Dawn, that's too bad, about Covid-19 news. I've gone out more than I've been comfortable with in the past week, myself.

We don't have a large number of butterflies--don't know if we will or not. This IS following the pattern we've seen since I've been here, although we had more at the beginning of the month. So maybe they'll come back, eh? I expect they will.

I can't begin to imagine the anguish of someone who is going through Stage 4 cancer and trying to deal with Covid-19--or the family members, for that matter. Heartbreaking. Which reminds me, I need to check on Garry's nephew in Wyoming who is dealing with cancer--he's been having a tough year.

HJ, so with Juno sitting on your lap, and then the computer right there, she must have been nearly front and center just before the fight? Hilarious. Wish I could have been in that meeting!

I DID cut the one black hollyhock back, and Rebecca, you are welcome to come and get it. Do you have the malva sylvestris (the lovely miniature hollyhocks)? You're welcome to some of it, too. How about penstemon Husker Red? It's a sun-lover, and is suffering in my too-shady place. I took some to the school, and it is stunning in full sun.

Something very funny--the coarse big-leafed mystery plant I mentioned. From the back door, I could see that it was blooming, so I grabbed my camera to run and do a "PictureThis" of it. But as soon as I got up to it realized it was mullein! In my WHEELBARROW no less. I may try to move it, since a 6' tall plant will probably look more than a little ridiculous in a wheelbarrow. Have any of you grown it on purpose? Is it invasive in your area? It didn't grow well for me last year, but grew a bit at the school--enough for me to recognize it this year.

I have tomatoes! I was just feeling sorry for myself that I didn't and wondered why I was so far behind some others (not you, Dawn). The Heidi's many yellow blossoms have turned into 8 tiny tomatoes--and Heidi isn't that big yet. I'll have to go see if I have more than one Heidi out there. Seems a shame to let the tomatoes grow while the plant is still pretty small. I also have two Giant Belgium little tomatoes. Now I'm going to have to go to the school and see what those tomatoes are doing.

Making ice cream. The last time I remember the family making ice cream was when my grandparents were visiting--and I must have been 12 or so. Yep. That was it. I'm not an ice cream eater, though I like few things more than a caramel/hot fudge sundae with or without nuts, and a dollop of whipped cream.

I spent some time reading up on the pitcher plants. They are so pretty! dbarron, do you have a sheltered area outdoors to overwinter them, or do you move them to the house? I had no idea they were natives, albeit (Haha, HJ, I like that word, too) south of us. I have a perfect place for them every May. Other than that, probably not. I may have to read a bit more to see if I want to mess with them. It would be so FUN. And wouldn't the school kids love them!

When I mentioned restoration of the 74 truck, Jacob. . . reminded me of when we visited a car show that was passing through town last year. I was amazed that I actually LOVED it. My favorite was a 30s Chevy pick-up that was painted John-Deere green with yellow trim. It was so LITTLE. I voted for it, but it didn't win. First old car show I've ever been to, and I expect we'll do it again when one comes to town. Oh and YES, no way could I ever be coordinated enough to use a wrench in some of those tight mechanic situations. Often, I visit out in the shop to check on GDW's progress while working on his 1994 Ford truck, and have seen first-hand the impossibilities. Lots of skinned knuckles.

Well, I THINK we're done with rain today. 2.75" on top of the 3" from Monday. Enough. And a chance of rain tomorrow. No thank you; we're more than good. I just saw the marina's post that the water's up 15 feet! NOT good, NOT good. 9 feet is not good--15 feet is horrible. (Flood stage is 27' so prayerfully that won't happen this June.)

They're perfectly hardy here...and spent last winter outside in their little pots (the CPs (or most of them)). The major pain in the rear is they're sensitive to soluble salts, so need a low PPM water supply (like rainwater or distilled water). Some water supplies will meet the needs, but not mine..high calcium.

My first car was was a pink 1960 Rambler station wagon. My sister and I were just talking about the day my mother ran it into a telephone pole. It didn't have seatbelts until I started driving it. (It also had a canoe rack on top, in case you're wondering.) I took that car to college in Enid. I came home one weekend. My parents were in MN. My brother needed to borrow it as his truck was being worked on. He got about 1/2 block down the street and the gas tank fell off. Completely. (I had just come off highway driving!). The strap that held it in place had worn through. He was able to get help moving both the car and the tank. My dad got it repaired and it had more than 200,000 miles on it when it was finally retired.

Made a quick trip to Bartlesville to get some paperwork from my sister this morning. Both of us got up too early. I don't think anything will be done today. I don't know if it rained here while we were gone, but we got some rain on the way up. The pastures are very green and lush looking.

My daughter beat me to the first ripe tomato. It was a plant they bought at Walmart, LOL.

Yes, homemade ice cream. My mom didn't like the kind made with eggs (at least the cooked eggs) and I believe her recipe had no eggs, but I've slept since then. And, speaking of old stuff, our ice cream man drove a panel truck and the cones were soft serve mixed right there on the truck. No ice cream on a stick for US. LOL.we also had wax bottles with some kind of sugary liquid inside at the candy counter. Talk about rambling.

XOCO

Wow, Amy! My brother David had a 1958 pink and black Rambler sedan. It was in beautiful shape. I loved it! I wonder what he did with it. . . . by the time he got rid of it, he was attending the U of W in Laramie. Garry and I were just laughing earlier about the old jeep station wagons--my dad had a gray one; Garry's stepdad had a green one. See what a trip down memory lane you've sent us on, Jacob! MY favorite car of all time was a 1994 Volvo station wagon, which appeared be a kind of cult car in Mpls, as so many people there still drop them 15 years later.

RATS! Round 2 of the rain; a long long lightish rain. Grrr.

I guess a rain barrel would make sense for watering the CPs. And here, GDW was just talking about taking the rain gutters off.

Well, the truck is not my first car. The first car was the 1971 VW beetle I bought when I was 14. I envisioned a full restoration for that bug. Stupidly, I tore the whole thing to pieces!! Now I had no idea how to put it back together, nor did I know what to fix or how to tell what needed fixed!! I finally sold it not too long ago, after I bought that truck, to a 60 some y/o man who plans to put a rooftop tent on it to go camping in. He’s doing a good job so far, or so I’ve heard. He’s much more knowledgeable than I am!! It was sort of bittersweet to see that bug go, but I guess you live and you learn. BIG lesson there for me. I’m being much smarter with the truck...

Nancy, your mention of station wagons reminds me that my dad had a mid 80’s (I think) Jeep Cherokee when I was younger. It had a 6 cylinder motor of some sort. I always loved it, and so did my dad! We must’ve had it for nearly a decade (bought before I was born). My dad had not planned to restore it, and it eventually became more work than he needed or wanted, so he sold it shortly before we moved here in 2013.

Amy, currently laughing about the gas tank falling out of that Rambler lol.

It rained pretty heavy for a while. I’m afraid the gutters got clogged and water pouring out onto the potted pepper plant below, drowning it! The gutters have been cleaned out now.

It’s quite unfortunate. I sliced up a block of Cabot cheddar cheese to eat with dinner tonight. As I unknowingly ate my soup, my cat snuck it off the plate beside me and ate it all!

