OH my goodness. What a difference from yesterday at this time!

Larry, it's supposed to be 18 by 7am. Tom will have a cold drive to work and walk from the parking lot to the building...as will everyone else!

I covered the broccoli and cauliflower with a frost cloth. Covered the parsley, dill and pansies with a sheet...and the brussels sprouts too. I hope they all make it. I have pansies and violas tucked in here and there, so I could not cover them all. I moved the pots full of pansies into either the shop or storage side of coop.

It was NOT fun covering them all. The wind was insane and it took several tries.

Finbar is bored. The dogs are bored. The chickens are bored. Juno is okay. She is used to sitting around. Maybe I'm bored too. I did clean out my closet/drawers and have several bags of stuff to donate. I'm not really bored...just out-of-sorts. It will be good for Tom to go to work tomorrow so that I can have a day to get things organized and cleaned. It's possible I'll get called to sub...I would rather not, but could use the money, so will if I'm called. Also, I like to help out when I can. But staying home would be just fine too.

We did get out this morning to buy ziplocks. I also needed to buy small gifts for a shoebox gift thing that Samaritans Purse does. It was fun. I miss shopping for small children. Oh, and we went to Lowes to get some of those plastic things you put under pots. I didn't look at the plants much, but saw some rosemary cut into tree shapes.

The porch plants are now indoors. I decided to put them in the 3rd bedroom. We'll just keep the door shut so the cats don't dig in the pots.

We were supposed to start a 2 week clean eating "diet" today, but postponed it until tomorrow for several reasons. But, I really don't have anything to eat and I'm hungrry. I found a large jar of tomato soup that I made and froze in September 2018...so it's 14 months old. Do y'all think it's still good? It's thawing now.

We do have to get out tonight. Ethan is playing with the Oklahoma City Jazz Orchestra and I don't want to miss. Plus, he left his suit jacket at home and needs me to bring it to him.

I did tell him that I'm not dressing up and I hope I don't embarrass him, but it's too cold to do anything but dress for warmth!

Okay...it's dark, so I'm off to shut the doors to the coop.

What did everyone do today?

Larry,

My thermometer is showing 19 here, although I think our forecast was for 21 or 22. It might drop another degree before sunrise. The wind chills are in the single digits. This is the most winter-like weather we have had here this early in November in a very, very long time.

I'm glad you enjoyed your radish leaves.

Your collards might make it since they are just now sprouting and are down very low to the ground.

Jennifer, I thought about covering some things, but decided I wouldn't fight the wind and cold to do it, and I'm not sorry. It was cold and misty out there all day long and I abhor being cold. There wasn't a lot left anyway, but there was parsley and fennel that still were green and relatively lush and happy. There's Arp rosemary too but I expect it will be fine in these temperatures anyhow. The asparagus still is green....why oh why? The harder I try to kill it, the better it looks. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Everyone here was bored too, and I actually was surprised at how long the dogs stayed out when they went out, but then they were half frozen when they came back in. I think the cold was just novel enough that it didn't send them back in within a few minutes. This morning they came back indoors much more quickly than yesterday morning. I left the garage door open for a while so the big feral kittens (born back in the summer) could go in and out, but they mostly chose to stay in, so I closed it up eventually. They had food, water, blankets in boxes and cat toys so they could at least stay fairly warm and entertained. I would have brought them indoors if I could catch them, but being feral, they still are averse to human contact. I petted one of them last week and after that they all three hid every time they saw me coming.

The little kittens indoors that I'm bottle feeding have finally found their appetites after adjusting to bottles instead of their cat mama, and each feeding time has become an absolute circus and feeding frenzy. I'm grateful I was able to find them and get them safely into a warm, dry environment before this weather arrived. It is not easy building one's schedule around bottle feeding kittens, but it is only for a few weeks so I don't mind doing it.

I imagine the frozen soup would be fine. We had chili last night and we'll have it again today. After that, I think I'll make stew or something. It is a good week for hearty, filling winter-type foods.

What did I do on Monday? I fed kittens, did dishes and laundry, fed kittens, put away clean dishes and laundry, fed kittens, then made human food for lunch and dinner, and then I fed kittens. lol. Do you see a certain same-ness to my routine? I also found time to clean house a little, feed and play with the dogs, take care of the outdoor animals and....feed the kittens one last time before the human bedtime. Then I threw the kitten laundry into the washing machine to wash their blankets, towels and the baby washcloths I use to clean them since their mama isn't here to wash them. That's one of the last things I do every evening so we start out the next day with everything clean except for the blanket they slept on overnight. Every time I try to do anything else, kittens scream to be fed or they want to be held and played with. I'd like to do some online shopping to try to finish up the Christmas shopping before the end of the month, but I never get enough peace and quiet to do that. Jesse is pretty high energy and needs to walk daily, but we skipped the walk yesterday due to the cold, so that big puppy was bouncing off the walls all day long. He tries hard to be good and stay out of trouble, but he is a puppy who likes to chew, so you have to watch him like a hawk.

I expect today will be much like yesterday---just trying to stay warm and to keep everybody else warm, dry and fed. I dread having to break the ice in the chicken waterers just morning---that is usually more of a January task than a November one. When Tim left for work, I told him I was going to try to get some online shopping done today and he just rolled his eyes---I say the same thing every day but the constant needs of cats, dogs and kittens who are stuck indoors and bored always gets in the way. I might be able to do it in the evening after he gets home and can handle the final kitten feeding before bedtime (he doesn't mind that at all---he misses them when he is at work) but by then my brain is too tired to think or shop.

Approximately several million leaves came down yesterday as the cold front and its gusty winds roared through, so a lot of leaf raking and collection is in our future, but not in today's cold. At least we will have sunshine though, and by the time the weekend arrives, the nights might be staying above freezing again.

This is such ridiculous November weather.

Dawn

It is 13 here now in Springdale. I wonder how the snapdragon seedlings will take it? Are they fine, are they dead, are they burned to roots? :) I guess I'll know in a couple of days when it warms up again.

I'm debating attending a wild edibles symposium/class? in Fort Smith. It's 6-7:30 pm, and I'm not sure it's worth the after dark driving in below freezing temps. Thoughts?

I think we made it to 15. I stayed in bed until almost 8, which is ridiculous, but I was so cold and putting off the outdoor chores. (I did get up and fix Tom's protein shake and lunch at 5:30, but went back to bed.)

The wind is missing today and the sun is shining...so that makes it all a little better. It is still brutally cold. I'm "processing" Seminole pumpkins today. Usually the chickens are thrilled to get the seeds and guts, but they're coming out of the coops and looking at it and heading back to the coop. So, there's a ton of pumpkin goop sitting in their yard. Maybe the wild birds will find it.

My house is dirty...but I decided to work on these pumpkins and a couple of other things rather than clean. I'll do a quick clean-up but leave the deep clean until a couple of weeks in the future.

Tom will be smoking about a 100 turkey breasts for various people/events. When he does this, my kitchen is destroyed. Why bother wiping down my shiny white cabinets and appliances if it's just going to be splattered again in 2 weeks. SO, I'll scrub real good after Thanksgiving and after decorating for Christmas which always leaves a mess too. Just keep it livable until then.

Does anyone use a Roomba type of floor cleaner? I'm seriously thinking about saving up for one.

Question for Dawn (or anyone that has butcher block countertops). How often to you oil your butcher block?

My garden does not well, even the onions are drooping. I did not uncover the Brussels sprouts, I expect they are okay. The cover crop looked fine, but I expected that. I would like to burn the garden that needs clean up, but the wind is too high for that, plus the water hoses are frozen.

Yes, Dawn, the radish leaves were good, but Madge would not try them. It is funny how we get things in our head. I can remember how I use to be the same way, still am, but try to be more open-minded. I can remember when I thought that I did not like cooked rice without sugar in it. Now rice and beans is a favorite dish.

We are bored and are going to town. Madge likes to go shopping ALL THE TIME, I guess I will go to Lowes and drool on the tools.

Dawn, or anybody else . Assuming that my plants made it through this , what's a suitable

row cover for the hoop tunnel I just made . I had to piece together 4 frost blankets to go

over the hoops. The structure is around 40' long by 6 or 8' wide at the bottom and 3 to 4' high.

I'm looking at something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011BEKZM6/ref=pe_27542660_451215890_em_1p_1_lm

to replace what I just put up for future re-occurrences of these Artic events.

This weekend I'll see how I made out . ( If I don't get ambushed by a deer again.)

I guess I'll have to take off at least some or all of the coverings that I put on for venting and such

but would like to have on hand a more suitable covering for my hoop tunnel.

I guess I could leave the windbreak up that I put up around my collard patch , that is if it

didn't end up in the next county somewhere. I think the max wind gusts there was 36 mph

which isn't as bad as 50. The low this morning was around 15-17 degrees with a 3 degree wind chill.

