We got a big quarter inch of rain this morning and it's icky humid.

More rain please. Please.

The grass is turning brown and is crunchy. The ground is cracking.

Finally I have an abundance of ripe tomatoes. Tomorrow might be a salsa making day. BTW, has anyone made salsa from SunGolds?

Some of the plants have new, tiny fruit believe it or not, so I will leave them alone. Last year, it worked. They rebounded in the fall and gave fruit until our first freeze. They look bad though. Not pretty at all.

I've found a few red and black bugs on the tomatillos and tomatoes. The bug is familiar, but I can't remember what it is. I'm sure it's a baddie.

In other news, marching season is firing up. I was almost tempted to start carrot seed, but told myself "no". Just don't. Not now. We cleaned marching hats yesterday. Those hat boxes haven't been opened since OBA last October. You can imagine the smell in some of them. Happy to say, I found Ethan's and his wasn't too terrible.

Ethan made it back from NM with a slight cold and bad sunburn. Why don't the men in my life take sun protection seriously?!

We pulled the large 10'x10'x6' dog kennel into the chicken yard to convert into another nursery area. Percy's old crate will probably be the nighttime/safe/nest area inside the kennel. But it also needs to be converted--hardware cloth added and such. Hoping to have that done this week. Rosa and baby need out of the shed. I'm ready to get that cleaned up again. We tried to put her in with Dolly and Stormy, but she was awful. Trying to fight Dolly and even got onto Stormy once. I put her out with the main flock to stretch her legs. They (and she) were trying to fight and such. Why are they so difficult? The baby was left in the nursery, so that wasn't even a factor.

Dawn, I was thinking about your chicken difficulties. Would a chicken yard work for you with your future flock. I know you're taking a break for awhile. We used plastic fencing and t-posts. It wasn't very expensive--maybe a little over $100. We didn't have to use t-posts on the west side because that is already fenced, but chicken wire was added to the bottom portion so the girls wouldn't slip under. Of course, it doesn't protect from hawks, but it would keep them from running into the woods...and would slow down any other day time predator. They would be locked in their coop at night, of course, so night time predators wouldn't be a concern. It's working very well for us so far. Maizey has gone over twice, but she is a brown leghorn and I didn't read the breed description before getting her. LOL. I like her, though. She is amusing in the way that Stella is amusing. Speaking of Stella, she is thinking about going broody, but I keep pulling her off the nest and she's not as insistent as the other two. I've read that the Minorcas who do go broody aren't the most attentive mothers. And I really don't want to hatch anymore eggs right now. We have 15 chickens and that is enough for us. Hoping that Jules and Stormy are girls. Could I get so lucky?

That is my update.

I gave away a lot of produce last week, Madge is in California and I did not want to deal with it or have if in the way when she gets back.

We got a nice rain this morning, but not near enough.

I will get back later, I have a little Yorkie at my feet telling me that he is starving to death.

Well, I got back. I went over and checked my wildlife garden and the rain really helped. My neighbor has a produce farm/market and he said that we got about .5" of rain, I was thinking maybe a little more, but still not near what we needed. Yesterday I pulled a 9 shank pasture cultivator through an area where I want to plant turnips. My neighbor ask me to do the same for his cucumber patch ( about an acre) . we both are happy about how the soil took in the water. I dug down about 5 inches where I had broken the soil surface and the soil was still moist, which was a big improvement as to what it was.

I really enjoy my wildlife area. The birds are going nuts over the millet and Elbow rye. I am thinking about planting some elbow rye along the yard fence and letting it go to seed so I can set on the deck and watch the birds. I can't walk very well so I ride the tractor about everywhere I go, but I can't get very close to the birds that way. I may try tossing seeds along the fence to see if the birds well come in like they do in my wildlife area. I doubt that they will because of the lack of cover. I may just have to build a blind over there and take my binoculars to be able to be a bird watcher.

Did a lot of trimming yesterday, which resulted in a big bowl of green cherry tomatoes. Hopefully they'll ripen over the next few days. And I took all the ripe ones and made slow roasted tomatoes. Utter deliciousness! The recipe I found said to cut them in half, but I think next time I'll try leaving them whole. Can you roast peppers in the oven safely? I learned the hard way not to do it in the microwave; i about killed Cliff and myself from the fumes!

And that's the whole of today's gardening updates.

Haha. . . Larry, that reminds me. This morning at church, a gardening friend and I were saying how much we appreciated the rain. (We had an embarrassment of riches with regard to rain the past two days.) I said my gardens were sad, but the butterflies and hummingbirds are happy. So he asked if I was a bird watcher. Stumped me. I stammered something like, "Well, I am not a 'birder,' but we certainly spend more than our fair share of time watching the birds. And even have binoculars, and spend a fair amount of time trying to figure out who's who." LOL. All he wanted was to share with me how weird it was, and how strange, that he spotted three small hawks on one branch kinda high up in his yard. I asked what kind, sparrow hawk? He wasn't sure, but just thought it was weird that the 3 were right there together. We agreed they must have been teenagers just setting out on their own. LOL Y'all think? So, Larry...............watching and identifying the birds has been a lot of fun for us. Just sayin'.

PS: I don't generally prefer small dogs. But the ONE dog I've ALWAYS loved besides the Australian shepherds and German Shepherds are Yorkies. I'd have a Yorkie in a NY minute. I adore them. They're tiny dogs, but not nervous or yappers. Love em. Plus they're cuter than cute.

I love that you appreciate the wildlife.

I am going to turn into a reader and watcher of our gardening forum for his fall. I might have things to say about the weather, conditions of the gardens, questions about the spring growing season, enthusiasm about which seeds to order. But I am resigning from gardening this fall. Gonna paint.

Dawn, that was an amazing informational introduction for this week, and THANK you. You're one of my gardening Bibles.

I'm throwing the used-up plants into the empty veggie beds. I even threw the corn stalks in there. Asked this question yesterday but we're on a new post. Will cornstalks decompose sufficiently by next Feb? Should they be in there?

I was googling "cats with stump tails" today. LOL! I have concluded that Tiny Dude is a mongrel (probably) offspring of the American Bobtail, original founding member, Yodi. He's a cute kitty. Even more so because of his short little tail. Personality plus. Spunky, feisty, fearless. And oh, so loving and outgoing. I daresay, all of us--Tom, Jerry, Titan, Garry Dean and I, are charmed. A very very good third kitten to have if one must have three cats. Dawn, remember when I was fearful of having two cats? LOL He is TROUBLE, but fun trouble. Today. But he's been snoozing for the past couple hours, so now I have the other three critters in my face at the moment. I am feeling so guilty. GDW doesn't even like cats. Or want pets.

Rain. . . unbelievable. We'd been missing rains near us for the past month. Between Friday night and this afternoon, we got 3". We had a sneaky very localized rain blow through yesterday morning, one inch, that none of our Mesonet stations got; a quarter of an inch yesterday afternoon when many around us got an inch; and we had 1 3/4 inch in the rain gauge this morning after it had rained for about 3 hours, to my best guess.

You can see he doesn't like cats. And obviously cats love him.

I'm experiencing blister beetles now, though they aren't extreme yet. I try to hunt them down every evening, before bed time, and hit them with NEEM oil. Seems that NEEM causes them to stop eating and to decline.

Yesterday I was weeding after that lovely rain. I kept encountering blister beetles, and I can't resist using my fingers to crush their little heads, whenever I see them and don't have a sprayer in my hand. This is risky, as it is so very easy to get a bit of juice from their abdomen on ones hand and accidentally wipe it onto another part of the body. This happens to me at least once a year.

What I did to avoid this, yesterday, was I carried around a small bucket of water. Then, after every surprise encounter with a blister beetle, I rinsed my hands. It worked. I didn't get up in the morning with any blisters on me. Here's a picture of a blister I got, several weeks ago, and then a picture of how it looked a few days later. Took over a week to heal.

Our sweet potatoes are looking very good this year. I have about 100' of row under plastic with drip tape and about 25' without. I have had to water the 25' several times, but it has the advantage of being placed right where our cat hangs out the most. So, hopefully, that row will be pretty immune to rodent damage. I'm working hard to keep the weeds down around the other rows, as last year we didn't even get roots for eating. We lost a couple varieties, even, due to rodents. I will start harvesting in September, to hopefully head off most of the rodent damage.

Here's a picture of the 25' row. I planted this row on June 9, and had to replant it about three times, over the course of two weeks, as our livestock guardian dogs thought that the freshly worked soil was a great place to play! Even so, we should get a really good crop from them.

Larry, bird watching is so relaxing and entertaining. Even with chicken birds.

Jen, thanks for the warning about peppers in the microwave! Yikes. lol My hot peppers aren't very hot this year. Wondering if the sweets and hots need to be planted in different beds.

Nancy, I actually prefer smaller dogs. They are so much easier for me. If they're naughty, I just pick them up. They're easier to bathe...and just everything. However, I love the idea of a larger dog...a companion dog. . I just haven't had much luck with larger dogs. They've cost us so much time and money. AND if there was a trade off--I could cuddle with them, relax with them, take them with me on car rides, play fetch.....anything! It would be worth it. My dogs are just so difficult. Josi pulled off her cord this morning. I can't catch her. She just stands in the yard staring obsessively where a couple of bunnies live. And if she catches a glimpse of them, barks insanely for hours. I really love and admire people who don't care if their dogs chew up furniture and carpet, scratch up doors, ruin window screens...because they love their dogs that much. I wish I was that way...but I care. If I buy a new door, I don't want it ruined. Kane has the look of my ideal dog...and if he could only relax, he would be sleeping on my bed every night, groomed every month., taking trips with me. As soon as I have a little extra money, I am going to CBD plus and picking up some special doggie treats for them---see if it chills them out. After these two pass on to doggie heaven, it's doubtful I'll get another dog. If I do, it will be a very specific sort of dog. I'm not doing this again. It's too heartbreaking for me. I'm glad these two have a warm/cool place to sleep, daily walks, food to eat, but I want so much more for them.