That cat might get a stomach ached, Jacob!

Speaking of cats...Dawn, Diana had made such great progress. She can be in the same room as the other cats now. Sometimes they fight. Sometimes they don't. It's hard to explain how mean/odd/scared Diana was. She still is spooky and will scratch the guys at times. It's hard to tell her apart from Juno at first glance, so I put a collar on Juno. Juno is spooky too, but she doesn't use her claws to show her fear/displeasure.

They are very odd cats. I think their ancestors must have been companions to herbalists. LOL

When I open my dried herb cabinet, they lose their minds.

Cars. I haven't owned many. My first car was a 77 Ford Maverick. My second car was an 86 Chevy Camaro (my Dad was a Ford guy, so this was a big deal.) Then I had a 93 Mazda Protégé (LOL. I'm sure my Dad was thrilled!), Then a Soccer Mom van--Plymouth Grand Voyager, then a 2006 Honda Accord and now, a 2016 Honda CRV.

So...today in the garden, I didn't do much. Picked caterpillars off of things, harvested the strawberries and asparagus. And that is it.

I did mulch around the artichoke plants that are in the middle of my backyard...and sprinkled Sluggo around. Pretty sure slugs are chewing on them. They are in a weird area that was meant for the lantana that died. I'm going to buy some nice edging to put around the area this weekend.

The mulch pile scares me. It's a giant pile of wood chips and I'm sure there are snakes in it. I found a small one yesterday, put it in a bucket and relocated it to the Haunted House down the road. There's also tons of giant spiders in it.

AND, I finished the wine bottle bed around the east side of the chicken pen. FINALLY! Added some soil and compost and it's ready to plant. Feels good to get this one crossed off my list.

Once the garden produce starts coming in, I won't have time to work on beautifying the backyard.

It's been fairly easy to keep up with the asparagus and strawberries. I have a few bags in the freezer of each.

I want more strawberry plants next year. And am excited about having blackberries, raspberries and elderberries too!

Then going back to the office next week will put an end to some of my fun. I love my jobs, but I also love being home. I never am bored at home. Never. Well, maybe when the power goes off and the weather isn't nice outside, so I'm stuck inside a dark house.

Amy, what was your daughter's first ripe tomato?

Dawn, yes, larger tomatoes would be much better with tomato processing, but that lil Juliet plant you gave me last year grew to be enormous and made a ton of tomatoes. I have three of them in the 2 gardens. What do you use Juliet tomatoes for?

I sure hope it stays dry tomorrow. I really need to mow the backyard. Tom mowed the other areas tonight. I have a "garden tour" Friday morning and would like my property to look nice.

I'm ready to eat dinner. It's Healthy Pizza and Wine Wednesday night.

You guys sent me down memory lane also, except I have too many memories to remember. My first car was a 1952 ford victoria hardtop, second car was a 1955 oldsmobile hardtop, third car was a 1963 studabaker station wagon retractable roof, which was also my most unique car. By that time I had a wife and two kids, and needed a car and a pickup, but did not have enough money, so the studebaker had to fill both jobs.

Everybody has some things in the life that should have been different. After I had owned the studebaker long enough to afford another car, we bought one and I used the studebaker for my hunting and fishing wagon. My sister-in-law became pregnant by a man that would not work. Because it was uncool then to be pregnant and unmarried, they got married and moven in with her mother. She said her husband would get a job if he just had a way to get to and from work. I told her I would sell her the studebaker for a $140.00, which would have almost covered the parts I had just put in it, and told them to just pay for it as they could. They gave me $20.00 down, then I heard they needed money for groceries, so I gave them the $20.00 back.

Her new husband liked to drink and chase women more than work, so he left her. That left her with living with mom, who does not drive, and no way for her to get to and from the doctor. Vary early on a Saterday morning I go to his appartment and steal the car and take it back to her so she would have a way to the doctor. I told her very strongly to hang on to that car. Within a week he had talked her out or that car, and then he left tor Indiana.

Well with a couple of months they got back together. That sweet lady supported that lazy womanizer till his bad habits ruined his health and he died. She is an old woman now and married to a good old man. They seem very happy, but I learned my lesson. I still try to help people, but I have never bought another Studebaker, they are bad luck.

My next hunting and fishing wagon was a 1960 Volkswagen panel, which I sorta turned into a camper. It served me well and I sold it to a hippy headed for California. I then bought a truck much like Jacob's, only it was a 1968 GMC with a 327 engine and a 4 barrel carburetor. After that my hunting and fishing wagons mostly have been 4 wheel drive rigs till 1997 I bought a new small pickup and drove it for 20 years and then gave it to my son. I now have a beat up 2008 ford F250 super duty which rides like a log wagon and burns a ton of gas.

My gardens are sick. Many dead and dying plants. I have plants on the deck to give away, and plant around here if I can make a spot. It looks like I may have to scoop up a bucket of compost with one of the tractors and build mounds in the wildlife garden to plant on. I can see one hill of Moon and Stars water melons. And if something has not eaten the pumpkins, squash and sun flowers and sweet potatoes, I still have them. I am not sure about the blackberries and blue berries, I did not want to wade water to go check on them. I need to put the brush hog on the little tractor and cut paths to the areas I have planted. I will later put the disc back on the small tractor and plant more flowers and grain for the critters. When I went over to the wildlife garden today, the areas I could get to had a lot of deer tracks, so I can see they are in there checking everything out.

This site is acting so crazy for me. The comment box is at the top. It has r eordered itself again and comments are shortened with a read more at the bottom.

Jacob, When we make ice cream containing eggs, we do heat the custard on the stove to ensure we are making a safe product. The problem then is that the custard is warm and needs to go into the refrigerator to cool down completely before you pour it into the ice cream maker, and that can take a few hours. So, if we are planning to make that ice cream recipe, we mix up and cook the custard the night before, pour it into a large ceramic bowl and put it into the refrigerator to chill overnight. Then, the next morning we pour it into the ice cream maker and make the ice cream. It makes a delicious, rich ice cream. If we want to make a quicker ice cream, we have a recipe that is just heavy cream, milk, sugar and vanilla. Tim and I think this one tastes exactly like Blue Bell's Homemade Vanilla Bean ice cream.

When I was a kid, we had the old hand-cranked ice cream maker and it was quite an ordeal to make ice cream. It always felt like it took forever. All 4 of us kids were expected to take our turns cranking that handle so that my dad didn't have to do it all himself. When they came out with electric models and we got one of those, it was life-changing. We used to have ice cream socials after church on a Sunday night, and every man in the church seemed to have his own special recipe for a special flavor so there was a huge variety of flavors. It was so awesome! I loved home made peach with chunks of peaches in it, and one of the guys made a lemon-flavored one that was really tasty too. They still make hand-cranked ice cream makers, which sort of surprises me, but the one we have now is electric and it is pretty quick.

Certain long-day onions even will bulb up for me this far south, so I wouldn't think you'd have trouble getting them to bulb up there. Here at our latitude they don't bulb up until July, and sometimes it is very late July and almost August depending on the variety. The long daylength types that have done well for me include Copia, Red River and Highlander. The huge advantage of the long daylength types is that they will store simply forever if properly cured---often until late the following spring or early summer, so if you have a good crop of them stored you never run out of onions until your early or intermediate daylength onions are maturing the following spring.

