Dawn I’m sorry you’ve been so sick but glad you are improving. We got a little over another inch of rain while we were at church this morning. It’s unbelievable how green and lush our pastures are and how full the ponds for August. The pictures are the new green beans just starting to bloom and new squash and zucchini. The aphids are so thick on the purple hull peas that I’m going to have to just pick them off and feed to the guineas and hope for another picking. I don’t want to powder because the ladybugs are thick - I’m hoping they will get control soon. The okra that just FINALLY started producing couple of weeks ago also is covered with aphids around the blooms. I’ve been trying to just wash them off with a hard spray of water but can’t get ahead of them.

Oh drats. Just lost my post. Farmgardener, nice containers! Well, let's hope the green beans, and new squashes will be pest free!

Larry, Hercules doesn't LOOK old and sick. He is the picture perfect Yorkie that's in my mind. I've known two exceptional Yorkies from Minneapolis days, and just love them. I was visiting with friends yesterday; mentioned how much I liked them--they have one, and when I said that for such a tiny dog, I was impressed that they aren't yappers. The wife said, "Well come and meet ours, and maybe you'll take back your words." LOL

And Dawn, as usual, you're right. We're SO lucky to have gotten plenty (but not too much) of rain since the horrible heat abated. So I quit pouting. It wasn't doing any good, anyway. And like Farmgardener, we got another 3/4" while at church this morning. Looks like we could get more today in the next couple hours.

I don't know why I even bother looking at the Mesonet this year. Our rainfall is NOTHING like the reporting stations around us. We've been so lucky to have local rainstorms off and on; and have missed a couple of Tulsa's heavy rains that were supposed to land here, too. Just weird. Dawn, yeah, if I were in Almost Brown Country, I wouldn't think it was all that funny. LOL Whereas, I'm likin' the Green Country just fine.

And sigh, yes I believe Jason as usual is right, too. LOL Now that buds are beginning on the American burn weed, although they ARE tiny, they're clustered rather compactly. And I have found that when tataricus aster is ready to bloom, the stems suddenly shoot up. These ain't shooting up. BUT. it's not like burn weed is a bad plant. Both the aster and it are medicinal. And it is an attractive plant. Just that when flower-growing space is at a premium, no room for THAT. And though I am disappointed, I got something really good from this mystery. I now know I GOTTA have tataricus aster in the gardens. The asters I DID have planted in the center bed were doing quite well (until the grasshoppers decimated them), so I think the tataricus will, too. (Trying to make lemonade with my lemons, you know.)

I did have another delightful mystery, kind of, though. I had planted datura from seedlings I grew out in the center bed, too. I saw only one survived, and it got beat up bad by grasshoppers, too, and besides, it was too shady there. So I wrote it off. But it kept growing and outran the bad bugs. It is not spread about randomly like the datura in the front shop bed, but rather is upright and branching, about 4-5 feet tall. AND it is the Double Yellow I'd forgotten all about! Yay!

Oh! At church this morning, one of my friends was telling me about a car accident near her (she lives probably 20 miles south of GDW and I.) It was an unfortunate driver having a collision with a 7' long feral hog. Sobering. I was so hoping they'd not be showing up in our neighborhoods any time soon, though as you all have told me, they seem to be moving on up through OK.

What about all the rest of you? What do you know about the feral hog problem in your areas?

Here are pictures of the attractive "burnweed" plant, on the right of the center bed, and the pretty lemony double yellow daturas.

Cannot sleep. I haven't had this happen for quite a long while, so at least that's good. I have been totally obsessed with thinking about flowers this evening. And the more I think, the more confused I get. This yard is such a challenge with the shifting sun/shade, and trying to figure out how much sun any one spot gets. None of it gets a lot. Some of it gets enough to actually grow "full" sun flowers. And I've really liked this year, since it has been nearly the polar opposite of my previous 3 years here, with a whole different set of challenges; the late frosts, the immediate summer afterward. No rain in June or July.

One thing that just dawned on me (no pun intended), Dawn, was that as we mentioned, our weather conditions are SO different. I MUST remember that while you're talking about what does well for you. And I wish I had a Dawn here, who had been gardening for 30 years and was an expert. In addition, the only previous experiences I had were in zones 3 and 4. It's fascinating to me, but SO perplexing. I wish I had 30 years to sort it out!

And then factoring in the beautiful but cursed deer who visit in the early mornings and evenings (usually a group of about 30, give or take), and the incredible assortment of flower-loving insects, well. That automatically narrows my plant/flower list. Thank God for the fenced-in raised beds for veggies.

Ipomoeia plants are a challenge here. I thought it was aphids all along, but find out it's all kinds of bugs. But the moonflower vines grew rampantly and have outgrown the number of bugs. Cool! And I am loving them. When my heavenly blue morning glory cratered and became a mound, though it is near the house, the deer had a heyday right away. So now I have several weird-looking barriers surrounding the mound for a while, until the plants replenish the stripped parts. Sweet potato vines are a tough go, too, with lots of holes in them.

Meanwhile, this has been such a great experience. Watching and noting what's happening. Dawn, you mentioned the pineapple sage were slow this year. I hadn't grown them before, but got two plants in June. They didn't do much until the horrible heat broke; now they're growing great, but haven't bloomed yet.

And thank you for your informative introductory post to this week! Taking notes.

Every single herb except cumin has gone gangbusters. If nothing else, I could go into the herb business.

The tryouts for this year in plants: corn, no. Leeks, YES! Garlic, Yay! Onions, good. Tomatoes good. Peppers, excellent. Herbs, go nuts. Potatoes, best yet, but I planted them too late, so thinking next year they'll be good. Flowers: malva sylvestris, big thumbs up. Echinacea, Wow. Zinnias, perfect for this year, total failure the previous 3 flooded years. Ammis were gorgeous, but they die back, like dill. Rudbeckia, still up for grabs. May try a different variety(ies) next year. Too wet for them the previous 3 years, and they didn't last long this year, either, because of the heat, I guess. I always thought they were bullet proof, not here they aren't! Same with Shasta daisies. Even though I had coleus in full shade beds, and put in some gorgeous red ones, they barely grew in June and July, but now with the slight break in temps, they, too are going great. Spirea, wonderful dwarf crepe myrtles, lantana (downright obnoxious), celosia, marigolds. Bee balm was fine; nicotiana did great but not enough sun, so most flopped over. I tromped over them and cut most off, but they're coming back now. They re-seed like crazy here. Snapdragons do good early, then all but die, but have come back stronger when it cools off a bit. I think I'll plant more of them.

Datura--grasshoppers got them, but have some late ones that popped up last month, and they're growing like crazy. Brugmansia. Planted 3 cuttings. Only one formed a Y fork. Don't know if it will bloom or not yet. Dahlias, eaten. Asters, eaten. Rhubarb, eaten.

Have any of you grown clarkia? I'm thinking it might be a good thing to try. Also, am going to find coral honeysuckle. Can I plant that in Sept if I can find one to order?

Well, that's my middle of the night thing. Hopefully I can lay all these thoughts to rest and get some sleep.

What's going on in your gardens?

farmgardener, your container beds look great.

Nancy, I've not heard anything about feral hogs in my very near area. BUT, where we used to live (over by Earlywine Park), they've had reports of them. We lived in a neighborhood off 119th...just west of there is a bit more country, but neighborhoods are going up. My friend likes to run there because it's a bit hilly. She runs early in the morning (still dark) with a friend. A police officer stopped them and warned them of feral hogs! That's close to the city! Very close. Of course in our old neighborhood we heard coyotes once in awhile...and Tom even saw them in the early morning hours crossing Earlywine Park. Anyway...

That reminds me. I'm going through old family letters from 1901 thru the 1930's. One particular letter was addressed to my great grandfather. The letter was from a cousin and mentioned that their pigs had killed 4 chickens. Ew.

These letters are difficult to read (faded and horrible handwriting) but very interesting. I wish I could find more from the 30's. Most of my Great Grandma Stella's letters were 1909ish. She seems to have been a popular teen girl. By the 30's harder times had hit and she was an adult. It's funny how people are so much the same, yet so different. One of Stella's friends was begging her to come back to somewhere (maybe school?) and kept saying how much she missed her...who was going to tell her how her hair looked? How her dress looked? haha! This was 1909. All reports of her are that she was a pleasant, happy person. She died when I was 18 at age 94.

Of course the letters that mention gardens and crops are of interest to me. One card (dated 1933) she received from her sister Oda says this "some of my fruit froze but I saved it all but 4 qts. I get a few eggs. Have 13 (a word that starts with an "R") and 8 acres of pasture and a good garden."

