We're experiencing the same great weather up here! It really is a morale booster for me to get outside & do stuff in my gardens. It'll be a long wait for a warm spring but it's not like I have nothing else to do.I went to Lowe's yesterday to get some potting soil and manure, surprised when I saw a rack full of bulbs, tubers, etc. and they even had a good selection of Moss Roses, in bloom, some geraniums too. Brought home some of the M. Roses, Caladiums and a Clematis starter. I know I'm jumping the gun, but it sure lifts my spirits. p.s. housework is the pits, but I do manage it. Hopefully we'll have some more of these sunny days with a sprinkle of rain in between.

Great Pat! I saw those bulbs also at Lowe's. I restrained myself, I wanted the calla lillies. I'm still building my flower beds and have a half dozen more roses to plant in March and April first then going to fill in with the plants I want. If I start doing the other plants now I'll be transplanting probably, so I'm sitting on myself. I'll have to wait until next year to get those bulbs when I've got the back yard mostly planted again to figure out where I want those to go. I've got the perimeter planted and marked, now I'm working on the inside. It's getting really difficult:) I may half to go buy some annuals just to satisfy the urge, LOL. Yes, planting and being outside does lift your spirits, it's nice to see something pretty and growing and plant something you know will be. I'm putting the housework off until tomorrow....

I'm glad you've got nice weather also and are out and about, have fun. Still have to look up your tipsy pots, my computer died and I was without for a week.
Leslie

The weather was so beautiful yesterday, I decided to have a go at the gophers. I dispatched 3 before my kitty jumped in to help and brought me one more. Good girl! I wrote Gopher Count 2007 on my calendar. Looking back, I see that last February, I got 6 of those suckers. 'Tis the season. :)

Happy planting and hunting.

Brenda

Boy, Brenda, you aren't kidding! I've found a lot of gopher damage this year. I guess I'm going to need to "go hunting" too. WHere are those 5 Owls when you need them?!

Yeah! Your beautiful owls flew off before gopher season! I haven't found any owl pellets in my yard this season, and I haven't heard them, either. They're probably finding plenty more gophers wherever they are.

I think I'm going to have nightmares about the killings. LOL My mom is surprised that I could have such violence within me, but...the plants look bad enough this time of year (whether it be drenching rains, freezing temps, dry, crispy winds) without the gophers jumping in to add their own designer flair. I just get to the point where my frustration overwhelms me.

And I'm sore as all get out today. LOL

Brenda

I had them eat out the core to one of the BIG Agaves this year. They just go right up the middle, gnawing away all winter. Then one day you see the central spike leaning and you know they've demolished another one. But this year they not only polished off the mother, but also all the side pups as well.

Ugh, how awful, Westelle! It always leaves me with a sick feeling when I see another one taken.

I can't even count how many plants I've lost to them. I look back over old pictures - "Oh, yeah, I remember that one!" - but so far this year, none of the plants I put in plastic pond baskets have been attacked. I kept thinking that, by the time the plants get big enough to send their roots out of the baskets, they should be safe.

Then I read about your Agave. *gulp*

This year alone, they've eaten my 2 inground mums, Gaillardia (oh, I loved this one!), my huge freeway daisy (Osteospermum), maybe killed my big Arctotis that was blooming at the time (still some green there...), perennial rattle grass, 'Jackie' Verbascum (*sob*)....

Brenda

Westelle, I'm sorry about the gophers, between that and the freeze.... Brenda too, you're fighting against the cold and then you've got the critters too. That would make me just sick to loose plants I'd had a long time. Made me sick to loose plants I'd bought last summer and fall that I couldn't really afford to buy with all that you have to buy with a new house. Some years you win, some you loose, it was my turn to loose.
At least we got a little rain today, well that's all we've gotten here so far, a little. I got out and did my two weeks grocery shopping before it hit, I'd been putting it off because the weather was so nice the last few days:)
I hope we get alot more rain though before it quits, a nice gentle ground soaking, not run off wasting rain.
Leslie

I hope you get more rain soon, too, Leslie! It started raining here yesterday, and I don't think I've ever smelled anything so wonderful! The sweet smell, like clover, permeated everything. Mmmm, it was definitely worth the wait. Our forecast is rain off and on through at least early next week up here. I hope Mother Nature shares the love! :)

Brenda

We got some too, not sure how much, but it was needed. I agree, I love the fresh smell of rain. I really liked it when I lived in the mountains and the fresh smell up there when the rain would first start. An awesome kind of scarey sound was just before a storm when the winds would whip through the pines and sound like a freight train and the tall pines would be swaying to and fro I'd watch them fascinated to see when they'd fall over, which they wouldn't. Well one year we'd gotten so much rain actually they did start toppling over one by one... You're talking about what 100 -150' tall trees. Both in the forest and the cabins near our house. We had oaks not pines near the house. Our house was built into the side of a hill and my front porch was like upstairs and so I could go out the front door and be 20' up in the air and I'd put my arms on a railing and watch mother nature at work. I could see about 180 degrees all around the mountain tops and watch the lightenting strikes which wasn't extremely bright but it was an awesome thing when it would happen late afternoon. Oh, and the thunder booming and echoing off the mountains everytime would remind me of Rip Van Winkle!

Anyways, I love storms and I love it when it first rains. It makes everything clean and fresh. I hope we can get that much also:) Leslie

Wow, what a wonderful place to live, Leslie! Where was it? I know that sound of the wind through the pines...and I know what you mean about scary! A gentle breeze is great, but when they start swaying like that...whoo! My folks have a few pines that they really keep an eye on during windy storms. I can't imagine the sound of so many of them falling, though. VERY spooky.

Rain is still falling here. Ultra-saturated, but I'm pretty sure I hear the plants cheering. :)

Brenda

California Hot Springs in Tulare County, up in Sequoia National Forest, it's about equal distance between Visalia and Bakersfield in the mountains east of there. The "town" is a post office and California Hot Springs Resort and that's it. All told there are 200 residents spread out in the little community that are ranchers and retired people and people who commute to Visalia, Porterville and Bakersfield and other places to work. Folks from LA like to come up and have cabins and vacation homes up there. We had a home up there for 13 years, we moved up there when my husband became the resident deputy for a couple of years.

The night the trees came down it had rained heavy all day and then changed to snow, the weight of the snow I think was the last straw, they sounded like cannons going off as they fell. The next day I went for a walk with the dog through the woods and the roots of those trees were 10+' tall and more where they broke off out of the ground, unbelievable, they lay like match sticks, huge match sticks.

If you like camping there's a really nice campground for RV's or tents a couple of miles below the Resort to stay at with a creek running by it. There is also an RV park across the street from the Resort but it's very basic. The Resort is is an old building with alot of history that has a giant swimming pool that they pipe the hot springs water into that they hold the water rights to and have year round swimming in with two hot tubs. They do charge to go swimming too, it's a business. The water comes in at 130 degrees and they cool it down to swimming temp, it's wonderful water. In the winter they keep it warmer and in the summer a little cooler. Inside the Resort is a deli, a gift shop and a little grocery store. They used to bottle and sell the water.

About 20 miles up, I believe that's the distance, is where the Trail of 100 Giants is where President Clinton came and declared it a National Monument several years ago. My husband was there and part of the entourage that day. We sold his extra presidential pin of the day on E-Bay:)

I did get nice gentle rain soaking in, I've been out to pull weeds twice now. Yesterday and today, they come up out of the clay better with a little water on them:) Course I'm gong to get alot more now, but that's ok, my plants and bulbs are all cheering too, I'm getting a bunch of them poking their little noses out now. Yea, after all the brown, some green!
Leslie