Nancy, I am sorry to hear about Garry's nephew. Our friend is stuck between a rock and a hard place. His cancer from his pancreas was found because it had invaded his liver, and the liver tumors are interfering in how his liver functions, so his liver enzymes are too high for them to do chemo. Unfortunately, his enzymes may stay too high without the chemo. So, it is a terrible catch-22. He has a huge army of prayer warriors praying for him. Cancer is such a horrible disease. My grandfather fought cancer for 7 years, and one of the saddest things about that is that my sister, who is 6 years younger than I am, and some of our younger cousins in her age group don't even remember him when he was well. I have awesome memories of a happy, healthy productive grandfather who laughed and smiled and joked, but all my sister remembers is a grumpy old man---because he was so sick and in so much pain those last few years of his life. When we tell stories about him from his healthy days, she cannot remember that time or relate to our stories at all. It is like she had a different papaw from the rest of us.

I love mullein but it despises clay and is hard to grow here. My grandmother grew it in her extremely sandy soil and called it verbascum. It was one of her favorite plants, along with other easy reseeders like cosmos, zinnias, godetias and celosias. As a busy farm woman in her earlier years and a busy working woman in her later years, she didn't have the time or patience for picky flowers---her flowers needed to be the kind that you planted and forgot about, or better yet, the kind that reseeded on their own. After they sold the farm and moved to the city in the 1960s, she grew strawberries in what normally would have been flowerbeds around the house because their garden was smaller and my grandfather didn't think they had room in the proper garden for strawberries.

Ardmore had 11 new cases yesterday and now we all think we've been going out too much, and have cut back on that. The casino reopened yesterday and we expect visitors to it (most of their business is from the Fort Worth side of the DFW metro area, where there's thousands of cases and just yesterday they had their highest one-day death total yet) will bring more Covid-19 to our county. Tim and I have decided we won't stop at any of the businesses in Thackerville because of its proximity to the casino. I don't know if that will help us much, but it is about the best we can do.

Today is our last rainy day for a while (hallelujah!) so the weekend should be in the 80s and sunny and warm, giving us perfect pool weather for the girls. As long as they can play in the pool, they don't miss going somewhere else that much. Ironically, the rain keeps dumping so much water into the pool that we've been pumping out the excess water from the pool onto the heavily-saturated ground around it. Above-ground pools have a fill line and it can affect the integrity of its structure if you overfill it, so Mother Nature overfills it and then we work to empty it back down to the fill line....because, you know, our ground needs yet more water poured upon it.

Y'all are getting more rain than us now and it is just horrible to have so much. I worry about how all this rain affects all the businesses around lakes. You know, from the time we bought this land in 1997 through now, we had mostly drought years. Many of them were hot, dry and miserable and you had to spend a small fortune irrigating your yard and garden, but I learned to deal with those drought years. Since 2015 it is like someone flipped a switch and the weather completely changed and now we have flooding years, one after another. Flooding has killed a huge post oak in our yard that the drought never bothered. My garden isn't really built for flooding, so it has been miserable. I know one day the drought years will return and I, for one, will be fairly happy to see it happen.

Amy, We had a Rambler sedan when I was very young. I barely remember it, but my dad loved that car because it was very reliable. What I remember best is about that car is that we drove it to California on vacation when I was 5 years old, and it had no air conditioning, and driving across Arizona, even at night, was just miserable! I was so relieved when we finally made it to San Diego where my aunts and uncles lived and the weather there was so very mild compared to Arizona.

I cannot even imagine being in a car and having the gas tank fall off. That would have be so shocking.

Jacob, Our cats will sneak food too when no one is looking. I usually put them in the sunroom and close the door when it is meal time so that they are forced to behave themselves out in the sunroom (which they adore) and so we can eat in peace. At snack time, they'll steal popcorn from the bowl if they get a chance, or they'll sit right in front of us and beg for piece of popcorn.

Jennifer, I grew Juliet because I forgot what a pain in the neck it is to process a billion small tomatoes. I won't make that mistake again for a while. (grin) Juliet is one of the few tomatoes (Jelly Bean, which came out the same year is another) I'll abandon. When I get tired of picking the fruit, I leave them for the birds and they stay on the plant until they drop to the ground---ensuring Juliet volunteers in that location the next year. Back when I used to dehydrate tons of tomatoes, because my Bosch oven had a built-in dehydrator mode that I adored, I would slice them in half and dehydrate them by the hundreds for a constant supply of sun dried tomatoes. The oven's dehydrator feature just made it so easy to constantly have tomatoes dehydrating without having to drag out a dehydrator and have it sitting there taking up space on the countertop. I would have kept that stove forever, but its door shattered into a pile of glass while I was baking pies for Thanksgiving when the stove was maybe 7 years old. A new door for the Bosch cost more than a new stove at the nearest Home Depot, so we bought a new stove...and I still miss my Bosch. I find the term sun dried tomatoes amusing as all the tomatoes in the USA sold as sun dried tomatoes nowadays actually are dehydrator dried tomatoes. For many years I grew and dried many kinds of bite-sized tomatoes, often 10-20 varieties a year just of the bite sized types, and filled up the freezer with bags of them. We ate them all winter long. I was younger and more energetic then, and have more sense now and only plant a couple of plants that produce bite-sized tomatoes, usually SunGold and Black Cherry, and sometimes one or two others.

Larry, I loved your trip down memory lane. My parents had a Studebaker, but that was before my time. My dad really liked that car and long after he sold it, he'd get excited any time he saw an old Studebaker on the road.

My garden is not quite as bad as yours, but it is in pretty rough shape. I never even got it all planted, and I cannot plant it while it is mud city....though the weeds seem to thrive in the mud. Better weather is expected here tomorrow so I hope the mud will begin to dry up. It is dark and rainy here this morning and looks more like an early morning in early April than one in late May. June will be here soon and I'm hoping it will be a warm, dry month.

The tomatoes in the containers are doing great and producing well. The ones in the raised beds in the garden are only so-so. They were planted late and have had far too much rain. The peppers in the raised beds are happier than the tomatoes. Nothing else is doing well. I can replant in June if the weather cooperates even a little bit.

Mosquitoes are awful. Tim had to spray himself with mosquito repellant last night to walk the dogs, and he hates mosquito repellant and normally won't use it. He was desperate last night cause those skeeters were eating him alive. So many people here got into chiggers over the Memorial Day weekend and are just miserable now. We did not, but we're going to have them in the grass right outside the back door if we cannot mow it soon because that grass is getting tall for lawn grass. I'm contemplating mowing it with the string trimmer at least in the area between the house and the detached garage, where we still have too much standing water to use the lawn mower.

Hmmm. Another boring rainy day. Guess I'll stay busy mopping up muddy paw prints off the floor and cleaning house. I'd so much rather be out in the garden if only it wasn't a mudpit. A mudpit filled with fire ants. What could sound more attractive than that?

Dawn

Kim, Same here! Can’t decide if I like it.