That is an adorable picture of Garry. I'm so glad he's feeling better.

Ooo...blister beetles. I should look those up. I'm bad about smashing things with my bare hands...usually try to use a leaf between the bug and my fingers though. Can blister beetles be red? I'm wondering if that is what was on my tomatillos and tomatoes.

We got about and inch and a quarter of rain. I'll take it. Was hoping for 2 or 3 inches...but I'm glad we got a nice soaking.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I'm watching an Express Credit auto commercial and Ethan's friends' dad's face is on "Bob Ross" (the painter) and it freaked me out a little. lol

Everyone enjoy the cooler day. I am hoping to work on the dog kennel/chicken run this afternoon.

We got rain, but not much compared to the rest of you---a smidgen over a half-inch. It isn't drought-busting rain by any means, but it is better than no rain at all. The cooler weather is nice. We'd had a long string of 100-degree days here, (even when our Mesonet station had been staying only in the upper 90s), including a high temp yesterday of 100 with a heat index of 105, so the prospect of having a couple of days with highs only in the 80s is wonderful. It was starting to feel like we'd never have a cool day again. We'll be back at average temperatures for early August by the weekend, but we'll enjoy the cooler weather until then. I wish we'd gotten more rain---that half-inch won't even begin to close up the cracks in the ground, but it ought to keep our fire danger lower for a few days at least. I am hoping the rain means we won't be out at fires day after day after day like we were last week. Our firefighters and their support personnel need a break.

Jennifer, We have three fenced chicken runs with fencing roofs over them. The chickens, who are used to free-ranging, just hate being in there and when I leave them in there, they are miserable. If we had chickens that never ever had free-ranged and were used to being confined, they'd be fine with it, but once your poultry is used to free-ranging, they hate being penned up and it causes them extreme stress. If we ever have chickens again after the predators kill the rest of the current batch (which seems inevitable), the new poultry never ever will free-range. That way we can keep them penned up in their chicken runs and they'll be content. I do want to replace the fencing roots with real roofs made of lumber and shingles because the plentiful wildlife here will walk on top of the fencing roofs (right in front of us, in the case of ring-tailed cats in the evenings and bobcats just whenever) trying to find a weak spot they can break through.

I think folks who live in civilized areas just have no idea what the level of predators is like here along the Red River, which sits less than a quarter-mile from our back property line. On any given night, you can shine a flashlight into our woodland, just 15 yards from the house, and see all kinds of predator eyes staring back at you---coyotes, bobcats, foxes, feral hogs, ring-tailed cats, possums, coons, weasels, ferrets, spotted skunks, striped skunks, feral dogs and feral cats, etc. Some years we have a cougar here and there, which is terrifying. Everybody is hungry and everybody has to eat. It is a jungle out there, just a short distance from our house. I blame the Red River bottom lands for a lot of it because those areas are so wild and are virtual wildlife havens, until the wild things eat up all the food available to them there, and then they venture up out of the bottom lands into adjacent areas like ours on higher ground and start feeding on whatever small wildlife we have like rabbits and squirrels, pets, fawns, deer if they can catch them, farm animals, etc. It is a constant battle just to keep ourselves and our pets safe. With the chickens free-ranging and not coming to us when called like the cats and dogs do, it is impossible to keep the chickens safe at all times.

I use Sungolds mixed in with other tomatoes in both cooking and canning. They work just fine. If you use Sungolds (or any other yellow, orange or gold tomatoes) in a whole batch with no other colors of tomatoes mixed in, they can turn brown....like baby poop.....when cooked, so I don't advise making sauce or salsa only from SunGolds, unless you can cook slowly at very low heat.

Oh, and chickens act like that because it is what they do---it is their nature and you cannot and will not change it. You can, in the future, choose breeds known to be more docile, but they still will try to establish a pecking order, and all of them want to be at the top of the pecking order. They're all about the pecking order and survival of the fittest, so they're always jockeying for position because every hen wants to be at the top of the pecking order, especially if you don't have a rooster. When you have a rooster, they know he is the boss. Without a rooster, the chickens (or at least some of them) fight to be the dominant one so they can be at the top of the pecking order and can be the boss. That's just how it is.

Your black and red bugs might be the nymphs of leaf-footed bugs. If so, they are very bad.

Larry, I hope Madge enjoyed her trip, and I'm glad you got some rain. I enjoy watching the birds and grow lots of food for them, have feeders, feeding areas, birdbaths, splashing puddles, etc. My garden always is full of birds, which suits me just fine as they eat lots of insects.

Jen, You can roast or dehydrate peppers in the oven, but safely? I suppose that depends on how hot they are and also depends on what sort of kitchen range hood you have. A range hood that is vented to carry the fumes outdoors is a life saver when you're roasting or dehydrating hot peppers, whether in the oven or the microwave. For years, our then-range had a Dehydrate mode as part of the convection oven, and I even dehydrated habanero peppers in it, but I preferred to be outdoors (and to have all animals outdoors too) while doing it. With other peppers like jalapenos, serranos, etc., that are lower in Scoville Heat Units than habaneros, it doesn't bother me to be indoors while they are in the oven, We do have a good range hood ducted to carry the fumes outdoors now (since the remodeling of the kitchen a few years back) and it makes a huge difference. Our previous range hood just recirculated the fumes.

Nancy, Cats have a way of working their way into the hearts of everyone---even people who don't like cats. I don't know how they do it, but they do.

Cornstalks, left intact, will not break down by next Spring. They'll turn brown and get rock hard, generally grow black mold on them in winter, and remain largely whole by Spring. Eventually they'll soften and decompose but it can take a year or longer. If you want them to break down more quickly, you need to shred them or chop them up with the mower or something.

George, You're braver than me. I won't get near blister beetles without long sleeves and gloves. Luckily, I don't see them often here, and I try to wipe them out the very day I first notice them. Y'all seem to have them worse in northeastern OK than we do down here.

Your garden looks great. I grew sweet potatoes in the ground last year (not in a raised bed lined with hardware cloth) and the rodents never touched them. I suspect I just got lucky because that is not typical.

Our final succession planting of southern peas is starting to bloom, so we'll be harvesting pink eye purple hull peas again soon. I probably won't plant another round of them since it is almost time to sow the seeds (later in August) of bush beans for fall. Much depends, of course, on whether we get rain again any time soon or have to go a month again without significant rainfall. I wish I were psychic and could know whether August-sown bush beans would have a chance this year. If this rain was all we're going to get for a long while and I could be sure of that, I wouldn't sow seeds of bush beans or anything else. I'm still on the fence about that.

Dawn

The news just reported that both Moore and Norman got over 2 inches of rain. We are in the middle and did not get over 2 inches.

Dawn, it sounds like your chicken frustration is equal to my dog frustration. In different ways, of course. I haven't personally experienced your level of predators, but you write so well that I almost feel like I have. Our chickens too were used to running the entire property (and the neighbors'), but after Brad's dog killed our RIR, they had to be supervised while out...that and the garden was started. I just thought maybe a large fenced area would make your hens think they were free ranging...but if they are used to the woods, I guess not.

We have a secure chicken pen/run with covered roof. They stay in that when I'm not home. The chicken yard is much larger (maybe 100' x 30') and less safe. A determined day predator, like a dog, could break in, but the fence would slow them down. Well, other than a hawk and possibly a snake. I would never leave them out at night though. We, too, have predators that come out at night.

I consider my hens to be free ranging, although they are technically not. They have lots of room to roam, though. Pretty sure our yard could easily handle twice as many hens. Probably more.

The salsa didn't get made. I had another dog issue to deal with instead.

What's everyone making for dinner?

I've been waiting to make this for 4 days, HJ! Yay! Shrimp and Grits, with some Andouille sausage tossed in. Buttery cheesy grits! Got a nice salad for GDW in case he doesn't appreciate the shrimp and grits as he should. LOL

Yeah, no way would I be tackling blister beetles without gloves! But I'm a big bug sissy anyway! What impressive battle scars, George!

I'm anxious for the dehydrator to get here. I have a bunch of Principe Borghese to try in it. Friend said this particular model worked find with his tomatoes. After he dehydrates them, he turns them into powder. I loved that idea and will probably do the same thing. He also brought my Malabar spinach, black and blue salvia, and bluebeard cuttings today. I'm anxious to see how the Malabar will do. I also took a few cuttings from it since it was pretty big. Looks like it should grow good from cuttings. Have you all grown it from cuttings?

And good to know about the hot pepper fumes. Will put on the porch if I do peppers. HJ, if you leave your jalapenos on longer, they'll get hotter. I let some of mine turn red. I find they get pretty hot that way, and slightly sweeter.

Your storm was just here, HJ. We only got half an inch, but oh, those winds! Whew! Knocked over some of the tithonia. Surprised it didn't get them all. And not too many little branches in the yard. You did good, trees. Temp dropped to 72 so far.

Speaking of cats working their way in, Dawn; saw something that flabbergasted me this morning. First Jerry and Tiny in 15-minute long wrestling match off and on. Every time Jerry was ready to quit, Tiny attacked anew. Then Jerry quit and went outside and then Tom took it up. They wrestled, and played tag, wrestled some more. Apparently Tiny has been fully adopted by them now. How very cool to watch.

Cornstalks removed, thanks much, Dawn.

The storm here was enough to knock out power in my neighborhood. Glad it’s not too hot to hang out inside. No eta on restoration yet. I can stay at mom‘s tonight if I need to, but hope I don’t have to. Waiting on pizza now. Glad I have a gas water heater, too.

