I have been locked up for 10 days. We had big rain at home I am excited to see if seeds came up. I go home tomorrow.

The weather was perfect. I didn't have much time to work outside, though.

I did water the hoop house and the kitchen garden. And tore out a few more dead vines from the chicken pen. It's all tidy now with the pansies planted around it.

I always feel bad tearing out plants that are still alive (some were, some weren't), but it was time to do it.

I know there's a thing and shame for people who tear out the old plants because it's a home for overwintering beneficials, but I've gotta do it now. Spring will come fast and furious and I'll (still) be struggling to find time to plant everything. I'm always scrambling around trying to get everything done. It's why I like winter.

After work had lunch with both kids and my Mom. Love! I don't get to see my daughter often enough. I love her so much. I like her so much too. And, of course, Ethan has my heart always.

And came home and did home things--cleaning the kitchen, animal care, watering, walked Josi.

Then, went grocery shopping. We always take our recycling in before shopping. We had to recycle in the dark today! It will take time to adjust to the time change.

As much as I love my animals and my life, I'm so happy to get away for a few days this week. It's nice to just relax and not have the demands. McCurtain County had tornado damage. Tom likes to get BBQ from a place in Idabel and it was hit pretty hard.

McCurtain County was one of my daughter's biggest clients before she switched jobs. Kim may have seen some of her commercials there in north Texas. It's weird that the commercials are shown there and not Oklahoma.

I'm so rambling now.

Jen, thanks for starting the thread again.

Jennifer just reading what you do I had to go take a nap. I can’t wait to get my strength back and get in the garden. I go home soon. When I last saw the garden I had five tomato plants thriving and full of fruit, the alyssum has made a beautiful comeback and because the grasshoppers got frost bit everything was greening nicely. I am going to repot all my trees adding fresh soil. My peach trees I am going to attempt to double stack two mineral tubs. They need more root room than one pot provides. Desert willows do as well but they aren’t edible so they can wait. Time for refresh for everything including me.

Pictures

Looks like the gardeners are doing bigger and better things. Here are 2 old men and a moon caught in the same picture. Is this an eclipse? The moon looks black.

This is us making our 7th food plot for the deer.

I am not doing much in the garden, I may still plant a few turnips and rye for a cover crop, but one area I want to plant is still a little too wet.

We were caught by the game cam mounted on a tree.

That’s cool Larry.

Kim, I think I learned something today. I am not a sun or moon watcher, but my memory was telling me that the moon seemed larger than that, so I have spent a good mart of the day looking on the web for pictures. It seems to me the best answer I could find was, this is the way digital cameras see bright light. The sun is too bright, the pixels for the sun are turned off by the camera. I don't know if this is correct, but it makes more sense than anything else I have run across. I have 3 or 4 pictures like this, where one of the tractors triggered the camera as the sun was sitting behind that hill, they are all the same, except, the sun is getting lower and lower.

I'm enjoying your posts--Jennifer, what a gift, having your kids nearby. Sure missing my own right now.

Very cool picture, Larry.

I missed your entry into the hospital--saw your exit on FB, Kim. What a long stay! Are you okay now? I hope so.

Speaking of tearing out plants, HJ. Eileen and Larry came down a couple days ago, and we got them some night plants from Lincoln, including the two oakleaf hydrangeas--which were suprisingly easy to get out of the ground. One of the most difficult was the year old baptisia australis (which another person and I dug up last week). It was REALLY hard to get out of there!

Then Garry and I loaded up 6 bags of Happy Frog and ONE wall of one raised beds. I swear, those cement blocks are heavier than they were 8 years ago! But just that many blocks and the Happy Frog filled up with truck, so we'll have several more trips to make. Not much going on at our place--I didn't get garlic in. maybe I'll quick to an order today and get some in.

Best to you all.

That makes sense Larry. There was some sort of eclipse on that day as well or a blood moon. I am very foggy. I hope to be well enough to go to work on Monday. We will see.

I went to a upick farm last night. Loaded up on fresh herbs and turnips. What a great deal and they don’t use any sprays in the produce.

We got our turnips planted too late and may not have any turnips, at least for a while, but we have a mountain of greens. We had greens yesterday. I have ask Madge to cook them with a lot of onions in them, I think they taste better, plus it is a way to use the walking onions and the bunching onions. I have ask her to make onion soup also, she is not sure how to do that, I told her to just play with the idea, there has to be a 1000 ways it can be done, and I doubt any of then is wrong. My onions are doing well and we need to find a way of using them. We have started chopping and freezing the bulbing onions, we had a good crop of them also. I really need a place to store produce, we have really cut back on canning, with our failing health it seem to be more than we want to do.

Neighbor in my wildlife garden. This started out as a wildlife garden, but covid motivated me to plant people food. These are turnips, people are wanting to buy greens, any greens or turnips that neighbor picks, he sells. Old folks unable to pick, we pick for them, other folks can pick their own free.

This is turnips and radishes, we have the same deal on these. I have two other patches in the wildlife garden, but the two I have shown are the prettiest. The hot dry weather we had, plus being cut off from any irrigation made me think we were going to loose everything we had planted, but as you can see, these two patches came back pretty well. Many skips it the rows in the other two patches. The patches shown had some shade that helped protect the plants.

Neighbor has more green than I do, but I don't think they are any prettier.

Larry that is beautiful. I just paid $3.00 per pound at a upick farm. Yours look lots better. I lost my tomatoes last night. I hated to not pick them but since I don’t eat them it wasn’t priority. There were hundreds left behind.

Kim, I lost my tomatoes about 3 weeks ago. Down in this valley I often get an early frost.

Kim, it's to bad you dont live near a couple of old retired nuts like my neighbor and me, I think we could supply most of your vegetables.

I probably do lol but I associate with anyone in this area. I thought I was just her temporary so I don’t get out much. Besides anyone that sees where I live thinks crazy lady living in a shed

Sorry my typing leaves alot to be desired.

Kim, you do fine, I have problems also. I have to blow my screen up to half again what the print size is to even read what I type. I know that the print size can be set, but I don't how to do that. I understand you use a smart phone to type on. I don't have a smart phone because they are too small to see anything on, but I bet that I have as much fun as anyone else.

It is a beautiful day here, was a little cold last night, but sun is shining and 42 degrees, it got down to 20 last night.

Thanks Larry. The side effects of the meds have me quite loopy.