Brenda, Hooray for the tiny tomatoes and peppers! They won't stay small for long. If your onions seem behind, try giving them a shot of nitrogen fertilizer. They are heavy feeders. You can give them dried blood/blood meal if you garden organically or any pelleted form of lawn fertilizer that contains nitrogen only. They also need a consistent amount of moisture even if no rain is falling. Otherwise they stall and just sit there and refuse to grow. You can plant garlic this year, but just not right now. In our climate we can start planting garlic in the September-October time frame for harvest next June or thereabouts. I am so glad your husband is hanging in there and making his way through all the surgeries. Hopefully he'll soon be strong enough for the third one. I am glad to hear he's making good dietary changes, and that you make it more fun and more meaningful for him by growing fresh produce yourself. Fresh is so much more nutritious because nutrients degrade as 'fresh' produce is shipped across the country, and even around the world, to reach store shelves. I also think there is something that just "feels right" about eating food you've grown yourself whenever you can. Dorothy, I know. It made me laugh out loud at first, but after a while I was tired of it. When we got married in September of that year so very long ago, it was 102 degrees. I think they thought they'd gotten on an airplane and flown to H-E-L-L. After we moved here, my brother and sister-in-law and their kids came to visit that August. They were here for 3 days and our high temps while they were here were 110-111-112. It was a drought summer, so that year the humidity was very low when they were visiting, but it still was miserably hot, even if it was a dry heat (grinning). They can't stand our heat 'cause they aren't used to it, but then I can't tolerate their cold weather either. We were there on Memorial Day weekend one year, and it was 26 degrees in the morning when we got up early to go trout fishing. Another year, it was 70 degrees and misty on the Fourth of July. I had typical Texas summer clothes with me, so all I remember about the Fourth of July was that I was freezing and that the fireworks show was cancelled because of the rainy, foggy, misty weather. Dawn

I suppose it is an upgrade but that's just a guess....since the situation is progressing in a to a higher level. I hate to hear y'all have progressed to severe. That is not a good sign, particularly in what is normally the wet season. With gardeners, we tend to think of the upper few inches of the soil where we are trying to work the soil, weed, plant, etc. Drought monitoring involves moisture at deeper levels. That's why we gardeners can feel like our gardens are incredibly muddy while the U. S. Drought Monitor shows we are abnormally dry or in one of the drought stages. Your soil type matters too. Our mesonet station has a very different type of soil than what we have, so I have to take those soil moisture measurements with a grain of salt because mine are likely very different from theirs. I tried going shopping and it wasn't fun. I wasn't in the mood to shop for clothes or shoes or anything. It was foggy and misty and icky and chilly so shopping for plants outdoors (I didn't buy any) wasn't fun either. We went to the feed store and bought hen scratch and some sunflower seeds for the cardinals and then stopped at the gas station and at Wal-Mart where we picked up some items to repair the lawnmower's flat tire. That is the extent of our exciting shopping trip. When I cannot be outside working in the lawn and garden in spring, it drives me crazy---but not crazy enough to be out there in the mud and puddles and today's weather. It feels like March today. Maybe that is to make up for some of those March or early April days when it felt like late May.

