facinated with the butterflies though. Lately, we've been seeing a bunch of them. He likes to chase them around the yard, but from time to time I can get him to sit still and just watch as the butterfly nectars on a flower.

I was thinking about your salsa the other day! I bought a couple of avacados to throw into a salad, and for some reason I was reminded of your salsa! Yummy stuff!!! I'm headed to the grocery store tomorrow, I think I'm gonna have to make some of that this weekend. I hope I can make it as well as you did!!

I think we're winding down on the projects for awhile. There are a few things that need to be done, but they can wait until it gets cooler outside. We want to add a flower bed to the middle of the front yard, I need to rake out all the old mulch and regrade the slope of the foundation beds, and DH needs to rebuild the 10' gate that we put in. It's sagging sooooo bad. It's the first gate that he's ever built, maybe the 2nd one will work better. :)

Glad to see your back, hope you're having a good summer. Looking forward to seeing you again in the fall!

Courtney

Hi, again - I'm getting 2 hummers at my feeder and in the garden - maybe they're yours? They fly all over the neighborhood, I'm sure, and probably to your house, too, since you're only about 4 blocks from me.

That's pitiful isn't it? We're only 4 blocks away, but have so much to do, we can't make time to visit. I wouldn't want you to see my garden right now anyway - it's kind of a hodgepodge mess, but the butterflies love it!

Blue haired Trolls, Courtney? Heeheeheeheehee. Love it. They do look like trolls. I had some one time, and then I also had some Sedge that look like the hair of a troll doll. One day Kenna and I put rubber bands on the leaf strands to look like they had ponytails! LOL! She thought that was pretty cool. They died last year in the drought. Sedges needs a bit of water.

Susan

i spoke too soon! Sat morning i no more than got "I have yet to see any hummers this year" out of my mouth while talking to hubby on the porch during coffee when all the sudden there's a hummer hovering at the feeder!

we saw several during the time we were out there

we're definitely gonna have to schedule some time susan - i've probably passed you a 100x on the road and never knew it...........lol

OMG! I have had 4 hummers for the last few days. Are yours the ones with the irridescent green on their back? I've been putting out the feeder, but they really love the flowers like the Hibiscus coccineus (Swamp Mallow), zinnias, 'Black and Blue' Salvia (a big hit), Firebush (hamelia patens), Tropical Milkweed, verbena bonariensis, passion flowers, and honeysuckle. They were so cute yesterday morning. I got out about 6:30 a.m. and they were all in the garden playing like crazy. They were chattering (I didn't know they talked!!), batting each other around, swooping and darting, they were going nuts! I've never had more than 1 hummer EVER, and I'm just so thrilled about it.

Anyway, if yours are the same species as mine, do you know what they are? I'm thinking female Ruby Throats. I thought at first they were black-chinned, but they don't have a black chin. I saw a black chin once upon a time, and these did not look the same. They could be juveniles and just haven't developed the markings yet, so I'm not sure. But, you'd think that among 4 hummers, one would be male, wouldn't you?

They are down right friendly little things, too. Fly right up to me about 2' in front of my face like they're checking things out!

What's up in your garden right now?

Susan

yep! same ones probably

and yes i think they are juvie ruby throats

i have my feeds hanging on the porch and they chase each other alot...........they are a hoot!!!

last year we had adult ruby throats too

my stuff is mostly green at this point.........mums have been blooming - my jackmanii clem looks sickly right now but has new growth - i'm hoping its the heat cuz it will bloom some in the fall.

my coneflowers/hiscus are drawing the butterflyies, hostas are blooming and ocasionally my hydrangeas will put off a bloom or two being they are new i don't expect much yet.

I've been catching stuff on sale to fill in the holes - i've got alot of space still