What I thought wasn’t PEPH, apparently is, and I picked a few this evening. Will be just a handful, but how to cook them? Guess I’ll have them tomorrow now. And I have no idea what the plant I thought was PEPH now. It looks like a cucumber, but I know I planted bean shaped seeds there.

I don't know how you do it, Larry, Dawn, and the rest of you with more property than we have. We have just a little more than 1.5 acres, and ignore the back half for the most part, except when Garry uses the weed EATER/whipper snipper amidst the 70 or so oaks back there, about twice a summer. That leaves the front half, and only about .50 acre, probably subtracting the house and shop. Beds that most need to be tended to come to about 1400 sq ft, and then there are other beds that don't need as much attention. We have about 450' sq of "veggie" beds, but out in the other beds are some vegetables, many herbs, and flowers. I can't even keep up with THAT. The yard, as usual looks nothing like how I hoped it would look. And yet it's not ugly. Just not a glorious bloom-filled yard all season long. I need another 30 years here, please, God. That would only make me 100. We can do this. LOL

Meanwhile, what a glorious life. With all its disappointments and gifts. I'm excited about how well the veggie beds did this year--though not yet GREAT (cept for the tomatoes and peppers), at least sufficiently productive.

Got my dehydrator today and look forward to drying Principe Borghese, and lots of herbs. And maybe a cat or two.

Jennifer, I've been dealing with the chicken frustration for 20 years, but the predator population has gotten drastically worse since they built the whole WinStar Casino complex down near the river south of Thackerville....I think all the wildlife just keeps moving upstream, and that brings them to us. Every time someone buys land and clears it and builds something, more wildlife just floods this way because most of our acreage--the wooded part--has been left as natural as possible. I'm so tired of it. I enjoy having wildlife around, but not at the high populations we have now.

Ha! I cooked almost nothing for dinner. Tim was going straight from work last night to the monthly Fire Chiefs'/Emergency Mgmt meeting in town, so he was going to eat fast food on the way, since the drive from DFW to the meeting takes him pretty much 2 hours, and the meeting starts 2 hours after his official workday ends. If he doesn't eat in the car on the way, then he isn't going to have dinner until he gets home at 9 pm or so, which is too late. For myself, I went out to the extra freezer in the garage and found one of the TV dinners he buys to take to work on days his schedule leaves little time for a real lunch and brought it inside and cooked it and ate it. Tonight, though, we'll both be home, assuming I'm not out at a fire, so I'm going to cook a smoked chicken, southern peas and jalapeno poppers. Oh, and we'll have one of the icebox melons from the garden. I might make banana pudding because I have some bananas that are ripe and need to be used. Tonight's dinner definitely will be better than last night's and the peas, jalapenos and watermelon all will be from the garden.

Nancy, Your dinner sounds yummy and I hope Garry appreciated it. I'm not much of a shrimp or grits person, but Tim is because his family used to spend about 6-8 weeks every summer in an Airstream trailer camping at Myrtle Beach in the 1960s and 1970s, so he learned to enjoy good southern cooking back when he was just a little Yankee kid from Pennsylvania.

I'm glad the big guys decided to accept the tiny guy. They'll train him right, and I think that a younger cat keeps the older ones young, although Tom and Jerry aren't even that old yet that they would need the little fountain of youth kitten to reinvigorate them.

Dehydrating produce from the garden is fun. I used to do tons of it, but have slacked off on that in recent years. I've even dehydrated melons, which sounds better than it is. Oddly, when you pull out all the moisture from sweet cantaloupes and watermelons, it (of course) concentrates the sugar and makes them sickeningly sweet (to my tastebuds). So, nowadays, instead of dehydrating excess melons, I freeze them as melon balls. When we eat them, we thaw them out about halfway and eat them half-frozen which eliminates the problem you get with fully-thawed melons being mushy.

Larry, I love that you have the babies to watch. We have them across the street from us and I enjoy watching them.

Rebecca, I cook southern peas the southern way....after I shell them, I boil them with bacon, onion and a little hot pepper chopped up in them. Add some salt and pepper. Boil for 30-40 minutes until the beans are tender. There are many, many ways to cook them....some people use sausage instead of bacon or ham hocks. Some add okra. Some cook them with rice and use them more as a sort of casserole.

The Pink Eye Purple Hull Peas Festival features cooking contests and always publishes a few of the winning recipes on their webpage. Here's that website's recipe section:

Purple Hull Pea Recipes

Nancy, Most of our acreage is heavily wooded. We cleared enough of it, one tree at a time, weekend by weekend over a two-year period, to put up barbed wire fencing to keep the neighbor's cattle off our property when we first bought the land in 1997, but haven't done a whole lot with the woods since then. Everything grows so rampantly. For the first six or eight years, I spent all day every single day every winter clearing out unwanted undergrowth like poison ivy, greenbrier and cedar trees in the woods, but then we started having warmer and warmer winters and lots more winter wildfires beginning in 2005-06, and eventually I abandoned the effort to keep the underbrush cleared. There were too many snakes out in winter and I was gone to fires too often. So now we only maintain, via mowing and weed-eating, about three acres. It is enormously time-consuming, and when we get really busy, we do well just to keep the acre or acre and a half nearest the house mowed.

Yesterday was a horrible day and today will be a better day because the animals and I are mostly staying indoors. First of all, it wasn't cool at all. Something went horribly wrong with our weather and we had temperatures in the lower 90s and heat index values in the upper 90s. I was so disappointed. Maybe today's temperatures will be better, but I won't be out there in them.

First, Lucky had a snake encounter in the garden. I didn't see it, but she came and got me and was very agitated. If you can picture a cartoon cat with the eyeballs bulging out of the head in shock, and the cat tiptoeing through the garden in a very exaggerated manner, swinging its head from side to side with each step trying to find the snake again, trying to show the stupid human that there is a snake in there....that was Lucky. She was on the verge of panic and hysteria, and I've never seen her that way before. I picked her up and brought her indoors and returned to the garden only long enough to close the gate and latch it closed. We've had cats here long enough to know snake hysteria when we see it. It took her a long time to calm down after I got her indoors. It doesn't appear a snake bit her---I couldn't find any fang marks and she had no signs of swelling, etc., but she was an emotional wreck. That was Strike One.

About 2 hours later I let the two younger dogs (we call them 'the puppies' because they are so much younger than our very old dogs, but they are 4 years old now and not really puppies any more) out into the dog yard. They go out through a door in the laundry room on the north side of the house, and on a cool day, they'll stay out forever. Even on a hot day, they might stay out a half hour. Nope. After about three minutes they were hurling their bodies against the door, literally trying to break through the door to come in, which is something they've never done before. They never barked....just threw themselves against the door, so it wasn't a coyote or bobcat that scared them because they bark at those. I'm assuming they had a snake encounter, though again I couldn't find a snake (not like it would hang around waiting to be found though). Strike 2.

After Tim came home from his meeting after dark last night, he took Jet out through the mudroom door on the south side of the house. Jet was standing there focusing on his old dog task of using the bathroom one last time before bedtime when Tim saw a rattlesnake coiled up out in the grass in an open area about three feet from the dog. How Tim even saw that snake in the darkness is beyond me, but I'm glad he did. I could hear Tim shouting frantically at Jet to come back to him, and Jet (old and clueless) ignored him so Tim's voice got louder and more strident with every word. I know what that tone of voice means......so I grabbed the shot gun from the coat closet and met Tim at the door with it. I brought Jet in, Tim shot the timber rattler and peace and order were restored. Strike Three.

So, the real miracle of yesterday might have been that we could have had 3 or 4 animals bitten by snakes but did not. Because I am not stupid, I read the handwriting on the wall and decided that today might be a pretty good day for us to mostly stay indoors and avoid the snakes since they were out and moving around more than usual yesterday. We don't usually have timber rattlers in the side yard near the mudroom door. This is the side yard where we have the lawn furniture, the fire pit, and the girls' wading pool. It is heavily used and heavily traveled and not usually very snakey. Normally the timber rattlers are in and around my garden or on the edges of the adjacent woodland. Nothing about this year is normal though. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to add up three strikes and decide the snakes are out too much now.

So, today I will stay inside and chill. There's plenty of housework and laundry to be done since the weekend was mostly about grandchildren, and the 2018-19 HPS Seed catalog arrived yesterday, so there's that. It always is the first catalog to arrive that includes seeds new to the trade so I often can get a first glimpse at some of the new or upcoming AAS winners when it arrives as well as getting a first look at some of the new flowers and veggies we'll be seeing in some of the other catalogs when they arrive closer to Christmas. Since this catalog is more for commercial growers than home gardeners, I don't necessarily buy much from it since I don't need 250, 500 or 1000 seeds of any given tomato variety, for example, but I do make lists of things I find interesting and wait for them to appear in other seed catalogs (the owner of HPS owns Totally Tomatoes and other seed companies that sell to home gardeners in smaller seed quantities) later in the year.

Have a good day everyone.

Dawn

This morning weather has been so ideal for me. It almost brings me to tears. Something wonderful in my past, perhaps when I was very small, happened when the weather was just exactly like this morning. It felt like fall, with a cool breeze, but it's not cold. The sky went between sunny and overcast. The smell too.

As I was opening up the shop, a mouse ran in. Tom has been complaining about mice in the shop. We didn't have this problem when Charlotte was with us. She would walk the property and take care of Mouse Business. So, I shut the doors and took Finbar to the shop with me. He smelled around and hit on something a couple of times, but he's such a goofball. He's never been outside. Or even in the shop. Maybe the smell of a cat will help. I'm really not ready to let him out. We still need to finish up his shots. I'm wondering if Juno would do a better job with the mice...being a female and all. Problem is, the mouse that darted in the shop is one of those that's super cute. I saw it a couple of times before bringing in Finbar. It's the kind that has the big ears. I don't want to see it die. But I also don't want it in the shop.