Oh...and those chain emails/fb "religious" posts that promise great blessings if passed along...and misfortune if ignored are very old. I found one addressed to my great aunt in the 1920's, sent by "a friend".

So, my garden is not in great shape. It's been ignored all week. There are worms in the tomatillo fruit. At least one hornworm on the tomatoes--can't find it....and other pests. Luckily we've had rain so I don't have to ask Tom and Ethan to do that chore. The yard and the house are awful. I do a little and then have to put my foot up. Tonight, I must be at uniform fitting. Luckily I'm at a station where I can sit. I'm taking food allergy/preference information. Thank goodness I can still be helpful and not mess up my foot even more.

The coop is a mess and the chickens are being cared for but not the way they are normally cared for. Stella keeps breaking out of the chicken yard. I hope she's smart enough to stay far away from Josi or she's a goner. The times I've found her, she's always near the coop and yard...almost like she wants back in but can't figure it out. She's let me pick her up and put her back in. Thank goodness, cause I can't run to catch her.

I am so upset by this injury. I'm trying to see it as a lesson and use it for personal growth. It's hard though. I'm just not a sitter. I don't enjoy watching TV for hours at a time. I wanna do stuff.

Kane is better, I think. He is eating almost normally and the bruises are gone. The other issue is still bad, but improving, I think. I think. I don't want to talk about it in detail because it's so upsetting. We did go to CBD plus and pick up some oil. I've been wanting to try it on the dogs anyway...for Kane's hyperactivity and Josi's anxiety. Josi is mostly ignored right now. Poor girl isn't going on walks. I can't walk and Tom is doing both of our work, so there's just no time. But we're trying to give her a few minutes of undivided attention--petting and such. I haven't used the oil with her yet. We also picked up a topical for me that is very soothing. It's almost like my TrueBlue essential oil, but better.

Dawn, glad you're half way healed. It's really too bad we can't be outside this morning. It's delightful.

Nancy, sorry you couldn't sleep, but at least you're thinking about flowers and not worrying!

Okay. I guess I'll find some garden videos to watch since I can't garden myself. :(

I've harvested 2 cotton bolls so far and have about a dozen left. But now I have no idea what to do with it. A friend volunteered as nurse at camp this year and brought her spinning wheel. The kids were as mesmerized as the adults were. But it made me realize just how much material goes into one thin strand of yarn.

My lone hollyhock has finally finished blooming for the third time this year. Not sure if they're supposed to rebloom. After all the flowers fell off I cut it down to about a foot, & it sent up a new set of stalks. Then again a couple months ago I did it again.

Cosmos & zinnia are out of control & the fourclocks are taking over the sidewalk. Since I didn't know what I was planting just plunked them in, but now ireally need to move them.

Farmgardener, The plantings look great, and I am sorry to hear that the aphids are so bad.

I just do not understand the aphid issue. I'm not saying we never have aphids here, because of course, we do. But, there's never very many and I never have to worry about them and I never have to really do anything to control them. Generally, even if they are here, I don't even notice them. When I do occasionally see some, I just ignore them and eventually they're all gone. (Ignoring pests is my number one pest control strategy.) So, for whatever reason, while there are many pests here that plague our garden and can make gardening very hard at times---aphids just are not among them. If they were doing significant damage, I've have to do something....but they don't. The only thing I can say is that many organic gardening experts say aphids are worse when something in the soil is out of balance and, while I do think there is some truth in that, I also know people who have beautiful soil and whose OSU soil tests show spectacular numbers---enough of everything and not too much of anything---and they still get aphids, sometimes in huge numbers. So, healthy, balanced soil alone is not a guarantee there won't be aphids. Research has long shown that plants overfed nitrogen also are very attractive to many pests, including aphids, but I know people who rigorously avoid extra or excess nitrogen and they still have aphids. And, I know some who overfeed nitrogen by feeding their plants ever week or every other week with a water soluble fertilizer (for in-ground plants), and their plants are unnaturally dark green and lush and they don't have an aphid issue. So, the more I search for a pattern with aphids, the less I see one. Howard Garrett says when certain pests and diseases show up on specific plants, that's a sign (in our hot climate) that the plants cannot take the conditions and they are done. I think there's something to that as well. For example, my sugar snap peas skate through all the crazy Spring weather just fine with no pest and disease issues, but the minute we're at that point where it is starting to get too hot for them, then pests and disease show up overnight and devastate the plants. I want to know how the pests and diseases know a plant is stressed to the breaking point and vulnerable to attack. So, to me, aphids seem to bring us more questions than answers. The more I try to understand them, the less I think that I do. Maybe I just have not yet learned to think like an aphid. Hmmm. Do they even think?

Nancy, Don't you love the double flowered daturas? They just look extra exotic to me. I love all daturas though. I haven't been out there regularly deadheading mine during the week with the flu, so I'm going to have a mess of thorn apples to cut off of them as soon as I can get back out into the garden. Probably not.

Rebecca posted a photo of that car (after it, more or less, survived the hog encounter) on my FB feed and I thought it was stunning that a hog could do that much damage.

Of course, feral hog damage still stuns me when I see it in fields too----even though I've been seeing it for 20 years now. Sometimes when we are out on hay field fires in bottom land along the river, where the sandy soil can run hundreds of feet deep (hogs love that deep loose river sand), you can hardly walk because of the holes made in the soil by the feral hogs' rooting. There can be acres and acres of land where there's not even enough space for you to gingerly walk on solid ground between the rooted-up areas because there is no solid ground in between rooted up areas. It reminds me of the constant dimpling on golf balls, although of course the 'dimples' go much deeper and you can twist or break an ankle stepping in them. Say whatever you wish, y'all, about dense red clay---the feral hogs mostly leave it alone, bypassing it for sandier areas. Those big feral hogs scare me. Y'all know I had a scary encounter with one while walking Jet either earlier this year or last year and it scared the fool out of me. Jet and I pretty much gave up walking after that.

For years we have been told that Love County has the worst feral hog problem in the state. I don't know upon what basis that was determined. It just could have been that this was one of the first areas they invaded as they moved northward from Texas so at that time no other counties were competing with us for that title. : ) Regardless, they are a huge issue here. Folks with river bottom land have to engage in stringent control methods year-round, which include but are not limited to trapping and shooting them. There have been years that someone (not sure if it is wildlife management type folks or a cattle raisers association type group) has hired guys to do flyovers and shoot them from the air. Regardless, they reproduce much more quickly than anybody can kill them. We'll never be rid of them because they do not have natural predators here that prey on them.

The Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore OK but with many research and conservation facilities in Love County, worked for years to build a better pig trap. It is called the BoarBuster and it is so awesome, they have won awards for a video that shows how it works. Here's what they came up with:

BoarBuster Video

Those of you who have deer issues on your property need a similar DeerBuster trap. Of course, it would have to hover in the air like a drone in order to protect your entire landscape and garden area and then set itself down around whatever spot the deer stopped to feed. Then, you'd still have to have a plan about what to do with them once you caught them.

My grandmother loved growing plants from the clarkia family in her well-drained soil in Wise County and Denton County TX decades ago. I', talking about the 1970s and earlier. She had very fast growing sandy soil with pretty much no organic matter and fairly low rainfall. She was in zone 8 so could direct sow them in winter, get sprouts in early Spring, and blooms in late Spring. The problem is they don't like heat so are very short lived. I remember she grow a taller one that she referred to as Godetia, and a shorter one called Farewell-to-Spring. I think their short life is one reason she liked them so much---their beauty was fleeting and had to be admired while it lasted because it didn't last long. She followed them with zinnias, cosmos and cockscombs. Our climate has gotten a lot hotter a lot earlier in the year since then, so I don't know if we have enough cool weather nowadays for them to grow well here in Spring. I have tried them a couple of times here and in my location we get too hot too early. About the time they are going to bloom, it gets too hot and they just quickly wither away in the heat. They cannot stand excess moisture, so......your success with them would be particularly contingent on the weather. The old OP types are extra prone to damp off when grown indoors in flats, so most people have more success with them when direct seeded.

Jen, I'm leaving all the bolls on the branches and then I can cut the dried branches with the open bolls and tuck them into autumn decor/flower arrangements after the plants die back.

