I talk to everything too! but in the garden, it's just
"excuse me" "sorry" "ooh sorry" "can i get by for a sec"
i can't tell you how many times i apologize to these
roses. i am never this polite to actual people. i just
knock 'em down and keep goin'.

pagan-
"lessee, pretty embarrassing when I sprayed everybody with weed killer..."
at first i thought you had sprayed people! By the way,
how did your roses do after that?

I have a couple stories to tell...although, I'm not so sure that they would be considered embarassing as I leave in the country so I don't have nosey neighbors...

Story 1: A few years ago I was using my long handled loppers to remove saplings from my peony bed. Besides the sapplings in the bed, there were high weeds, so I had to guide the loppers down to the base of the sapplings to cut them off. Well, I encounterd a rather "tough to cut" sappling which required significant more force to snap...When I finally snapped it, the boom that followed through my a.. nearly across the yard. I had actually not cut a sappling but a 240volt live wire which I had used to add electricity to the greenhouse...it melted my loppers!...They aren't kidding when they say you should bury the cables 18" deep...I'm such a moron.

Story 2: This is also true. As I work in the yard, my little Pomeranian, Sadie, sits by the gate of the courtyard and watches me constantly. I noticed that some birds were making a huge noise in the crabapple tree under which she was sitting watching me. As I looked to see what the fuss was about, a six foot black snake fell out of the tree and landed directly on my little dog... For three days following this ordeal, each time she went out the back door, she first looked up into the sky to see if it was safe....I could tell you another Sadie trauma story that involved my mother, a dock that broke, and dog that flew 20 yards into a lake...but, it's not a gardening story.

Robert

My most embarassing moment isn't all that funny.
This spring I was planting some shade plants. I always have to jump on my shovel to get it to go in the dirt and this time I lost my balance while jumping. I reached out to grab something to catch my fall and grabbed a branch off the tree and it broke off and I stabbed myself in the eye with it! A piece of it broke off and I actually had to reach up and pull the stick out of my eye. I ran inside and washed my eye out and then called my brother in law who is an optometrist. He came and got me and took me to his office to check it out. Lucky for me, the stick didn't actually go in my eye, it went in the bottom eye lid. But a piece of it did get under my eye lid and scratched my eye all up and I had to put antibiotics in my eye for a week.
My brother in law says I need to wear eye protection in the garden! He says now the neighbors will say "LOOK! The crazy flower lady is wearing safety goggles!" I was almost too embarassed to admit to him that this wasn't the first time I had done something like this, but he wasn't an eye doctor yet when it happened the first time, so I didn't get it checked out.

One other embarassing thing, I live in the country and it's hot in Texas, so I do most of my gardening in a sports bra and shorts. It won't matter how fat and old I get, this is always going to be the way I do it, but I always turn a little red when people I know from town talk about seeing me run around in my yard in my sports bra.

My mother gardens too, and this spring she was sitting on a stump on a Sunday morning before church, very intent on making cuttings, and didn't notice that she was covered in ants until they all started biting her at once. She started stripping and running towards the house and was bare butt naked by the time she reached the front door. She lives next to the highway, and made sure to explain herself and apologize to the congregation once she made it to church!

Oh my Cweathersby...my eyes are watering as I read your story. I'm glad your eye is okay...that would scare me spitless. I wear glasses...the expensive progressive lens...although I know they protect my eyes, which are pricless, I still am so careful trying not to get the lenses scratched.

Your poor Mama!!! I hate fire ant bites so much...and they hurt horribly. I take it they were attacking her butt!!! Oh my....that would be a pure nightmare!!!

Deb

I listen to the radio with earphones during the day while gardening. One day I was listening to a story on npr while pruning an apple tree. I was fascinated by the story and getting really into it. So there I am in my own little world listening, pruning, listening, pruning. All of a sudden, I'm hearing in mono, that is, sound is only coming out of one ear. As I was standing there with a perplexed look on my face, my fellow gardening friend was laughing hysterically at me. There I was with the cord from one earpiece dangling from my ear. I had just pruned my walkman.

You all have told some pretty good stories so far. I wish I had a good one. I have lots of embarrassing stories, but none garden related.

