Hi Pam,

Thanks a million. You are so sweet.

The bad part about birthdays is that we keep getting older in a society that seems to think we all should stay young forever. That doesn't mean I want to stop having birthdays or anything though....

My birthday wish for this year simply is that God give peace and healing to everyone affected by the recent tornado disasters in TX, OK and anywhere else they have occurred.

Now, to show you that I am getting senile....or blonde....here's my True Confession.

Last night I TIVO'd "The Voice" so I could watch it some other time. Tonight, that some other time arrived. I turned it on and started watching it a little while ago while reading and responding to posts here. All of a sudden, there was one of those Breaking News things and there was Brian Williams talking about a horrible disaster just now unfolding in Oklahoma....the city of Moore had been hit by an awful tornado. I looked up and thought :Oh my God! Again? After last night? How could this happen? There wasn't even a Tornado Watch....." and then I sheepishly realized I was watching a show recorded last night. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at my "blonde moment" and don't any of y'all dare repeat this to Tim. He was in another room and I don't want him to think I am losing my mind. Or, whatever I have left of my mind.

You have to be able to laugh at yourself, you know, and believe me, I laughed right out loud at myself when I realized I had forgotten I was watching a recorded program.

Dawn

HAPPY HAPPY B-DAY, Earth Sister!!!!

And trust me, I so understand that moment. I have a T-shirt (and I wear it proudly!) that says "Inside every old person is a young person that is wondering What The Hell Happened"

Paula aka P-mac

Happy Birthday Dawn!!!!!!

(laughing at your story :) )

Paula, lol lol lol I love that saying on your shirt!

Lisa,(grinning) Don't laugh too hard. One day it will happen to you. Trust me.

I am giggling again at my ridiculously silly reaction to Brian Williams and his news....and boy oh boy do I still feel stupid!

Is your student from Haiti okay?

Dawn

Happy Birthday Dawn, I think Pam said it so well. May you have many more.

Larry

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I suspect I am older than all of you......so Dawn, I could tell you stories better than your TIVO one. You have to laugh when they happen; better than crying!

Happy birthday Dawn.. hoping you have a great one!

mike

Happy birthday!

Dawn, he's doing okay, I think. He's staying on campus for a few weeks this summer to take a summer class. Thermodynamics. Yuck, that sounds like an awful summer class! I was frantically texting him Sunday to take cover. I had warned him, at least twice, about the weather, and sent him a specific message that he needed to have a tornado plan. So when I was frantically texting, do you have your plan? Uhhhh, no, what tornado plan? Eyeroll. He's living in an apt and I'm not even sure which floor. Fortunately that tornado hit about a mile away. I wish I was close enough to shake him :)

However, the big thing now is that he will be living in an apt (on campus) next year, so he needs to have a few cooking skills. He can eat in the cafeteria, and in fact, works there, but he needs to be able to boil a pot of water for ramen should the case arise :) I sent him a couple of boxes of Zatarains and a measuring cup, but I bet they haven't been used!

Happy birthday, Dawn!

Happy Birthday, Dawn!!
I hope you have a lovely day today with no advancing senility :-P

I wanted to watch The Voice last night - I have only "antenna" TV, so no Tivo-ing, but...no Voice!! I understand that the world wants to know what's going on in Shawnee, Bethel Acres, Moore, etc., but...I really wanted to zone and hear something else last night. I guess I'll try to see if I can watch it online later this week.

Have an extra piece of cake tonight and a double-dip of ice cream!
Sharon

Happy Birthday, Dawn
Wishing you many more.
Have a wonderful birthday week.
Jan

Happy birthday!! Hope its a fantastic one!

HAPPY birthday, Dawn!

Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes. Y'all are all too kind,

It was sort of a quiet and subdued birthday. It was just hard to feel too festive after the events in Shawnee and Moore. It didn't really feel right.

Glenda, I especially wanted to mention how nice it has been to see you back posting here. I hope all is well there. Y'all get your share of the crazy and threatening weather too.

Lisa, At some point he'll get hungry enough that he'll have to figure out how to boil water. I am relieved to hear the storm did not get too close to him (though a mile is awfully close!)