The low tomorrow morning is supposed to be 18 and then start warming up more through the week.

okmulgee boy

dbarron, I have found that often small seedlings are tougher than taller, older plants and suspect it is just a coincidence, perhaps because they are small and low to the ground and benefit from whatever heat the ground is holding. I've had small zinnia volunteers in autumn survive sub-freezing temperatures (down to around 26-27 degrees) while the older, taller plants froze back. Having said that, y'all were a lot colder this morning so your snap seedlings might not have made it. I hope they survived. In a normal year, I am sure they would have. Do snapdragons survive your winters? They're hardy in my zone 7 location of course, and survive most winters, but every now and then a really bitter cold spell will get them.

It sounds like an interesting class. So, I guess if I were in your shoes, I'd ask myself if the benefit of attending it outweighs being out in the cold. Are the roads clear and dry? Do you mind driving in the dark? (Some people hate it.....). If so, why not go? On the other hand, if there might be ice or something, I'd probably stay home.

Jennifer, That's pretty cold. That was nice of you to get up and fix Tom's lunch and protein shake. Tim fixes his own lunch, but I'm usually awake and up at the same time he is, unless I was up at 3 a.m. feeding kittens, in which case I might sleep through his alarm clock. I awaken easily, he does not.

Our dogs can relate to your chickens. When we opened the laundry room door to let the dogs go out into their dog yard this morning, they tried to make a U-turn and run right back upstairs to bed when they felt that very cold air. We made them go out long enough to do what they needed to do and they weren't happy about being out there either. I think it obviously feels better now with sunshine and temperatures finally above freezing here, but they still didn't stay out very long when I let them out a few minutes ago.

I totally relate to your kitchen issues. I find it one of the most frustrating rooms in the house to clean because that sparkling clean look only lasts until somebody walks into the kitchen and uses it. Clearly those pristine, sparkling white kitchens must be meant for people who don't actually cook in their kitchen or something....you know, a kitchen that is just for show because that level of clean is hard to maintain on a constant basis. It is the same thing with countertops---I put things away where they belong in cabinets and drawers, day after day after day, in order to avoid having a wildly cluttered countertop, and still, clutter reappears on the countertops daily.

I oil our butcherblock whenever it needs it--maybe once every month or two. It depends on so many things---the season, how high the humidity has or hasn't been, how heavily the counter is being used (in canning season when I'm canning a lot, it gets oiled more often), how heavily I oiled it the last time--sometimes I do one coat, sometimes if I have time, I do two coats. Right now, it needs to be oiled, especially the area between the sink and stove top that is heavily used on a daily basis.

I don't know much about Roombas, but I feel like in this house, if we had one, a cat would be riding around on it constantly, or a dog would be barking at it. I'm just guessing about that though.

Larry, Hopefully your plants will perk up after we warm back up in a couple of days. Now, I cannot go into Lowe's without buying something, so enjoy drooling on the tools and watch yourself or you'll be putting things in Madge's basket and running up a bigger tab at the check-out. (grin) Usually when we go to Lowe's, Tim has his own list of things he needs to get and I have mine. In the winter his list usually is longer, but during the gardening season, my list tends to be longer.

We have gorgeous sunshine today, and we have made it all the way up to 35 degrees so far, but the air still feels awfully chilly. Our official low of 17 degrees (18 at our house) is a new record low for this date. That doesn't surprise me at all. I looked at the garden and everything that had been blooming is toast. I was in an I-don't-care mood last night and left the 3 pots of chrysanthemums. They sit right up against the south-facing wall of the sunroom and I decided that if they made it, fine, and if they froze then that was fine. They made it, which is pretty surprising for an 18-degree night. Of course, sometimes plants will look like they survived a cold night and then a day or two later they are clearly freeze damaged and going downhill fast, so we'll see.

My challenge today, other than feeding kittens, is to try to get 10,000 steps on my Fitbit. I have no problem getting 10,000 steps, and often a lot more---I had a 22,000 step day last week---on a typical day when I'm in and out, working on various projects both outdoors and inside, and also taking Jesse on his usual walks. I usually don't even wear the FitBit during the gardening season because there's no doubt I rack up plenty of steps daily. I have to wear it in the gardening off-season, especially when I am stuck indoors by the weather, or I get lazy and don't get 10,000 daily steps. So, I'm sitting at a little over 6000 steps so far today and trying to figure out what else I can do that will add up to a lot of steps. Walking down to the mailbox and back will add a few hundred steps. About the only reason to walk down to the mailbox is the faint hope that maybe there will be a gardening catalog of some sort in it, which is unlikely for November. Otherwise, it usually is just junk mail. I could take Jesse for a walk, but he and I both hate the cold weather and would prefer to stay indoors until it is 70 degrees again, which might means we'd be staying in for months.

Woo hoo, as I was typing that our thermometer flipped from 35 to 36 degrees. We're having a heat wave!

Dawn

My sister had a Roomba. They named it Gladys. Gladys got eaten by one of their dogs a few weeks ago.

Its cold. That’s all.

I'm thinking I'll go...I might enjoy myself or learn something (and I bribed myself by planning to eat out at Catfish Hole on the way). The snaps don't look good at all, but I won't know for sure for a couple of days.

I would LOVE to make a video of a cat riding a Roomba :)

dbarron, enjoy the class!

Larry, hope you had fun shopping and looking at tools! I love looking around Lowes. It makes me think up new projects, though!

Rebecca, poor Gladys! My friends have one. His name is Jeeves. However, they don't have pets and are not outdoorsy types of people. They are very clean...drive into their garage and go into the house. SO, their experience with a Roomba wouldn't be the same as mine.

I do have another friend who has a small dog that doesn't shed much at all--still not a good comparison. Her dog has had an accident in the house a couple of times and Roomba rolling over it wasn't a good thing at all. Can you imagine?

My dogs are crated when we are not home (or outdoors if the weather is nice enough and we won't be gone too long), but the cats...I'm not sure how the cats would react to a Roomba. Juno would probably be terrified and Finbar would see it as something to hunt. Probably. Maybe I could just have it going while I'm home. Something to think about....

Dawn, good luck getting your steps in.

Tom normally likes to fix his own breakfast and lunch, however we are doing the "clean eating" thing for 2 weeks and it's always better for me to be involved. That way he'll actually get his protein shake in, AND not get frustrated with the slightly more complicated lunch menu/ingredients.

I was able to process 10 pumpkins and got 4 jars of pumpkin puree to add to the freezer. And another jar to use this week somehow. Maybe a soup. It sure takes a long time to get this finished product, but the taste is so much better than canned. My friend gave us some pumpkin bread last week and it was very good, but the bread I made a couple of weeks ago with fresh pumpkin was MUCH better.

Yes...the kitchen is hard to keep clean. I normally can keep the clutter down if I stay on it everyday. It's the amount of time it takes to wipe down appliances, cabinets and floors that gets me. And we are like you, we use our kitchen. We cook and eat at home a lot. And often our recipes use fresh ingredients and there's just always more of a mess. But the food...the food is so good. That ladies meal prep that I went to a few weeks ago...well, the food is okay, but my recipes are much better. Tom and I have learned to use spice and herbs and the difference is very noticeable. But...more mess.

Tom isn't careful with the butcher block. For us, it was a good choice to only put in on the island. He does oil it frequently and I appreciate that.

I took a small walk around the garden. The frost cloth had blown off most of the broccoli. Maybe they'll make it? The randomly placed pansies and violas look sad.

I messed up and didn't cover the salad garden bed. Whelp, there's always next year. That's that. For some reason my mind tricked me in thinking they were covered because the insect netting is on the hinged hoop. Next year, I'm going to keep a piece of plastic to throw over the hoops for times like this. Today, it made it to 35 and we still have 3 more nights of lows below 32. It would be nice to have plastic on the hoops and open in during the day when it warms/the sun come out so the plants don't get too hot.

The comfrey that I had cut to the ground last month...it's back and survived the temps. lol.

Okay. I need to get to Pilates. My instructor won't be there and we have a sub. I really don't want to go because I've never taken a class with this guy. I've seen him giving private lessons at the studio and he seems nice...but, she asked us to please go...so I will. I wouldn't if I hadn't missed the last two weeks.

Here's an interesting link for anybody interested in overwintering as much as I am.

https://www.tunnelberries.org/uploads/5/3/8/2/53821521/unh_low_tunnel_bullentin.pdf

Of course this probably applies up north , it might work here if enough effort is put into it.

If it wasn't for the too wet spring and too hot fall this year I probably wouldn't bother with it

either.

okmulgee boy

Here's another link : https://www.mofga.org/Publications/Articles-for-Reprinting/Season-Extension-With-Low-Tunnels

That guy is my hero.

okmulgee boy

Here's is a link for overwintering spinach https://u.osu.edu/growingfranklin/2018/08/27/growing-spinach-over-winter-using-low-tunnels-and-row-cover/

All is not lost if you are are willing.

okmulgee boy

Rebecca, I have always wondered how a Roomba would fare in a house with dogs because, honestly, I can see my dogs attacking a Roomba if we aren't right there nearby.

dbarron, Enjoy the class and the dinner out!

