I am soaked. Today(wednesday) we decided to put the ducklings in a makeshift pen outdoors.Weather was brigt and beautiful.They loved all the space and their own pool(a Giant plant saucer) .And didn't it start to rain and then pour and then down pour with thunder and lightning.We had them agaginst the garage wall and there is no gutter so they were flooded.I had to go out in the pouring rain and get down on hands and knees to get them. (Is it still wading if you do it on your knees???) They were scared and drenced and in a corner so the task wasn't easy.And No i did not make another video,you wouldnt have been able to see for the rain. They are happily in a bin full of warm hay in the garage now. Anyone know how to house break ducks LOL

I finally got so tired of patrolling & chasing runaway *Lucifer* tails ~ went ahead & used my trimmer & whacked the lot of them ~ tilled & raked almost all of the roots. Knowing this YAL's tricky behavior I used the thick layers of newspaper-method of suffocation ~ topped w/ thick layer of peat, along w/ some large pots of White Christmas-Hosta, to hold down the layers of news papers 'til Spring. I just wish I could put Herman's Pride in to get him started sooner. 'Thought to share finally ridding of a thug ~ will keep watch for the one that might have gotten away!!! LOL Pink Pewter L(planter 2010) & Beacon Silver L is taking their sweet time spreading TG that Shell Pink L is doing a good job of freely covering the rest of 12 ft front of the shady lane now w/o fear of *Lucifer* chocking the rest of them!

Diane, To a certain extent, it comes from trial and error. Some people become pretty good at judging melon ripeness and it seems like others never do. The signs can vary by melon type. My old rancher/farmer friend Fred says he used to cut a plug from a watermelon, check it for ripeness without picking the melon, and then replace the plug and let the melon keep growing if it wasn't ripe yet. He insisted the ants and other critters did not get into the plugged area, which seems odd to me. Nowadays, he just waits for the coyotes to harvest them for him because somehow the coyotes always know when they're ripe and the beat the farmer or gardener to them. First of all, watch the size of the melons. If you're growing a watermelon variety that usually reaches 25-30 lbs., it likely will not be ripe when it is 12-15 lbs. With watermelons, you can usually go by the tendril nearest the melon...it will turn dry and brown. Some people have luck 'knocking' on the melon and not picking until they hear a dull, hollow sound instead of a sharper, higher-pitched pinging or ringing sound. I don't always have a lot of luck with that one myself. You also can keep an eye on the underside portion of the melon that rests on the ground. As the melon ripens, it will turn a dull, creamy off white to yellow color and often the texture of that ground spot will get a little rough. Usually, you use these clues in order: size, browning tendril, yellowish-white ground spot and THEN do the thumping test. If the thumping test is the only clue, your ears are like mine and you're hearing the wrong sound. Wait until all 4 clues are 'right' and you should be harvesting a ripe watermelon. With cantaloupes and muskmelons, there are lots of clues. First of all, the netted melons we commonly call cantaloupes are not actually cantaloupes as the rest of the world knows them. So, for muskmelons, here are the signs of ripeness to watch for: 1) Days To Maturity---even if you've forgotten the variety, most of these types of melons mature in 75-90 days. In our very hot summers, you may find melons ripening more quickly than their DTM indicates, but not weeks and weeks early....just days early. 2) Most muskmelons slip from the vine by themselves when fully ripe. They form an abscission layer where the melon stem attaches to the vine. If you check that area daily, at some point you'll notice a slight crack. As the days go on, the crack on the stem grows larger and completely encircles the stem when the melon is at the peak of perfection. When you tug gently at the melon, it will detach easily at that abscission layer when the muskmelon is fully ripe. Once that melon is fully ripe (known as 'full slip')it only takes a very slight tug for the melon to separate. If you are tugging hard and the melon doesn't separate, it isn't ready yet. 3) Most muskmelons go from a greenish undertint to their rind to an orangey/salmon one, except for the melons that have white or green-flesh. With most muskmelons, the color of the rind becomes almost a golden-salmon color under the netting. This color can be surprising to see because most grocery-store muskmelons are picked before they reach that color so we aren't used to seeing it. 4) Most muskmelons develop a delicious aroma when near ripeness that smell so good, you're looking around for a split-open melon because it is hard to imagine you're getting that luscious smell from an intact melon. 5) On muskmelons, the netting develops more and becomes more prominent as the melon ripens. A melon that has partial netting, or skimpy undeveloped netting is not fully ripe. Muskmelons don't continue to ripen after being picked, so take care to avoid picking too early. They will develop softer texture, but their flavor won't get any better than it was the day you picked it. With true cantaloupes and many other melon types, it is a lot harder to tell because they have a thicker dense rind more like a watermelon, so you don't have netting to help you figure out the ripening, and some of them (like the canary and casaba types) don't form an abscission layer either. The ones from the inodorus group don't emit a 'ripe' aroma either, making it even harder to tell. Some of them, like Collective Farm Woman, have their rind completely change colors as they ripen, which you may not realize if it is your first time to grow that type. For example, with Collective Farm Woman, you'll see it ripen from dark green to mottled green gold to mostly gold. I harvested my first Collective Farm Woman cantaloupe green years ago because I didn't know to wait for it to turn gold. Other melons have their rind change from green to either gray, yellow or brown. Marcy, Crenshaws, like the variety Crane or Sweet Freckles, for example, are in the Cucumis melo var. inodorus group, which I think is the group that gives the fewest clues to ripeness. They don't soften, they don't give off a ripe aroma and they don't form an abscission layer. I just wait for them to get to the right color and degree of freckles that I'd expect from that variety, if they have speckles/freckles. The Crenshaw types are late to ripen, and I usually use DTMs to help me know when they're ready. If in doubt, I leave them on the vine a bit longer because I tend to want to pick them too early. Do you know which Crenshaw variety you planted? If you do, I might have grown it before and might know what its rind looks like when it is fully ripe. Diane, I almost forgot to add that with many melons, you can judge ripeness by pressing gently at the melon's blossom end. When you press on that area, an immature melon will be hard and will not 'give' when you press and a mature one will. The melon is at full ripeness when the skin is fairly easy to depress, and the melon is overripe when there is very little elasticity under finger pressure or if your pressure pushes your fingers right through the rind of the melon. Unfortunately, this pressure test doesn't work with winter melons like Crenshaws or with watermelons. AFTER you pick a melon and cut it open, look at its flesh and learn to recognize how a ripe one looks. The melon flesh should be 'just right' as in not too hard or not too soft (mushy). Ripe melons will have conspicuous but tender fibers in their flesh. If you pick melons too early and they aren't ripe and they aren't very tasty, you can puree them, add the sweetner of your choice and make them into a sorbet, or you can make them into melon soup so the other ingredients make up for the lack of sweet flavor. Dawn