Sharon, I will tell you about the most special moment on The Voice from both Monday and Tuesday nights and maybe you can catch them later on reruns on online or something. On Monday night, it wasn't any one song but it was Blake, still shellshocked by the news and talking about what had occurred in Moore, OK, shortly before the live show of The Voice began. He was finding it hard to put down his cell phone and focus on the show instead of updates from Moore.

On Tuesday night, for me the highlight of The Voice was Miranda and Blake, sitting quietly on stools, singing "Over You", dedicated to everyone affected by the Oklahoma tornadoes. Blake played guitar and sang a little bit on the chorus. Miranda sang beautifully, and I felt like both were struggling to maintain their composure. It was a really special moment---you could see how deeply they were affected by the disaster in their home state. For me, the rest of the show was nothing special after that moment....and I won't spoil it all by telling you who went home. But, in case you are about to have an anxiety attack, I'll tell you the two brothers from Muskogee will be back on The Voice again next week.

When each judge's team did their group song, they ran information across the screen telling viewers how to contribute to the Red Cross to help Moore. It was low-key and understated, but very sincere.

Y'all know that I try to have a good sense of humor about everything, so I'll tell you that everything about my 54th birthday was a disaster. We cancelled plans, made make-up plans, got chased away from the make-up plans by severe weather in Texas, blah, blah, blah....and, finally, almost home and hoping to at least have dinner, we got paged out to a motor vehicle accident and never really ate dinner. It was one little hiccup after another on both the 21st and the 20th, when we originally had planned a family cookout that was cancelled because we were under a freaking tornado warning and I was sitting in the storm cellar while Tim sounded the tornado siren at the station and Chris ran back and forth between the two places, spotting storms and such. It was one of those "if anything can go wrong, it will" type days......I wasn't mad about it or anything because getting mad doesn't help and there are more important things during a multi-day severe weather outbreak than celebrating the anniversary of one's birth. Perspective is everything, and after what Shawnee and Moore went through, it would have been okay with me if we skipped the birthday celebration altogether.

I think next week we'll pretend it is the 20th and 21st again, weather permitting, and do the cookout and the other activities we had planned.

My best birthday gift is that we received 2.1" of desperately needed rain, and that really is something to celebrate.

Dawn

There's video of the Blake / Miranda song. I saw it on FB today. I'll see if I can track it down.

Here is a link that might be useful: Over You

Happy Birthday Dawn, and of course thanks for all the wisdom you have shared.

Lisa, Thanks for posting it! The emotion they both convey in that song is, I think, indicative of what we all were/are feeling.

Just an FYI, Blake has said publicly he wants to quickly round up a bunch of his musical artist friends and stage a big benefit concert for Moore, likely in central OK. I love seeing Okies step up and do whatever they can to help the people affected by these storms.

Betty, Thank you. I think you share plenty of wonderful wisdom here too, so thanks to you too, and to everyone here who so freely shares not just their knowledge of gardening but of everyday life.

And, finally, I confessed to TIm last night about the TIVO incident and he got a big laugh out of it.

Dawn

In case you missed it in the other thread, happy belated birthday, Dawn! Thank you for sharing all your knowledge & great sense of humor with us all. As I've said before, your help & expertise are what got me into & kept me into gardening in the first place. I hope you have a wonderful make-up birthday. :)

Dawn,
Sorry I missed it on Tues., as you know there's been a lot going on in central Okla. this past week. Peg, Freckles and I are fine, 3" of rain on Mon. and 6" of rain overall the last 2 weeks but no hail or other damage.

Happy Belated!

Keith

Thank y'all both!

Keith, I am glad you, Peg and Freckles are fine. It is amazing you haven't had hail considering all the hail scattered around central OK the last couple of weeks. I bet 6" of rain is nice, nice, nice. In the same time frame, we've had 3" which is wonderful. We could use more, but I am not complaining. Any rain is good.

Do you have your okra planted?

Dawn

Dawn,
Do you have your okra planted?