So, today I felt so much better that I ventured outside for a minute, and discovered my beautiful volunteer winter squash, the one I think is Dickenson Pumpkin (a C. moschata) literally died overnight. It has at least 8 nearly mature fruit on it and still was blooming, forming more squash and putting out new leaves as recently as last week. It could be SVBs got it, but this is a big, far-ranging plant that covers a few hundred square feet and it didn't die back like winter squash/pumpkins often do when SVB-infested---bit by bit by bit. Literally the whole plant, which looked pretty good on Saturday, was dead this morning and the leaves are covered in a brown fungal growth that is sporulating. So, I'm guess a fungal disease got it. Oh well, that's life. It happened so suddenly that even if I wasn't staying largely indoors, I doubt there's anything I could have done to save it. I guess that instead of being a squash garden, the compost pile is back to being just a compost pile again. It did feel good to be outdoors until I saw that plant. Then it just felt depressing. Then I said to myself, well the plant may be dead but I am still alive. (grin)

This flu thing is on the downhill slide now. There's still a lot of coughing, but I was able to sleep a whole 4 hours (not 4 straight hours) last night and I've eaten much more normal meals---both signs that I am recovering. I stopped taking the OTC Cold/Flu medications that have a decongestant/cough suppressant in them because I hate the jittery way they make me feel. I'm pretty sure that jittery feeling is one reason I cannot sleep when I take them. It is a hard choice to make---take medicine that suppresses the cough but then, if you do that, you cannot sleep because the ingredients in that medicine keep you awake. Sometimes you cannot win. For all that I hate the coughing, it is productive coughing and is clearing up the crud out of my lungs, so at least I feel like the suffering pays off. The last thing I want is to get a secondary infection like pneumonia or bronchitis.

Tim has the flu now. Great. He was taking such good care of me and I'd like to take equally good care of him, but not sure yet that I'm well enough to do so. I guess we'll muddle through this week together.

Our burn ban expired today and a lot of the local pyromaniacs were out doing controlled burns this morning. I have had my fire radio set on the pager feature so have no idea if it has been a quiet fire day. All I am sure of is that our VFD hasn't been paged out to anything. Yay! I wouldn't go anyway, but I'd feel quite badly about not being able to go.

Air quality is just horrible here. I believe we are getting smoke from the Canadian and western USA wildfires. I think it followed the low pressure system (our cold front) down here to us and now is gunking up the air.

Our high temperature here was only 88 and now has fallen to 86, so we are having a nice, cool August day. I think it is supposed to warm up quite a bit by the end of the week though. I'd like to think I could go outside in the cool early morning hours tomorrow and do something similar in the garden, like maybe deadheading flowers. I don't know how that will work. I was sleeping so poorly at night with a cough suppressant that I really cannot imagine how I'll sleep tonight without one, but I'm going to try it anyway. I hate taking any medication of any kind, so the sooner I can stop that stuff, the better. I believe our early morning low is supposed to be in the upper 60s---not unheard of in August but still a nice treat.

Everything looks so green. I hope people remember that one good rainy week did not erase the drought and that there's still plenty of dry, dead or dormant stuff standing out in the fields in the midst of all the green. I'm already seeing flowers blooming in our front pasture. Last week the zephyranthes bloomed. It is so interesting how they pop up after rainfall, and mine never pop up in the same place twice. (They are bulbing plants, so ought to be relatively stationary.) There's also a few Mexican hat plants blooming in the front pasture. I'm hoping for more. We need for all the wild yellow daisies to grow well now so they can be in bloom when the monarchs migrate.

Dawn

I love reading your posts, Dawn. Just because I don't comment on every single thing, want you to know I love reading them. I'm so glad things are looking so green now for ya.

I'm glad you're beginning to feel human again and SO sorry now Tim is sick! AGGH.

Hahaha, just caught zephranthes. . . that's another totally new one. Just checked them out. Is there a flower you have NOT tried??? And like I said, so sorry you don't live next to me, so I could automatically cross stuff off my "to-grow" list, or automatically include them. Okay, now, really . . . . are there ANY you haven't tried but have wanted to but just haven't gotten around to it? You crack me up--but in a GOOD way.

Small-worldish that Rebecca sent you a visual of the hog/car accident I mentioned. My friend Leah lives not far from where the accident was, and she was so bummed to hear about the feral hogs being near her.

Yes, the double flowered datura are wonderful--I had tried some Black Swirl from Swallowtail, too, but they didn't germinate. I think I may try them again; feel a little more educated about getting them to grow now.

Also interesting you mentioned the smoke. My SIL in Wyoming was telling me about it in Wyoming. She said the mountains were obscured; she has an open field across the street from her and then the cemetery. She said she couldn't even see halfway across the field. Said she really couldn't go out, with the coughing. I do remember we always got that where we lived in Wyoming, off the fires, if not in Wyoming, in Idaho and the west coast. Sometimes all. I haven't REALLY noticed it here, although I do think it's hazier than normal. I can't begin to imagine it in Washington, British Columbia, and California right now.

Our day was very unusual. Most of the afternoon it was in the mid 70s. Amazing. And yet neither of us really accomplished much. I spent time searching out new fun ideas for dinner and doing laundry; GDW was up early (unlike me, who finally got to sleep about 4:30 am, so slept until 10:30), and got a lot done. So by the time I was up and running, he was settled in the watch little league world series games. I joined him off and on all day.

Bless his heart, he spends a lot of time nowadays in his daily tasks fixing hummingbird nectar. If not every day, every other day. He's filling five feeders now; he thinks he has some bigger feeders in the shop. He needs to go check that out. He was also out cleaning debris out of the yard and pulling a few weeds.

And I feed our four critters. Since Tiny Dude is still little, he eats 3-4 times a day. Well now Tom and Jerry have figured that out, so they think THEY should eat 3-4 times a day. So I humor them and give them a tiny bit and also much smaller portions at their 2 regular feeding times. Now that Tiny is getting more and more sure of himself and knowing how life is here, he's not quite as clingy to me, and so Tom and Jerry have been enjoying the past week taking over their normal places on Garry's lap and mine, or near us. They seem so BIG to me, after my previous two petite female kitties, and when one of them jumps down from the back of the couch to my chest or stomach, it's a rude shock! LOL

About time to take Tiny to the vet for hernia repair and neutering. That oughtta subdue him for a couple days. I don't even think there's a need to crate that character in the truck. He is fearless. He'll probably get a kick out of traveling. My 23-yr old companion, Kitty, loved to go for car rides. I think Tiny will be the same way. Love the color of his coat. It's almost rust-colored on the back.

HJ--how did you come to be in possession of these wonderful old letters!!?? What an absolute treasure! I'd give a lot to have some letters like that from my grandparents and their relatives! Oh how blessed you are!!

I hope Kane is better soon, and I hope you are, too. I would sternly admonish you to treasure this down time as a time to reconnect, rejuvenate and REST! :) My most interesting challenge like that was after I'd broken both my wrists (rollerblading--dumb dumb dumb); pretty helpless with anything that required attention from a hand, for about 5 weeks; then finally when pronounced okay 6 weeks later, the callous build-up in my right wrist severed the main thumb tendon, and I was without the right hand for 3 more months. I wasn't able to work; had a little bit put away and a little bit of sick leave, but was living meagerly to say the most. It was tough that way. But in terms of not being able to use my dominant hand, it was really quite interesting. I got my biggest fun out of learning to write left-handed, do art left-handed, and to do all the other right-handed things with the left. (BTW, the number of things one can't do with two broken wrists is outrageous, kinda funny. Just turn your imaginations loose. One I remember is opening a pickle jar. I remember lots more but won't go into detail.) Then as soon as I got down here to OK, cut off my 2nd and 3rd fingertips and so didn't have a right hand for another 3 months--no prob, I've been there. LOL My poor right hand. LOL

Finally, Dawn. You absolutely made my day with this one: Re bugs, "I just ignore them and eventually they're all gone. (Ignoring pests is my number one pest control strategy.) " You just described my approach perfectly! I laughed SO hard!!

I think I can finally post again. Very strange. Last week my box to insert my post changed. I could type but no submit button ever showed.

Well I don't remember most of what I would have posted lol

Dawn and Tim and HJ I am sorry y'all are down. I hope you recover quickly. Dawn I cant take that over the counter stuff. I usually just take elderberry and hope for the best.

There is report on my fb that shows the air quality diminishing over the panhandle.

Wow. Perfect day for mowing, at 77. But it's mind-blowing that we had an August lawn in June, and we've got a June lawn in August! That grass is SO thick and heavy and growing so fast! AND it's damp. The lawn mower gets too heavy just with half a bag of clippings. So it's taking me longer than normal. Meanwhile GDW is out there tearing it up with his whipper snipper! I ran over a small garter snake this morning; felt bad, didn't even see it til too late. Darn! There went one of my pest warriors. Guess that would qualify as friendly fire.