Jennifer, Lowe's does that to me too. Tim hates it when I see something there and get that gleam in my eye that says something new has been added to our To Do list.

I have seen videos of cats riding on Roombas, but I think our cats probably would be freaked out and hiding from it. I never thought about what a mess it would make if it rolled through a doggie 'accident' and started spreading that stuff around the house. That alone is reason enough to not want one.

I got my steps in, but it wasn't easy. (grin) I could hibernate all winter by just sitting on my behind at the computer, but that's not really healthy, so I try to do enough to make up for the fact that I'm not outdoors slaving away in the garden.

I agree that anything you make with fresh or home-processed pumpkin tastes better than anything from the store, but then I feel that way about all home-grown produce. Even with something like green beans that I harvested, blanched and froze, they taste better than frozen grocery store green beans and I think it is because they are processed so quickly after being harvested.

Hopefully your plants will make it. There's just no way to know except to watch them for a few days and see how they respond. I noticed today that the verbena bonariensis still is green and looks like it is about to bloom. It always surprises me to see how cold-hardy some plants can be. My asparagus still is green too----this is the year that it just won't turn brown and go dormant, I guess.

Comfrey is tough. As far as I know, no comfrey plant ever has died. The ones in the neglected back garden are almost 3' tall and trying to bloom. I noticed that when I was rescuing the kittens last week. That back garden comfrey is taller and looks healthier than the comfrey in the front garden. I suppose voles don't eat its roots either, so maybe it would be a good plant to grow outside the fenced garden in the limited part of our yard that has sandy soil and voles. I guess I'd find out if deer would eat it---since I've only grown it within the two large fenced garden areas, I have no idea if they'd bother it or not.

I hope you enjoyed your Pilates class.

okmulgeeboy, I went through a period where I tried to overwinter so many things in so many ways....underneath low tunnels in the actual garden itself, inside the hoophouse style greenhouse, out in the open air with no coverings, in pots I could carry into (a) the garage, (b) the sunroom, (c) the greenhouse or (d) the house. There were years it worked really well, and years it wasn't worth the time and effort. So much depends on the weather, and the problem with our winter weather is that it can be 20 degrees one day and 70 degrees with lots of sunlight the next, so plants that were covered to keep them warm on one day may roast in the sunlight and heat buildup the next day. In a lot of ways, it can be easier for people in a consistently cold climate to overwinter plants than it is for folks in a highly variable climate. I had more trouble with the plants in the years we were alternating from hot to cold and back to hot again than when we were consistently cool to cold throughout the winter. Someone in a cool climate can leave their plants covered consistently and even benefit from snow insulating them while we have to deal with constantly fluctuating temperatures some years. I would have relatively happy cool-season plants, like lettuce and kale for example, inside the hoophouse (with 50% Aluminet shade cloth over it to keep them from overheating on sunny winter days) as long as the weather was fairly cool, but then we'd have a warm, sunny winter day when the temperature outside hit 75 or 80 (or, God forbid, 90) degrees and even with vents and doors open, a fan blowing air and that shade cloth, the cool-season crops in the greenhouse would get too hot and would start to bolt prematurely. So, keep in mind with whatever you try that some techniques that work in some climates are a bit more iffy in our highly erratic winter weather. And, your weather may not be quite as erratic up there as mine is down here at the other end of the state in zone 7b. Most years my weather is more like the weather in Dallas than the weather in OKC or Tulsa.

All of your links are from colder climates than ours where farmers and gardeners rarely, if ever, have to deal with the unseasonable heat that pops up here even in the midst of winter from time to time, so keep that in mind. You have to have a plan not only for keeping your overwintering crops warm in the coldest weather but also a plan for how to keep anything in tunnels, hoop houses, greenhouses or cold frames from overheating on above-average warm winter days with plenty of sunlight. Been there, done that. I never, ever in a million years thought that my simple hoop house style greenhouse would hit 140 degrees by 9 or 10 am on a sunny winter morning, but it happens, even with the 50% Aluminet shade cloth over the entire structure, if I fail to open the doors and vents very early in the day. It is ironic that it is so hard to keep that hoop house warm at night, but then it overheats during the day in the blink of an eye. It was two or three of Eliot Coleman's books that got me started on overwintering fall garden crops, but I did quickly learn that we face specific temperature challenges that his area does not.

Perhaps ironically, after going to all the trouble to make low tunnels and to build a hoophouse, our best fall/winter crops have been those grown directly in the ground with no form of protection beyond mulch. In the fall/winter of 2012-13 we had an amazing winter garden and it didn't freeze at all until a particularly cold spell around the third week of March. There was a night we dropped into the upper teens (I think it was about 16 or 18 degrees) and that really hurt the plants, damaging them with a lot of winter kill, and then 3 or 4 days later we were around 78 or 79 degrees. We'd had those same temperatures occasionally at night in January with no damage, but March's weather already had warmed up a lot so when that cold night hit, the plants probably had lost some of their winter hardening to the increasingly warm March temperatures. I call those temperature swings 'weather whiplash' and they are hard on cool-season plants. In the case of these plants, many froze back to the ground and I considered just pulling them and moving on to spring planting. Instead, I left those raised beds alone and most plants regrew quickly from the roots, but many cool-season crops are biennials, so they did what comes naturally to biennials and bolted shortly after regrowing from the freeze damage. I don't know if having them covered would have prevented that from occurring. Still, we had harvested throughout the winter, so the fall/winter garden was well worth having despite the freeze issues and bolting in March.

It takes a lot of experimentation to figure out what works for you in your specific microclimate and winter temperatures, and since our winter weather is highly variable, you can get different results every year which is one thing that will keep you on your toes!

For so many years I gardened hard, endeavoring to successfully raise as much of our produce as I could, and was very successful at it, filling up tons of canning jars and three deep freezes. I also dehydrated certain types of produce, especially tomatoes and peppers. I'm cutting back now and both growing and preserving less. It isn't that I like gardening any less or that I don't appreciate fresh produce or home-preserved produce. Rather it is that continuing that workload in my 60s is considerably harder than it was in my 40s or early 50s, so I'm trying to cut back and change things up and not work so hard all the time.

Dawn

Guess I need to move up north.

chicago boy

Okmul. Boy (chicago boy),

OYR

Have you seen this guy's youtube channel? He is so inspiring. He has a small suburban backyard outside of Chicago, but grows a ton of food. This video is about his winter hoops. This probably wouldn't work exactly the same way in Oklahoma, but it's worth watching to get ideas. Also, I recommend looking through his other videos. The one I watched a few years ago about building soil truly brought tears to my eyes.

Why thank you , Jennifer ! That was inspiring . I'll bookmark that for future reference.

I've been curious about these loop tunnels but never built one till this past weekend ahead of

this Arctic blast so I'm on a learning curve . But I do have a problem with venting them during

the week when I'm not there and with the way the weather bounces up and down . I've gardened for years in my parents (now deceased) garden and have always been into pushing boundaries

when doing the early spring planting starting with onions and potatoes and on into the tomatoes

and such later on. I've tried fall gardening a few times but always had a hard time with it with the

way the heat and the bugs hang on . I've never tried overwintering except by accident when something decides to come up and grow later into the early spring.

Thank you

okmulgee boy

One winter...maybe 2015-16?...I had a bed of brassica that survived all winter without cover. It was a mild winter. The next year I decided a bed of red plants where they would be visible to the street. Red and purple tatsoi, mizuna, scarlet kale, red orach. Anything purple or red. It was gorgeous. Then we had a freeze like this last one. The only thing that survived was the scarlet kale. It is interesting, if you WANT a cool season plant to go to seed so you can save seed (like that scarlet kale) then it won't. I do think some seed saving would give us a land race that would be more likely to survive OK weather. You might consider the right VARIETIES as much as the cover. The Nobel Foundation seems to work in that direction, and of course, OSU develops Oklahoma varieties. I think I've also had good luck with some Arkansas varieties. I guess one could hedge their bets with a variety meant for Maine and a variety meant for us and a variety meant for TX. Seems like ONE would have to survive. But like Dawn says, it depends on if they've had time to develop their cold tolerance or not. And, by the way, the Bonnie plant Crinkly kale I planted in the spring looks like it survived. I think well established plants do better sometimes. A plant that survives both summer and winter here is a gem. I have no idea if that kale is a hybrid. They are actually selling perennial kale now, but you have to get cuttings because it doesn't set seed. BTW, Piracicaba sprouting broccoli is one that survives summer and might survive winter under the right conditions.