Yes, but unfortunately I planted way too early, April 7th, knowing the soil and nightime lows were still too cool but hoping it would warm up quickly which it didn't. So far only two came up and they dont look happy, I was planning on replanting okra today but with all the rain, instead I'll scratch up with the hoe to speed drying and hopefully be able to replant on Mon.

I transplanted 18 tomatoes on Mar, 16th and another 21 on Apr, 7th. All but one have made it, I had a replacement, but I had to cover them five times. Our last frost was finally on May 3rd. I have tomatoes on 4th of July, Superfantastic, Betterboy, Early Girl and Celebrity, but none so far on Black Cherry, Mortgage Lifter, Black Krim or Heatwave. The 4th of July are way ahead of the others but all are at least 3-4 weeks behind where I was last year even though I planted nine days earlier this year. I expect to have tomatoes to harvest but nothing like last year which was probably my best year ever.

We've been enjoying plenty of onions and spinach as the late spring and rain has kept them plenty happy.I checked the drought monitor this morning to see my part of OK County is drought free but I had already declared my place to be without drought last week.

Hopefully the rains will continue and keep the late spring going with no 100's until the middle of July or later.

Keith

Keith, The cold held on here just a couple of days longer than it did there. I covered up everything with row cover about 2 days a week (I would leave it covered for 2 days and nights without uncovering it) for about 6 or 7 ridiculous weeks. What was the option though? To let it all freeze? Not if I could help it.

Unfortunately, even while we were having nights in the 30s we were having occasional days in the 80s and 90s, so some of the cool-season stuff starting bolting, in some cases, about the same time the cold nights stopped. The onions and taters are fine, the broccoli is okay but slow to form heads (at least it hasn't bolted or formed button heads), the cabbage is right on schedule, the onions may be a bit smaller than usual because I didn't water them much and we're still in drought (though we clawed our way back from severe to moderate drought on the latest monitor) but they haven't bolted...and the garlic looks great. The cauliflower and snap peas produced fine, but I harvested the last of them and took out the plants this week. The brussels sprouts are forming sprouts but they need to hurry up before the heat gets them. The lettuce and other greens have been bolting, and I've been pulling them out almost daily and feeding them to the chickens. There's still a few heads of summercrisp varieties not bolting yet, but I don't think they'll last much longer. The only radishes left are the rat-tail radishes grown for their pods. I just pulled the last of the Swiss chard from last year as it has begun bolting, but have new young seedlings to put into the ground as replacements.

I planted okra almost late---holding off and waiting forever for the cold nights to go away. When okra volunteers began sprouting in the area where I've grown okra the last two years, I decided it was warm enough to sow seeds. Now I need to go back and dig out the little seedlings that volunteered and move them someplace where there is room for them to grow.

The tomatoes are happy and loaded with fruit, but it won't be as big of an early harvest as last year. I'm okay with that. I am so burnt out on canning, drying and freezing tomatoes that I am pretty much hoping for a late harvest of the paste tomatoes so that I don't have to spend the entire summer canning. I've got three ripe tomatoes, all from Bush Early Girl, sitting on the kitchen counter. I think I'll make BLT sandwiches for dinner tonight. The only other ripe tomatoes so far are from the other plants in containers, but the BEG is in the ground. Oh, the cherries in the ground are producing an occasional ripe one. I don't think the big harvest will start until about mid-June. That isn't surprising considering how odd our weather has been.

I think last year's early warm-up just made this year's late cold so much harder to bear. I kept looking at plants covered up in row cover and thinking to myself they looked two months behind last years plants....and they were! They are catching up now that the cold weather is gone.

I only planted about 1/4 as many tomato plants as last year. Since the tomato harvest will be manageable, I planted tons of cukes, melons, taters, onions and garlic. I knew I needed something to fill up the garden so I wouldn't just keep sticking tomato plants in every empty spot.

I would love a late spring. One year we hardly broke 100 degrees at all. Maybe it was 2002? 2004? Whenever it was.....it was an awesome year. The tomatoes never slowed down and I didn't get all tired and burnt out and let the weeding get away from me. In more recent years, I have just let the weeds win the battle in July and August, and then when it cools off in September I try to get rid of them.