Well, I spent Friday and Saturday in the hospital. I had chest pain, which I thought was indigestion, but it started when I woke up. Ron made me go to ER. EKG was good, blood showed no sign of heart events or pancreas issues. But my blood pressure went very high. So, after a little more than 24 hours in the hospital, we really don't know what happened. They doubled my BP meds and gave me potassium horse pills. The truth is today is the first day I feel "right" since Friday, so something happened, just no idea what. Thurs I go to primary care doc for followup.

This morning Honey got another chicken. It was outside the fence. We need to go find a couple of teenaged pullets, we are down to 2 and were only getting an egg every other day. BTW, saw a FB post the other day, a bag labeled Golden Girls, senior crumbles. Wasn't paying attention to the group. I thought what kind of CRUMBLES do I need??? Duh, chicken crumbles.

I have brassica and kale seedlings under lights. The winter pansies haven't sprouted. I need to drop some Swiss chard seeds. I also want to plant carrots, beets and turnips. I want to put them in containers, but getting DH to mix some soil is the issue. Mixing soil, or digging up a bed, which is harder? The garlic bed needs to be prepped. I've decided I want to grow Elbon Rye in the same bed I grew it last year. Hairy vetch where tomatoes will grow next year (under brassica plants?). The peppers are doing well right now. Tomatoes look better, but not producing much. Should be plenty set this last few days. Cowpeas took off after the last rain. I think I have 3 okra plants :(. I thought I had bind weed on the amaranth plant in the flower bed. LOL it is the firecracker vine (both plants from Nancy). It must have liked the rain, too. We had 1 3/4 inch from Friday through Sun. I think it was 1 1/2 the last event, the one that really inundated south Tulsa just skimmed us.

Ron mowed this morning. The grass was very tall despite the fact that he mowed last week. It is not zen for him, and I am seriously thinking of hiring it out.

Oh, Dawn, bats, in daytime yet. My aunt used to have them in their attic and occasionally they got in the house. Childhood trauma. I hope you AND Tim feel better fast.

Farmgardener, took me a minute to figure out what you were using for your bed in the first pic. Hay feeder, right? Looks good.

Yes, Nancy, we need our own weather stations (I admit, mine is still in the box.) I'm at least 10 miles from Tulsa's (which is right down the street from daughter) and maybe 20 miles from Skiatook, so there is no perfect mesonet site for me either. I don't think there's any place in OK safe from ferrel hogs.

Ferrel made me think of when I told my friend from California about ferrel emu. She couldn't believe it. DD and I saw one on the side of the road one day. When I told the cowboys on the ranch one said he had a whole flock of them scare a bunch of cattle he was trying to move.

Cumin, it OUGHT to grow here. So should Nigella, sesame, and some other things I've had trouble with. There must be a trick. So do grasshoppers get high when they eat datura?

H/J, before I gardened, we saw a coyote in our neighborhood. Kids were still home, so 15 years ago? While Owasso had more empty fields then, this was right off 86th, which was the main drag. Of course, 2 miles south and 2 miles east was pasture then, where the ranch I worked for hired helicopter hunters to kill coyotes, so not that far out of the question. Those pastures are now the Stone Canyon housing development. I wonder if they see coyotes.

You should scan those letters before they fade any more! What a priceless gift! I hope your foot is better soon. I hope Kane is ok.

Jen, I was going to say flower arrangements for the cotton, but I see Dawn beat me. I think they are trendy now. Maybe a wreath?

Kim glad to see you! I read everything last week, even if I didn't comment.

XOXO

I've enjoyed reading - not much to say, though. I trimmed back my 3 remaining tomato plants a couple of weeks ago - they've put out new growth and I've even seen a couple of blooms, so maybe I'll get a tomato this year yet!
My Yellow Baby Watermelon (that the squirrels stole the fruit from completely) is putting out a lot of new growth and has a given me a couple of male blossoms. I'm hopeful that maybe there will be at least one female set that I can do a "Ft. Knox"-type lock-down on, lol. Since the squirrels are eating every developing pecan available, I'm going to hope they're distracted from my garden!
Other than that, hummers are busy; zinnias, Laura Bush petunias, and crape myrtle are still blooming; grass needs mowing continually :)
Dawn - I'm sorry you were so knocked down (and now Tim, too)...recover fully and be WELL, both of you!

Sharon

Amy that is so scary. I went thru the same thing 5 years ago. They never did find an answer. I finally figured it out myself. It was inflammation from certain foods. It happened again recently when I was cheating on my diet. This time I stayed home and prayed it wasn't something worse. I am back on the diet and feeling better. I hope you get well and stay well friend.

Nancy, I guess I should have expected this. Lillie and Aurora both were sick with upper respiratory infections and/or allergies earlier in August and spent a lot of time with us. I guess I've forgotten how kids can catch everything that comes along and give it to the adults. It has been a long time since that was something Tim and I had to worry about. My big hope is just that if this is the main strain of flu that will be going around this winter, then Tim and I should have some immunity to it, though of course it could mutate quite a bit between now and then.

Now, my song is "I Made It Through the Flu". lol. I've barely stepped outside for the last 6 or 8 days, but now that Tim is down with the flu and I'm recovering, I've resumed feeding the outside animals, including my precious fawns, who are getting so tall and leggy now. I love watching them grow up.

The rain lilies are native here. We don't have a lot of them, but the thing that amazes me is that they exist in our dense red clay soil at all. When I did the jar soil test our first year here, the clay was almost 100% clay. There was so little silt or organic matter that you couldn't find even a tiny layer of it in the jar soil test. I have a great amount of admiration for any native plant that can tolerate solid red clay in a climate where the rainfall can be 19" one year, 38 or 40" the next, and 78" in the worst-possible-case scenario year. They have bulbs and should stay in the same place, other than new ones popping up from seeds occasionally. I swear these do not. One year they're in one spot, the next year there are none in that spot, but new ones will pop up 15' away that weren't there the year before. I don't understand how this happens, but simply have resolved to enjoy them whenever and wherever they pop up. If you want to grow some, there are some nice selections available that have larger flowers than the native rain lilies. I did plant some on purpose in Fort Worth in the 1980s but you have to be careful where you plant them---their existence hinges on being mostly dry so you don't want them to be in an area you ever irrigate. It is some combination of the dryness followed by rainfall (usually takes 1-2" or more in one day here) to make them burst out into bloom. They appear out of nowhere---foliage and all, bloom quickly and fade away. A month of two later, if you've been dry and get a big burst of rainfall again, they'll bloom again. If you try to grow them where they get irrigated, they don't bloom well. Some summers we see them fairly often, but in the rainier summers not much at all. I suppose they don't get enough dryness in those years.

The longer I have gardened, the more I have realized it is pointless to expend too much energy on pests. They'll always be with us. So, I attempt to control the ones, like squash bugs, that do major damage, and I mostly ignore the others. I actually have the best success with the least intervention. Of course, it is not acceptable to say this in most gardening circles because people think they have to control everything that goes on in their gardens, but if I just leave the insects alone, they mostly take care of each other. I have noticed that the people who spend the most time trying to control pests inevitably end up with the worst spider mite and aphid issues, and I know it is because over the course of the summer, their efforts to control all the pest insects result in them killing off a lot of the beneficial insects too. With fewer beneficial insects, the bad guys can run wild.

The flu isn't completely gone yet, so I likely won't step foot in the garden this week, but hope to be back out there next week. I'm getting better, but slowly, and the cough has been so wicked that I've been lucky to get 2 hours of sleep per night. I'm surprised how well I am thriving on so little sleep. The snakes are up and moving quite a bit right now---I just read a news story (now I'll have to go find and link it) about a guy in Texas who was bitten by a venomous snake while harvesting zucchini......after he was back home, he ripped out his whole garden, figuring the $260,000+ in medical bills from the snakebite would have been better spent just buying zucchini. It is hard to argue with his theory, except for the fact that gardening gives us all kinds of joy and good feelings that are priceless. I was really eager to get back out into the garden until I read his story and it reminded me of Jet's very close call with a 5' long timber rattler a few weeks ago, so I think I'll just mostly stay inside a few more days and hope the snakes get bored with roaming around and settle back down. The recent rainfall should help as the green-up should help their food supply improve---or, at least, it means the drought shouldn't be driving them into our yards and gardens as much as it had been prior to the rain.

Here's the snakebite story:

Rattlesnake Bites Rattling Abilene Area

Kim, Thanks, Yes, the over-the-counter stuff seemed important at first as it really did help control some of the symptoms, but then it makes me feel so wired and jittery that I just quit taking it and don't intend to ever take it again. I don't think it is worth it.