Ron told me about a video where a cord was tied to a roomba and a baby's walker was attached so the baby kept moving. I have seen videos where cat toys were attached so the cats were entertained. My favorite was a video of a chicken riding a roomba. Now regarding the pet accident, imagine what a chicken would do.

Nancy, did you have an earthquake? My animals were being needy, so I always check to see if there's been earthquakes. They said Wagoner had a 2.0.

We've been sick with a stomach bug. Starting to feel better. Meanwhile, Ron, all of a sudden started freezing stuff in canning jars. I'm not comfortable with that, though I know people do it. There was a thawed jar of bean soup in the fridge. He was asleep. I'm hungry, but still unsteady, so I pull out the soup, open the lid and the jar just collapsed. Bean soup under the microwave, down over the drawers and on the floor. I did my best to wipe it up because I didn't want dogs eating glass. I might have said bad words and if he hadn't been sick too he might have gotten a #deadmanwalking text. (That tickled me).

XOXO

Oh, Amy! That is horrible! You already feel bad and now have to clean up a mess!

I do freeze stuff in glass jars, but let them thaw in the sink. I haven't had any issues so far. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

I had that exact dinner last night btw. Frozen bean soup from last year in a glass jar. Weird. My soup that I thawed a couple of nights ago was actually roasted pepper soup not tomato. I had so many peppers last year. I wish I could find that recipe again. It was quite good.

Dawn, my pilates glass was...different. It wasn't really pilates..it's another method of body awareness. Basically we laid on backs with our legs and arms in the air. Then we balanced books on our feet/hands and had to roll over on our stomach while keeping the books on our feet/hands. I managed to keep one book on one foot and one book on one hand. (at one point we were balancing books on both feet AND both hands.

Okmulgee Boy, I want greens during the winter. That was my project this year. They are dead now from the freeze, so I will try again next year. :(

Amy, hope you feel better soon.

All the talk about roombas and pets, had to go look this one up:

Hazel, I also want greens in the winter. That is one reason I am fooling around with this cold frame/hoop house. I have collards across the highway in my wildlife garden, but they are over a 100 yards away, and I have to cross a pretty wet, and steep ditch and a little hard to get to. The last time I noticed those greens still looked good. This will be the 2nd. of third winter I have had greens there. I am thinking that it may be their environment that causes them to keep growing back. They are near a large oak tree and get a lot of leaves dropped on them. They have a lot of clover growing in with them, I even noticed a lot of foxtail millet ( dead now ) in where the collards are growing. Maybe my approach is all wrong at protecting greens, maybe they need to protected by mother nature. I did notice last winter when I would go steal some greens from the deer that I had to pick around the oak leaves and clover. Some of the upper leaves were burned and yellow, but there was lower leaves that were nice. The nice leaves were up higher on the stalk but lower in the natural mulch, if that makes any sense. The newer leaves just had not grown as much and were not out in the weather, my guess would be that they were staying warmer.

I don't know what kind of collards these were that were in the wildlife food plot mix. I bought 3 pounds forage collard seeds this year, planning on trying to duplicate the process. I am not even sure what the forage collards are. The only forage collards I have found on the internet is " Impact", collards, which is a hybrid, which makes me think that the return crop may not be as nice as the first crop, or may be better tasting. I won't know till I try them.

This is the second or third year I have been growing forage turnips and I like them as well, of even better than the purple top turnips I use to grow. I may try Siberian kale again. Madge did not like the kale because it was too hard to wash, but if it were growing in a living mulch the dirt would not splash up on them, and the natural mulch may protect them in both winter and summer . If I could get my greens growing in a more "wild " environment, that may solve a lot of my problems. Plus the cole crops make great seedheads for the wildlife.

Don't pay much attention to this babbling, I am just thinking out loud about how I can make my gardening easier.

Okmulgee boy/Chicago boy, Don't move up north. Just bribe somebody to make it stay constantly cold, cloudy and snowy here so the snow will insulate your plants and protect them from wild temperature swings. That's all you need to do.

Pushing the boundaries with tomato plants is what I do and is what originally got me started using low tunnels and frost blanket weight row covers. My average last frost date is March 27th and I try to get tomato plants in the ground anywhere from 2 weeks before that date to right around that date in order to get things off to a great start, but the soil has to be warm enough or there's no point. Luckily, an early-planting maniac can pre-warm the ground by putting black plastic over it, or by putting low tunnel hoops over the bed and covering them with thick clear plastic---I prefer 6 mm greenhouse plastic left over from when we built the greenhouse, or from when we replaced old greenhouse plastic with new greenhouse plastic. Here where we live, if I can get tomato plants in the ground in March (and I try to have them either in bloom or on the verge of blooming when transplanted), we usually are harvesting the first tomatoes before the end of April. In fact, we consider it a 'bad tomato year' if we don't get the first ripe tomato in April. We are incredibly spoiled, but I also work incredibly hard to make it happen. There was a point way back in time when we thought we were doing incredibly well to get the first ripe tomatoes by the end of May, but as I've gotten better at pushing the boundaries, that date has slid back to April. Frost blankets and low tunnels will change your gardening life, but there is a learning curve with them.

Amy, I'm sorry y'all have been sick. I am not overly fond of freezing food in canning jars if I have to heat that food in order to eat it. I think that today's canning jars are not as thick and sturdy as the ones we bought and used as late as the 1990s, and they seem to break more easily from thermal shock. We have a lot of those Ball plastic freezer jars with the green lids, and I freeze stuff in them (I just froze some chili in them today) that I want to go straight from the freezer to the microwave. I'm sorry you had to deal with that mess today when you already weren't feeling well. That is extremely unfortunate.

Regarding the #DeadManWalking hash tag statement.....if I send that to Tim, he knows unequivocally that he is in trouble big time and to tread lightly when he comes home. Thankfully, I do not have to use it often at all and, when I do use it, I really don't even have to explain why---he knows what he did and he expected me to figure it out. I'm just as mad at him about not telling me about the coats because I can tell he knew---he tried to wipe the foam insulation off the hood of one of the coats and probably thought he had done so successfully, but it left a smeared residue on it that looks, unfortunately, like a bird pooped on the coat. I'm still mad about my 2 coats though because they were great coats. I bought 2 replacement coats this past weekend, but they are not as pretty as the ones he ruined and they aren't as warm, so I'm still searching for the perfect replacement coat. He will cheerfully buy me the perfect replacement coat when I find it because he's just happy he's still alive. (grin)

Jen, If I had a Roomba, I'd put the 4 kittens on it while they were small. I cannot imagine more than 1 or 2 adult-sized cats riding on one though. I have seen a lot of cat-riding-Roomba videos that are immensely entertaining.

Larry, I think you're right about the leaves being protected enough to stay in good shape even if they don't grow as large. One of my earliest methods of frost protection was to just heap piles of leaves over everything when an unexpected frost was coming. It worked well on still days and nights and then didn't work well at all on windy ones, obviously.

Forage varieties must be incredibly tough. In one bad drought year I planted a whitetail deer forage plot in the autumn. The ground was rock-hard as we were in exceptional drought when I planted, but I planted anyway, hoping rain eventually would fall, soften the ground and help the seeds sprout. I was worried the deer wouldn't have anything to eat in winter because of the exceptional drought conditions. Well, the turnip seeds sprouted and plants grew, but the roots were literally lying right on top of the rock-hard clay soil. They must have grown into the soil a little bit, but at least 95% of the roots were on the soil surface, even as they formed turnips above ground in the springtime. It was bizarre. Even more oddly? It was not a fenced-in area, and as far as I could tell, the deer never touched it.

Today's weather was slightly warmer than yesterday's but then it was windier too so I think it actually felt colder. I did a little online shopping today. I have a narrow window of opportunity to do such things after the kittens have fallen asleep after a feeding. They and I still are not sleeping much at night, but I must be adjusting to the lack of sleep because I'm not as much of a sleep-walking zombie this week as I was last week. The wind today brought down tons more leaves. Even green leaves are falling, courtesy of the nights in the teens. We still have a lot of trees hanging on to their leaves as well.

The forecast for next week still shows a warm-up. Yay!

Dawn

I do Siberian kale about every year both in the spring and fall from seed. The spring planting does pretty well for cut and come again salid greens until it turns bitter with the heat. I plant it in the fall too .It doesn't grow much in the fall but it can overwinter just like spinach and grow tall in the spring. My collard patch is mainly Georgia collard transplants from the spring along with some Champion , Vates and this one kind that has purple veins ,can't remember the name of it, that I've planted from seed . I also have some Curly kale in with it .

I tried to build a 3-sided fort around it last weekend with plastic and pvc before this cold spell hit.

Won't know how it made out til I get back over there to see. I hope it made it. It sure was pretty.

