Being retired, it's all one long weekend. Good and bad. I feel compelled to do something productive every day, so in a way, I never get a break! It's supposed to cool off significantly by Saturday, which will be good. Saturday mornings are cemetery days. I am hopeful that we get a good turnout of volunteers, get some stuff done, and have a fun lunch afterwards. Sunday morning is Sacramento Farmer's Market, and I stop in before to see how the Sheriff's Work Crew in the cemetery is doing. We have plans to get together with my niece's family later in the day. 18 mos old and 3 yr old great-nephews. Happy times. We may go to the beach on Monday. I need some healing time by the ocean before going back to Ohio to deal with my mother's estate. When am I gardening at home? Since every day is the weekend, that's the plan for Thursday and Friday mornings, along with writing my Oct garden column, and doing some other paperwork. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Lucky me. Have fun, everybody. Connie, I'm sure that things look great already - hope things go well. Wish I could come by! Anita

Ann - Eye surgery is on my list of things to do someday (when I have some spare money laying around) so I envy you a bit. Won't it be nice to see clearly again! You should plan a visit to a garden when it's done to celebrate and enjoy how well you can see. We cleaned out some very thorny brush in the fencerow over the weekend. My neighbor's black locust sends up shoots from its roots and I hadn't cut those back for awhile. The thorns on those things are HUGE. We lost a couple hedge trees in the ice storm in '07 that are still sending up thorny shoots from the stumps as well. After the ice storm, we used a tractor to pull out the stumps from a couple other hedge trees and should've done that with all of them but there was just sooo much clean up to do at the time and it didn't get entirely finished. There were lots of other little scrub trees coming up that needed to be cut out and weeds of course. It sure looks a lot nicer now. Hope everyone had a good weekend. Bonnie - you can start on my garage now. : )

Thanks a lot for commenting everyone! Knotz, Im glad that I could help! Definitely post if your successful with all your palms and your banana! Us marine, I really cant wait until the coconut palms get a little older! The fronds are finally splitting so next year it should hopefully start looking more mature soon! Its been a fast grower for me so far and hopefully it wont have the scale problem that it had last winter indoors! It was almost a gonner! Chicago palm, I keep all of the plants inside the house during the winter. There is one room that isnt used much and gets a lot of light so a lot of them might be going in there. All of the semi-hardy plants are going in the unheated garage where they wont see freezing temps, but they wont see any warmth, or too much light either. The rest goes into pretty much any bright corner where they look decent. Ncpalm, I think Im going to end up protecting the oleander the same way I protect the palms: x-mas lights, a frost cloth over that, and then a plastic garbage bin. Eventually as it gets bigger Im going to have to change up the protection a little bit but it should work well for this winter, and maybe next winter too. If you have a broken and old plastic garbage bin than this method is really great because then your making use of it and you dont have to go buy a new one! But when the Oleander gets a little older, I plan on either pruning it down to a smaller size to fit in a small structure, or wrapping it up and then adding some x-mas lights and a frost cloth with something (such as plastic) to keep moisture from going in. And I would mulch around the roots as well. But I havent used that method yet so Im not sure if it would work, just an idea for when it gets a little older! Thanks for looking everyone! -Alex

David - have a great time with your group! Sorry about the Sooners and sorry about Sam Bradford. Hope the shoulder heals quickly. Claire, happy gardening! I have daylilies and hostas to move too, but I am waiting until it cools off here a little first. We are finally getting warm summery weather this weekend LOL! Sharon, I am so jealous of your being able to spend the fall at the cottage after the summer people are gonw. That was always my favorite time of year in Ogunquit - saying goodbye to the tourists! Enjoy your time and Clive bcskye, sounds like a blast! What sort of horse show is it? I used to ride hunters (and a few jumpers) back in the day, but I love all sorts of equestrian competitions. Have a great time with the family too. Linda, OGM! 1200?!?!?!? There are going to be some happy pooches and you are a dear for the labor of love. Katie - sounds like a wonderful way to spend the weekend. As David says - dance like no one is watching! Annie, glad to hear those beanies are going to good use. And happy canning! I can't wait to start my next project, I just have to find a little time. Dedtired - enjoy the Cape - as I mentioned before, fall is the BEST time to go anyplace touristy - the crowds have thinned. Lyra - Good luck with the projuect. I know how that goes, seems I can always find something else to do rather than what really needs to be done. Somehow it all does get dome though - an enjoy your time off, you deserve it! I had my second jewelry class on Friday - I just love it. Working on a multi metal (copper and brass) pendant to learn my skills. I will post photos as I complete projects. Fri night was out with friends for Happy Hour, yesterday was relaxing at home and getting totally caught up on Mad Men. I am TOTALLY addicted to that show now! Today we are having another couple over for a BBQ - sometimes it is nice not to have a gang and just sit and enjoy a quiet evening with grown up conversation. Tomorrow we are thinking about going to the NJ shore (I am cringing at the thought, I don't care for the shore) so we'll see. Maybe I will send the men folk off and have a canning day to myself. Stay happy and safe everyone! Alexa