I laughed so hard about you canning outdoors on the propane burners, Amy. Had to read that one to GDW. We both got a good laugh. Thank you! :) GDW says, "And the bottom line is, 'I DON"T WANT TO!;" I must say, the first two were enough to convince me I wouldn't be doing that. Maybe my mode of gardening is work really hard one day, do nothing the next, as I am exhausted tonight. I will be in bed by 12:30, which is a reasonable time for me. Up early for church. . . then into dirty jeans (I swear I could stand these jeans up at the end of every day and they'd stand on their own, and still, I insist on wearing them at LEAST two days of heavy yard work and sometimes 3). I feel like a bit of a degenerate cooking dinner in my filthy jeans and T shirts, but I do, honest, wash my face and hands and arms first. Just call me Pigpen. When GDW and I first reconnected 3 yrs ago in August, I looked just like this, as I was slaving all week in jeans moving my Mom into assisted living in Buffalo Wy. But the next time he saw me a month later, he visited me at my "contemporary" condo in Mpls, and I was in dress uniform, hair fixed, a minor bit of make-up, semi-dressy slacks and tops, nails done.. He must have been scared to death wondering who in the heck I was. My condo (that I had just moved into 4 months earlier) was a very cool contemporary eclectic mix, with off-white carpeting, and wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling paintings (of mine) ranging from small to large, mostly abstract. His jaw dropped, and I laughed pretty hard. . . I think at first he was pretty sure he'd made a terrible mistake. . . that I wasn't who he thought I was or who he remembered. (But I knew he was wrong, and have since proven it. LOL) Ahh. But I DID bring my wonderful bamboo floor lamp and Oriental writing desk and very cool custom couch (that I bought on Craigs list for $200) and wonderful large framed print sumi ink black stallion for my new home here, AND ALL my quilting fabric (which was one round trip for him before I moved, hauling back many boxes of fabric in the truck) AND all the painting supplies and classical music CDs! And the severely pruned collection of books. And now I'm Pigpen, and am quite comfortable and happy, happy as a pig rolling in mud. And he is mightily relieved, as you can imagine. I don't cost him much. No nails done, no expensive hair appointments, no clothes, prefer home cooking (and he prefers my home cooking). Work like a son-of-a-gun in the yard, don't ask him for help but if he offers I accept. I'm a cheap date and good bargain. And I'm even "kind of religious," to boot. He told me a couple months into our reunion, in the interest of full disclosure, "Umm, I have to tell you I'm kind of religious." I laughed, surprised and delighted, and said, "Ha! Well, I'll tell ya, I'm kinda religious, too." So now a friend just dumped 3 bags of sand plums on me at church this morning. And I've got to deal with those on Tuesday. Need to go to town to get some small jars. AGGHH. I really have no idea how you all do all the stuff you do! I love growing the stuff. But canning? OMG. Freezing, no prob. (I see a new freezer in our near future.) Onions, potatoes, good to go. Tomatoes, peppers, no problem. I can do those. Sauerkraut. . . okay. Pickles........... now sand plums, and GDW has visions of apple butter and pear stuff. The lady who brought me the sand plums has a bachelor/widowed? neighbor who is a jam and jelly, pickle-canning freak, and has all these wonderful exotic specialties. I told GDW tonight that he could do that; after all, he concocts the hummingbird nectar with great precision every 3-4 days. Know what? He didn't tell me I was crazy. He said well maybe he could do that if he didn't get the stuff cloudy.. . . .. . oh my gosh......... Gotta get the tomatoes staked up better tomorrow, finish clearing and enlarging this enormous southeast "bee balm/cleome/daisy/coreopsis" back bed, relocating many flowers and herbs that heretofore were IDKs or inappropriate for their locations, and do the laundry. . . and if time, to mulch mulch mulch. GDW is on a rock border mission. He confessed to me today that where our utility easement "alley" is, he'd long thought of digging up rocks there so he could mow it instead of tediously weed whip it. But it's hard work. . . . to state it mildly; and he didn't know what he'd do with any reasonably sized rocks he might run into, so he never did anything about it. But now he realized he could make rock borders around all my beds, so that's what he's tackling--and I'm here to tell you all it's a heroic mission. And I'm astonished at the difference it makes with the beds. It makes them look "finished," like they actually are a plan (which they never were!). I spent 5 hours today with my best loved new tool for decimating Bermuda grass, the hori-hori (tedious, yes, but ever so effective). digging it out of an area about 8x10 feet. Meanwhile, GDW had uncovered at least a dozen 20-60 lb rocks from his utility easement alley. And so it goes with our chores. I do all the little doo-dad stuff, while he's out performing miracles. I do laundry and vacuum, and meanwhile he has put in new shocks on the truck. It doesn't seem fair that I do all this little insignificant stuff (which to me is nothing) while he's performing miracles, but it's working out so NICE. Well I've rattled on far too long. . . and how little of it had to do with gardening. I was so overwhelmed with all the "little" things I have to do out in the gardens tonight that I told him just to take all the rocks away, plow it under and let it go to the weed lawn again. And we both laughed, knowing that's not gonna happen. Kim. . . thinking of you. . . my pioneer woman. BTW, found your friend on the internet, who does the pepper seeders. . . wonderful reading about her. Would love to get a couple pepper seeders and your sachets when you get them ready.