It is a real good garden year so far....I've only had two snakes in the garden. The turtle who comes and patrols the rows of potatoes for bugs just showed up the week, so things are starting to feel kinda normal---finally.

Dawn

Dawn- Do Celebrity and Betterboy make good canning tomatoes? I have 1 of each of those planted, a husky cherry tomato, a big boy, and a beefsteak. I didn't go all wild and crazy with ones I didn't know or recognize. I just hope at least 1 of them is ready in the next 2 weeks to have a on a BLT...or just forget the bacon and lettuce and I will just have a tomato sandwich! YUMYUM! I'm still sitting on my peppers, cukes, and melons bc the ground was too dang wet to do anything, but tomorrow is the day..I am not afraid of mud!

Bre, It all depends on how you are canning them. Technically, they are not canning tomatoes so their water content will be higher than the more dry paste-type tomatoes normally used for salsa or sauce. If you are canning them in something like salsa or sauce, you may have to deseed them and let them sit in a colander and drain a bit to get the excess water out of them.

When I use regular tomatoes for fresh sauce (pasta, pizza, whatever), I cook them down a lot longer (sometimes for hours and hours if it is a big batch) to get them from the watery stage to a thicker stage.

For canning sauce or salsa, I only use paste tomatoes in general because it gives me a product of the right consistency, which is an important food safety issue when canning. For fresh sauce, I use all kinds of tomatoes but have to do the longer cooking. If I want to preserve a sauce or salsa made from the regular tomatoes instead of paste tomatoes, I make it as if I were going to can it, but then freeze it in plastic containers since its consistency might not be exactly right for canning. It is hard to get salsa the right consistency that we like, and I have found salsa made with regular tomatoes is just too watery. The only recipe for canned salsa that I use is the one for Annie's Salsa and you can add canned tomato paste and sauce to it, following the recipe directions, to get the right density for safety. I tried many salsa recipes over the years, and Annie's Salsa is the one that works best for us. I give away about 100 jars a year,mostly at Christmas, and everyone we give it to thinks it is the best home-canned salsa they've ever had. (The credit goes to Annie, who developed the recipe, and not to me....all I do is follow the recipe and try to not screw it up.)

Density is an issue with any home-canned food product. Whatever you are canning needs to be the right density so that heat penetrates it evenly.

If you are canning tomatoes as stewed tomatoes, chopped tomatoes or whole tomatoes, the varieties you listed are fine. They are easy to can, but since they are higher in water content, you'll have to cook them down a long time when preparing a meal from them.

Thus, for canning, it always is best to use paste tomatoes. I'm growing about 10 varieties of paste tomatoes this year. For fresh cooking/eating, you can use any tomato (even cherry tomatoes) but must cook them down longer. I normally use a blend of heirloom non-paste types for fresh sauce. If freezing, I use both paste and non-paste types. As you learn how to preserve food and engage in the practice, you will learn these things over time....it is a journey, you know!

I'd go ahead and plant everything today, even in mud, if you can. If you wait any longer, the June heat will hit them hard because they'll still be young and small.

I'm headed outside to plant right now. I hope to get most of the rest of the summer flowers and herbs in the ground today...and we had a half-inch of rain overnight so I will be a big muddy mess by the time I am done. It is nearing the end of May and the heat likely will start slapping up upside the head in early June, so I want to finish the planting, rain or shine.

Dawn

How did I miss this thread? Anyway, Happy Birthday, Mrs. Tim! I hope you had the finest of fine days!

Without Dawn, I would never even ever have started growing tomatoes! May your days be "fruitful" forever.....

Think about how many lives you have touched just via this forum, Dawn. We are grateful for your wisdom, tempered with a bit of good ole OkieDawn humor!

Susan

Happy late birthday ! hope your birthday do over is great.
Kim

"... so I will be a big muddy mess by the time I am done."

Yes, indeed. Pete laughs when I come in as "a big muddy mess." I don't know how most guys view a wife who is a muddy mess but Pete think's he's a lucky guy. Okie Tim is another guy who is similarly blessed. ;-)