Altorama,
I remember the thumb story! I was one of the idiots who thought you cut off your thumb, lol.
Remy

Jody and DEbn you reminded of a story I read on Gardenweb a couple years ago, don't remember the poster. Something about asking her neighbor if he would like to see " Mutablis" and his jaw dropped because he missheard and thought she said "Me topless"

This has been so much fun!!!!

This one isn't funny, but my story might save someone from getting hurt. Last fall I was removing a Mrs. BR Cant that had gotten sick with bacterial gall, and I had raked the pine bark out of the way and then set the rake down. Unfortunately, I was tired and got careless. When I set the rake down, the teeth were pointing up. During my last hard tug on the bush, I stepped backwards in the process, and you guessed it, I stepped full force on that rake. It went through my sneakers and punctured my foot badly. Thank God I had heeded everyone's advice a little while about getting a tetanus booster.

I'm VERY careful about how I set a rake down now!

Sandy

I am glad to see I'm not the only who has whipped her shirt off in the garden due to insects.

Altorama - my roses were crispy critters after that! It actually turned out ok, cus after that I determined to educate myself about roses and gardening in general so I wouldn't kill everybody again... when I first ventured outside, I thought drought-tolerant meant dig a hole, put the plant in (green side up) and then wish it the best of luck... I was convinced that full sun meant full sun everywhere else but here, so I planted roses in the shade... also planted hybrid teas and other blackspot magnets, never tried to water to establish the poor guys and certainly never mulched. Killing them all was probably the nicest thing I ever did for them!

I have thought of more embarrassing moments, involving me and shovels... my tennis shoe got caught on the edge of the shovel and I ended up arse over teakettle on my back, unable to disconnect the shovel from my shoe! I had to take my show off and carry it, shovel still firmly attached, to the house to get DH to dislodge the shovel from the shoe. Then there was the time I yanked some vine from the side of the house - it was so firmly attached I *thought* I could swing on it. That lasted about one swing, then I fell, landed under the vine which promptly fell on top of me, covering me with dirt and debris and vine AND a very annoyed bird! We looked at each other and shrieked, then he flew away and I headed inside for a shower. Oh my, the memroies come flooding back... once I was out in the garden and the pastor stopped in the road for a quick chat. I was being all respectable and proper, when my grey squirrel came running to me and climbed up my leg to my back, She refused to budge and hung off my butt, upside down, the whole time I was talking to the pastor...

Robert,
you are so lucky you weren't hurt! And poor Sadie LOL!

cutting my walkman(ipod these days), definitly something
i would do.
remy-i think it's the way i told the story, so you're not
an idiot.
VJcamp, that is hilarious!
Sandy, that sounds to painful for me to laugh at..
Veilchen, I have ripped my shirt off too, We should do
a whole other post about that one!
Pagan, a squirril hanging off your butt?!LOL
Brandyway-get rid of the grass, plant more roses! It's
a safety issue after all..
Jody, can't neighbors be wonderful?
William Cartwright, a few years ago it was pretty funny
when my husband was in a loud argument with some teenagers,
the police standing there trying not to laugh, because my
husband was only wearing boxers. He was so mad he didn't
even notice....
Kind of funny how some of you live so close to your pastor/
minister...i would change my ways so fast!

Buford-I would have been so upset!! I hope the deer don't
bother you anymore!

alida

All great stories, some near tragic, others just downright funny. I have nothing quite as exciting to share.

I did the stepping on the rake thing too. It was actually Christmas Day. I was outside in the AM raking up some leaves. I was right in front of our dining room window, which you can see out of from the kitchen.

I stepped on the upward tines of the rake and the handle came up and smacked me in the face. Luckily it missed my nose by a fraction, or I'd sure have spent Christmas day in the ER with broken nose. As it was I had a bump and bruise on my cheek and forehead.

And DH saw the whole thing through the window. But couldn't come out and see how I was because he was laughing too hard.

Oh my heck!
I can't stop laughing :o)
Grrrrreat stories! The thumb one still has me rolling.