Amy, I was wondering where you'd been. I'm glad your heart checked out okay. I know it is frustrating to not get more answers than you received, but on the bright side, if something major was wrong, they would have seen it quickly.

We've had bats outdoors at night since the first year we moved here. I love to watch them at twilight as they come out to swoop through the air and eat insects. I assume they migrate south for winter, but never have studied up on them that much. Bats out in the daylight are just as bad as skunks out in the daytime---bound to be rabid. Our firefighters didn't like killing that one---but they did what they had to do. Now Tim thinks there is another one in the station, but they went up into the attic and couldn't find it. They did find a place birds and bats were getting in near the roofline, so blocked it.

Oh, and here's the difference in me having the flu and Tim having the flu. I spent most of the last 10 days wrapped up in a soft, fuzzy blanket on the sofa, taking medicine, trying to stay hydrated, coughing my head off, and only getting up to do the most minimal amount of work---letting animals in and out, feeding them, etc. Well, I did do laundry and clean a little house one day, which was a mistake as it depleted all my energy and sent me back to the couch. So, basically, I focused on survival. I am not getting any sleep, so with no sleep, there's no energy. Now, Tim having the flu? He tells me I'm more ill than he is, so he'll take over all the animal care since he is staying home from work. And he does. He does dishes. He cooks. He does laundry. He goes outside and mows. He piddles around in the garage for hours, doing who knows what. He goes to the station and works on the fire truck. He stays on his phone and computer and responds to calls, text messages, alerts, etc. from work. He orders parts to do more work on the fire truck. He goes to the grocery store. He gets on his computer and works on....whatever. Is he sick? Absolutely. Is he coughing his head off? Yes. Does he feel like crap? Yes, he does. He coughs all night, but he sleeps through it and doesn't even remember it. I wish I could sleep like that. But, does he slow down.......not hardly! The important thing, though, is that he didn't go to work and share the flu with all his coworkers. So, at least there's that.

I've wondered whether deer get high when they eat datura leaves. I have no answers, and don't know about the grasshoppers either. It is possible they can tolerate the compounds that cause issues for humans, but I'm just guessing about that.

Sharon, I'm glad your garden is rebounding. Now, if only the squirrels all would drop dead mysteriously of.....whatever.....it doesn't matter....anything, everything, something. I don't know how it is possible to win the squirrel wars once they've tasted tomatoes and melons, but I hope you win and get to harvest some fruit this fall.

There's no new gardening stuff to report since I cannot see much from my sofa (grin) but, some of the fields around us have a huge bloom of some sort of yellow daisies now---might be helenium or perhaps green-thread daisies or something similar. That takes the pressure off the flowers in my garden. Still, a lot of honey bees are out there waiting every morning for me to put out the cracked corn for the deer. It is like they have given up on blooms and decided just to subsist on corn dust. It is strange.

The smoke in the air is horrible here which, if you're recovering from the flu, is just one more reason to stay home and stay indoors to avoid that nasty air. The cooler weather has been nice---most noticeable in the very early morning hours before sunrise when the overnight lows drop into the 60s. We'll be back near 100 degrees by Friday though so I guess the August good times are about all done.

Dawn

Nancy, you mentioned having the cats jump down on you... We have 2 that are at least 20 pounds each, huge cats. One likes to launch himself off the bed headboard, use me as a springboard & land at the foot of the bed. Annoying to say the least, and a very rude awakening in the middle of the night.

Good idea on the cotton. I always admire those people that decorate for the seasons, I even saved a bunch of stuff from last year's garden to use. But I never manage to do any myself. I go all out for Christmas, so I guess I'm burned out the rest of the year.

Have you heard of using fermented honey garlic as immune booster? I am going to make some as soon as I can find some garlic. It cant hurt to try.

Dawn i have gotten desperate and used ny.... but oh yuk the side effects. Sometimes when we are desperate we try anything.

Jen, you're a tougher person than I am!! Wow, your cats could do you serious harm

Amy, I do hope you are feeling well today! Hate it that you went through it. And I pray you'll stay on track now. Don't like it.

And Kim, you're in my thoughts. . . well, you all are.

Dawn, are feeling 100% yet? How's Tim?

Let me know if YOUR firecracker vine does anything, Amy. The ones I planted back along the veggie area fence got decimated by the same devils that got the rest of the ipomoeia (the purple morning glories, the moonflower vine early on, the heavenly blue morning glories, early on, and the sweet potato vines.) I ended up yanking them out about 3 weeks ago.

This is what Tiny and I have been working on the past two days. Very proud of it. This is the back bed that I'd pretty much give up on, as the Bermuda gained a stronghold. I didn't go in and dig it all up because of all the bee balm out there. But now, I'm going through inch by inch, getting it. It goes 8 inches down in some cases.

Now, having said that, the picture above is roughly 1/3 of the entire bed. LOL

Foreground is about 5 wheelbarrow loads of weeds and Bermuda, pulled. Middle is yet to be dealt with, and the cleared area is at the very top. So yeah, a ways to go. And this time will actually let ALL the flowers go, if necessary, just to make sure I get all the Bermuda. I expect there are enough seeds from bee balm, cleome, and 4 o'clocks that some will find their way to the top of the soil even after my radical digging. This bed has some really good soil in it, though, with 4 years of lots of mulch. It's very crumbly and just beautiful to work in. No wonder the Bermuda loves it. :)

Gotta think about food now. I am wanting fun, healthy and tasty stuff. Gonna go on an online hunt.

Dawn's post sneaked in here somehow unseen by me until just now. I scrolled back after Kim's comment. I think with all your smoke down there, staying in is good sense. (Not to mention snake issues, too.) I so appreciate your take on the bad bugs. Except for my freaking out about the milkweed last year and all the oleander aphids, I do pretty well with ignoring them all. I know it's because I just am lazy, mostly. So makes me feel VERY good to hear you mostly endorse that approach, Dawn! LOL

We had a domestic issue near us last night, and it is always unsettling to have stuff like that going on. And it increases our wariness AND unfortunately affects our thinking about the people involved. Well, I hope they can all get their lives on the best track for themselves.

I have been harvesting tomatoes. Since I don't eat them I am just saving seed. I have 4 different plants separated so hopefully no crosses. I accidentally ripped out 1 of my baby butternut. Sad.

On Purpose I took out all the cukes. I haven't seen any lady bugs in my garden but I could use about 1000. The brandy? Tomato the next to go. The aphids are too much. Actually I an not going to pull anything else. Just leave it for trap.

Desert willows are the star here. Still blooming and looking great. I may gift those when I leave here.

Still backreading...

Nancy, my second cousin (once removed?) had the letters. Her grandmother (my great aunt Ladybug) had them. It's funny. Ladybug was the oldest sibling and my grandmother the youngest, yet my grandmother died first (of her siblings) and Ladybug died last. ANYway, Ladybug had them and Stella Leescher got them and shared them with me. There's a ton more stuff at her house. The letters are precious for sure. There's another stack from WW2--letters from my great uncle to home (Gotebo area). They say he, to the day he quit working in the fields, would drop to the ground whenever a plane went over. Suppose that is a form of post traumatic from war. ?

And there's a car title for a 1926 vehicle. Just funny stuff.

I still think Kane is doing better. I will share more when I feel that he's "out of the woods". There's one thing that still concerns me. Thanks for your concern, everyone.

Glad you're able to post, Kim. It's always good to see your posts!

Amy! How scary! I'm glad you're feeling better, but still...I'm so sorry you were so sick. And I'm sorry you lost another chicken. I was concerned that I lost one today. I couldn't find Stella anywhere. Then, limped over to the garden and she was having a good time there. She went to the "coop/pen #3" at that point. Anyway, take care of yourself!

skankins, glad your tomatoes are putting out new growth!

Dawn, did your granddaughters have the flu? If not, you probably got it elsewhere. I wonder where you could have picked it up....so early!!! Be careful that it doesn't turn into something else...especially with that awful cough. Something like pneumonia. I have to admit that I'm more like Tim when I'm sick and/or hurt. The only thing that makes me stay down is a high fever where I'm hallucinating (like last year) OR the sobering thought that if I don't rest my foot, it might never get better. Foot started hurting over 2 weeks ago and for the first week I just ignored and kept gardening and walking the dogs until the day I could not walk. At all. However, yesterday the doctor said I do not have a stress fracture, only metatarsalgia so it gives me full license to keep on going and not rest so much. Tim is lucky that coughing doesn't wake him. It keeps me up all night when I have a cold. For some reason, the few times I've had the flu, it's never given me a cough...just fever and aches and headache. Colds give me a cough. It's funny how each person is so unique in their symptoms and such.