I plant a turnip patch every fall right around Labor day, Purple Top . Some years it's all the fall garden I get .I grow it for greens more so than the roots. This fall it came out a little rough looking to use for greens due to the Sept heat and those cabbage worms.

okmulgee boy

Oh, Larry, I LOVE collard seed sprouts, they're like mild broccoli if you get them before they actually flower.

Well, Amy, I had my first incident with a frozen glass jar. I went out to grab the "healthy" pizza from the freezer and one of the jars of pumpkin puree blew it's top. I brought it in and put it in a ziplock.

That's the first for me.

Wow. I just read through everything. I've been AWOL. It has been a blessed time away, but I realized I have now officially gone over the edge, from loving to garden to impassioned advocate. I've ordered ?? and received 8 books thus far on saving the planet through responsible stewardship (sustainability). It began about 6 weeks ago. . .

So I caught up tonight--loved reading all your posts and jotted notes. I think I'll just put down the notes.

So, Rebecca, where is the warm-up predicted???

Larry: Asking Madge for a date??? You remind me of my Garry Dean. . .

HJ: Introvert. Me. You. Eileen. Vacations 24/7 with people are exhausting!!!

Tom's poor thumb smashed--Tom, feeling for ya! Two of my fingers--right hand, 2, 3 fingers amputated 2 years ago. Ouch.

Mean Diana. My beloved Kitty, who lived to be nearly 23. She was so cute, a tuxedo kitty. But she was evil to everyone but my son and me. She acted all friendly. I repeatedly warned people not to pet the cat. Every single person who ever visited thought she'd love THEM. LOLOL. One of my friends' 80-yr-old Mom knew Kitty would love her, even after my warning. Cat sunk her teeth in. LOLOL I didn't even feel sorry for her.

Jen, ripping up the carpet. We have a kind of sculpted carpet. We hate it. But it's kind of beige and kind of not noticeable. . . the animals (that is, TITAN) are ripping it to pieces. We go around it in the living room every month or so, with the scissors, and cut off the pieces that stick up. GDW said to me yesterday, "We're going to have a bare floor soon."

I still have like 10 more comments, but am tired. . . may get to them tomorrow. XOXO

Well, I went to that Wild Edibles presentation. The drive was less than I thought, though still in the neighborhood of 75 miles each way. I only minorly freaked out driving (hate bridges and drop offs, the tunnel didn't bother me this time). I can't say as I learned anything, but did get a contact (the presenter) to ask some questions (now if he just reads his email).

My snapdragons appeared to take minimal harm from the 12F. They are still small, because of how long the heat stuck around (even though I started in late August indoors). I haven't grown snaps in ages, because of the how fast the heat comes in spring/summer (or whatever you call what comes after winter). I do remember growing them as a teen and having some last 2 or 3 years here in Arkansas. So..I don't know what to expect, but figured that with our milder winters now, the show might be good before the heat comes on. Of course, as Dawn said, we may have the winter to end all winters (lately).

I don't like the cold, but i hate the heat worse? I always thought I should move to the mountains, but I didn't.

I am not that surprised by the jar issues---it has long been a problem. Then, when they introduced the plastic freezer jars, the early generation of those had ill-fitting lids that were prone to pop off in the freezer, so when you went to retrieve one, you found a jar of freezer-burned food with no lid. The newer generation of plastic freezer jars doesn't seem to have that same problem any more.

There's a couple of things y'all can do in the future to avoid the issue with cracking jars and with jars popping their tops in the freezer.

First, if you have the straight-sided canning jars, use those for freezing instead of the ones with the shoulders. I have both kinds. You can find the straight-sided canning jars in pretty much all sizes, with both regular mouths and wide mouths. Here's what a straight-sided Ball-Mason jar looks like:

Straight-sided Jars

Secondly, if you are using the jars that have shoulders, don't fill them completely full. Remember that liquid and semi-liquid products will expand as they freeze, and you need a lot of expansion space inside each jar to prevent cracking caused by expansion. On some of the jars (I am not sure if it is on all), there is a fill/freeze line. It appears as a thin line beneath the threads of the jars. I just went into my kitchen and checked some of my new jars and old jars both, to see if the freeze/fill line is still there, and it is. On some of the newer jars it looks like it is about 1/8th of an inch below the jar threads and on some of the older jars it may be only 1/16th inch below. This line exists to show you where to stop filling jars when using for freezing since frozen products need more expansion space than canned products.

Third, let your hot liquids cool to room temperature before you fill the jars. This will lessen the chance of thermal shock and also will decrease the likelihood of jar lids popping off after you put the jars in the freezer. If I want to fill the jars as soon as I take the food product off the burner, I pre-heat my jars in the canner (even if I am freezing the contents and not canning them). Hot food going into hot jars lowers the likelihood of thermal shock, just as letting the food product cool to room temperature before pouring it into room-temperature jars also does the same thing. You will not necessarily see instant cracking with thermal shock, but you'll see it when you pull the product out of the freezer and the jar cracks and breaks into pieces.

When you remove jars of frozen food from the freezer, it is best to remove them a day before you'll use them and let them slowly defrost in the refrigerator. Alternately, let them defrost on a counter at room temperature. Don't take the products straight from freezer to microwave.

Nancy, I guess Titan is doing his best to remove all that carpet.

dbarron, It is a shame you didn't learn anything new after making such a long drive.

I'm glad the snaps look good so far. Sometimes mine look pitiful all winter and don't seem to grow much but I just ignore them, and they tend to put on a big growth spurt in early Spring and then look spectacular after that.

The older I get, the less I like weather at both ends of the spectrum---too hot or too cold. So, of course, here we are living in Oklahoma where the weather sometimes swings wildly from too cold to too hot and then back to too cold again. We're not leaving though. I figure any location a person could choose to live has some sort of drawbacks---at least here we know what we're dealing with, even if we don't know exactly which month to expect it.

We were so very cold and frosty here this morning. Surprisingly cold. Colder than the forecast said type cold. I think it dropped to 23 at our Mesonet station and 27 at our house. We were supposed to be around 30 degrees. The frost was thick too. It sure doesn't feel like November this week, but I think it will feel better next week.

Here's the 6-10 day outlook:

6-10 Day Outlook From CPC (updated Wed)

Then, here is the 8-14 day outlook that takes us out a bit closer to Thanksgiving, and it indicates near-normal temperatures for that last week of the month:

8-14 Day Outlook from the Climate Prediction Center

After the below-average temperatures we've experienced lately, which in some areas have gone about 30 degrees below what is typical for this time of the year, normal or average temperatures will feel wonderful.

Dawn

I ordered 3 different sizes of plastic containers similar to jar shape with screw on tops on Amazon. It really doesn't matter, he could use freezer bags. We've done that for years. But he is rough on frozen foods and sometimes those bags get pinholes and then leak when you thaw them. I considered the silicone freezer bags, but they are still pretty pricy. He'll use something for awhile and then try something else. There are people out there thinking why doesn't SHE do it? Sometimes I do, and I would have put the soup in a freezer bag (I have a gadget that holds them up and open) and written on it what it was and the DATE. I go to the freezer and find bags of brown stuff with no label and no date and no clue what it is. How can a man who is so OCD in other ways NOT label things? And he cooks most of the time. He is a better cook than me and he LIKES to cook, which I don't. We have never really learned to cook for fewer than 6, so we often have left overs to freeze. There is limited room in the freezer, though, because he is a food hoarder who also likes to shop so the freezer is jam packed. I checked his horoscope once when we first got married. It said he would be the one with a case of paprika under the bed. SO TRUE. Our kids come and shop our pantry when they're broke. He was one of 6 kids in a poor family and never felt he got enough to eat until he went into the Marines. There was always plenty of food at our house. There was always a meal left for his lunch the next day and we fed friends. Obviously I have eaten well through the years...too well.

I'll take warmer than normal, Dawn, yes please.

I haven't been out front to see if the mums survived. Probably not, north side of the house.

My asparagus is still green, too. Is it a photosensitive thing? Waiting for Persephone days? I hate Persephone days. I need light.

I don't like to drive at night any more, and a trip to Bartlesville and back will do in my knee.

Oh, another thing I've read about freezing in jars is to set it at an angle to freeze, so it expands up in the jar rather than across and out. Jars are much better for the planet than plastic, I feel a bit guilty, but, you know, I could have cut myself! And then I wonder if a jar maybe gets weakened in the freezer it will be the one that breaks in the canner? At least your jar didn't break H/J, that could have been a mess!

I know why Nancy and I get along...we both have kind of obsessive personalities. Love you.

Okmulgee boy, do let us know how your garden did.

I've been kind kind of whiney, I'm sorry.