Y'all have me laughing so hard the dogs are looking at me like I'm crazy. Robert, I can picture your poor dog checking the sky, bwahaha.

I have one that had to be funny to see. A year or two ago I was ride-mowing in the late summer when the yellowjackets in the ground get aggressive. I had my dog out and sleeping under a bush, and my neighbors were out in their yards...

After I took a turn I saw that yellowjackets were coming for me - a BEE LINE across the lawn, really! and I started yelling "Uh-oh uh-oh!" No sooner had I spotted them, they were stinging my ear and face and I started squealing like a little girl. But my poor dog and the neighbor kids started to run towards me to see what was up!!

I screamed "Go away, RUN AWAY!!! Aaaaaaah" and everyone thought I had gone loony.

In a second I realized that I could run faster than the mower, so I jumped off and ran out of danger. Nobody else got stung, thank goodness.

I actually DO wear safety goggles in the garden sometimes, when I am pruning/ tying up my climbing roses. I don't want to risk losing an eye!

None of my stories are nearly so funny as some of yours. Those are great!

My most embarrassing incident was probably the time I took some lily bulbs down to the Idaho Botanical Gardens to plant them. I had been volunteering that summer, but by this time it was rather late in the fall, and I wasn't sure the Garden would be open on a Saturday. However, I was pleased to find the big iron entrance gates wide open! I drove on up to the Garden area, got out my tools and the bulbs (I had even brought some water from home), and got those little guys planted. Then I got ready to leave.

That's when I discovered that the garden had NOT been officially open . . . someone else (someone with keys!) had apparently also been there doing an errand, and they had left before me. There I was, locked inside the IBG, with no access to a phone or anything. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so finally I just left my car there, climbed up and over the big gates, walked to the nearest gas station, and borrowed a phone to call my husband and ask for a ride home.

I was even embarrassed for my husband & little girl to find out what a dumb thing I had done (for several days after, I could occasionally hear my daughter playing with her dolls, having one cry out, "Help! I'm stuck in the 'tanical Gardens!"), but the worst part by far was the way people looked at me-- of course there were several people nearby, walking, picnicking, even enjoying a wedding reception on the lawn of the Bishop's House across the road!-- as they watched me climb over that huge iron gate in my long skirt. Maybe they thought I had climbed in there in the first place to escape paying admission?!

Buf- I will now have that song stuck in my head for at least a day now too! LOL

Okay- I also had to do a front yard strip tease a few years ago. New to NC at the time, I had no idea that there are some kind of wasp/yellow jacket that nest in the ground instead of in the usual places. I was in my front yard- hot day- pruning some shrubs and stepped on the nest. The whole herd attacked me and went under my shorts and top so as I ran and jumped my low hedges like hurdles, clothes flying everywhere as I went for the front door. 13 stings later (YOUCH) I never go near that area now that my skin doesn't crawl. Oh yeah, and I think I invented quite a few new expletives in the process. :-)

Nancy

Boisemom-ok your story is my favorite!!!picturing you climbing that gate in your skirt-thank god it was a long
skirt!!LOL
Nancy-i love your term 'front yard striptease'!
alida

I was weary after a long hot day of fence building. I was proud of myself for (almost) completing this project, with no accidents. -Used extreme care with all my power tools.

It was just about dusk and I was cleaning up the driveway. I decided to stack the clay pots to make more room & so I could sweep.
I lifted a very large pot with an orange tree, and decided to put it in a slightly bigger pot.
Just as I was easing it in, I realized it would be too tight a fit. I tried to pull it back out, but it slipped, trapping all my fingers.
I used all my power to wrench the pot back up, and all fingers escaped, except the middle finger on my left hand.
It was tightly wedged, with about 150 pounds of pot and earth. I screamed, and screamed. finally a neighbor came out. I told them to call 911. When the paramedics came the broke the smaller pot with an ax.

The middle joint of my finger looked like a wasp. It was squashed down to about 1/4". My son said he almost threw up when he saw it.
It took almost a week for it to regain it's normal shape.