It got a little stuffy in the shop with the doors all closed and I got hungry, so we came back to the house. I worked on wrapping Percy's crate with hardware cloth and all but the door with a tarp. I think it is safe for Jules and Rosa to stay in overnight. I'm sure a very persistent predator could figure out how to get to them...maybe a snake. But it's fairly tight. And it will be inside the 10'x10'x6' kennel which is also wrapped and will have a roof by the end of the week. This is getting ridiculous. My coop was not made for mom/babies and chicken nurseries. So, now we have the old, little coop in the chicken yard and this new rigged up deal. It's real attractive, let me tell you. Quite the shanty. I've always wanted to name our property. Shanty Acre might be it. The coop can be re purposed to meet our needs, but there's no time to work on it right now.

Nancy, I hope you enjoyed your dinner last night. And Dawn, I hope you enjoy yours tonight. Tom grilled pork chops I picked up from Natural Grocers for he and Ethan. I sauted some veggies from the garden and we did baked potatoes. Dinner is a challenge during the summer.

Dawn, I'm so sorry about your wildlife situations, especially the snake yesterday. Glad no one was bitten.

Nancy, you might get another 30 years. Why not? If not, I like to think heaven has a garden with flowers so fabulous you could never imagine them now.

Cute babies, Larry. I want a miniature cow.

Rebecca, hope your power is back.

Okay...break is over.

Nancy, I can't take credit for the work that is done around here. My body has been going south for many years. Each time I reached a point to where I could no longer do a task, I either found a new task or a tool to help to help with the tasks that I enjoyed.

The only " must have" tool above is the little orange tractor. It does not have to be orange, that just happened to be the color I found. The orange tractor is 18 years old and the green one is 41 years old, but the both do what I want them to do, and much cheaper than a bass boat or a new car.

I was given this 60 arces 4 years ago and spent 3 years cleaning it up. I have worked over a year working on the 8 arces across the the highway for over a year.

My mom and dad bought this place in 1952 for $1000 down and another $800 within 4 years. I helped dad work on the place and, and bale hay for other people and he was able to pay the $800 in two years.

This place was mom and dads dream, but dad died less than 5 years after buying this little farm. I feel sorta like I am living out his dream because this place has never looked this good since 1952, but I have put a ton of work and a few pretty good size coins in getting it to look this way. I will continue to work on this place and my daughters 8 arces as long as I am able. This is all part of what mom and dad bought in 1952, I hope to pass it on to my daughter.

Larry, Your place always looks so very, very good, and for as long as I've known you here, you've been doing the work of 4 or 5 people. I am glad you have the tractors to help you achieve your goals, and your daughter will be lucky to inherit the land someday. I bet your dad is pleased and proud that you are living out his dream. I just hate that he didn't get to live longer himself and enjoy living the dream too.

Jennifer, Isn't it funny how a perfect weather day can carry our minds back in time to one perfect day that we never have forgotten? I have an October day in my head that I carry around and cherish all these decades later----I don't remember the exact date of that day, but I remember the perfect weather and why that day was so special special and it is just uncanny how an October day with weather exactly the same takes me back to that day in the blink of an eye.

Mice? I'm over them. Rats. Same. Gophers. Same. Moles. Same. Voles. The same. Our cats control them all very well outdoors, except for the voles, which are more active at night when our cats are indoors for safety reasons. I hear owls out at night, and hope they are eating their share of the rodents, but especially the voles.

Occasionally we have rodents invade the garage and have to put out rat poison. When we do that, we keep the garage closed up tight 24/7 and the cats indoors as much as possible so a cat won't find a rodent that has ingested rat poison recently. I don't like using it, but if a rodent gets into the garage, the snakes will come in after it, so I'd rather poison it and get rid of it quickly than have snakes getting into the garage. If there's no rodents in the garage, the snakes don't bother going into it.

I felt lazy staying indoors today, but also felt relieved that I didn't even have to think about stepping on a snake. I also got a lot of work done. The scent of the snake that Tim had shot in the side yard drove Pumpkin nuts today. Tim had picked up the snake after he shot it and carried it far, far away, tossing it out into a distant pasture for the vultures to find. Apparently its scent remained there in the side yard. Pumpkin walked up and down that area for a good hour, as if conducting a grid search----back and forth, back and forth, first from east to west, then from north to south. He sniffed every inch of ground with the most confused, puzzled look on his face because he knew he smelled a snake, and he was upset he couldn't find it. He hates snakes. He doesn't play with them. He flees from them. If he encounters one, he usually climbs a tree right away and gets on the roof of the house, where he apparently feels safe from the snake. So, he never found it today and he wasn't happy. He didn't feel safe because he couldn't figure out where it was, so he came indoors to hang out with me.

My plan is to go back out to the garden tomorrow to do whatever work I can do safely in the cool morning air. I just hate to not be outside when it is so cool early in the day.

Oh, and I forgot to mention Strike Four. The July water bill came yesterday. Uggh. It probably was about what I thought it would be, but hoped it wouldn't be, if that makes any sense. I tried to break the news to Tim gently by asking him if he could remember our highest water bill ever. He couldn't. I said "Well, I think I set a new record." And we both laughed, trying to remember that watering a garden in drought as heavily as I had to in July is a very deliberate choice...and a costly one, so we knew this was coming even if we didn't know the exact dollar amount it would be. I'm ready now to start slowly letting go of the garden if I have to. I'm determined to not have that big of a water bill for August. Our drought conditions continue. The half-inch of rainfall really had almost no impact on the ground or the plants. I wish that were not so, but it is. The clay is turning to dust, which is never a good sign. There was a grass fire today, though thankfully not in our fire district. We were listening though, and ready to respond if they needed more help. Tomorrow will be the same, and probably worse because it is supposed to be hotter after a nice start to the morning.

Last night, when discussing this week's below-average temperatures, our local TV met made the point that until this week, we had had exactly one day---one single day this entire summer---when the high temperature has been below average. Every other day it has been average or above average. That's a long run of hot days. I'm glad we're getting a break this week, but I know that it won't last. There's no rain in the forecast, so drought will continue to advance---perhaps at a slower daily rate since the weather is a bit cooler right now.

The soil is so dry now that in order for the garden to thrive it probably needs to be watered heavily every single day. I'm not going to do it. Nope. Not even close. So, I'm setting myself free from worrying about it. If it dies, it dies. I'll keep the container plants going a bit longer, and perhaps the fall tomatoes, but if good rainfall doesn't fall by mid-August, then the garden and I both are done for this year. There's always next year, if the drought doesn't continue into 2019.

Dawn

Loved how you told Tim about the water bill, Dawn. Yes, all one can do is laugh, if both are in favor of a garden. Not laughing about your snakes!

As my flowers have quit or perished, as the vegetables have been pulled, I'm not doing much out there. Will weed as weather allows, and mow. And will spent time mulching beds.

I let Tiny out this morning because all the rest of us were out and he was standing at the bedroom screen door crying. He stayed pretty well within the boundaries (that is, the deck and just off it.) But I'm not willing to just let him stay out by himself, even though Tom and Jerry were closely monitoring him. And I got tired of it after an hour or so, and he got returned to the house with food. I was doing paperwork most of the day so was in with him, then, and he was fine with that. I have to say I'm in Dawn's camp regarding rodents (including squirrels), but I'd rather the cats dispatch them than I'd have to setting traps. From what I've observed, all three will be hunters. Daff did well, and she didn't even have front claws, so I have high hopes for these guys.

This morning Tiny discovered the delights of climbing shower curtains. Doors to bathrooms now will remain closed.

Larry, I loved hearing about your 60 acres. Loved the finding a new task or new tool. And love the tractor. I lived on a ranch at one point, and LOVED the tractors! And so poignantly sad about your own Dad dying not long after getting to place, but so good to know you've got it now, and so good to know your daughter will have it when you move on. I almost wish we had just one kid, so we'd know this place would go on, too. Sadly, it will be sold unless one of the kids can buy out the others. Having said that, come to think of it, none of them are gardeners. Well DIL in Mpls, but they'd never move down here.

HJ, I was thinking of Ethan, you, and marching bands. When I was in Mpls in June, a delightful memory came back. The high school marching band was holding daily practices, already. And since we lived (kids still do) on the street right behind the high school and all the sports fields, the band always practiced by marching down our street. As they were that week I was up there. Without fail, if we were there, we'd be out sitting on the steps having our own little private parade, up and down the street, stopping at times. They are really really good. They must be vying in competitions this year, as their practice had started so early.

Wish i could have chickens, but not gonna happen. Wish I could have my horses too, but not gonna happen. LOL

Well, the dehydrator is still going, almost done. I'm looking forward to getting the herbs in it; glad I got it. I have six packed gallon bags of tomatoes in the freezer. I'll get to them soon. Can't decide whether to make more salsa or to just do tomato sauce. Maybe tomato sauce and freeze, and THEN salsa, as I make up my mind. we do love salsa, but I also love sauce for stews and Italian and other things.

I get to see Amy and Eileen and maybe(?) Rebecca on Sunday. Yay! Next week we go see doctor in Tulsa, but I think GDW is good. He's been so active and working so hard the past couple weeks, as if to make up time for just sitting for so long. He looks good, feels good. Tomorrow is fishing day. I found that by soaking the catfish in buttermilk for a couple-3 hours, takes away the extra fishy taste. Last week's catfish (not deep-fat fried, just fried) were our best ever; I had tons of seasoning in the cornmeal/flour. But the fish were really firm and good, too. So now we may keep some if we catch more tomorrow.