Slowpoke, your Studebaker story reminds me of the family story of my grandmother rolling hers into the bar ditch one morning around 1950, while taking the eggs to town to sell.

I started out with a hand me down 1985 Chrysler convertible. I hate convertibles, don’t feel safe without a roof and roll cage. Got a 1988 Dodge Daytona for high school graduation, and drove it for 12 years. Had 5 AC compressors in those 12 years. Sold it for a 1994 Honda Civic in 2000. Then traded that in on a new 2006 Accord V6. My favorite car ever, miss it so much. Last year after the wreck I bought a 2012 Nissan Rogue. I miss my V6 but I like that it’s easier to get in and out of a taller car for my back, and more room to haul garden stuff.

Had my first morning glories yesterday.

I’m afraid that this website seems to be having some technical difficulties. Everything is all messed up!! It‘s those darned garden gnomes again.

Rebecca, I loved my 2006 Accord too! I would still be driving it, but the plan all along had been to pass it to Ethan, which we did. And a guy turned in front of him and totaled it. I should have just kept it and got him something else to drive. I am fond of the newer features in the newer car, but I wouldn't have know any different if I had never been introduced to those newer features, ya know?

Do you ever see someone's response to someone else's question and realize you missed posts? Like about the long day onions...who asked that question? So, I have to go back and see what I missed. haha. Ah, it was Jacob. Let us know who your long day onions do. I've never grown them but would love an onion that will store for a long time.

Larry, have you grown the Moon and Stars melon before this year? HU brought a seed packet over and we planted a few. They are such a pretty melon--in pictures anyways.

I've enjoyed looking at everyone's pictures and reading everyone's car memories. Fun stuff. I don't have a Studebaker story. My parents had a Ford Galaxy 500. Sold their 66 (midnight blue) Mustang to buy a family car. I'm sure they regretted that at some point. The Galaxy 500 was probably around a 1970 model. It was yellow/gold and had black leather interior that burned your legs in the summer. That car embarrassed me in junior high (I was a brat, I guess) and I was thrilled when they traded it in for a huge custom van with curtains in the windows. Remember those? Everyone had those. LOL.

Dawn, Juliet is a beast. That plant kept producing well when it was half dead at the end of last season. I picked a huge bucket of fruit the day before the first freeze and gave them to the chickens. Tom was concerned, but I told him to look at the 10 large bags of Juliet in the freezer. The chickens got as many as we did all season...maybe more.

To me, it's a weird size tomato. I love cherry sized tomatoes like SunGold and eat them in all sorts of salads. It's a good thing I like them so much because I have a lot of cherry tomato plants: black cherry, Austin's black cherry, Snow White cherry, Sungold, Matt's wild cherry, Super Sweet, Isis Candy Cherry....and that isn't including all the dwarf varieties and I have multiples of several of them. I keep thinking about the pretty salads all of those varieties will make.

Juliet does make a nice tasting sauce though. It's just more work. And we have three in the garden...actually 4. I found one that looked "unhealthy" in it's pot. I had left it in a raised bed by mistake and now it looks good. Who can I force it on....? haha Not the woman coming to see the garden tomorrow. She, unfortunately, already is familiar with it. Some unsuspecting person....I'll think on this. Maybe I can sneak over to someone's yard and plant it at night. Oooo...maybe my sister.

We got a bit of rain early this morning and I'm not happy about it. I need to mow tonight. Hopefully it will dry out enough to do that. It couldn't have been much rain, but I haven't been outdoors to check the gauge yet. Only did animal chores. It was delightfully cool....and I will go out in a few. Maybe it will clear this headache.

People who drove Ramblers loved them. I believe mine was finally sold to someone as a parts car, which meant someone had one that still ran. Of course it did not have air conditioning, or power steering or power brakes. It had push button drive, which was pretty fancy. My mother made curtains for it. We used to camp. You could close the curtains and they covered all the windows. Pink gingham. All the seats layed down so you had a semi flat area from dash to tail gate. We drove to MN in it every summer. It died on me on the Arkansas river bridge on 44. I forget what was wrong with it, something mInor. It also lost the driver's side windshield wiper during a snow storm once.

If you're having trouble with the site,go to the browser drop down menu and select desktop site. I'm not seeing anything different.

I'm so glad your sister-in-law ended up with a good guy, Larry! You could write a great book--you have a way with the word! Good stories! And I see Studebakers figured prominently in many families' lives. My Grandma and Grandpa had a gray one; Mom and Dad, a black one. All I remember is that they seemed closed in. AND when I was 4, I was with Gma and Gpa going somewhere--fishing probably--and Grandpa lit up a cigar. I was in the back seat. I told them that I felt sick (the cigar made me sick); they must have thought it was all in my head. Nope. I was sick. I remember them laughing about it, trying to make me feel better. They did. They were the best.

I have some really good car stories--don't we all?!-- but that'd take a whole 'nother thread. Still, it has been a great walk down memory lane. I enjoyed all your posts so much! They have made the past couple dreary days quite bearable--thank you! BUT it's beautiful today, and I have too much of the morning in here enjoying your posts.

My Garden web comments were upside down a couple weeks ago. At some point they switched back to normal. Weird. I had a heck of a time getting used to them reversed.

Jacob! That is SO SAD/funny/sad about the Volkswagen! I remember you talking about it. Bummer! But makes a great story in the retelling, right?

None of our 3 naughty cats like human food, apparently, which is a good thing. Many years ago, my 23 yr old Kitty used to love to steal stuff. Loved Juicy Fruit Gum, cinnamon rolls, tearing store-bought loaves in plastic sacks apart, licking butter if it were left out. These three wouldn't DREAM of doing that. I don't think.

I was telling Amy and Rebecca in an FB post last night that Garry came out to join me on the deck and gave me a "list." Always before, "list" meant grocery shopping, basically. He told me he was handing me a list. I asked ,"Did you put cream on ii?" He said no, it wasn't that kinda list. It was a list, come to find out, of things the next truck had to have. Wow. Good job, Garry! It was a great list. He handed it to me to see if I wanted to add anything. At the bottom I wrote, "fully adjustable driver's seat" and "not black and not white." Amy told me I need to add heated seats (for hip pain), so I added that this morning. So he'll probably go to Tulsa today or tomorrow and start the search. I asked him this morning what made him think of the truck--was it Jacob's stories? No, he said. Said it was because we really need running boards if I'm going to be having problems with the hip. That was sweet. I said, "And besides, isn't it about time for new tires?" That's what he did last time--didn't want to buy new tires, so just bought a new truck instead.

Oh my, the tomatoes at the school are spectacular! The only one I spotted tomatoes on, however, was the SS100. And all the zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, tithonia, and sunflowers are up. I hate to thin them out any, but suppose I should. Ditto with the melons and okra. We're growing four kinds of melons there--Tahitian, Tiggers (small ones), Galia, Cantaloupe, and Honeydew.

I had a tithonia behind the black hollyhock I cut back--it was really getting shafted with no room AND not enough sun. The rest (I think there are 7 of them in that full sun bed) were outgrowing it, of course--but I laughed to see that one had a flower on it this morning! Way to go, No. 7.

A couple pics of the school--lovely catalpa tree finally in bloom.