At one point in my gardening career, I was growing really large hostas--3-4 ft across. The first time I decided to move one, I had no idea how deep the roots would be. To be safe, I decided to dig it up with a very BIG rootball. However, it was so big and heavy that I couldn't get it out of the hole. I inserted my shovel under it to use for leverage--still couldn't get it out of the hole. So I decided if I could get part of my leg under it also, I would have even better leverage. Somehow I got my leg under it--and discovered it was too heavy to lift with my leg. In fact, my leg was trapped under the big heavy hosta. No one was home or around in the neighborhood --no one to call out for help. There I lay--pinned under a hosta--for about 20 minutes. So embarrassing--I was almost glad no one was around to see what a fool I was--done in by a hosta!

Somehow within a half hour I managed to squirm slowly out from under that danged hosta. I have since learned much easier ways to move hosta (thank goodness!).

Kate

Fell in the pool some years ago. Not a strong swimmer, wondered as I plunged to the bottom whether I could swim wearing jeans, boots, and garden gloves. The answer was "yes," but the clippers stayed on the bottom of the pool and took quite a bit of fishing to recover. I tapped on my husband's home office window to ask him to bring me a towel, and he couldn't figure out why I was so wet. If I'd hit my head, or my water-filled boots had dragged me down, I'd be dead. He might have figured out that I was missing when he got hungry for dinner, but not before...

We took out the pool to make room for veggies and roses. Don't miss it at all.
Anita

Some of these stories are pretty scary! I'm glad you all "survived to tell the tale"!

I've done a lot of pretty dumb stuff, but fortunately, there was usually no one around to notice, so it's only embarrassing when I stop to think about how idiotic I've been!

One summer as I was driving through Julia Davis Park, I spotted a new plant that I knew right away I wanted for my garden. It was the most gorgeous honey-beige color, exactly like that new carex (can't remember its name now) that was all the rage at garden centers right then . . . and this was also just when caramel-colored roses were starting to come into style.

I could tell this plant would fit right in, but it was too far away for me to see it clearly enough to get a positive ID on it, so I turned around and drove back, parked the car, and hurried over for a closer look. That's when I realized that the plant was such a lovely shade of brown because it was completely dead!

I once had lunch at a very nice open-air restaurant on St Thomas.

The dining area was built out from the side of a mountain, so the view was breathtaking...

& a little ways down the mountain was an intriguing plant I'd never seen before!

It looked like a yucca, but it had white, oval-shaped blooms.

When I leaned out over the stone banister to get a good photo, a waiter rushed up to me with a concerned look on his face.

I assured him that I wouldn't fall over the banister, I just wanted to take a picture.

He was most gracious about it, but he stayed with me until I was finished.

Then he said,
"Children were always getting stuck by that plant;
that's why we put the eggs over the sharp ends."

I should start by saying that I'm most definitely not a girly girl. Spiders, snakes, it's all good.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I was watering my little pot ghetto. Among them is a pot with two baby Exochorda seedlings, gifted by a nice forumer during spring swap. Since I want to be extra gentle with these babies (I normally kill seedlings), I picked up the pot to trickle in the water, held it close, and dripped in the water.

And then, the soil jumped. I jumped, screamed like a girl, and dropped my pot. It was a toad. Sitting nestled in the potting soil, and clearly annoyed at having been watered. Thankfully, the plants were fine, and no one was around to see or hear me except my dogs, and they're used to my being an idiot.

Anyone know how to get a toad out of a little pot without disturbing the seedlings or my actually having to touch the critter?

Suja

About five years ago when I still lived in CA, (On a very busy street I might add.) I was digging a hole to plant an Echinacea. I will never forget it!!! As I was digging, I dug right into an underground wasp-hornet nest. They flew right up my pants, so I immediately ripped my pants off and ran into the house. I get very bad reactions from bee and wasp stings. I didn't care that I was in my undies in my front yard! I was in agony from about 8 wasp stings!
I had to go to the hospital.

pacnwgrdngirl-
that sounds like a horrible ordeal!
you should get an epi-pen, any of you who have severe
allergic reactions to bee/wasp stings should have one
with them especially while gardening!
(i bet you already have one)
boisemom, i've done the 'oh thaaat's why it's brown..' bit
before too!
suja,
where do you want to move him-maybe you could move the pot
over to where there are some trees or something?
alida

Since I believe that my tombstone will say "It seemed like a good idea at the time", I guess I've got a few stories to share.