We had so much rain, relatively speaking, over the past 5 days. I knew the storm that came through that provided nearly 2 inches wasn't going to be on a Mesonet recording station, because I watched it on radar as it moved through this very narrow swath, of which we were one of the beneficiaries. I got confused and lost track, but GDW straightened me out. 3 inches, and then the big bad storm yesterday, only 1/2" but mighty winds. And I am feeling so bad for you, Dawn, and the rest of you in central, west and south OK. Our temps have cooled down so much the past 3 days, and we look to have an easy rest of this week, daytime highs around 90, with nighttime highs of high 60s, low 70s. Piece of cake compared to June and July.

I am happy to say our moonflower vines' scent is exquisite. I can smell it about 10 feet away at certain times in the evening. Friend here told me the morning glories likely won't bloom til the end of August. But he assured me they would. That will be something to look forward to.

I am positively giddy about all the luscious mulches I'll be adding to the veggie beds this fall--exhausted plants, veggies, wood chips, leaves. One big compost pile. Gonna try and add as much as possible soon, and then let them go, except for adding the double mulched leaves this fall. Fourth year, the beds are getting deeper, finally. And I am fully expecting all kinds of tomatoes to be popping up everywhere, and flowers too. That oughtta be a hoot.

Ethan usually is at band practice before I drive by the school, Nancy. I always put down my window when I'm on Western (street) so I can hear them play. Love it. Thanks for sharing your memory.

Our band was chosen to be in a Midfirst Bank commercial (and parents/siblings/grandparents as spectators) last year. We spent all day filming and are hardly IN the commercial at all. LOL. However, we received a donation for our participation. It's a "parade" and I see more people I know who are parade spectators than kids in the band. haha. Anyway, your comment, Nancy, reminded me of that.

Wow. There's lots of new threads/topics this week. And people replying to them. I wonder if all those people take a peek in this weekly thread and are like..."I'm out!" lol We do talk about a lot of stuff, don't we. Chickens, cats, dogs, whining sometimes,

Nancy, you're so brave to let Tiny out! I'm glad it went well. Mostly. I need to be braver. I felt brave leaving Rosa and Jules in the hardware cloth wrapped crate. They made it through the night. They were not happy about being forced into it. But settled down in a few moments. It's inside the dog kennel, but they seem very vulnerable there--like bait. That crate is wrapped up tight, though. And has a tarp as a roof, which will help with hawks during the day. I finally have a plan on reintroducing everyone to the flock. Thank goodness.

No gardening news today, other than the tomatoes and peppers are producing well.

I have a weird looking potato.

Rebecca, It looks like several potato tubers grew together. Not terribly unusual, especially considering how late you dug them. I think it looks kinda cute, like a potato angel with rounded wings.

Jennifer, You know, every single day of Ethan's senior year is going to tug at your heartstrings....Senior year rushes by so quickly and there's so many 'lasts' (instead of 'firsts') in that senior year. Enjoy every minute of it.

Nancy, You know, Tim never says anything bad about the garden or the water bill. He never suggests I'm spending too much watering it or that it is pointless because of the drought----but he doesn't have to, because I'm saying those things to myself, and he knows that.

Before long I expect Tiny will be pushing the limits---following Tom and Jerry everywhere and not caring if the adults think he still is too young to do so.

I would love to have rain, but it isn't happening and isn't expected to happen. I'd love for the brief run of cooler days to last, but that's not happening either, as today was our last one. Tomorrow we're expected to be back up to our average high temperature for August, but at least we aren't expected to go above average.....not until the next day anyhow. What can you do? You just have to laugh at how sad and pathetic it is. Most people get depressed in cloudy, cold, winter weather.....I get depressed with endless heat and drought. I'm glad I'm not a rancher. I saw a news story the other day about some Texas ranchers having to sell off their herds because they're out of water and it is too expensive to haul in water every day for them. That is sad. Those of you who know ranching will know how devastating it is for a family ranch to sell off cattle from breeding lines they've been improving for decades. It is just about the same to these folks as selling their children (not quite, but you know what I mean.....).

Even though I made the decision yesterday to let the garden go and to let the drought win (honestly, a gardener cannot win a power struggle against a deepening drought that has gotten as bad as ours has---you just cannot do it), that was a decision made with my brain. My heart is not in agreement with that decision, and I guess it was stressing me. I tossed and I turned and I couldn't sleep. I finally fell asleep after 5 a.m. and then, when I woke up around 8 a.m., dressed and dashed outside to feed the animals, I had 2 does and 4 tiny spotted fawns waiting for breakfast. I put out cracked corn for the doves, hen scratch and sunflower seeds for all the wild birds, threw some old wilted lettuce on the compost pile for the cottontails....and pretended I didn't see that herd of six deer standing about 30' away in the neighbor's pasture, waiting for me to go away so they could come steal everybody else's breakfast.

I deadheaded zinnias and other flowers in the garden for a while, fighting the bees to do it. Literally every flower (and there's still a ton of flowers in there) had 2 or 3 bees fighting for it, jockeying for position, shoving one another out of the way, and none of them liked having me there deadheading spent blooms. I had to be really careful. There were so many bees and pollinators of all sizes, from teeny tiny things that could be flower flies or some sort of beneficial wasps to sweat bees to honey bees to bumble bees, and they acted like they were starving hungry. I stood in the still-green garden, and looked out at the hundreds of acres of browning grassland and fairly barren woodland (trees are okay, understory plants are browning and crispy with nothing in bloom) and wondered where the bees will go when the garden flowers die. I cannot bear to think about that. We do have some native sunflowers in bloom near the greenhouse and along the dog yard fence, but that's about it as far as native plants. The liatris plants in the fields are still standing and still sort of green but so far they haven't developed flowers buds and I am not sure if they will. They may be too dry. They usually bloom in August....and it is August now.

So, I walked our property a bit, searching for something...anything....that might be wildflowers in bloom for the bees and butterflies. I didn't find much. There's a very small patch of verbena bonariensis that has naturalized west of the garage. It is browning out now, but I think if I cut it back tomorrow and water it, it ought to bloom again. I found a small patch of frogfruit (the small bees do love it) in a little green patch. There is a puddle of water there. I fill it up with the hose almost daily so the cottontails have water to drink as they do not like the Mr. Turtle sandbox turned into a deer waterer. The grass has greened up around the little puddle (the rabbits like to eat that bit of green grass too), and now there is frogfruit there in bloom, so I've been watering a broader area (just a few square feet) trying to get the frogfruit to spread, and it is working. Frogfruit blooms in late summer and it is about the only thing we had in bloom late in July 2011, and only because I was watering it, so I keep watering this too, trying to keep something/anything in bloom for the bees. I didn't find much else. Our big pond is long ago dry and empty, but we still have water in the lagoon, where the turtles always seek refuge after other ponds and the creeks dry up. Obviously the overflow pond that sits downhill from the big pond is dry and empty since there's nothing overflowing into it. The little pond is empty. The swamp is no longer swampy. It makes me so sad to see it all brown and crispy instead of green and wet. There's still maybe six inches of water in the lagoon. It isn't much, but I guess it is better than nothing.

Finding so little to nurture the butterflies and bees bothered me, so I reversed my decision to let the garden go. I decided I'd try watering it for about an hour every fifth day. That's not enough to keep it happy, and I do know that. That's not even enough to keep it green, really, and I expect some plants will go ahead and die. Maybe, though, it might be enough to keep the perennials alive and to keep some of the annuals blooming. All I can do is try. I can let go of the garden for myself. I pretty much have already---it is hardly producing anything at all---just watermelons, lima beans, southern peas, okra, tomatoes and peppers. It has bare spots, which my gardens rarely do. It has sad looking plants. But, it still does have flowers, as heat-ravaged, drought-ravaged and bedraggled as they may be----they are still there. I aim to try to keep them alive on a minimal watering schedule for as long as I can. By next week we'll surely be back in the 100s with no rainfall and then I'll be questioning my sanity---wondering why I think an hour of water every fifth day can keep things going. Well, I'm just hoping and praying and counting on compost-enriched soil and thick mulch to help me with this quest. I look ahead to the early October migration of the monarchs and wonder what southern OK will have in bloom for them this year. I cannot visualize the usual fields of wildflowers being in bloom for them (the yellow crownbeard daisies, I think, are what we usually have in bloom) unless we get some good rainfall.

For the water year, which began Oct. 1, 2017, our Mesonet station is down about 8", which is bad enough, but a lot of us who've gotten a lot less rain than that area are down about 11" or 12". No wonder things look so bad.

There were fires today, not big ones and not many, and thankfully none of them were ours, but it is that time of the year---the second fire season.

I heard ducks quacking today. I couldn't see them. I sure could hear them. I wonder if they were flying high overhead? Are they migrating? I wouldn't think so this early, but you never know.

Tonight on the evening news, our local TV met said he'd checked the numbers and that for the Texoma region (OK and TX counties basically along the Red River in their viewing area), July 2018 was the 4th hottest July ever. It is #4, right behind (in order) 1980, 1998, and 2011. That got me to thinking. Obviously in 1980 I was a young adult living in Ft. Worth. However, in 1998, the builder had begun building our house in August in the midst of a horrendous drought and lots of heat, and we were up here every weekend, working on clearing brush through the woods and building our fence, so we were here for that one--at least part time. 2011? Obviously we were here for it and I'll never forget it. In fact, it is hard for me to believe that both 1980 and 1998 were hotter than July 2011. Now, we were here for 2018. I find it disturbing that 3 of the 4th hottest Julys all have occurred since 1998 when we have data for this area that goes back to a few years before statehood. It is hard to imagine these years have beaten out the horrible years of the 1930s. I wonder if we will just keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter.