Happily since I don't have a stress fracture, I've felt okay about doing more around here so I feel good about that. And I've gone to work and feel good about that too. I haven't returned to the garden. But am doing the animal care except for Josi, who pulls me too much still.

I don't use products to kill pests, yet I'm not seeing ladybugs or other beneficials this year. Very weird. Where's the stinkin' ladybugs?! Aphids are dumb.

Fermented honey garlic sounds like something I should check out.

Hi all,

Finally caught up on all your posts. I have been sick since I got back from OKC on 10 Aug. Not sure if it's flu, but it's taking me a long time to recover. The OTC medication made me jittery too. My energy is finally coming back. I have not done any gardening at all.

Eileen! :) LOL Missing you!

Oh, by the way, HJ, when you told skankins you liked how well her tomatoes are growing now, I got a great big laugh! Sharon, from now on, you're gonna be Skankins to me. I laughed so hard. Perfect! Done deal, Skankins.

Nancy, the story I posted about hercules emergency trip to the vet is a true story. I am not sure it was posted, but, anyway, I did not want you to think I was pulling your leg about the little dog.

I was called yesterday, I am to go to Joplin tomorrow for pet scan. I will leave there and head toward Bourbon Mo. to see my uncle who is in bad health.

The deer are eating the sweet potatoes in my north and south gardens. They are also eating the peas that George gave a few years ago. They have the same peas in their garden, they are eating them also. I do not intend on losing those seed, they are a very hardy plant that grows like crazy. They are like a Timex , they take a licking and keep on ticking.

I put up an electric fence on 2 sides of my south garden hoping that one will touch it and run for the woods, after a few shocks I hope they well want to stay out of my yard.

I have pushed the mulch back to plant about a 4 x 12 radish bed in the south garden. But I won't be able to plant till later next week because of so many Dr. Appointments .

Jen, Some of our dearly departed, much beloved kitties were like that. I had one, whose name was Tough Guy, who would climb up on my back and just sit there if he found me down on my hands and knees in the garden pulling weeds---like the only good reason for me to be in that position was to be his garden stool. He's been gone a few years now and I miss him. His dad, Emmitt, was a true garden cat and would pop up all over the place. He believed people were for jumping on, climbing on, sitting on, or...if it was hot and sunny and you were working in the garden, he'd come sit beside you in the shade your body was creating just for him. If you moved, he moved with you just so he could stay in the shade.

Kim, So true! It took me a few days, in my flu-compromised state of mind, to realize that the Nyquil might be relieving the symptoms, but was making me too wired and too jittery to sleep. Last night was really the first good night's sleep I've had in 11 nights---almost like it took that long for any residual jitteriness to work its way out of my body even though I haven't taken Nyquil or anything like it in days and days now. I'll stock up on natural cold and flu remedies next time I'm in a good store with a good selection of natural products (like Central Market---I need to go there!).

Nancy, I think I'm 80%. If you'd asked me yesterday, I would have said 60%, so that's a lot of improvement in 24 hours.

If the granddaughters had the flu, it wasn't diagnosed. Lillie had spent a couple of weeks with her dad and came home early, unexpectedly, with a sore throat and fever. They took her to the nearest walk-in clinic as soon as they saw how sick she was and she was diagnosed with strep throat. She did seem to recover quickly once she was on medication, but who knows if she had the flu when she was at her dad's and then developed strep as a secondary infection? Aurora is three so has that sort of perpetual procession of little upper respiratory infections and runny noses typical of kids that age. Both girls have allergies. The flu could have come from anywhere though---you can be exposed to it just walking through a store. If this is the flu strain that's going to be going around during this coming winter's flu season, heaven help us all. It is wicked and the recovery is slow.

Tim went back to work today. He never was as sick as I was, but he was smart---he started taking medicine right away, unlike me. I was asking myself "is this allergies? a cold? the flu? am I coming down with something?" for a couple of days before I decided it was the flu and started taking something. He, on the other hand, had the advantage of knowing I had the flu, so when he started feeling crappy, he assumed he had the flu too and started medication. I hardly heard him cough at all last night, so imagine he is back to 90% or 100% already. He said this morning that he felt really good. I did caution him to not go back to work too early---one of the other Asst Chiefs is undergoing cancer treatment and I didn't want Tim to expose him to the flu since cancer treatments can impair a person's normal immune response.

I hope Tiny is doing his share of pulling/digging up that bermuda grass. He needs to earn his keep. (grin) When I am pulling or digging grass or weeds, I do not find the cats especially helpful---they think everything is fun and games and often get in the way.

Domestic issues are upsetting. Sometimes we get the medical calls on those, you know, and I just hate for Tim to be walking into that sort of situation, even if cops already are there or en route, because sometimes the perpetrators of domestic violence turn on the first responders who show up to help them. Here in the state of OK, there is not necessarily a good law/good response. If the victim doesn't want to press charges, often the cops just leave. It is not that way in Texas---if police go to a domestic call, somebody is going to jail. I like it that way---it gives the victim or victims a chance to pack up and flee if that is their choice, or at least to obtain a protective order.

I've only made it halfway through everyone's posts. I'll try to catch up later. Jet is demanding to go outdoors NOW.

Dawn

When an old dog who has chronic kidney disease insists he must go outdoors now, you must drop everything and take him out. If you don't, you'll find yourself mopping up the floor. There's none of that "wait a minute and I'll take you out". Nope, he is a little dictator (unwittingly, perhaps) now---one sharp bark and I drop everything and take him out because I know the consequences if I do not react quickly enough.

Kim, No lady bugs around? Sometimes you can attract them to your garden (if they are in the general area) by making wheast. Or, even just by spraying a sugar-water mix on your plants. Here's some recipes for these:

Recipes To Help Attract Beneficial Insects

This morning I did a quick walk-thru of my garden to see how it has been doing without me and I did see some ladybugs (real American ladybugs, lol, not the Asian ones) hard at work on some of the watermelon plants. Sometimes in extreme July/August heat, the ladybugs seem to lie low---and who can blame them? I always wonder if they are up in some shadier spots just trying to survive the heat without subjecting themselves to full sun and full heat.

Jennifer, It is great that Stella knows how to have a good time, but unfortunate that she chooses to have that good time in the garden. I've been leaving my garden gate open every day so the chickens can go in there now if they wish. Now that they can go into it, they no longer want to. I guess they've been excluded for so long that they've forgotten that good times can be found in the garden. Or, now that's there's no low-hanging tomatoes or melons for them to enjoy, maybe they just aren't motivated to go in there and eat grasshoppers and such.

I'm glad you don't have a stress fracture because I know the time you'd need to stay off of it would drive you crazy. Still, take care and let it heal.

The older I get, the more prone I am to catch the flu. I hardly ever got it in my 30s and 40s and, when I did, recovered quickly. These last 5-7 years, I seem like I get it every year and the recovery is harder every year. All my life I've heard that peoples' immune systems weaken as they age, and I see that now in my own life---at the age of only 59. By the time I'm 70, I'll have to hibernate at home during cold and flu season because I won't have any immune system left at all. On the other hand, an immune system is a funny thing. Last year, nationwide, a lot of young people in their 20s, 30s and early 40s died after they went sepsis during a case of the flu. When you go into sepsis like that, it normally is caused by your immune system over-reacting to an infection, which in these cases was the flu. What is it about the flu last year that caused young peoples' immune systems to overreact and throw them into sepsis shock? This sort of thing puzzles me. Obviously we want to have healthy immune systems but maybe not such robust immune systems that they overreact and kill you. It is such a conundrum.

My garden is dry and pitiful looking, as the drought continues and no more rain has fallen here. It is what it is. August in a drought year is a tough month as it is, and the rain we got a while back was nice, but not drought-busting type rainfall. The rain made plenty of weeds sprout though. I see lots of morning glory, bindweed and foxtail grass to deal with---that will be next week as long as I don't encounter any snakes in there between now and then.

Eileen, I bet it was the flu. I'm just basing that on the fact that there's low levels of flu cases being reporting across the country in August. My BIL in PA had it two weeks before I did. I did an uncommonly high amount of flu research while sick---trying to figure out if there was anything more I could learn about it that I didn't already know. One thing I learned is that it is not uncommon for the cough to persist for up to 4 weeks after you've otherwise recovered from the flu. I didn't know that, but I do remember that last year, the cough did persist for an uncommonly long time. Just take care of yourself and get your energy back. Last week I tried to do too much too soon and promptly relapsed, so this week I've been trying to take it easier on purpose so I don't do that again.