XOXO

Amy, I am laughing so hard because so much of what you said rings true here too. I have no idea why a man who is OCD in so many other ways is not the same way about putting food up in the freezer, but I think Tim is the same way. Sometimes I find stuff in freezer zip lock bags in the freezer and I have no idea what it is, where it came from or how long it has been there. I date things when I freeze them also and, if I know the quantity, I'll write how much it is, whether in cups or servings or whatever is appropriate. Tim comes by it honestly though, as his mom often put things in the freezer and forgot they were there. Once when we were visiting, she was rummaging around in her deep freeze and found some blueberries that were probably a bit old....she finally decided that the last time she had frozen blueberries like that was 9 or 10 years prior. Needless to say, we didn't thaw and eat those blueberries even though she felt like they'd taste perfectly fine.

We also have the same issue cooking for only 2. We slowly are getting better, but since we still tend to cook big batches, we do freeze for the future. I don't mind that so much....if I make a meat loaf, we can eat it for two days and I freeze enough for two more meals, so that's 4 days worth of meals out of 1 meal. I still have a hard time cooking chili, stews and soups in smaller quantities and some of the recipes I use serve 12-16 so we can freeze a whole lot from one of those batches.

My mums do look burned today. We had another heavy frost this morning. I think they could have taken a night or two of pretty cold weather but we've had a lot more than that. I am okay with that. I tend to treat them more like disposable plants anyway as they always seem to get fungal diseases here in spring and summer.

I have no idea why the asparagus is still green. I am pretty positive that it is just a temperature thing and the first hard freeze usually gets it. Why that hasn't happened this year just puzzles me. Perhaps all the autumn warmth and rain kept it actively growing and perhaps the browning of the asparagus normally is related more to a sort of weather-induced dormancy. I'm going to watch mine and see how long it is before it turns brown. I know that I usually have cut it back to the ground and put all the brown ferns on the compost pile well before the autumn leaves fall, and this year the leaves are falling and it still is green, so the leaves will make it onto the compost pile before the asparagus does.

Honestly, I think the main issue is that they are making jars thinner and weaker, so they are more prone to thermal shock and cracking. I remember when Wal-Mart came out with their own line of Mainstay canning jars a few years back and those things were so thin that they often broke while in the canner (and even in BWB canners, not just in pressure canners) and people were very upset about that. Nowadays I cannot even tell, really, that Ball or Kerr jars are any better than those Mainstay jars are. My dad had both Kerr and Ball-Mason jars that he used for decades and they never cracked. The jars we buy nowadays are nowhere near that quality and neither are the lids or rings.

I don't think you've been whiney---you've just had a week or two that sucks and you needed to vent. We've all been there, done that, and the great thing about the group of people here is that we all understand that folks need to vent sometimes. Never apologize for being human because we're all human and we all have days we need to vent (or, if you prefer, whine).

I will vent now about stupid Fitbit notifications. I got one today telling me that I needed to try to wake up consistently at the same time daily in order to keep my body in a better circadian rhythm. What I wanted to do was to smash the stupid Fitbit and go back to wearing a simple pedometer that only counts steps because that's all I really care about as far as the Fitbit is concerned. I also wanted to yell at the Fitbit and tell it that I wake up at odd times, sometimes multiple times per night, because I am bottle-feeding 4 abandoned kittins who wake up and scream when they are hungry, whether it is midnight or 3 am or 5 am or whatever. Since you cannot argue with a Fitbit, I did the next best thing and went and turned off all notifications from it so I don't have to deal with those stupid, so-called helpful suggestions any more.

A gardening catalog arrived today. It is the first time I've gotten this specific one. It is from Oikos Tree Crops and I usually get their native tree/fruiting plant catalog. This is a perennial vegetable catalog and it is new to them this year. It has some very interesting things in it, but probably not anything I'm looking to buy, including perennial broccoli, wild asparagus, very wild asparagus, edible bamboo, Good King Henry, 8 varieties of groundnuts, an astonishing 30 varieties of sunchokes (be forewarned that if you have voles, they adore sunchokes), hog peanuts, skirret, maypops, Chinese mountain yams and wild beans. So, if any of you are looking for edible natives to add, Oikos has a ton of them in this new little catalog and on their website. There's a lot more on the website than what I mentioned from the new catalog.

Oikos Tree Crops

I am laughing at the description of 'wild asparagus' versus 'very wild asparagus'. I just always thought that wild was wild but now know that sometimes wild is very wild. Who knew?

I'm excited that my 7-day forecast shows a gradual warm-up and a nice long run of sunny days. The clouds and rain chances don't return to our area until next Wednesday. That's a big improvement over recent weeks.

Dawn

Hey Nancy! Good to hear from you! I am like your 80 y/o friend with Diana. I'm just sure she'll like me! Everyone who visits Mason's house thinks the same thing and gets the claws. Diana's issues with me stem from me having to pull her out from under my Mom's bed when Mom was having her new flooring put down. Mom was terrified Diana would run off while the door was being opened and closed and wanted to confine her. Diana let me know that she didn't want me to pull her out from under the bed with teeth and claws....and she's never forgiven me. Mom is the only one who she accepts other than Mason.

Thanks for the jar info, Dawn. The one that popped it's lid was one with shoulders. I thought I left enough empty space, but perhaps I did not. I am out of the straight side ones. I have used the plastic ones too in the past. They worked well for me. I know ziplock is perfectly fine, I just have such a hard time with the amount of ziplocks we go through. It really bothers me. Maybe I'll get some plastic jars and reuse them. I would feel better about that.

A friend's parents were getting rid of a ton of canning jars last week. They are in our shop, but I haven't had time to go through them yet to see what all is there. These suckers could be 50 years old as these people are 80, I think.

Amy, that is so funny about the horoscope and paprika thing! Tom is a food hoarder too. One of our freezers needs to be defrosted, but he needs to stop putting stuff into it so we can do that!

You aren't whiny, but who can blame you if you were...you've been sick. And it getting dark so early surely throws you off. It sure does me.

Y'all my asparagus is just now during brown. Maybe I'll cut it this Saturday.

I didn't look at the garden today because I didn't get home until dark. I got called to sub this afternoon, so that meant I had to work later at my regular job.

I am so hungry right now.

So now I'm already behind again. Where was I. Dawn: We've had hardly any squirrels the past 3 months either. Hmmm. Maybe Garry Dean discouraged them.

And "some cats are a little psycho." Tom would be that member in OUR family now. I am FIRMLY convinced that stems from that one night when he was only about 4-5 months old and darted out of the house, and then was hiding under the deck and afraid to come out. So I put the tuna by an escape hole, he came up to that point, then I moved the tuna into this room, the quilting room, and left the outside door to it totally open, he smelled it and RACED in and up to me, and that was the turning point from that aloof cat who hid from us all the time, to his crazy affection for me. Kinda like Diana, only the reverse, HJ. He is SO adorable, and yet very skittish and insecure about sudden movements. But he loves GDW and always goes to climb briefly into his lap to say hi, before he comes over and mauls me with kisses and purrs. I've been picking him up 2-3 times a day now, and yesterday carried him, all the way from our back bathroom clear out to the livingroom, sweet talking him. He actually was purring, if not totally relaxed. Ah, we'll have this done in no time.

I think Pumpkin and Finbar and Tiny are same same. Great cats, but not the cuddly lap cats, right? And yes, HJ, Tiny and Jerry are defintely bored--in fact, they're both out right now. Tom? Tom hasn't been outside in 3 days. LOL

Dawn, our leaves are down! Bigtime. Thank goodness sposed to be in the 60s next week. I'll get that round up, but then all bets are off.

Larry, I'm definitely going slower. I can bend, move fast, get up and down okay, but I was noticeably slower in the hot weather while trying to mow. I don't like it. I know of two youngish teen girls who supposedly are looking for garden work. I'm anxious to call them and see when they might be able to work. I like them both, and it'd be fun to have them help, earn a little money, and learn at the same time--right? Right!

HJ!!! YES! I want a Roomba! I've wanted one for the same exact reason, dbarron--to see the cats! I gotta do it. I've been building up my savings account a little. I think I'll tell GDW that's what I want for Christmas! And he oughtta be thrilled, because lately he has been the vacuumer. Oh YES! I have a friend in Buffalo WY with one, and it is a hoot! Just roombas about and does its thing.

So speaking of oiling your butcher blocks. . . I began using olive oil on my poor parched lips. Magic. I keep a tiny bit of olive oil in a cup and just dip my finger in it every several minutes, if I'm sitting still at one place. GDW was complaining about his a couple days ago, so I took him a little in a cup. He said, "EWWW." I said, "Zip it! Dab some on every 10 minutes or so." Today he confessed that it worked good. He is a fan.

I thought I liked gardening okmulgeeboy. But here you are, busting your chops to keep crops alive, while I'm praying for them to DIE!

Who mentioned pristine kitchens? Not me, that's for sure. And just my 2 cents. I HATE stainless steel appliances!

Ditto, Dawn--Comfrey never dies.