There, those are the demented ramblings of a gardener who has nothing to do but watch the heat and drought burn up the garden. The only good thing about that would be that maybe the leaf-footed bugs, squash bugs and stink bugs all might die prematurely. That would be one good thing to come from all this heat and drought.

Dawn

Dawn, I'm sorry you're feeling so down. It's exactly how I get when it's hot and dry. I'm sure I will be there in a couple of days. I've been blessed with several nice days and an inch of rain...but it won't last for long, I'm afraid.

I wish I had something useful to add, but don't. Rosa had put herself and Jules in the crate, so they've accepted it as their nighttime safe place. that's good.

Makes ME feel so sad about your brown country, Dawn. I have "survivor's remorse." Not fair for our yard not to be like yours. It stinks for you. Granted we haven't had a lot of rain the past three months, but enough to keep it green.

I hate sleepless nights, and knock on wood, haven't had any in the past few months. I hope you don't have that many either, with your decision to go ahead and water for the pollinators and critters.

I took a kind of tough love approach to watering this year, too. Even though we had tons of rain in May and June the previous three years, by the first of August, largely, things were drying up. Our bill for June and July this year were close to $130. Garry was pleasantly surprised. I told him that's what tons of free mulch did for us, as this year we didn't have the rain in May or June. Actually rained more the past 3 weeks than it did in May and June, I think. And what a good time for it, while everything was so beastly hot.

We were fishing today--got out at 8, and it was 75ish. Beautiful, and held til 11. By noon Garry had caught 10 good-sized (1-4 lbs) catfish. TEN. I felt like Dawn in south central OK with no rain, listening to the rest of us talking about rain. I said on FB, after Garry caught his first three in an hour, and I hadn't even had a nibble, I felt like the Texas Rangers must feel if the opposing team scores 6 hits the first inning and they got nothing. . . . that sinking feeling that it's not gonna end well (in MY case anyway. Like the Rangers, there is always the chance. . . they got eight more innings; I had 2 more hours.) And having adjusted my mind to accepting it, I really just mostly relaxed. It WAS fun watching him reel the catfish in. Here was his secret. He had 2 big red beads above his hook and one little one. I had 2 big red beads and one big white one. ROTFL. Me, trying to find the positive, LOVED that there were fishing jumping everywhere out there and scads and scads of shad. Fishing stunk last year and the year before. We blame it on the people who jug fish. Controversial of me to bring it up, I've found. But this summer was SO hot, we don't think anyone was out there fishing. We'd do an occasional drive-by at the Marina and Rocky Point and never saw any trucks and trailers parked. I just had a feeling fishing would be good in the past week when it has cooled off a little, and sure enough--last week was great, and this week, too--for GDW. I finally caught two in quick order the last half hour, but by then it was HOT. So we got out of there. AFTER GDW skidded down the ramp while hooking up the boat and landing in the lake. And when he tried to get up, fell down promptly, up to his neck (not deep, just that he was almost horizontal.) He held up his wallet. I'm in the boat saying, " Don't let go of the wallet!" He went down again. So I jumped into the water to help. Hand in hand, we made it out, barely. Him soaked from the neck down, me soaked from my midsection down. Didn't help matters any that we were both laughing so hard we could hardly stand up anyway!

Not anything to do with gardening really. . . okay, here's the tie-in. We always have shad left over, in their bucket of fishy lake water. We bring them home and put them on the raised veggie beds. And I bury the fish entrails in the beds, too. And we are harvesting. Now that I found soaking them in buttermilk takes out the TOO-fishy flavor, we are again enthused about eating them. Not deep-fat fried, but fried. First batch was honestly SO tasty. We dropped 8 off to our friends today and kept four (two batches for us.)

HJ, I've found that when I visit other OK forums, I tend to get very bashful. Many folks on many of those forums know each other, like those of us here do, and it feels scary, to me, to join in. It shouldn't, because folks are so kind, like those of you were to me when I finally HAD to ask for help less than two years ago. But it does. I feel like I'm intruding. I do hope folks who check in here don't feel like that, but suspect many do. How does one generate true inclusiveness? Maybe by encouraging others, constantly, to chime in on the new threads by folks not normally here? I often don't see the "threads" page, just this comments page. But will try to remember to check the new threads page more often.

I just realized I haven't posted this week. I dumped 1 1/2 inches from the rain gauge Mon morning (more than either Tulsa or Skiatook mesonets). Then the wind storm dropped just shy of 1/2 inch Mon night. If rain is going sideways does it fall in the gauge? My son thought the apartments were pressure washing his windows. My power went out, so I took Sasquatch to my daughter's to play with her dogs. It was 69 when I left around 4:45.

It appears my broody hen, who I thought would die in the coop during those really hot days, is finally done. I suppose it must be almost time to molt? There is some volunteer amaranth in the chicken run that must be 6 foot or more. It gives them some extra shade and cover, and they ate the leaves off as high as they could jump. It didn't look that good in my flower bed. Must be the extra fertilizer!

Larry, I'm glad to see you posting more! I think if you throw any kind of birdseed in your yard the birds will come, with or without cover. Chicken scratch is fine. And a pan of water. We used to have a couple of pet geese that we fed cracked corn. I was amazed at all the birds that would come join them. And, I have to tell you it can be very exciting if a hawk DOES come for a visit. I think the hawk chasing house finches is what drew my husband into birdwatching. Now when I drive to Bartlesville I count the hawks along the highway. Only 2 yesterday. There's more in winter.

So that's why GDW always wears a do rag ;)

And George, so glad to see you, too. Sorry about the blister beetles. Do you at least have fewer grasshoppers?

Dawn, I'm sorry about the snakes. SO scary!. It doesn't seem like you've mentioned them much this year. Maybe they've been hanging out in your back garden eating voles. I'm also sorry you haven't gotten more rain. I look every time on radar to see if you're getting any. I remember 1980. I think that was the year of my first Tomato. Sweet 100 from seeds that came in a magazine. And of course I had to look up HPS, and order their catalog, too. Can I just make a living collecting seeds and stay in the AC? The heat and chiggers have really gotten to me this year.

H/J, your cute mouse made me laugh. My daughter has mouse problems at her house. 3 dogs, so doesn't want to use poison. This is our rental house, that we lived in when she was born. The house has tunnels in the walls. The mice never have to be out in the open. I always had cats, and learned that every thing in the cupboard had to be in glass, or at least in tupperware. Her dad gave her a live trap. Sort of a big box with a door they can get into, but not out. She called the other day and said "I have mice in the trap, what do I do with them." I think she wanted her dad to come take care of that chore. I said drown them or stomp on them. No she didn't want to do that. Ron said flush them. No, could she drive them away and set them free? Or just dump them in the trash can. I told her they would climb out and return to the house, but that's what she did. Next day was trash day. At one point she was talking about getting a cage and keeping them as pets.

I'd better go, I've almost lost this once. XOXO

Jennifer, You know, I'll be okay. It is just so disheartening to watch the countryside fade from green to brown. We wait so long in the dull gray winter for springtime and sunshine to get here, and I love it all so much, and then along comes the hot, dry summer and it just sucks all the joy out of everything. No matter how hard a person works on their garden and carefully chooses heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant plants, you get to a point in a year like this that it doesn't even matter---the heat and drought destroy it all. I have to have green. Maybe I'll buy some African violets to sit in the kitchen window and fool me into thinking I'm looking at green outside the window....at least they would block my view of the browning plants outside the kitchen window.

I'm glad the chickens have accepted their new quarters. Perhaps deep in their hearts they know you're just trying to keep them safe.

Nancy, You shouldn't have survivor's remorse. It isn't anyone's fault that the rain isn't falling here. It is just part of living in southern Oklahoma, albeit one that I've never really gotten used to and one part that I never will accept or like. I fight drought like the devil in years like this, and eventually I tend to lose. It is fairly common for us to have drought down here along the Red River, especially from Love County westward to the TX/OK border in SW OK, even when no one else in the state is having drought. It is what it is--the unfortunate thing about being this far south. Our almost constant summer droughts are one reason I work like a demon to plant early and beat the heat---I do it because I have to. I think this year feels worse because 2015 and most of 2016 were a piece of cake with all that rainfall and flooding, and the first half of 2017 wasn't bad. Now we're back to normal and it feels so much worse after having had a couple of uncommonly wet, cool summers. Oh wow, I just used the words devil and demon in one paragraph. I guess that's because we are so hot and dry that it remains me of that place called h-e-double hockey sticks. lol.

I don't have the patience to sit and fish. I have to be doing something all the time---not just sitting. I am glad you and Garry had such a good day on the lake, though I don't understand why the fish were going for his fishing line and not yours.

The numbers of wildlife coming for food are getting huge. We bought twice as much feed for them this week as before. Even the shy and reclusive roadrunners are coming here to eat and drink now, and they're about the last wild bird to concede defeat and allow themselves to depend on humans to feed and water them.

I took a hand-held water hose into the garden today to water just the containers, most of which contain a mix of coleus, ornamental sweet potatoes, ornamental cotton, wax-leaf begonias and (in the shady areas) impatiens. All of the containers, except for one that has Candy zinnias in it, are in morning sun/afternoon shade, or they wouldn't be looking as good as they somehow do. Then I watered the fall tomato plants, which are about 12-18" tall and barely surviving. Then I decided to sneak a little extra water to the celosias because they had a lot of leaf curl and looked awful. While watering them, I noticed hundreds, if not thousands of tiny pollinators on the flowers. The tall, spikey celosia flowers were so covered in pollinators that it would have been scary if I was looking at some sort of bad insect instead of a beneficial one. The flowers were bending under the weight of all the little bees. There were dozens and dozens of teeny-tiny little bees on every flower. Multiply that by dozens of flowers on each plant, and a 40' long row of the plants, and it was Tiny Bee Heaven in there today. I watered as long as I dared considering yesterday was their once-every-fifth day watering. I was thinking it is good we don't have a surveillance camera in the garden or Tim would have spotted me sneaking extra water to the celosias. lol. He wouldn't care. He has accepted that I'm going to water to keep the bees and butterflies happy, at least until we reach Extreme Drought. After that, there's no point in watering because you can't do enough.