Ok, I planted my basil and pepper seedlings (started late March I think?)...so tiny...because so cold so far. I hope they actually do something..but maybe no peppers before the fall cool down if the three set of true leaves is telling.

When I see photos of folks in Oklahoma that have beans flowering and catalpas, I am shocked. Because my scarlet runner beans have 2 or 3 sets of leaves now. Catalpa has not started flowering here at all, though buds are evident.

The flower and garden pictures y’all have posted are just beautiful. I love looking at pictures of others gardens.

i need to make a list of all the beauties so when I finally do find my new place I will have all my research done.

I woke up from a dream that I bought a truck very strange Truck.

This little tithonia cracks me up. I moved the mullein--good day for it--overcast all day. Still, tough, since it's beginning to bloom. I think I'll cut it back. I don't know if it'll make it or not. And the astilbes have finally come into their own. This is their fourth year.

I learned yet another lesson today. Buy cattle panels for all trellising needs. No more bamboo trellises. It's not like they're any cheaper. Took me quite a while on the first one--manipulating it (They're 8 feet tall and 5 feed wide) and learning to lash them quickly. By the time I started on the second one, have it nailed, so the second one only took an hour. I'll put them up leaning against each other tomorrow. Have watermelons climbing one side, Tigger melons up the other. Then I need another pair that will help keep the Meot Jaeng corralled, and the Armenian cucumbers on the other side. I must admit, I kind of like the rustic look of the bamboo. The reason I got bamboo was because of John worried about the panel having poky edges that might hurt the kids. I'll have to show him that doesn't have to be the case. As for me, I'm turning to all cattle panels. He can have my bamboo trellises! LOL

Found this guy on a tomato a few minutes ago.

also, maybe some white flies? I was wondering what the ladybugs were eating. They saw them before I did.

I guess I’ll make another trip to the Haunted House.

I find vigilance every day the most effective way to deal with the tobacco hornworm. You get good at seeing them after some practice (esp if you hone in on where new leaves were being eaten..they're often hiding on stems nearby or still eating). It's absolutely amazing how many you can pick over a season.

I can't believe they're starting already. We've just gotten over the late frosts and the storms.

I know you value life but if it was me , I'd feed them to the chickens already.

I guess now the heat dome will settle over us and cook us .

Yep

https://www.google.com/search?q=canning+pantry&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS689US690&sxsrf=ALeKk03nHRrJIcRSILEwTUUpg7TGV80cag:1590708369335&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=lgnkrI5H8SYMxM%253A%252CYziUpukLAA8fmM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kRtHB4G_BPqWNdfEN_BDhsMqXyRjg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiOiq662tfpAhUBKKwKHTCIBxMQ9QEwAXoECAQQKQ#imgrc=lgnkrI5H8SYMxM:

HU

This forum is messed up. I'm seeing posts I haven't seen before and everything is out of whack.

Amy, I don't know how to do the thing you suggested--the settings thing.

What is weird is that things look fine on my iPhone....just not my laptop.

When hornworms get a certain size, I can see their face and it's harder to kill them. I've seen their moths and their faces are the same as the worm...and I'm like, "I know that guy. I dropped him off down the road." The chickens can't swallow them whole when they are larger, and I don't like how they peck them. It bothers me a lot. When the worms are small, the chickens gulp them quickly and it doesn't bother me. The chickens have gotten a lot of cabbage worms lately. I think they are sort of cute too....but know that they cause a lot of damage. And am experiencing that damage right now.

Yes, dbarron, daily checks for sure. Looking for the stripped leaves is almost always helpful in finding the critter. This one is the fourth I've found this week...and the largest.

NICE pantries, HU! Pantries...not panties. LOL

Okay...on that note, it's time to go!

I cant tell if I am coming or going. This forum, and, or i is messed up. I can't tell what I have read or what to reply to. I really got turned on by the car talk, it really brought back old memories. I did not mention the Willys truck, the Kaiser or Frazer car, or the Hudson. There were many old cars the came and gone. After the war things were a little tight for us. Raising a large garden was not the only thing dad did to put food on the table. He would trade for anything he though he could fix and turn a profit on. I can remember him saying "the only thing around here that is not for sale is the ole lady and the kids". We never had much, but I dont ever remember being hungry or unloved. I did feel unloved when dad died when I was barely 13, dad was my hero.

I will talk about garden tomorrow when I get back from the doctor. My doctor only lives about 2 miles from me and I have some more plants for his wife. I dont have a lot by some standards but I have a wonderful life, and great people caring for me.

Yep, it's messed UP!!!

Is this the new normal

HJ, just saw your comment about the pots. I'd be happy to take them off your hands. And if you need tomatoes, I have some left. They're tiny though.

Everything's still small. I have one tomato that's bushed out & has flowers, and two more that are still pretty small but have flowers. I may not get tomatoes until halloween at this rate. And none of my peppers have flowered yet.

The peas are out of control! Usually by this time of year I've pulled them, but the cool weather has kept these going. I did a jar of refrigerator pickles just to see how they did. 5 or 6 kinds of peas plus some sliced radish & garlic. They taste pretty good, though I think I blanched them too long; they weren't as crisp as I'd like. I need to get more jars and maybe try my hand at actually canning some.

So maybe someone here can explain this. I bought 2 packages of lillies from Aldi last year. One was pale pink, the other Barbie doll pink. They're the only lilies I'm growing. They bloomed last year, and the colors matched the bags. This year I have red, white, yellow, orange, and pink. Do lilies change color??? And if so, how? Because now that I have chameleon lilies, I'd LOVE to try to do it intentionally.

No, they don't change color, obviously some didn't bloom last year.

Jen, I have heard they can hybridize fairly easily, with no help. They make babies. But, I haven’t heard they just change. Don’t we have a lily forum?

Things look back to normal now.

I think all our veggies will catch up pretty fast with 10 days of sun.

This is an interesting discussion. I haven't had this happen with lilies, to my knowledge, though haven't grown any for at least five years now. But I had it happen with bee balm. A friend gave me a raspberry variety she said was rather rare. . . three years later some had reverted to red, and the next year they were all red. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2007577/do-lillies-change-color

As a general rule, things don't 'revert', they may reseed back with the seedlings going back to the original strain (as dominant color) and usually more vigor. It's remotely possible a genetic mutation can occur (but really rare).