Story 1:
I was new to the neighborhood and had started to create planting beds. I didn't have much to use for compost so when I saw my next door neighbor bagging grass clippings to set out in the trash I started over to ask if I could have them. I had just arrived home from work, had on dress clothes and shoes and was hurrying. Just as I got near him I stepped in a hole and fell flat on my face. So here's the apparent staggering drunk coming to beg for yard waste! He was very nice and concerned and has been a steady source of compost for these six years.

Story 2:
Still pretty new to the neighborhood and clearing out overgrown evergreens. I wanted to take down some pine trees along my back fence line. I have felled trees bigger than that so wasn't too concerned. I got the chainsaw, notched the first tree and then started the main cut intending to drop it in my yard. I did not realize that there was enough wind blowing in the other direction to hit that tree like a sail and make it settle down on the saw blade. There was no earthly way to get it out. I tore over to the neighbors house, told her not to let the kids out and then called the tree man. That call went something like, "Oh, I have screwed up, oh please come quickly. I must leave to pick up the cat at the vet but you'll know the tree -- it's the one with the chainsaw stuck in it."

Story 3:
When my uncle died I went over to help my aunt. One thing she asked me to do was prune back her chrysanthemums. I had some wicked sharp pruners, kept grabbing a handful and shearing them back. Fine until I sheared off the side of one finger. My aunt and her sister were at the funeral home, I managed to get a paper towel and stop the spurting blood but couldn't let go to bandage it. I went up to the door of a neighbor in this little retirement village and was fortunate enough to score a retired Army captain used to coping with emergencies. She bandaged me up and I managed to hide it from my aunt until I could get home and to a doctor.

Suja - water it - the toad will jump out. The big fat guy that lives in my pot ghetto is so used to the whole watering thing that he just jumps from pot to pot. You could put a bit of screening around those pots if you want to keep him out cause the seedlings are delicate.

The pot ghetto toad's name is Todd. The toad that lives in the eastern most front flowerbed is Tom. The toad that lives in the pink garden is Tim. The toad that lives in the shade garden is Terrance.

I used to have a calico cat who was an excellent hunter, much to my next-door-neighbors chagrin. The neighbor had complained that my cat was killing birds at her birdbath. One day I was in the garden, and I saw Callie (the cat) coming across the yard with her head sopping wet and a black bird in her mouth. I immediately thought," Oh, great! She has killed another bird from the neighbor's birdbath." As the cat got closer I realized that the bird was still very much alive and frantically pecking the cat in the side of the head. I jumped into action, determined to try and save the bird. I grabbed the cat startling her into releasing the blackbird. So, here I am holding the cat with one arm (who is irritated and angry and squirming and clawing me the whole time)and holding the bird at arms length, while trying to determine if it is injured. Much to my amazement and relief the bird seems to be fine, a little soggy and confused, but otherwise not so much as a scratch. So I throw the bird into the air, assuming that it will fly away. At this exact moment, the cat bounds away from my arm with one final squirm and takes off after the bird which is too traumatized to fly. Well after all that trouble I'm not going to let the cat kill the blackbird, so I take off running after the cat.

So, the blackbird is running full out, followed by the howling cat, followed by yours truly....all the way to the end of the street. Oh, and I'm screaming, 'Callie! Stop, Callie!' at the top of my lungs. Well, finally the bird gets a little altitude and flies into the lower branches of a small tree. So I stop; sweating and sucking air. And it is about this time that I realize that I am getting a standing ovation from about 8 of my neighbors who were sitting out on their frontlawns enjoying the spectacle. Some of them even had lawn chairs.

That cat pouted at me for a full week for stealing her bird.

Susan, I'm glad I don't live near you :)

My cat hates when I confiscate his prey. Most times it already dead, but he wants to bring it in the house and worse still, up to our bedroom for presentation.