The worst, busiest, most exhausting week of 2017 is behind me now and I need to sleep for 3 days and nights before I can read, catch up and comment more or less intelligently, but I'll try to comment on what I can before my eyelids get too heavy. I just popped in to say hi and haven't read everything---just skimmed through quickly. Amy, It started raining here around 5 p.m. It has been very light rain, but we're up to at least 0.15" now, the first time we've gotten more than 0.10" in one day in over a month. We're hoping to at least get enough moisture to hold down the clay-soil-turned-to-dust layer that sits atop the ground. I spoke with a friend from another part of the county and she described how their clay soil's upper layers had turned into an inch or so of dust and I said "Bingo! Ours too!" and it was so nice to find out we weren't the only ones whose clay is deteriorating. Neither of us ever has seen clay go dusty to this extent. It is weird. My favorite way to get what I want for Christmas (which always includes almost exclusively gardening supplies) is to buy what I want and then tell Tim "this is what you got me for Christmas". lol. It works every time. I hope your cat enjoyed her ninth birthday. Rebecca, Strawflowers grow great here. In fact, every type of everlasting flower I've ever tried has grown well here, and they're super-easy to dry and then use in wreaths, swags and bouquets. I did that a lot in our earlier years here before my pepper and tomato obsession took over all the available space. More than likely the Shasta daisies will come back, as long as they weren't pulled up by the roots. We actually were not out on fires. The south winds brought nice moisture flow (in the form of ever heavier clouds) over our county all day and the higher humidity (it only dropped into the upper 20s which is better than 10 or 12 or 15%) helped keep fires at bay. Yay, yay, yay! We went Christmas shopping and bought big Nerf dart guns for our niece's and nephew's boys so they could wage (safely) all-out war in the back yard on Christmas Eve. We were "trying" to be good and not buy anything too messy like paint, slime or play dough, nor anything that plays music or makes a ton of noise, so I hope the guns work. Tomorrow we'll shop for the girls. I was really wishy-washy about shopping for them when I tried to do it today---there's 400 billion girl's toys in all the stores and how anyone can figure out what to get for two sweet little girls is just beyond me. Oh, and we bought all the groceries and supplies (including those for the VFD) that we think we'll need for the next two weeks, just in case snow or ice arrive next weekend. I felt like we accomplished a lot, but then we had to hurry home and get ready for the annual VFD Christmas Party, which is my favorite night of the year. It was great, and now it is over, and I am really, really tired. We all almost never get to be together in the same place at the same time because when we are together, we are rushing around at fires. So, it is a luxury to spend 2 or 3 hours together eating a meal, exchanging gifts, laughing and enjoying a little bit of peace and quiet. Other VFDs covered our calls for us tonight while we were gone to the party in Texas---and we only missed one call, I think, and it was a gas leak after some part of a building collapsed and broke a gas line. I'm not sorry we missed that one. You would not be stupid to kill off any sort of grass in order to grow plants that contribute more to your little ecosystem there on your place. Kill, kill, kill the grass and plant what brings you joy! It is not at all surprising that people start fires when they should not. Many people either are clueless or do not care. Know when they begin caring? When they have to pay other people for the damage done when their "controlled burn" escapes control. Don't even let me get started on expressing my opinion about people who burn carelessly and without regard for other folks' property. Texas has much better laws than we do regulating prescribing burning. Take it easy and don't rush your recovery. Baking is fun and I love doing it too, but other than holiday baking and baking for the firefighters, I don't do it that much any more because grain-free baking that Tim and I can eat is so much harder, and chasing down all the grain substitutes takes up a lot of time and energy. Amy, Honey has too much energy! It is hilarious that she wore out the other dogs. Nancy, Pinterest and FB are full of hilarious gingerbread house fails. If I attempted a gingerbread house, I suspect mine would be like those....or, perhaps I'd do a half-decent house and then would come home to find that Pumpkin pushed it off the table or counter onto the floor and the dogs ate it. That's how life goes around here. Getting a lot of baking done quickly just comes from experience---and I got my experience with almost daily fires for months at a time in 2005 and 2006. I got used to coming home from one fire, taking a shower, throwing the smokey clothes in the washer, and then baking for the next fire. Then I'd clean up the kitchen and (hopefully) go to bed. The next day might be the same routine all over again. I just prefer home-baked goodies for