Pardon--that's more precisely what I meant to say. They eventually "went back" to the original strain. Was just thinking that since asiatic lilies are hybridized, I could see them not staying true to their color, but rather reverting to one of the parent strains, as well. Yes, mutations would be extremely rare. Almost makes me want to start growing lilies again. lol

Yeah, that happens and the more vigorous crowds out the less, and people get convinced they color morph :0

Hi ! I haven’t been on here in a while, I’d like to think I’ve been too busy, which is mostly true! So many posts, I scrolled straight to the pretty pictures! my new veggies this year are onions, the intermediate type. They’re about a foot tall and the stems look strong and are getting thicker. I don’t have any bulging yet though. Add lettuces to my list of new things! I’ve enjoyed it so much! Saves money at the store and lasts more than 2 days! I’m growing a burgundy okra which are flexing their muscles and some Clemson spineless that are getting sand kicked in their leaves. It’s just now starting to feel like an Oklahoma summer is coming soon so I’m sure most will perk up! I’m growing couple of Cherokee Purpl. A first for me which makes me wonder how normal this thing is. I’ve never noticed rings around stems before 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m so glad to find it’s the forum that’s out of order and not just me! How confusing! At least Sunday Dawn will start a new thread and maybe it will straighten out. We went to Stillwater Mill today for feed. Hadn’t been in almost 6 weeks. I intended to pick up seeds to put in freezer for fall or next Spring. They were out of almost everything!!! I bought a packet each of Kentucky Dreamer and Provider bush beans. Anyone familiar with those?

i will dig most of my potatoes this weekend and plant beans or peas or okra back in that spot. My tomatoes are pathetic. They are totally twisted and terrible looking / I am afraid herbicide drift. What a waste of space, time, and money!! Something is eating my okra as soon as it comes up. Not seeing any worms or tracks. Frustrating.

Larry, I envy you having a young man to help you. We are getting too old to do a lot we used to but not ready to give up the farm or cattle yet. We’d like to go somewhere for a couple of days maybe twice a year but when you have cattle you can’t find people to do chores. The coyotes are really bad this year so we are checking calves at least 2-3 times a day. One calf lost is a big expense. Looks like we have some warm days in the forecast - my garden needs it.

Jennifer, I often wonder what I've missed because I'll see people discussing something I didn't see. GW is a wonder to behold. To be fair, the programmer who kept it going back long before Houzz or even iVillage bought it had to do lots of patching and finagling and bizarre things to keep it running and nobody realized what all he had to do just to keep it functioning. Then, as GW sold over and over again and he left, other programmers tried to fix things themselves without even perhaps being able to figure out what he did or why he did is, so I think the whole mess evolved over a long time. I am not sure what they fixed after Houzz bought it because we still seem to have the same issues with GW's garden gnomes running amok and messing up posts. I don't know why it never gets fixed permanently.

Most years I do too much canning to get bogged down in Juliet's hyper-productivity and that's why I normally don't grow it. I like the size of Heidi better and it is very productive for a plant its size, and takes less time to process.

I cannot believe all the hornworms everyone finds on their tomato plants. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of hornworms, but very, very rarely on my tomato plants. Sometimes I never see one on a tomato plant all season, or if we have any, it isn't until August. Most people here in OK have tobacco hornworms like Jennifer's and so do I. Actual tomato hornworms seem a lot more rare. So, I have two theories about why they aren't on my tomato plants: 1) I grow nicotianas somewhere on the property (not necessarily in the proper garden and not necessarily in the same spot every year) and they'd rather visit the flowering nicotines since they are tobacco, and 2) I grow basil with tomatoes and basil is said to repel tomato hornworms. Unlike a lot of the recommended companion planting, I think the basil-with-tomatoes does seem to discourage hornworms from visiting the tomatoes, just as Louise Riotte said. I've grown basil with tomato plants for so long that I don't have to plant basil any more. It just springs up all over the garden every year, and I leave the ones near the tomato plants and pull and compost the rest. This year we had basil come up in a really wet pathway where I wouldn't have thought anything could have survived the standing puddles.

And, I actually see far more white-lined sphinx cats every year than tobacco hornworm cats or tomato hornworm cats. I think we must have more native plants that the white-lined sphinx caterpillars like. They also absolutely destroy my cuphea plants every year, but those reseed along the fenceline so I figure the sphinx cats can have them in any given year because more will pop up the next year. They also like moss rose plants and I often find they on the moss rose right before they form their chrysalis (sometimes that is where they form them, which seems odd to me). One year a white-lined sphinx cat rode into the house on the shoelace of Tim's running shoe, leaving us to ponder how it arrived there: while he was running? while he was standing still? standing still to do what? I'm pretty sure the sphinx cat couldn't hop onto his shoe lace as he ran by.

I used to have a nice canning pantry filled with hundreds of jars of canned goods each year, but I really needed that closet space to function more as a coat closet, so now the stuff I can just gets a couple of large shelves in the regular pantry. If I can too much (like when Tim wants Annie's Salsa for everyone he works with), the excess ends up in storage totes in a bedroom closet or even under the bed. The key is to remember where you put it.

Farmgardener, Kentucky Dreamer is the same thing as the good, old reliable Kentucky Wonder, just bred into a bush form that is said to set pretty heavily. I haven't grown it but I'll say one thing---if you are in an area with Japanese beetles, watch for them as they particularly seem to plague Kentucky Wonder plants. Provider is a pretty old bush bean variety (though not quite as old as I am, lol) and it is a really good one. I grow it almost every year because it sets a lot of beans and they are pretty tasty. It doesn't mind being sown into fairly cool soil and germinates quickly and grows quickly. It is usually one of the first, if not the first, bush bean variety to produce in my garden. Most years Contender and Provider slug it out to be the earliest spring producer and will produce mature beans ready to harvest for green snaps around the same time.

We have the warm days in our forecast too and I'm hoping they'll dry up the mud. Today I sat out in the shade and watched the grandkids play, in and out of the pool, for 4 hours. It was peaceful and the birds were singing and the butterflies fluttering by and it was so nice as long as you didn't try to walk across the muddy yard. Tim is excited because he is going to mow the lawn tomorrow, whether the big standing puddles are gone or not (and this is how we end up with riding lawnmower tire ruts in the yard). That is his priority. My priority is for him to fix the broken pump on the washing machine so I can wash clothes. The part for the washing machine arrived yesterday and he can fix it in no time at all, but it is not as alluring of a job for him as conquering the waterlogged lawn. He asked me if I wanted a new washing machine or to fix the old one, which is not all that old...maybe 10 years old. I chose getting this one fixed because I knew it would be impossible to drag him out shopping for a new washing machine when he'd rather be mowing 2 or 3 or 4 acres.

There is no rain whatsoever in our 10-day forecast, and we're headed for highs in the 90s the first week in June. What's not to like about that? Now, I'm not saying the forecast might not change, but right now it looks lovely, and I anticipate the soil drying out and me having a chance to plant the rest of the garden next week.

Dawn

Hi Everyone.

I tried to post pictures of the survivalist garden--twice! But, they aren't posting. Frustrating. I'll try again maybe a picture or two at a time.

Hailey and farmgardener, good to see you. farmgardener, I'm so sorry about your tomatoes. It's just so upsetting if it's herbicide drift!

Hailey, do you remember that varieties of lettuce you're growing.

I enjoyed the lily talk. Fascinating.

Jen, I'll figure out a time to bring them to you.

Is anyone going to the garden and flower festival tomorrow? We're going. Because we need more plants! Actually, there are other vendors there. One that makes goat milk soap that I like a lot.

Okay. I'm going to try to add a couple of pictures in another post from my phone.

If for some reason the other two posts show up, I'm sorry.

Hi Hazel! Well, from Baker Creek I have four seasons, and rouge D’hiver, black seeded Simpson and solar flare, those last 3 are slower to bolt so I hope I can get some cuttings! I also planted a mesclun mix and salad bowl. So delicious 😋 what are you growing in your lovely garden?