And finally Amy. . . . earthquakes? Nope. I miss you guys and we MUST MUST set up a date. I laughed so hard at Ron and the freezer bags. Guess who I am in the Amy/Ron freezer bag thing. I am the Ron/Tim thing. Garry is the neat, orderly and tidy one--only sad thing is, GDW never freezes anything.

Love to you all. N

I thought I liked gardening okmulgeeboy. But here you are, busting your chops to keep crops alive, while I'm praying for them to DIE!

((("SHAME")))

okmulgee boy

It's OK Nancy . I didn't really think anything of it. I guess I should of kept my keyboard shut.

I know how forums go. Somebody says something , it gets took the wrong way , somebody gets mad at somebody , etc. I've been in some forums where you just had to put your spacesuit on and take it with a pitchfork in one hand and a fire hose in the other.

Speaking of shame ( if anybody watches a little football ).what about that helmut swing in the Browns / Steelers game last night.http://www.msn.com/en-us/Sports/nfl/the-2019-nfl-season/ss-AAGShGI?li=BBnba9I&ocid=iehp&parent-title=opinion-nfl-should-suspend-browns-myles-garrett-for-rest-of-season-%E2%80%94-at-minimum-%E2%80%94-for-helmet-swing&parent-ns=ar&parent-content-id=BBWN0CM&fullscreen=true

Now that's a ((("SHAME"))) . Everybody knows about it whether you watch football or not.

Like Gomer Pyle would say : " Shame , SHAME, shame"

okmulgee boy

Huh. I am so sorry! I was complimenting you! Oh dear. Please believe me. I was envious that I didn't have the energy to want to keep them alive.

This forum is pretty cool, Okm. Boy. We haven't had many issues with people being upset or rude. I can think of one time when someone chewed me out for calling concrete blocks CINDER blocks...and received a stern lecture on it. For some reason it really annoyed this guy. But guess what? I learned something. I never call concrete blocks cinder blocks now.

There was one other time the same guy had an issue when I mentioned something about *feeling* when life was taken from something...even an insect.

But, other than that...everyone has always been super nice. Oh wait. That one visitor that was trying to start issues with people who believe in God.

Anyway...I suspect the quietness that came to the forum after your comment is because everyone is busy this morning. I am at work and need to run over to my other job in like 2 minutes. Dawn is probably feeding kitties and who knows what everyone else is doing.

So...no worries.

Nancy, this is the link to the Wagoner earthquake. It is weird, and I think an error. The map for it shows the location between Tulsa and Stillwater, no where near Wagoner. I think someone made an error.

We are a pretty easy going group of people. I think it also helps that many of us have met each other and realize if something sounds off it is a misunderstanding, not intentional. As for those who wish to stir the pot, I suspect we're too boring when their attempts fail.

Nothing new here, except I believe the top of asparagus is browning.

I don't think any of use should get our feelings hurt by what we read on this forum. I think free will, which feelings and opinions fall under, was granted by God. I think that God valued them so highly that he permitted Adam and Eve to act is such a manor that man kind would suffer till the end of time (as we know it ). Also God permitted man kind to act in a way that man kind had to be eliminated ( except one family ). Now this is just my opinion and it is not meant to hurt anyone. I think we should be very careful about getting harsh with anyone because of their feelings or opinions. Remember we were also given consequences. Now this is my sermon for today, and if you throw rocks, I hope they are soft ones.

I have been out side cutting up the limbs I remover from 5 trees. I still have 8 more trees to trim, plus 17 crepe myrtle bushes. My garden is almost gone. The brussels sprouts and cabbage that I covered with the mineral tubs look good. I wish I had bought more of them, I fought 30 of them for $1.00 each. I gave 10 of them to my sister and her family, many of her family dont like to work. They have 5 acres and wont hardly plant anything, and I doubt that they will grow anything in the tubs either.

Nancy, I have had arthiritis for over 40 years, so I have had time to "Adjust" for it. I have all kinds of tools to make things easier for me to do. I had to quit taking medication for it about 10 years ago, but still do okay. I just work slower and rest more often, and also have pain pills if I need them.

I can relate to the plastic bags also. I buy the one gallon bags and waste can liners 1000 at a time. The larger bags, 33 to 55 gallon in 150 to 250 lots. The smaller bags I use to store seeds in, also to store used parts in. I place a note in the bag to identify the contents and store it where I will never find it again. I have a gold mine of seeds and used or salvaged parts around here somewhere.

I have had a Roadrunner and a bunch of crows in the garden lately. My best guess is that the are eating the seeds and newly sprouted plants. I fine that crows and squirrels are the two hardest critters for me to control.

My wildlife garden, hoop/cold frame, and potting shed have been put on hold until I can get some of the other projects done.

GDW and I are taking advantage of the little bit warmer weather and are outside working. Just a note to okmulgeeboy. I wasn't praying for YOUR crops to die!! Just mine! LOL.

We're all good. I DID admire all your hard work, truly I do and did. If I can get just even 4 cattle panels this year to make what do you call them, Amy, tunnels? Anyway if I can get four of them, I will think I have accomplished something. I also need to get more dirt into the one sunny flower raised bed, and we DID buy 4 bales of alfalfa hay--as well as 10 bags of raised garden soil. Lowe's had asked us if we wanted the pallet, too, and of course I said sure. Poor Garry. He went to unload it yesterday and figured out why they asked us that. The bags of soil were frozen to the pallet. I was in town at the time--Garry said it took him FOREVER and a few cuss words.

Back to mowing leaves. . . . Later, all.

I'm desperately trying to catch up quickly while also cleaning house before the grandkids arrive for the weekend. I'm taking a break from cleaning for a few minutes.

Jennifer, Those old jars you got from that couple probably are thicker and more well-made than the newer ones and likely would work better in the freezer.

Nancy, Sometimes cats are just slow to warm up to someone for no apparent reason I've ever found. Pumpkin was cuddly when younger, but is more fidgety now and would rather be moving around. I guess he outgrew sitting on our laps. If he is that close to us, he wants to play/fight/bite or scratch (playfully in his mind, but not that much fun for us), so I usually put him in the sunroom to bask in the sunshine and warmth which he does adore.

We have a ton of leaves down, and a ton still on the trees, but then at least 10 of our 14+ acres are heavy woodland, so we never have a shortage of leaves (or squirrels).

We've always had either black or white appliances and I was fine with that, but when we remodeled the kitchen a few years back we chose the stainless steel appliances to go with the gray cabinets and I'm not sorry we did. They complement one another nicely. You might remember we had no plan to replace our existing appliances at all when we were doing the kitchen, but they quickly committed suicide in unison and gave up the ghost, so since we had to replace them all, we went with stainless.

I like gardening but I'm 60 years old, have been gardening since I was old enough to toddle around behind my dad in the garden, and have gardened very long and very hard all my life. The last few years I've been cutting back, and I'm okay with that. I'll never give up gardening completely, but it is not all-consuming like it once was. I wanted to have a more balanced life that didn't totally revolve around the garden and, after almost a decade of trying to slowly cut back, I feel like I've achieved the more balanced life, though I still have a ways to go. I know Tim and the rest of the family still think I work too long and too hard out there, but I'm a lot better about closing the gate and walking away than I used to be.

Okmulgeeboy, lol. We all are at different stages in our lives and in our gardening. There was a time I tried to keep everything alive all winter, but that was quite some time back. I'm more content to have the winter off from outdoor gardening these days. Actually, that's when our VFD gets really busy with the winter fire season, so a lot of my cutting back on winter garden really came about because I couldn't/wouldn't be at home to cover things up on cold nights because I was out at a fire. Your life evolves over time----I know mine sure has. Between the winter fire season and weekends with the grandkids, winter gardening has fallen to the bottom of my priority list.

I didn't watch the football game last night, but thought that it was a disgusting mess there at the end when I heard about what happened. Personally, I am not content with the NFL's suspension of Myles Garrett for "at least" the rest of this season without pay. I think they should have suspended him for at least a full calendar year without pay. What he did is unconscionable and he could have caused a head injury that would have forever altered people's lives as it could have resulted in a traumatic brain injury or even death. (It really hacked me off that he started talking out what a great thing it was they won the game, and that his "8 seconds of behavior" or however he worded it shouldn't detract from that. When I read that, I had steam coming out of my ears. Apparently he doesn't understand there's real consequences to his actions, and of course he detracted from his team's win. I never thought I'd see someone take a helmet and hit someone in the head with it, although there was a guy that took a swing with a helmet a few years back, but he missed his target so didn't get in the same kind of trouble. Football always has had a certain level of violence in it, and we are seeing players paying the price now with CTE and other issues, including often the early onset of Alzheimer's Disease, so I'm glad the league is trying to protect players better now than they did decades ago. Anyone who watched football in the 1960s, 70s or 80s certainly saw a lot more intentional violence than we see now....yet we never had a player try to use a helmet like it was used last night. That was appalling. If you or I hit someone walking down the street in the head with a helmet, we'd be arrested for either aggravated assault or assault with a deadly weapon, I can guarantee that, and the criminal court system would deal with us. I kinda think he ought to be arrested and charged with assault for what he did because he crossed an NFL line that never should be crossed.