the firefighters when possible. Nowadays we use pre-packaged, snack-size cookies a lot (I've yet to meet a firefighter who won't grab a little package of Nutter Butter cookies when they see them....it is strange that they are so universally adored!) Some years we hardly have any real fires that require cooking, other years that's all we have. Having a Sam's Club fairly close (in Denton, TX) helps because we can grab snacks pretty quickly if we need them, or I can even get Tim to stop by and grab stuff on the way home from work. Jennifer, It sure seems late for them to have harvested. Maybe I'm just used to earlier harvest dates further south and west? The equipment is so specialized now. When my dad and his siblings were children, their dad hired them out to pick cotton from sunrise to sunset for $1.00 a day, and if they were lucky, he'd give them a nickle or dime from their weekly earnings to spend at the general store in town on Saturday. That sounds cruel, but they were poor sharecroppers and the cash the kids could earn picking cotton helped the family buy things at the store, like salt and 1 pair of shoes per child per year, that they never, ever could have afforded otherwise. When there was no cotton to pick, if they needed anything from the store, my grandmother would barter for it, trading her eggs or cream or butter or whatever for the items she needed. The problem with bartering was that there never was enough food anyway, so bartering away any of it just meant more hunger somewhere down the line. Picking cotton was painful, difficult work and I don't know how anyone could put their kids to work doing it, but times were different in the 1920s and 1930s, and it was such a hard struggle to survive. We are lucky to live in a different era when big machines do so much of the tedious harvesting once done by hand. Kim, I agree that being snowed into a camper would not be fun, so I am glad to hear you plan to get to Denton before any anticipated winter precipitation arrives. They GPS-mapped our fire from earlier in the week and said it was only a little over 500 acres. No one who was there thinks it was mapped accurately but, you know what, I am staying out of that discussion. It was just flat bad no matter the size---the smoke plume was visible from 100 miles away. My son had coworkers who live a long way from here contacting him to ask if he was at the big fire, and we were shocked they could see it from their communities where they live. Usually after a fire like that has scared the fool out of everyone in the county, we have a quiet week or two because nobody wants to be the person who starts the next big fire. So, we're hoping for a couple of quiet weeks. We might still have medical calls, motor vehicle accident calls, etc. but if we could get through the holidays without another big wildfire, that would be so awesome. There's rain in our forecast for next week around mid-week. Have y'all seen that? Then snow in the forecast for the weekend, though I still have a wait-and-see attitude about that. Here's the 7-day QPF and it shows some great rainfall for some areas over the next 7 days: 7-Day QPF A majority of our fire chiefs in our county want our burn ban extended when the county commissioners meet next week, and I think the county commissioners want to do what the firefighters want. Now, here's where it gets tricky. Your county needs to meet certain extreme fire danger parameters to pass a ban, and having 0.50" of rain within the next three days negates the extreme fire danger. (It doesn't really negate it, but that's how they wrote the law, so.....) I think our burn ban may be in trouble. All I have to say about that is that we have had pastures catch fire (from downed power lines brought down by sleet) even when we have had sleet and snow on the ground, so I'd rather we keep the burn ban no matter what. I guess we'll find out on Monday. And, with so many people sick with the flu right now and others traveling for the holidays, I wonder who will be home to fight whatever fires occur anyhow? I told Tim today that everything I did all week long was for someone else--every day all day. That's not surprising---it is what we women do, right? We take care of everyone else. But, I warned him, tomorrow is my day for me. He didn't give me a hard time about it either. He's just so grateful he was able to gift 50 people at work (instead of 200, since I drew a line in the sand and told him not to cross it) with salsa and other goodies from the garden that he would agree to anything right now. My laugh of the day? One of his officers took her gift home and was sitting there eating her bread-and-butter pickles. Her husband, who works for the same PD, came in and said "oooh, pickles" and she told him "mine, all mine". lol lol lol. I don't think he works for/with Tim directly any more so he didn't get his own jars of anything this year. Personally I would have shared the jar of pickles with my husband, but she certainly is free to do whatever she wants. (grin) I am tired, tired, tired. I'm going to go to bed and I hope to sleep at least 8 hours. So help me, if the pagers go off overnight, I'm going to throw the fire radio across the room in aggravation. Dawn