First, Shicksal, great news. You're coming along really fast. Today is an odd day. At 6:30 this morning I went to Wal-Mart to put money on my debit card and buy a little hotdog roller for this job. My friend who is an electrician is here. I've got my two pendants over the peninsula hung, but learned somehow, the switch to them isn't powered, but the outlets next to them is. He's replaced two dimmers with regular switches. One of the benefits of doing this alone is the onus being off changing my mind. These dimmers just kinda made me crazy, so regular switches they're becoming. I gotta tell you. I'm a walking posterboard for Lutron. Now 15 dimmers, 12 motion sensors, and other fun stuff. Love 'em. He's also going to put in some outlets. Sad. I'll have to find other places to hang my laundry. He and another friend put a kitchen cabinet on the wall for me. I can hang 'em, but lifting these two onto cleats is way beyond my balance. Remember, I have to stand on the counter, press my head against the ceiling and screw things in. Lifting over a cleat and not falling off the counter backwards is something I don't want to attempt. But, getting this on the wall frees up a bunch of space. I can load it full of crap, then make doors. While he's working, I've put 4 handles on cabinets in my MBR. Got about 30 to go. I primed the two shelves for the cleat cabinets. They're an odd shape, W3624s. Custom, of course, from H4H and S.O.L.I.D. 3/4" maple. Minus shelves, so I cut those out of 3/4" MDF and will probably paint them a coral BM color I love. I've remudded the chewed up MBR wall. I've sanded and mudded yet again. I've gotten rid of 4 medium sized boxes of lighting materials, and a box of thrift store drawers I bought for their hardware and Blum release switches still attached. $2.00 a drawer box. Yeah man! I emptied the DW. Like to load it, hate to unload it. This was probably the greatest accomplishment of the day. Did a load of laundry/uniforms and got them into the dryer. Changed the cat litter. They're all happy with me. Arranged the MBR furniture and will bring the cabinets still in the kitchen back, since to paint I took a bunch down. I'm making room all over the place. I'll tell you. Lethargy, thy name is Christine. I hate this heat and incessant sun. This is more than I've accomplished all darned week, and it's only to kill time while someone else is working! Keep up the great work, all! You encourage me. Greenhaven, have a FUN time! Happy 4th, all!