HJ, congrats to HU and HJ. Survivalist garden is thriving! I laughed at how different our approaches are. THIS year my focus has been on "saving the pollinators"--here AND at school. To my dismay, we don't have enough room for food at the school. They are really hurting for money, being a 501(c)(3). I am convinced our mission there (or, rather, MY mission, if they want me there, is to save the pollinators, first. I've dedicated the huge center round bed to pollinators and the dozen 4x14 beds circling that bed to veggies and fruits. I guess Suzanne and John and I need to decide what kind of "garden" we're going to support.

Hi HJ: I'll just add--if I had room for both a splendid vegetable garden AND the native plants for pollinators that would be fabulous--and if I were younger. In fact, I informed John that we needed a great big garden (like your survivalist one.) LOL. He agreed. It WILL happen, but not for a while. I wish I were 50--would be so much more doable. Please keep posting pictures of it all!

Hailey, there is SO much in our gardens right now. Flowers, herbs, veggies, and fruit. I need to rethink our lettuce/salad garden, though. We built it so the moths can't get in to destroy our salad fixin's….however the aphids got in. But we captured some ladybugs and put them into the hinged hoop and it's doing okay now. I chose a few varieties from SESE for lettuces. I can't think of them all right now, but I know that I have Jericho Romaine, Drunken Woman, and Red Sails. It's still not to the level I would like to see it, but it's making progress. And I'm very happy about that. Other than that, there are strawberries,, asparagus, tomatoes of many types, collard greens, radishes, carrots, eggplant, Pennsylvania Dutch crookneck squash, PEPH peas, Armenian cukes, Indian gherkins, okra (the red and Clemson spineless), peppers of many varieties, southern peas, black beans, shelling beans, lima beans, green beans, watermelon, crane melon cantaloupe, butternut squash, a few summer squash varieties, onions, sugar peas, blackberries, raspberries, elderberries, apples, herbs of many varieties, flowers.

Some of it is phasing out like the spinach and sugar peas and radishes...and even the asparagus might be on it's last week or two.

Hopefully it will all produce well.

Solar Flare sounds interesting! I want to try some of that.

Nancy, thank you!

But, you know...there's a ton of bees, moths, butterflies around my garden. I have lots of herbs--some are "bolting" and are making flowers. Even things like the giant yellow squash flowers are super attractive to bees. They are all loving the garden even though it's not a pollinator garden. I have a lot of things like coneflowers mixed in too. I'll be picking up some milkweed at the festival tomorrow to add to the mix.

It's totally okay to have a garden focus and if your heart is on a pollinator garden, then go for it! It sounds like you have a great plan. And a good learning tool for the children and adults too!

I've been blessed to be able to grow a lot of food this year (hopefully! fingers crossed)...and the way I grow food is friendly to the critters mostly. It's true that I will not allow hornworms to destroy my plants--I relocate them. And I throw the cabbage loppers to the chickens. But, I don't think those particular moths/caterpillars are endangered. And the way I look at it, humans also have to eat. The way I garden is much friendlier to pollinators than anything I can purchase from Walmart. Even the organically grown foods probably use organic pesticides and such.

I do like your idea of a pollinator "base". I want to do that behind our shop. I am hoping to get half of it done next year. But, it's something I need to research better. I need to learn the difference in a butterfly garden, a pollinator garden, and a wildflower garden. Maybe if they're greatly different, I can divide the area into thirds.

Anyway...I'm tired and going on and on. :)

Quick question for you all. Do you have a weed torch? If so, can you recommend one?

I’m not much on killing things, but I have zero qualms about grubs, hornworms, squash bugs, or anything else that casually decimates my plants. To the chickens or into the bucket, and I stomp Black Widows into oblivion. 😆 I’ve always liked the Shaker philosophy of planting one for you and one for the crows, but I find that in Oklahoma the crows/bugs/squirrels aren’t content with just that extra one. They want them ALL.

We need a laugh button, Marleigh. That's how I feel about the milkweed pests. I lost milkweeds two years in a row because of the aphids, beetles, and bugs. I'm keeping very careful watch this year; have found a few aphids and smushed em immediately. Yeah and if I find a hornworm, it's gonna be history. I am whispering that I haven't yet run into tomato hornworms, but found a couple tobacco ones last year. Yeah, I'm sure I just put a hex on myself.

Meanwhile, in the varmint department. . . cat roommates do an AWESOME job on moles, voles, and mice! Oh my, we know Tiny and Jerry are passionate hunters. Tom? I think his favorite thing is napping inside the house, and snuggling up to me when I sit down. He's the freak of the three, but a sweet freak. He's getting chunky. I need to boot both Tom and Titan outdoors. Lazy bums. Tiny is tall and big boned--rangy, but not an ounce of fat. Jerry looks like a wimp, he's almost skinny--and smaller than the other two cats. But he can and has whipped both of the other two when needed.

Nature is nature. Seems cruel to some, but an ecological balance means all creatures need food to subsist. The important thing is to not mess with nature. And human beings have screwed up BIGTIME. (In so many ways. . . sad times. . . )

Love and hugs to you all.

Nancy, don't do it. Not only are the ground squirrels (well they can be pesky) but the songbirds also killed by loose cats. Same with predatory shrews, beneficial amphibians, reptiles, etc. They're indiscriminate killers, and very effective (to the detriment of native wildlife). Keep them indoors and feed them cat food :0 Also there's a lot of dangers for the cats (including internal parasites if they eat rodents) outside.

Farmgardener, I am so sorry about your tomato plants. Being rural with lots of herbicide-loving people around, we get drift every year and, yes, it is heart-breaking and frustrating beyond measure. Some years we get it once or twice and other years we get it 5 or 6 times a year. So far this year, I think we've had it only twice, and only tomato plants were affected. One year they got virtually all our okra and watermelon plants, a lot of flowers and some of the tomatoes. I grow peppers near my tomatoes and they rarely get damaged. I don't know if it just luck on the part of the pepper plants or what, but they always come through it in much better condition than the tomato plants do.For years and years it seemed like we only got Round-up Drift because the people nearest us were using Round-up along their fencelines to control weeds. After about 5 or 6 years of that (and I don't know why), everything abruptly changed (maybe they were hiring someone new to spray) and the use of Grazon-type herbicides exploded here and everyone began using that crap and now we seldom see Round-up damage, but we get broadleaf herbicide damage several times a year. It is heartbreaking, and I now raise about a dozen tomato plants a year in large containers that I have tried to strategically place where no drift can reach them. They still were damaged last year, but so far this year, the tomato plants in containers haven't been hit like the ones in the garden have. There's just a couple of hundred feet between them.

Jennifer & HU, The survival garden looks great! Y'all are going to be getting some great harvests out of that.

Y'all know that you can grow lettuce indoors on the same light shelves where you raised seedlings, right? Or microgreens. Or sprouts. With all the heat we have here, that's about the best option for fresh, home-grown summertime salad greens.