I usually get up at 5:30, feed the cats, open the door for them to go out, then go up to take a shower. The other morning I was sitting here on the laptop after my shower and my DH comes downstairs. He waves a dead rat by the tail in front of my face. Apparently there was a catch that morning but I must have been in the shower at the time.

My worst moment? Going on a frenzied Japanese beetle removal over at a friend's house and accidentally picked up a bee from inside a closing hibiscus trumpet thinking it was one of those buggers. It stung my hand, and I felt really stupid. It didn't swell up as big as I thought it would get though, I've had my hand swell up before too, and I was shocked.

Buford- That reminds me of tapping my foot on something under the table as a teenager, only to look and find it was a very large dead rat.:-( But when young, our cat used to bring animals into the house live and let them go for a special treat. There was a baby rabbit, but the corker was a pregnant mouse that had her babies who then entertained us for weeks scampering around. Our second cat is a fantastic hunter and put an end to that kind of nonsense (and to a lot of birds, rodents, etc.).

LOL! Plunk the toad in a plant that's good and moist nearby and he'll love it there. You can pat their heads if they like you and they'll just 'smile.'

Camel crickets! That's what my cat brought me, duly caught all night at the basement door's bottom crack... up two floors to me in bed. And it hurt him terribly if I wasn't thrilled, so I had to thank him and pretend that I was putting them in a 'special spot' before going back to bed!

Some of these stories are SO hilarious! What we need to do is compile them into a Gardening Bloopers book and sell them!!!
Jody- I love how you name your toads! I love toads too (and so much for those people who claim that toads are repulsive and frogs are okay- all toads fall into the classification of frogs! -an interesting little tidbit I picked up from one of my son's mags.)
Cat stories- lets see, first I admit I have 10 cats (!!!). There was the time when Houdini was a kitten and brought home a rabbit bigger than he was :) and then last wk, I stepped out of bed to find (Dini- again!) w/ a torn up squirrel on my oriental rug- I was SO upset I instantly picked up the (headless) squirrel and its detached tail then wondered what to do w/ the bloody remains. I was so confused (not at my best first thing in the morning) I didn't know whether to cry or throw up. I went to work, then told them I was sick and left early.
And the week before that, I kept hearing scritching sounds during the night and I was wondering what on earth had the cats found to get into now, but TWO mornings later I discovered Laurel playing w/ my oriental rug, I smoothed the rug back down, then noticed it was moving on its own!!! I pulled the rug up, watched a small bump moving about, scritch, scritch, scratch, and discovered a mole (or maybe it was a vole) trapped between the liner and the top. I rescued the critter and carried it outside away from the house (in only my nightshirt- fortunately I live in the country).
Lots and lots of cat stories! My biggest cat, about 13 or 14 lbs, likes to sleep in the bathroom sink! Fills it completely up! Or then there was the time Dini fell into the bathtub- bubble bath and all... Or the pics I have of Mr. Beautiful w/ a purple cast on a hind leg, or the time he had to wear that big plastic collar because he almost got his tail bit off... You can see why my cats keep me entertained, and THEY NEVER ARGUE BACK! (Unlike my teenage son!)
Alida- my idea of the perfect yard is one that is ALL plants and mulch w/ NO grass! And believe me I am working on it...
Thanks SO MUCH for all the great stories! Brandy

We had a dead pine tree that needed to be removed. A guy from a lawn care company came over to look at it and afterwards we walked around my garden. He kept commenting on my neighbor's various trees that draped over my fence and I guess was trying to drum up business. Anyway he would say things like "That tree has an infestation of spiders, and that tree really should be removed."

Well, a couple of years ago I had bought some of those tiny bird houses that are really just wound up straw or rope. I had tied it into my neighbor's overhanging branches of blue spruce and it was really faded and did not look like a bird house anymore. Anyway, this know-it-all is yacking about spider infestation and pulls down this branch for a closer inspection. All of a sudden he screams and jumps back because he thinks it is a huge spider house. It was really, really funny watching him try and compose himself.