When people on FB complain they have no bees, I know where all the bees are---they are right here at our house.

The okra is wilted. The lima beans are wilted. The zinnias are wilted. The peppers are wilted. The flat-leafed parsley is wilted. The marigolds aren't wilted, but are turning into spider mite hotels. (sigh) We won't even talk about the grasshoppers as everyone here knows that they flock to green irrigated areas in drought. Watering the plants yesterday clearly wasn't enough but that is all they are going to get. Some zinnias have wilted past the wilt point and will not recover, so I'll pull those tomorrow.

It would be okay with me if I could fall asleep tonight and wake up tomorrow, sort of like Alice in Wonderland, but just....I don't know....maybe wake up in early October with blue skies, cool temperatures and plentiful moisture, as well as with a beautiful garden that still is happy and productive. Of course, this will not happen, but a person can dream.

Our fire chiefs (and all the rest of us) have been waiting and waiting for the Drought Monitor folks to move us into Severe Drought so we could meet the OK burn ban statute's requirements to pass a burn ban. So, today they did, and now our fire chiefs and Emergency Mgmt Mgrs need to go to the County Commissioners at the next regularly scheduled meeting and request a burn ban. It won't stop all the fires, but it will help a great deal. We've only had one fire call today, and it was in our fire district and seemingly just a few blocks (well, we don't really have blocks out here, so I'll say it was a few section lines) from our house, but even though smoke was spotted, no one could find an actual fire. It was just weird.

Our high temperature now is higher than was forecast for today. That is the story of our summer in a nutshell. (grin)

I have one cat outdoors in the heat. I should go find her and bring her inside. Every other dog and cat is indoors in the air conditioning where they belong. She persists in thinking the heat doesn't affect here. She is young and foolish and would live in the garden 24/7 if I let her.

Dawn

I don't have much to report on about the garden, other than it's winding down. I gave a few sacks of veggies away yesterday and we are just starting to pick okra. I can't ever remember being this late.

I have been thinking about winter projects. I have 3 very large brush piles to burn, but they appear to be full of wildlife. If I wait till early winter and burn them, place the stumps ( if any sunburned ) in a tic tic toe pattern and plant blackberries, elderberries and whatever between the stumps, can I create a maintainable brush pile? I would want to brushhog and till between the stumps if needed.

I am just thinking outloud of ways to be critter friendly. I have more critters in my wildlife area than I know what to do with and they all like the brush piles, but the brushpile have got to go or there will be more trees growing up in them.

This wildlife habitat thing is new to me and I want to be good at it.

Larry, I just build permanent brush piles/wood piles on the edges of woodlands and leave them forever to the wild things can live there. As the woody materials decompose, I throw more on top. Over the years we also have used this technique to heal badly eroded gullies and such---pile up brush in them permanently to create wood piles/brush piles/compost piles and let them fill in the gullies as they decompose, and halt the erosion. In some of those areas that once were badly eroded, we now have native fruit trees and such, including wildflowers, growing there because they sprang up there once the decomposing brush piles had created good enough soil for them. None of them are near the house since some of those wild things undoubtedly are snakes, but I love knowing we create habitat for all of them. Dewberries come up in and around our more or less permanent brush piles, sprouting on their own as do wild grapes, so I imagine what you want to do would work.

What I have learned with creating/maintaining wildlife habitat is that is you build it, they will come, and they usually aren't real picky either. I don't mind the trees coming up in the brushpiles as long as they are good trees and not trash trees like hackberries or elms. Since 10 of our 14+ acres already are heavily wooded, a few more trees won't hurt. I do have to be careful to keep trees from taking over the garden because the squirrels spend all autumn and winter burying pecans and acorns in and around the garden. Otherwise, the squirrels leave the garden alone and stay out of it. I guess it is irresistable to them when they have nuts to bury.

Today I had a couple of fun things going on in the garden. Lots of the icebox watermelons are ready to be harvested, so I've been doing that. The cotton flowers are going to seed and forming bolls, which I think is pretty cool. I would have been happy just to grow them solely for the pretty foliage and flowers, but it looks like we'll get cotton too. Some daylilies that I do not think are reblooming types and which I do not think have rebloomed ever before suddenly are in bloom again. That is just bizarre. The crinum lilies that bloomed in May and June and then stopped suddenly are are in bloom again. This may have happened before. My best guess with those daylilies is that the awful May and June heat pushed them to finish blooming early and go semi-dormant, and when the weather moderated during the July cool spell (the one around the beginning of the month, not the short one we just had at the end of the month), they came back into bloom.

I found one lone wildflower blooming down by the mailbox. Perhaps that half-inch of rain we had last week restored it to life a little bit. It is a European Vervain. It is smaller than usual and looks sort of pathetic, but it is alive and in bloom which is more than I can say for 99% of the wildflowers on our property.

One nice thing I saw today was Johnson grass that grows along the property line between us and our neighbors to the south (right beneath the barbed wire fence so you cannot hit it with the lawn mower---only with the string trimmer) is turning brown and withering and dying. That always is a nice sight to see, although the roots always seem to survive.

They are not a plant, but black widow spiders seem to be coming out of hiding now that the big heat wave has broken. I found one in the mailbox and killed it last week, and we found one on the fire engine over the weekend, web and all, and killed it. I bet if I looked in the garage I'd find more of them, but I don't like to look too closely in the garage at this time of the year because I'm afraid of what other critters I might find in there trying to find shelter from the heat. I go in there, get what I need, and get out. So far, I'm successfully keeping insects and other critters out of the new garden tool shed, so going in there to get tools and supplies isn't scary like it was with the old tool shed. I also love having a shed right inside the fenced garden itself.

Dawn

Nothing much to report here, other than they weren’t kidding when they said Baby Bubba okra was a dwarf. My two are about a foot tall and producing one pod each per week. Might take awhile to grow a jar of pickles, but the wheels are turning about putting a few in the front flower bed next year.

Dawn, my coworker wants to thank you for suggesting the Seeds from India website to me. Her dad‘s garden is producing beautifilly from their seeds, and they have most meals from the garden. She‘s brought a vegetable curry using eggplant, squash, gourds, tomatoes, peppers, and okra. Her dad is thrilled to have his favorite Indian vegetables.

Dawn, I like the idea of pushing the Stumps and rootballs to the woods, but I will go a little farther, I will push them INTO the woods and pile them there. That way the pile can't be seen from the highway and be handy for the critters. It will be a lot more work, but I have the rest of my life to work on this place anyway.

I don't think my daughter would maintain an area like I was talking about anyway. She uses the small tractor to hog her 20 acres in Oklahoma, the part not cut for hay and she uses my sprayer to spray her fenceline, but she is not turned on by equipment like I am.

Rebecca, I tried some small okra that Dawn suggested, Little Lucy, I think it was called. It was a very pretty plant.

I haven't posted on here in a little while so I'll give a quick garden update.

We've had mild weather for this time of year. We have hovered in the 80's for the last couple of weeks and even had a few 70 degree days last weekend. Lows mostly in the 60's. Overall great for the garden, but today it is warming up again, low 90's and fairly muggy outside. They still forecast a cooler than normally August so we will see how that goes.

We really need rain. Drought map shows moderate drought, severe drought creeping in just north of us. Like others on the forum, pop up thunderstorms have tricked the weather stations pretty well. At our house we've had hardly any rain since the little rain we got in early July, though we did get a tiny bit a weekend or two ago. Not enough to make a difference. My soil is about like dust at the moment. Overall, the garden is handling it alright with heavy, heavy mulch and watering frequently. The one crop that is really holding up to drought is the tomatoes. Hardly any irrigation except when fertilizing. Of course, last spring I buried organic matter (namely compost) deep in my soil below them. I think they're using it as a water reservoir. I think formally it's called core gardening. I did it accidentally lol lol lol.

Heres some pictures around my garden:

Wow, that's a lot of pictures...

Most crops have recovered from the hail we had a couple weeks ago, thankfully, and so far the fishing line fence is working. I see herds of deer walking up every morning, but none in the garden recently. :)

Jacob, those are some mighty fine pictures.

FINALLY OKRA!!

Finally brought in a few pods of okra today. I guess after I severely pruned them and then ignored them when I watered (per Dawn‘s advice) they decided I was trying to kill them so now they are blooming and making okra . Don’t believe it has ever taken this long to produce before, especially since the plants were so beautiful.

farmgardener, Yay! Congrats on the okra. I am glad it is producing. Desperate times, like this year, sometimes all for desperate measures. It sure has been a weird year.

Jacob, Your garden looks great as always and it is so good to hear everything has recovered so well from the hail.

The drought news from your area is not good, but in the next seven days I expect you'll get some drought relief, and so will we. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for all of us. We're in Severe Drought here now with increasing fire activity that is keeping me away from home and away from my garden---poor, pitiful, heat-roasted and drought-dehydrated mess that it is. I'm just hoping rain falls soon before we can advance to Extreme Drought. At this point, though, in our area we only want rain if it is going to bring hard downpours of rain---those half-hearted thunderstorms we keep getting that are mostly dry storms with lots of lightning (which starts fires) and very little rain just make things worse at this point since the lightning striking in dry fields can start fires so easily.