HJ, Lilies are fascinating and we grow more and more of them every year because our granddaughter, Lillie, believes we should. : ) I am amazed at how much further ahead were here this year with the blooms of the lilies, but perhaps it is because ours bloomed really early considering far south we are. They finished blooming here about a month ago. I think the warm of days in the 90s in late March or early April set them off early, and once we returned to cooler weather, it didn't matter---they already were set to bloom early. We have them in a lot of different colors, including white, pink, red, yellow and peach, and I have to grow them either in containers or in tall, hardware cloth-lined beds because voles will come out of the woods and into the garden and eat all the lily bulbs if the bulbs are not well-protected. There are not many types of bulbs that voles won't eat (mostly allium, garlic and daffodil) so I'm limited in what I can plant. Well, also crinum lilies never have been bothered, and neither have cannas, and daylilies. I think they can and sometimes do eat daylilies but just haven't done it in recent years.

Nancy, I've always gardened for the pollinators as well as for us, but we have ample sunny space, plus we never wiped out the native plants that existed when we bought our land, so that made a huge difference. All I had to do was plant to supplement what was here to begin with. In our first handful of years here, the old farmer crowd gave me hell for growing "weeds" (i.e. herbs and flowers) in my garden, telling me that Tim and I couldn't eat those. I just had to point out that the pollinators could and would eat them. Those guys meant well, but were trying to turn me into a row farmer with monoculture rows of veggies and no herbs and flowers and I wanted to be a raised bed gardener with all of it mixed together. So, in that sense I won....but it was, of course, the pollinators who won. Later on, I had more of a monoculture row garden in the back garden after we built it in 2012, but then the voles are a terrible plague back there, so that area is not utilized as much as I'd like---it depends on how much I want to fight the voles. The girls and I spend endless hours outdoors when they are here, and they love the butterflies and moths as much as I do, so much so that they hate to see bad caterpillars, like army worms, put to death. Now, I'm trying to teach them not to be afraid of the seemingly dozens of kinds of bees we have here, while also teaching them to respect the hornets and wasps and give those guys a wide berth. Yesterday when the kids were out of the pool for a snack break, a butterfly came and sat on Lillie for about a 15 minutes and she was so mesmerized by it. It sat on her bare skin part of the time and on her neon bright bathing suit the rest of the time and was in no hurry to fly away.

Jennifer, I think that if the only flowers we had were the front wildflower meadow, the pollinators still would be deliriously happy, particularly this year. Between the overseeding of that area with a wildflower mix from Wildseed Farms last spring and the abundant moisture, we have the best mix of wildflowers in there that we've ever had. It is starting to drive Tim crazy---usually he can mow the wildflower meadow down after the Spring wildflowers have gone to seed and before the summer wildflowers are coming on strong but this year the spring flowers lingered a bit longer than usual and the summer wildflowers started up already, so his need to control the meadow by mowing is dead in the water, and the wildflowers and I are delighted. He had to content himself with mowing only the yard and the back pasture yesterday, where there were not nearly so many wildflowers this spring, perhaps because of drainage issues back there and all the standing water. Perhaps I need to overseed that area back there with wildflowers next fall. Would that be too diabolical? It might interfere with him mowing in that area if we got a better stand of spring wildflowers back there. I would think just the acre around the house would give him enough mowing to keep him happy, but he could be happy mowing all day long. He starts twitching and practically breaking out in a rash when I discuss our plans to replace lawn around our house with hardscaping and raised beds. He is afraid I won't leave enough for him to mow, and I keep telling him that having less to mow as we age will be a blessing and to just wait and see.

Nancy, We live in what is usually a dry grassland area, so I've never wanted a weed torch. I think they can work for people in some situations, but am not convinced I am one of those people. Maybe it is because we spend so much time fighting grassfires in our county in the summer, winter and autumn...and sometimes early spring in the dry years. We also don't have stone pathways to maintain and I can see where one would come in handy there.

Marleigh, You've got to kill whatever you've got to kill to keep your garden going. Over the years I've found I have to kill less and less because all the beneficial creatures take care of a lot of it for me. There is a huge difference in wet years like we've had in 2015-2020 so far, and the dry years that mostly plagued us from 1998 when we still were clearing our land prior to building the house all the way through 2014. In the dry years, the pest level rises along with the drought and I spend far too much time and effort on killing excess damaging pests. The way I grew up was that you planted about four times as much as you wanted/needed so that the wild critters could have what they wanted and you still had enough left for yourself, and that seems about right here in OK. The only area where planting extra for the wild things doesn't work is with fruit---they want it all, no matter what, and you have to fight them so hard for every bit of fruit you grow. I have gotten to where I grow less and less fruit as the years go on because I get so tired of the endless fruit wars with the wild things.

Our cats have become much more indoor cats than outdoor cats over the years. As they age, most of them have seemed content to sleep in the sunroom, where the sunshine and views of the great outdoors are endless, and now are happy most days just to go out for a quick hour or two and then come back indoors. They don't bother wild birds much because I trained them (with a water gun....everyone needs one Super Soaker to blast cats away from little wild birds) to leave the wild birds alone. Now, when I am out and the cats have done the brief tour outdoors and want to come in, they come and find me and meow for me to come up to the house and let them come inside. This year's perpetually wet, puddled ground probably has contributed to that a lot. Tim and I joke that our cats have become too conditioned to the great indoors---dry "ground", no snakes or annoying biting insects, no bobcats or coyotes chasing them around, and perfect climate control so they're never too hot or too cold. There's a lot of truth in that though. Even Pumpkin has become very much an indoor cat even though he's not as old as they others.

When our cats are indoors and the coast is clear, the feral cats, neighborhood barn cats, etc, come over to visit and hang out. As long as I grow catnip, we'll never be cat free.

We were outdoors more than we were indoors yesterday and the weather was just perfect---clear, sunny skies, not too much wind, and neither too hot nor too cold. I think most of this week will be that way, but our highs are moving into the 90s by the end of the week, so it looks like June weather is arriving right on time. I was looking forward to mealtimes as a way to use up a lot of tomatoes---BLTs for lunch, tomatoes on hamburgers at dinner time, chopped up in salads, etc. but then I harvested more tomatoes and brought in just as many newly harvested ones as we had used up in our meals so the pile of tomatoes on the counter is the same. I haven't even harvested the cherry tomatoes yet this weekend, but I'm going to do that today. You know that the tomato harvest is going well when we're looking at the tomatoes on the counter and hoping we can hurry up and use them up before I bring in more. lol. That's a change from looking at them longingly on the plants and wishing they would hurry up and ripen. We're probably about to get to the point of needing to make salsa in the next couple of weeks just to stay caught up on the harvest. The tomato plants in pots are doing great, and the ones in the ground that were planted much later because of the nonstop rain are coming along pretty well. Mosquitoes are a huge issue now, and I am sure that will continue for weeks until we get good and dry.

It is the end of May and we all survived it, with a lot less weather disruption than we have some years. Well, the heavy pounding from the rainfall was disruptive, and so was the hail when and where it fell, but it seemed like we had a lot fewer tornadoes statewide than usual. The nights still feel kind of cool to me for this late in Spring, but I bet that's going to change in June.

Dawn

Nice observation about the tornados, and yes it does seem that severe storms (while damaging) did seem less this year overall.

It is almost scary how few tornadoes there's been because we know that the law of averages will catch up with us at some point, and there will be hell to pay.