ok i have a cat story too. when i was a teenager we had
a persian cat named Leo. He always stole food from the
garbage disposal and took it under the diningroom table.
It was about 11:30 PM and my dad had just called from
that gambling place in NJ. (i can't remember but you
all know what it is). My mom was upstairs talking to him,
I was downstairs trying to get the food out of Leo's
mouth. I was very surprised to see that it was a bat.
a very loud bat! my sister picked up the extension
downstairs to tell my mom, but she was already running
down the stairs. all my dad could hear was alot of
screaming and my youngest sister saying 'call the police'!
it was swooping around making a very loud high pitched
noise. everyone ran upstairs and forgot me. i was in
the den and the bat was at the den door. but then he
swooped real low and i threw my moms oriental rug on
it. My dad was frantic but finally mom picked up the
phone to explain. then we called my grandfather, woke him
up, he just lives a few houses down so he comes over
with a golf club, and just beats the crap out of the
lump under the rug. i don't think my mom was too happy
about the rug. anyway, after it's dead, he just throws
it outside somewhere.
The next morning my sister realizes that both she and the
cat have been bitten by the bat, now we need to bring the
bat to some place in boston for rabies testing. of course
we couldn't find it! but finally someone found it. we put
him in a jar and my mom also wasn't happy that she had to
drive all the way to Jamaica Plain to do this...funny how
one little cat can really screw up your weekend...

alida

Not embarassing to me, but might have been to an older couple:

About ten years ago I cleaned apts. part-time. I loved this older couple who lived in the apts. my mom had lived in before she had passed away. They had 2 kitties, can't remember their names.
One morning I was vacuuming in their bedroom. I heard singing coming from the livingroom. I turned off the vacuum to return to more dusting I guess, and because I was so curious.
The couple had purchased one of their kitties a birthday card and were reading it to him and singing Happy Birthday to him as if he were their own son! You could definitely tell they LOVED their kitties! It was so endearing and I'll never forget it!
>^..^

There are a number of stories here which would have been greatly enhanced by photos.

Oh Harry! My first laugh of the day. Keep on truckin'

Hilarious stories, mostly, some a bit scary! Debn's made me spit my soda.

I had these really old shorts I used to garden in. The waistband was really worn out, but they were so soft and comfy I didn't want to throw them out. One day I was deadheading and went to get something, needed both hands, so dropped my Felcos into the side pocket of my old shorts as usual, and the weight of the Felcos caused my shorts to fall down to my ankles. Nobody saw me though, thank goodness. I got a few more weeks of wear out of those shorts, too. I was just really careful after that with the Felcos.

1. We have a pack of cats (8) that terrorize almost anything that moves. Voles, gophers, mice, rats, bats, small rabbits, birds (unfortunately) etc. Sometimes they do "catch and release" after bringing them into the house for presentation and admiration. So one night last summer after a long day of working in the yard we both fell into bed and disturbed an already very irritated gopher snake. Yes, levitation is more than a theory. Meanwhile Mist (our mighty hunter) is looking at the commotion with an "Is there a problem? Seemed like a perfectly good place to stash a snake" expression. . . Cat and snake went out separate doors.

2. Another hornet story. Last week while trying to reclaim a very overgrown bed I bumped a huge hornet nest and they all came straight up. Multiple stings as I sprinted for the house shedding clothes as I ran, but one got me on my eyelid. My eye is now deep purple and swollen and DH is spending a lot of time protesting "Honest, I didn't do it." :-)

3. We have raccoons at the Bellingham house. A family (Mom, two babies and two teenagers from last year) have set up housekeeping in an old garden shed and see no good reason to leave anytime soon (sigh). We were in the hot tub late one night with a large bowl of strawberries set on the deck behind us. DH, without looking, reached back to get one and encountered something furry and hissing. He did a turn worthy of an Olympic medal and discovered Mom and babies helping themselves. I, being the supportive DW that I am :-), was laughing myself silly. Given that they were in complete possession of the strawberries and the babies were whisker deep in the chocolate we moved to the other end of the tub and watched their midnight feast (with DH muttering about pushy wildlife). They finished everything, calmly washed their paws in the tub and continued on with their evening. . .

That's hysterical, rivercat. Those raccoons are sooo tidy.

Not so tidy when they are pitching the mulch out of the rose beds every night.

Thanks, everyone, for the great stories.