Larry, I'm glad you're finally going to be able to go and get that PET scan. I hope all the news is good after it all is done.

I love the deer but they sure can be destructive. What I've noticed is that when I plant stuff on purpose for them---like one of those fall and winter deer plot mixes, they ignore it. If I plant stuff for us, well, that's what they want to eat. It drives me crazy.

Have y'all been watching the weather? Are some of you still getting rain? I've been out to lunch, weather-wise, not watching very carefully, while sick. Now I'm starting to pay attention again, and am not happy to realize we're back to being hot and dry, hot and dry, hot and dry. We had a couple of cool mornings earlier in the week and they sure were nice but I didn't even feel like sitting outdoors and enjoying them because of all that smoke in the air. It doesn't seem as smokey today, but then tomorrow is supposed to be really windy. I hope the wind blows away any lingering smoke, and not that it blows more smoke down to us, which I guess always is possible.

Hurricane Lane has been a surprise. The last time I paid any attention to it was probably early last week and it was way out there in the Pacific as a topical depression, not expected to come within hundreds of miles of Hawaii, and not expected to do much of anything. So, fast forward a week or more, and I click on Dr. Masters Wunderground Blog maybe on Tuesday night and discover it is a Cat 4 headed towards Hawaii. By the next morning it was a Cat 5, but it now is weakening as it encounters wind shear and is back to a Cat 4 again. Still, they are going to get tons of rain if nothing else. I suppose that rain is usually good, but not when it comes in feet instead of inches. I hope everyone there stays safe and above the flood waters and out of any potential mudslides. I would joke and say why can't we ever get a hurricane here to bust our droughts, but you know, we got the remains of Hurricane Erin once, and also of Hermine, and the flooding was awful, so I won't even go there....

Have a good day everyone.

Dawn

Is this really August? It is raining here again. The garden has responded by looking lush again.

Guaifenesin. Prescribed for us years ago for flu before it was over the counter. (The year the kids had frozen pizza for Christmas dinner). Mucinex is one brand. Also, to avoid jitters, look for meds for people with high blood pressure. Decongestants are usually the culprit.

I make what DD calls voodoo tea. I told Eileen this and she googled voodoo tea and several places sell it, none with my recipe. Equal parts ginger and turmeric (I use grated fresh rhizomes, but you could use powdered spices) steeped in hot water for at least 15 minutes. A pinch of black pepper (makes the turmeric's curcumin more available), lemon (vitamin c), honey (antibiotic and taste). Add any other ingredients that might help, like cayenne to drain sinuses, black mint (tagetes minuta for cold symptoms https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1993/V2-649.html) spilanthes (sore throat).

I believe my cat is reading this thread. 4:00 am she's tromping around the bed, licking my hair. And finally, stomping across my stomach. WTH! How does a cat manage to stomp. They don't seem to be built for it.

Larry, I'm glad the doctors finally got their act together.

The fire cracker vine is not blooming, just strangling the amaranth. I wonder if it will survive winter? Maybe it will bloom before the hummingbirds leave.

H/J, glad you don't have a fracture.

Have a good day.

What happened to the "link button"?

Eileen, you're sick too! What in the world? Why are we all sick and injured?!

Is it strange and alarming that people are already getting the flu?

Stella isn't supposed to be in the garden. She has a large chicken yard, but somehow finds a way out. I didn't get in until late tonight and she was out. Tom doesn't mess with her much. So, I got a flashlight and limped around the garden and property to look for her. She was "roosting" on the arm of a chair on the shop porch.

I actually looked at my plants this morning. Guess what I found on the watermelons? Two squash bugs that were mating. They are dead now. I didn't see any other signs of squash bugs or damage. Also saw a yellow spotted cucumber beetle.

I didn't grow squash this year. I wonder where those two came from. Do they crawl over from other people's gardens? I'm so confused on this.

It was hot here today. Back to summer.

Amy,

(pound, pound, pound)...that is the sound of me pounding my head against the wall after you said it is raining again. (grin) No rain here. A high of 99 degrees today, with a heat index of 107. I tried to water part of the garden so I could save the fall tomatoes, the peppers, the southern peas and at least some of the zinnias, but everything may have gotten too dry and gone beyond the wilt point while I was sick and not caring if the garden lived or died. I did what I could but I think about half the plants are goners, although the pepper plants and tomato plants are in better shape than the flowers and they all might be okay. I'm glad that some people are getting rain, though, even if I am not one of them. It was hot and dry, so we had two fires (naturally)....a semi fire on the interstate and a big hay field fire down in the river bottom land between us and Thackerville. Because I'm not sure if all the flu is really gone yet, I made no attempt to go to either one.

My body doesn't tolerate Guaifenesin. I thought it would work for me as an expectorant if I bought the one that doesn't have the cough suppressant added, but it has such a strong effect on my body that my body tries to violently cough up everything in it until I am collapsed in a quivering heap on the floor with no mucous, fluids or food left in my body...so it is off my list of things I can use. I have no idea why it affects me this way. At our house, you can see why Mucinex is a dirty word. Maybe it is God's way of pushing me to only use natural products.

I'll try the voodoo tea. I can use both ginger and turmeric and have them both. Thanks for the suggestion.

Cats are just magical that way---especially at 4 a.m.

Hmmm. I can see the link button. Are you on your phone or on a computer? I am on my laptop and the link button is right in the usual spot.

Jennifer, I think there is an early, if small, flu outbreak going on. We have both the girls tonight/this morning, and it was a sort of last minute child care crisis that partially developed because the relative who usually has them on the nights when Chris is at work and not due home until after 8 a.m. while Jana has to be at work at 7 a.m. is himself down with something that Chris described as the flu. Then their backup plan let them down, and we got a phone call. So the two girls arrived here all cute and ready for bed, and we watched a little TV, had something to drink and chatted until they were ready to settle in and sleep. I'll have the older one up, dressed, fed and ready for school when Chris rolls in from work and picks her up and will keep the little one all day so that he can sleep after he arrives home since he'll be coming off a 24-hour shift which lately doesn't seem to let them even catch naps in between calls because they've been so busy. This is the first time we've had them on a school night. Being me, I am trying to figure out how to stretch a one-night visit into a whole weekend. lol. It seems odd to have this sort of flu thing going on in August, but one year we had a localized outbreak in May. That was the swine flu year, so maybe 2012. I know that May flu outbreaks are considered a late part of the previous flu season---the 2017-2018 one. I'm not sure if August counts as part of that, or if it falls into the 2018-2019 flu season.

Yes, squash bugs migrate. Out here in the country we even have the occasional native squash plant (they are hideously, stinkingly awful, so only fit for insects) called buffalo gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima) that helps the squash bugs travel from garden to garden by giving them something to feed on. Supposedly humans and animals can eat them, but I wouldn't and don't and haven't even seen any eaten by wildlife---only by squash bugs.

Nancy, I bet the rain felt good, even to Tiny. Our cats are oddballs and don't really mind getting wet if the weather is warm---sometimes they will sit out in light rain in the summer. They don't like thunderstorms or heavy rain or cold rain though.

I love that Tom has accepted Tiny to the degree that he will bathe him. That's a sign that they really have bonded. Our Tiny Baby, who is white with black splotches, loves to wash other cats, but when he tries to wash Pumpkin, it devolves into wrestling or some other form of mortal combat because Pumpkin can't just chill and accept love....he thinks everything has to be a game or a battle.

It is late and I should be sleeping. The alarm will go off early enough as it is, and I think Chris will call me as he's leaving work @ 7 a.m. just in case this old woman might sleep through the alarm and not have the 9 year old ready to go to school. I hope I am not that decrepit and over the hill just yet. Really since Lillie is getting dropped off at school instead of having to catch a bus, she gets to sleep in a little later than usual.

The little one and I have big plans (or, at least, she does) for tomorrow that include sidewalk chalk on the shady patio and the wading pool later in the day. This will be after we feed her Baby Alive her bottle and then change her tiny diaper. (We had dolls that drank from a bottle and wet, but I don't remember them having diapers back in The Dark Ages when I was a child. The kids are acutely aware that summer is winding down and want to spend part of each day here 'swimming' if you can call what they do in 15" of water swimming. Lillie is hoping Chris will bring her back here after school so she can swim as well, and I bet he will. The nice think about the wading pool is that we set it up near a huge trumpet creeper vine so we get to watch the hummingbirds while swimming too. There will be no gardening for me tomorrow, obviously, but it is supposed to be really hot so I don't really mind that.