Here's the 7-day Qualitative Precipitation Forecast, offering us a glimmer of hope. Now, y'all, don't take this thing too seriously because it updates multiple times daily and can be all over the place with regards to amounts. Still, as we watch it evolve over the next few days, we should have some clue about how much rain to expect.

7-day QPF

Larry, I loved Little Lucy and was so unhappy when the seed company that carried it dropped it from production. It was so pretty and so productive.

Rebecca, Hmmm. Baby Bubba usually produces a lot. Know what I'd do? I'd hit that sucker with Bloom Booster type fertilizer to push it into flowering. I don't know why it is being lazy this year. It isn't like we are cool and cloudy, so it ought to be happy with the weather.

I am so happy that Seeds of India worked out well for your co-worker. Please tell her how thrilled I am to hear that their garden is doing so well.

I was only able to work in the garden yesterday for a little while. I deadheaded flowers, dodging all the bees who take it personally when I start snipping off blooms. I did a little weeding, but there's not many weeds at this point since I've worked so hard to mulch heavily and remove each weed when first noticed. I have one path that gets a bit weedy because I never have gotten it mulched. Mulching that path is on my To Do list but I never seem to get around to getting it done. I harvested okra. I talked to the tree frog who was sitting on top of my sun umbrella. I scared the deer to death by walking out of my garden while they were trying to sneak into the driveway to steal the doves' cracked corn.

We had four fire calls yesterday. I didn't go on the first two as they were relatively small and minor, but the third was a big one and we were out there for 7 hours in horrific heat. The thermometer on our fire dept. vehicle showed 121 degrees at one point, and that was because we were being heated up by residual heat from the adjacent fire, which was just a 100' or so from us at that point (but not moving towards us). It was so hot out there, and so dry. When we finally made it home, we rushed off to town to grab a quick hamburger. Wqe'f fed the firefighters cold cut sandwiches and chips, but we still were starving when the fire was extinguished anyhow. On our way back from town, wolfing down our hamburgers as we traveled down the highway, I saw a familiar orange glow in the night sky and told Tim that our fire had rekindled. He didn't want to believe it and thought it was somebody else's fire---maybe across the river. (This is what I call magical thinking....wanting something to be true so you just believe it is......). We went to investigate and, of course, it was our fire. So, we sounded the alarm and then spent the next two hours back out there again. Having a wildfire rekindle is not unusual because when hundreds of acres burn, there's inevitably smoldering trees and logs and such that will flare back up----there's not enough water in this county to soak down hundreds of acres, so you just do the best you can with what you've got. Now, as I am typing this on Saturday morning, Tim is back there on a very small rekindle. It probably is going to be a rough day here again today since it started out with a fire call around 7 a.m.

So, I guess we are having the August I expected and dreaded----a drought-decimated garden full of grasshoppers, and fires daily, and with the fires seeming to increase in number and severity daily. I'm hoping we'll start getting rain soon and that conditions will improve. Even in 2011 when it was hotter, drier and we were much deeper in drought than we are now, we got our first hint of drought relief on August 11th, so that gives me hope for this coming week---that maybe we'll be getting some real drought relief within the next 7 to 10 days. The forecast looks kinda good right now, but then you really cannot trust a forecast 7 days out, so we'll see.

I hope you all have a good day today.

Dawn

Y’all, Megan posted in the other thread.

Dawn, I was going to fertilize this weekend anyway. The spring EGs are still flowering, even though they look pretty crappy, so I was going to give them a push. The Baby Bubbas just aren’t tall, so I think that’s what’s keeping them from producing more. They’re really little, maybe a foot and a half tall, if that.

Something is taking down my zinnias one by one. The plants will just turn brown and crispy overnight. Randomly.

I have a 6 foot tall tithonia that’s still not blooming.

Nancy, the zebrinas are just sitting there doing nothing.

My back is still giving me trouble. Have an MRI approved, going to schedule that this week.

Never got around to starting fall flowers in the heat, so I’ll start thinking about buying some. As the zinnias go down, I’ll have room.

Somehow, I posted in last weeks thread last night. I was/am pretty out of sorts. Thank you for telling me, Amy. Here is a copy of the post.

Megan Huntley
Yesterday
Hey y'all. I'm checking in with a prayer request. It's been a rocky couple weeks and a nightmare of a day. Please say a prayer for me, my mom, her friends Jacque (Jackie) and Jacque's family.

I'll tell you what and why but it's okay if you stop reading here and just lift us in prayer - or whatever you're inclined to do based on your beliefs. It's all pretty sad from here...

My mom has been staying with me for about a week. She and my dad, aka Crabby Daddy, were here 2 weeks ago for an overnight. My dad is verbally abusive but has been allowed to visit at my house because he's always behaved on my turf. Well, he didn't that night and I had to kick him out for the sake of fulfilling my promise to my daughter that our house was always a safe place. My mom decided to leave him and spent a week with her mother before coming back to my house. My mom's birthday is this weekend and a high school friend who has been in poor health due to inoperable cancer came to my house last night to visit my mom for a birthday visit. My mom and friend, Jacque, went to a matinee today and the friend got up to go to the bathroom. She'd been complaining about pain this morning and I guess needed to get up and move. She had a heart attack in the bathroom and was rushed by ambulance to the hospital. My mom kept waiting for her to come back and when she didn't, went looking for her. When my mom found out she'd been taken to the hospital she called me. By the time we got to the correct emergency room Jacque was gone. We're all of course in a state of shock. In some ways it was a good thing because I was the one to call and notify her brother and son. I don't think I could have if not for a state of shock. Sadly, I've been through several losses in my life so to some degree I know the lock/step that needs to follow.

AND because when it rains it pours.... Monday, I had horrible pain on my lower right side around my appendix. It improved over a couple days, but today had a CT scan to ensure it wasn't appendicitis. It wasn't but while my mom and I were saying our goodbyes to Jacque, my doctor called with the results. It's not life threatening, thank God, but according to my MIL (who is an RN) I probably need a full hysterectomy.

The silver lining... Jacque got to stay up late having fun, playing cards, laughing and having fun with an old friend for her last night on earth. I hope we're all so lucky to leave on such a happy note. And, whatever the heck it is going on with me can be fixed, minus a few parts I don't need anymore. I also consider myself very lucky to have a group of friends that I can not only share a passion with, but share this with. Blessings to you all.

Megan, that is SOME SAD news! My heart breaks for your Mom. WHAT a number life has played on her. Crazy! Just crazy. And may Jacque rest in PEACE! Yes, I'm so happy her last night on earth was a good one. And will be praying for your Mom. Life is way too short for that kind of nonsense. Love and thoughts to you all. And what incredibly bad timing for you to be going through what YOU went through. Yes, sounds like what's going on with you can be fixed--you going to get it done soon, I hope? I certainly will keep you all in my prayers.

I was down with pulled muscle in my back (actually right side) beginning Thurs and was totally immobilized yesterday, last night, and this morning. So we went to ER this morning for tests and CT. They didn't find anything so gave me a short of morphine. Ha! This evening I feel pretty good, and have pain killers for back up. Like you, glad this could be treated easily and just a pulled muscle, apparently. My back has gone out probably 3 times in the last 30 years. This time scared me a little cuz it wasn't actually the back. So both GDW and I were relieved.

Rebecca, though my zebrinas bloomed heavily early on and then produced another round after I'd cut them back, now they are mostly just sitting there, with a few little flowers. This is your first year for them, correct? They will be beautiful next year!

My tithonia didn't do well this year, either. Let's face it--many things didn't do well this year. but at least I have lots of zinnias that didn't get all the rain this year and hence haven't suffered the mildew. I am happy that I got SO many plants and flowers out there, there are enough still going to make it look okay, if not great.

Nice pictures, Jacob, the tomatoes look very happy! I'm tickled the fishing line fences are working well for you, as they do for me. AND, your cat has white on his face, doesn't he? Other than that and his long tail, Tiny has about the same exact markings. Tiny might be a little redder than your Cat. or maybe it's just the lighting. Please get back to us with a review on your tomato varieties?

GDW and I both shot after our long day today. . . I expect we'll have our light rotisserie chicken sandwiches and call it a day. Take CARE of yourselves, everyone!

Hey Everyone. Just checking in. I see Jacob and Megan posted--it's been awhile. I haven't read anything yet, but will tomorrow.

Rebecca, That is just what zinnias do. It makes me crazy, but I try to reel in my disappointment when it happens and remind myself that our climate is hard on them and they certainly are not disease-free plants by any stretch of the imagination.

I have had dwarf okra plants produce very heavily, although I do not think Baby Bubba ever has produced as well for me as Little Lucy did, back when we still could get seed and could grow Little Lucy.

This past week, my okra plants really kicked it up another notch and are producing very well---so maybe your plants needs more heat and drought, and they need for you to stop watering them. My okra plants wilt badly and look miserable by mid-day, but they are producing like crazy now. I guess the heat and drought conditions agree with them.

Megan, I am so sorry y'all have had such a rough couple of weeks and will be praying for all of you. I do hate that it was your mom who found Jacque after the heart attack---such a traumatic thing to witness someone you love like that---but am grateful Jacque's last hours were spent at the movies with your mom having a good time and just being able to spend time together. Y'all all have such wonderful memories of that last night with her too, and that is pretty special. The last day or two spent together was an incredible gift to them both, and I hope your mom's memories of those times spent together with Jacque help ease her grief. If you have to have surgery, then I hope that it goes well. There is no reason for you to suffer from a physical ailment that can be corrected, after all.

Nancy, Did you pull that muscle fishing? (grin) I'm glad they were able to quickly diagnose you and give you some good medicine.

Ooops, Tim is home from the fire and I need to get off the computer so we can run to the grocery store. There's not enough time this weekend to do everything that needs to be done since we're squeezing in tasks in between fires.

Dawn