Brandyray, I do like frogs, I really do. The ones with an acne problem OTOH....

Meredith, my dad is *petrified* of frogs. I ought to suggest to him that he pet one on the head and watch it smile. He would probably have me committed on the spot.

Mr. Toad's hopped the pot, as it were. I tilted the pot and watered him, and while his first instinct was to dig in, he eventually hopped out.

Rivercat, they washed their paws in the tub!?! The nerve!! Not that I'd push them though, they're nasty boogers....

Ok, brand new ALMOST most embarrassing garden moment.

We recently bought 4 rose bands from Heirloom. I also have 2 clematis still in their small nursery pots. We planned on putting all 6 plants in larger pots instead of planting in the ground. We also were repotting 2 rubber plants.

We bought one of those super large bags of potting soil, the ones that are almost taller than me. It was hard to handle at first. I had to prop it up and spoon the soil out because it was so heavy and a bit wet.

By the time we got to the last large rubber plant, I told DH to just dump the rest of the bag in the large pot. There was a big clump at the bottom which finally came out and fell into the pot.

Almost immediately, there was a waft of unmistakable odor. I looked at my husband, he looked at me. We stared at each other for a few moments.

Then I bent down and sniffed the pot. It was the potting soil.

LOL! These are great!

Racoons - I almost feel guilty talking about close episodes here in NC because they are truly bad on rabies... but no doubt that they are there and close nightly here in the country.

I came out one morning to the screened porch, where the door is easily openable if I leave it unlocked, and found an enormous racoon sitting under the loveseat with a sample bag of dog food I had left on the shelf the earlier day.

I got a broom and tried to shoo and push him out the door, but he hissed and yowled and attacked the broom and basically acted like a beast too terrifying to mess with.

What struck me as hilarious is that, without a beat he'd go back to his dog food in his paws, quiet as you please, looking me straight in the eye with an expression that said "Oh, hun, I'm eatin' it all... there is NO DOUBT."

He was right. I just went to work and left him there eating after I put the dogs out of his way. He was gone when I came home from work that evening.

The raccoons around here are a real nuisance. Just last week, I found a large branch broken off my magnolia (well, large considering that the magnolia itself isn't all that large!) When my kids were little, we bought those inexpensive inflatable wading pools a couple of times, but if we left them filled overnight, they would inevitably be "popped" by morning. Once when my old Birkenstocks were muddy from gardening, I left them by the back door overnight, and a raccoon dragged one out into the yard and ate the top off of it. I was so mad! The coons have also destroyed the kids' shoes a couple of times (we had a trampoline, so the kids would take their shoes off and forget to put them back on afterwards). They only chew up real leather, of course. One of my neighbors said that she came home from work one day to find that a raccoon had come through her cat door and had made quite a bit of havoc in her laundry room. She was pretty upset about it. I suppose the raccoons are just adjusting the best they can to losing their natural habitat.

I have an embarassing story as well, lol.
I have a pretty private back yard surrounded by trees and bushes with only one house next to me that I assumed was vacant.
I was sitting out on my patio drinking a nice hot cup of coffee. I reached over to pick up my newspaper and as I was bringing the paper back to read, I knocked the hot coffee onto my lap. I sprang up quick as a whistle, dropped my shorts and underpants and cranked up the hose full force and hosed down Mr. Johnson and everything else that I could with cold water.
So here I am, nekkid as a jaybird, squirting myself with water and howling both from the pain and the cold water, when I look and see two women peering at me from an upstairs window. Not much I could do but finish my cold shower and run for the hills. Turns out it was a realtor lady showing a prospective client the house next to me. I was red-faced, red-butt and everything else. Great impression I made that day, eh?

I was standing talking to Anne O'Neill the Rosarian at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and went to put my hand in myback pocket to get a handkerchief and suddenly felt a breeze. I patted the area felt nothing then felt another breeze and said "I think I just ripped my pants open" Anne looked and laughed! The old jeans gave out and I was standing in the Cranford rose garden(well rosey cheeked). Good thing it was still Spring and I had somthing to wrap around me. I'm sure in NYC no one would bat an eye and me on the subway.