Dawn

I remember having a wading pool as a kid. And yes I thought I was "swimming". My grandma loved it, it kept me from wanting to run her sprinkler all day.

It's amazing how animals will take to each other. Our 2 boys are so closely bonded that they are more like a single unit. And though they still act annoyed with Tigger, they still watch over her. She had to go to the vet a couple weeks ago and the younger boy (Bear) spent the whole time searching the house for her. And all 3 protect the mini poodle. He's 17, mostly blind, half deaf, and senile, and they take turns watching out for him.

I found a hornworm on my pepper plant last night, so this weekend I need to take a closer look & make sure there aren't more hiding out.

Whatta day. Back to high heats. 97 heat index at 7:30 pm. Only twice before have I felt I was being smothered by a blanket of heavy air (read "humidity".) When I was 12 and visited Iowa for only the 2nd time (from dry Wyoming) and in Florida in February of 97 or so. But that's kinda how it felt today. The only good thing about it is that the plants love the humidity.

I'm excited about tearing the Bermuda out of the back bed. I confessed to Garry today that probably one big reason I kept putting it off was because it scared me. I'd look down there and think, "No WAY is that possible." It IS. And not only that, but it is SO gratifying while I'm doing it, inch by inch. It'll take another couple weeks, but I'm excited. I'll be tearing every flower out of that bed to get the Bermuda, but it is a BIG bed (approximately 8x25 feet), and I'm excited about the number of things that will thrive in it once I get it cleaned out. It's a tricky bed. Full morning sun from about 9:1m to 1 pm, when the shade encroaches. I've been having fun thinking about what I can put in there. And best, most of what I can move in there can come from other beds, so no plants to buy.

But now I have a question. I was researching it today, and have been observing where the Bermuda is the worst, with the encroaching. I note that the catmint, for example, is so thick, there is hardly any Bermuda in it. Same with some of the other perennials. I am thinking that the Bermuda encroachment is worse with annuals, whose roots systems, I'm thinking, aren't quite as developed as the perennials. Would appreciate your input.

I LOVE Titan, Tom, Jerry and the new one. Our lives are so much richer for them.

Jen. . . when my granddaughter in Mpls was 4, I got a big wading pool, that was kinda deeper than the little ones. Set it out on my concrete pad that served as a patio, and she and I would both get in it to cool off and have fun. I hope she remembers it like you remember yours at your Grandma's. GD wrote a touching essay about me last year in HS. About her memories. I was astonished. What she remembered--popcorn and OJ while watching movies in my bed, of course, now could she not; my beautiful classical music (!!!!! that I had playing in the background if the TV wasn't on--that just blew my mind. She wrote me a couple years ago and wanted me to send her some of the most beautiful ones. I hand-delivered about 30 of them to her the next trip up.) , and my flowers that she loved. We never know what things our precious little ones are going to glom onto with fondness. For me, it was my Grandma's quilts. My Grandma and Grandpa's prune juice! LOLOL. I got to stay with them a few different times for like a week at a time and they drank prune juice every night, so I did, too. Because THEY drank it, I loved it. . . and I remember them laughing about me loving it, but until I was quite grown up, never got why they found it funny! LOL. Their divine sweet peas. Can vividly remember pressing my nose into those flowers and thinking I was in heaven at age 5. And most of all, their absolutely unconditional love for me. These were THE two people in my life who thought I could do no wrong. Not that they excused any bad behavior--they didn't. Just that because they thought I could do no wrong, I was determined to do no wrong. I was so very lucky to have them in my life.

Dawn, thanks for the answer re animals grooming one another. It was SO astonishing to me since Tom likes to think he's a tough fellow. He's just a big ole soft teddy bear. He is SUCH an interesting cat. He is a freak, but a very sweet freak. But this is the first time in my life I've had more than one cat at a time, and WOW, what an education. So different, each one, from the other. I can hardly wait to see who Tiny grows up to be. I CAN say that he loves me, and likes GDW VERY much, too. He follows me everywhere, in the house and in the yard. I'm his most fun person, apparently. Well, most fun critter. I move more than the others do, plus I'm the one who feeds him. :) Weeding the Bermuda is a team effort for him. I dig it out, toss it into the bad pile, and if he's not actively interfering with my digging, is grabbing it when I toss and bringing it back in. OR peeing where I've just dug down about 4 inches. . . I mean right in front of me by like 2 feet. He apparently thinks, "OH, Nancy just dug me a hole to pee in." But he's still little, and so I just laugh and cover it back up with the soil I just dug up. Urea is good, right? LOLOL Perhaps TMI, but it IS funny.

Peppers peppers everywhere. They're high in nutrition and am thankful we like em--cuz we GOT em. What a fun year for peppers. A lot of good candidates for stir fry. Same with the herbs.

I keep throwing ripped-out plants into the raised veggie beds. Some dry stuff--alfalfa hay; lots of plant carcases, my house compost/refuse stuff. and grass clippings. Will be adding lots more double-mulched leaves this fall. I might be ignorant, but my thinking is that ANY plant refuse is a plus (minus what is seeding). What say you?

HJ, BTW, I have so many beds out there that I can't keep track of any one thing, usually, to remember. I just plant with abandon and hope for the best. LOLOL

Love ya all!

Jen, I do love the way animals bond together, especially after being together for many years. It is amazing how close they become, how much they help each other and look out for each other, and also how the survivors grieve after one of them dies. Their love for one another just seems to be such a pure love.

Nancy, The heat and humidity are awful and it looks like we're going to be stuck with them for quite a while. I don't know what y'all have in your forecast further north, but down here in extreme southern OK our 14-day forecast basically calls for hot, dry weather with little to no relief in the form of rainfall. Our high has been hitting around 99-100 every day, which is typical August heat I suppose, but it seems unbearably hot after we had a little rain and a cold front that cooled us down into the 80s for a few days. The high temperatures should drop slowly as we advance more deeply into September but we often have highs in the upper 90s and low 100s even through the end of September. It drives me mad. I get excited about fall....all in the mood for autumn leaves, flowers in autumn colors, pumpkins, gourds, etc. and what I have in reality is pretty much the same weather we had in August. Sometimes it seems like autumn conditions just refuse to come this far south until October, but eventually autumn does show up.

You can throw any plant material you want onto any garden bed and it will decompose, but be careful with diseased plants---if they are not in a hot compost pile, the disease microorganisms can survive and plague your garden next year. I try to put any diseased plants in the one compost pile I keep cooking along at a high temperature. The rest can go on slow, cold piles that don't get watered, turned, etc.

Regarding the flu, I finally figured out where it came from, largely because we were talking about how the cough hangs on and hangs on and Chris said "yeah, I had it about 6 weeks ago and couldn't shake that cough". Bingo. That sparked a memory and the light went off in my brain. Chris and Jana were sick in mid- through late-July, and of the two, I believe Chris was much sicker. We had lunch with them one day when they had just, finally, begun feeling better and were regaining their appetites. Then, in late July and early August both the girls were sick. We saw them during this period, and then I came down with the flu in mid-August and Tim did the same a few days later. So, it seems like it ran right through our family. Everyone is over it now, though the cough still lingers a little here at our house, but not a lot.

The garden is hot, dry and pathetic. I watered it one day but doubt I'll do anything more than water the fall tomatoes otherwise from this point forward. Too hot. Too snakey. Still dry and in drought with our KBDI advancing pretty quickly each day again now that the soil has dried out from the rainfall. Fires started up again this past week, so the handwriting is on the wall. We've had three fire trucks break down in the last month, so UPS has been beating a path to our house delivering fire truck parts. These packages are not thrilling to receive, like when I get a package of seeds or something, but Tim is really glad to see them.

Yesterday at Ikea, of all places, Lillie saw a hornworm crawling across this parking lot filled with hundreds of cars. It was a tersa sphinx caterpillar---that is the one that has such prominent eyespots as it reaches the later instars. This one was only about a late first instar or early second instar, so not real large yet. I looked around for a food source to move it to. I would assume that some of the commercial plantings around the stores there must have had pentas in them (though I didn't see any) because the tersa sphinx moths are common around pentas (and are the reason I cannot even grow pentas here---because they will eat them down to the ground in the blink of an eye). We got to have a fun conversation about hornworms, and about how the horn won't hurt you, and about how these caterpillars turn into beautiful sphinx moths. The girls were fascinated with the caterpillar. They were equally fascinated with Ikea and found many things they thought were essential for their room (formerly the weight room). So, I got to introduce them to Ikea and hornworms on the same day----it was a very good day.

Dawn