I have been busy with kittens. Today is their first day to eat some solid food and 3 out of 4 were impressed. The 4th just looked at me and walked away like I was trying to give them something horrible. I mixed canned kitten food with formula and tried to teach them to eat it off my fingers, and then eventually they stuck their heads down into the dish to nibble at it. Because they are starting solid food, they got their first litter box today, and an expanded living area. I set up a puppy/kitten corral that has plenty of space for eating, playing, sleeping, using a litter box, etc. and they now have tons of space to roam. There's a kitty cave they can go inside if they want darkness to sleep, and lots of toys. I'm hoping this will make them happy and more independent so they won't cry for me every time they see me---it isn't just because they are hungry---often it is because they are bored and want me to pick them up and play with them. See there, I don't need plants to nurture this winter because I'm nurturing tiny kittens. I do have plants though---a Christmas cactus I'm working to bring back into bloom and six potted amaryllis bulbs, three of which are getting ready to bloom....while the other 3 just sit there like maybe they'll grow and bloom or maybe they won't.

Well, I need to get back to cleaning the house. I like to have it all nice and clean before the whirling tornado known as the grandkids enters the house. That way, I'm ahead of the game for a little while. I don't obsessively clean while they are here though, which is why it is nice to start off with it clean....then I can ignore it and focus on spending time with them. It was so cold and frosty this morning, but is almost shirt sleeve weather outside this afternoon. I'm looking forward to those highs in the 70s next week even though they won't last long.

Dawn

Maybe you and the tiny kitties can get outside next week Dawn? Would be nice to have them see outside before frost returns:)

Amy--that is weird! LOL. Now look at the stats on THIS screen. . . . Perry OK? Clearly, these folks have lost Wagoner. https://earthquaketrack.com/us-ok-wagoner/recent '

Haha! Larry, you could open up an online seed store if you find them!

Dawn, hopefully the worst of your kitten feeding is behind you, and I hope they all grow fast and healthy! And their set-up sounds perfect!

The only color of appliance worse than stainless is black! LOL And we have both. Okay, now MY turn to quit whining.

Yep, it was pretty nice this afternoon. I had to come in and change into a short sleeved top. So many leaves had fallen that it took me forever to mow three of the lawns--the back one, the one in front of the house, and the driveway between the front one and the shop one. There were enough mulched leaves for everyone--raised beds and leaving plenty of mulched ones right on the lawn. I think I need to go take a nap. :)

I did. LOLOL

dbarron, I am not sure if the yard is a good place for the tiny kittens. There's so many leaves down that none of us would spot a copperhead out there. I might take out their blanket and put it on the ground, but playing on a blanket wouldn't be the same as getting to walk in the grass. We'll see. Maybe I'm being overprotective of these little guys.

Nancy, I liked our black appliances when we had them, but I do think they show fingerprints and smudges worse than brushed stainless steel. For most of our married lives we had white appliances, and I was fine with that. I remember my parents and Tim's parents had those avocado and harvest gold appliances from the 1970s and beyond, and am grateful we've never had those colors in our own homes. (grin)

Naps are so useful! I've been awake for 2 hours now and could use a nap, but it is too late for me because the grandkids will be waking up soon.

Our house is decorated for autumn and it looks so good and I am so pleased with it, but a lot of people that I know are putting up Christmas trees already. I have toyed with the idea of doing that merely because I know that the time frame between Thanksgiving and Christmas is shorter than usual this year, but I haven't done it yet. It seems sort of unnatural to be thinking of putting up a Christmas tree when there's still tons of trees, particularly oak trees, with green leaves on them. I do think that Tim and I are planning to put up the Christmas lights on the exterior of the house next weekend so that they'll be up before Thanksgiving, but we won't turn on the lights until Thanksgiving evening. Of course, any plans for next weekend hinge on whether it rains or not.

Earlier this year, I processed and froze tomatoes in batches to make Annie's Salsa. My intent was to come back this autumn and make all the salsa as usual for Christmas gift bags. Well, I don't want to do it. I've been trying to psyche myself up to do it. I've tried to convince myself that I will do it. I've tried to make myself want to do it, but I just can't make myself do it and I don't want to do it. I've been fighting salsa-canning burn-out for years now, and I kind of blame Tim for that because once we started giving it as Christmas gifts, I went from canning 50 extra cans of salsa per year to give away to canning 200-300 extra jars per year (because he kept needing a few more gift bags and a few more and a few more....) and I've never really recovered from the craziness of doing that. He just kept adding more and more people at work to the salsa list until one day Chris told me that if I'd just can another 100 jars, Tim could give them to every single officer in his department, and not just the ones that he was closest to. That is when I was sure that I was canning too many jars of salsa. So, I've decided to skip canning salsa and to skip giving those Christmas gift bags to all the folks at work. I have tried to do this for several years now, but always gave in and canned salsa and made it happen. Well, it isn't happening this year, and Tim finally is supportive of my decision. (In the past, he tried to act like he supported my decision but I could tell he really wanted for me to keep canning that salsa for all his friends.) My years as the salsa queen are over. I am not sorry. I'm looking forward to a less hectic and less crazy month between Thanksgiving and Christmas....a year without gift bags of canned goods lined up on every table and flat surface for days. I guarantee y'all that this is the official end of that---I'm not going to skip it this year and go back to doing it in future years. I am done, I am done, I am done. Yay!

Dawn

Dawn, about my jar of salsa (kidding)...

For those interested :

The wind break that I made for my collard patch completely blew apart , exposing the collards to the blunt of the Siberian front . The some of the plastic whipped around with the wind raking the ground over a couple of my spinach rows nearby so I might have lost a little spinach on that account. The collards seem to have took it ok , but they look a little droopy ,not looking as good as they did. But they're are still green and harvestable for now.

The loop tunnel that I made over the brassicas plants collapsed in the middle section where the plastic half meets the frost blanket half. At least that took care of the venting issue. The plastic half was on the north end of it and probably shielded off the Arctic front enough to keep the tunnel from getting striped down to the bare hoops. I might have lost a couple of califlower plants that wasn't doing to good anyway.

I ordered a proper floating row cover for my loop tunnel. 1.5 oz per square yard polyethylene

fabric cover. I need a one piece cover to slip over the loops quickly instead of piecing together

frost blankets which had to poke little holes into to secure it to the the hoops with cable ties , wire ties. I also ordered some of those pipe clamp things to secure the row cover to the hoops.

I'd say that my fall plantings survived with minimal damage.

Was it worth all the effort. Probably not. , too much work with too little return.

But it was was something I had to try with the rotten year I had with the the too wet spring and too hot fall.

At the same time I'm trying to clean off the rest of the garden. It's a big job every fall . It's a pretty big garden , about 120 ' by 90 '. When I get it cleaned off I till it under and let it sit for the winter.

I haul in a munch of cow mature over the winter till it looks like a barn yard feed lot. and then blend it in with the tiller. I like to have a month or two of a break from it until time for the spring planting which I usually start to do around the middle/late Feb starting with onions and potatoes.

There is no reason to be ((("ASHAMED")))

Happy Holidazes.

okmulgee boy

okmulgee boy, thanks for the report. You sure have a large garden, its at least 2 times larger than the largest garden I have ever had. I don't see how you tend it and live so far away.

The cold snap did not leave me in such a good condition, the stuff I had the mineral tubs over look pretty good, but nothing else does. Even my wildlife garden was damaged. It looks like most of every thing that was just sprouting has died. The clover that I started a couple of years ago was burnt pretty bad, it will come out of it, but will not grow much till early spring.

I want to play around with some hoops and plastic to see if can get some lettuce growing early.

Larry , after the spring planting I use a mantis tiller to till out the middles until it gets too big to till.
I keep it tilled out about every week as soon as the weeds start sprouting . If it weren't for that mantis tiller I could never keep the weeds and grass from taking it over. I don't let the weeds get a head start unless it's a wet spell and I can't till.

okmulgee boy

okmulgee boy, I use to have 3 tillers, troy bilt horse, poulan pro and a mantis. The mantis was my least favorite, but I gave the troy bilt away because it gained so much weight that I could not handle it, I started having the same problem with the poulan pro. even though the troy bilt was electric start it was still too much for me to handle, even though the rear tined tillers could serve much like a powered walker they were too hard to turn around. Its funny how things change when you get old, if I have tilling to be done, I now drag out the mantis. I am also glad that I bought one with the easy start system on it. I also try to do as much as I can with a tractor. I dont like the way they pack the soil, but I sure like working sitting down.