That puppy! Nothing shows joy in life better than a kitten, a puppy or a toddler. So sweet and what lovely chocolate! a2gemini, I have a yellow epimedium. I used to have a lovely red, but it didn't survive. I'd still love to find it again. It gets pretty big/wide, so plan accordingly. :) shicksal, keep plugging along. you'll be a shining star in the land of um, er, Not Modern! LOL I don't know where you live, but you're really going to have a fabulous house. Did the company come? Oh, my day. I went out at 8:00 am to get my new windshield. Why, when they say between 8 and 12, do we waste time getting there first thing? Well, at 10:30, he showed up and I have a perfect, brand new windshield. Safelite gave us a nice discount for not showing last week, so my $270 windshield was $209. Cool. Then my friend, who has been a pro painter for years and years, came over with her son. He's also a pro and has been painting with her since he was 15. That was 18 years ago. :) They whipped out the 1st coat, including the ceiling in about 2.5 hours, with breaks. My friend is a cancer survivor, so she tires easily. It's a big room; it would have taken me 2 days. My MBR is now an really gorgeous, soothing Glidden 'Natural Wicker' with the ceiling 50% lighter. Matched at SW. It's very subtle but I am shocked at what a difference paint makes on my lovely, finished drywall. They're returning in the morning to 2nd coat everything. That's all I did. I have to put in a toe kick heater, move the cable outlets, and actually install my the cabinets (vs. just stacking them). Then, shy of trim, I have one room finished. In my whole house. I can actually put things in the cabinets and get them off the counters and floors. I cannot imagine a clean, flat surface! Wow. To bed, I think, and tomorrow is another day! (Edited to add photo I forgot:) This post was edited by CEFreeman on Fri, Jun 27, 14 at 23:40

Bon, Really, it isn't even time to put any warm-season edible plants in the ground yet except for corn in far southern OK, but I wanted to start some zinnias and basil and a few other warm-season things indoors. I don't even remember the OSU-recommended dates to start putting warm-season plants and seeds in the ground---probably April 10th for most things. Since I plant by the combination of soil temp, air temp and forecast, I don't remember the OSU dates as well as I should. I've got everything in the ground that I can plant at the present time except for a few flats of flowers I'm raising from seed, so I'll play around with starting a few herbs and flowers that I can put in the ground 4 to 6 weeks from now. Having had high temperatures this week in the mid- to upper-80s, I am worried we'll get too hot too early so went ahead and planted beans and corn this week. It is early for the beans, but we are unseasonably warm and so is our soil, so I think I'll get away with planting them early. It still is too cool for peppers, melons, okra, squash, cucumbers, southern peas and the like. Some years it gets so hot so early down here that plants that are heat-sensitive, like beans, start dropping their blossoms almost as soon as they start making blooms, so if there is anything I'll push in the ground a tiny bit early, it is bush beans. I don't rush pole beans or Lima beans quite as much as they don't seem to tolerate being planting a touch early as well as the bush beans do. Most of the veggie gardens we drive by on a routine basis on our way to town are either plowed or rototilled and bare, some with big puddles of water standing in them, so not many folks here have planted anything yet. A couple of them aren't even plowed or rototilled yet. I wouldn't have planted anything if I didn't have raised beds that dry out more quickly. I wouldn't dare put anything in the grade level soil yet because it likely would just rot. Even folks near us who usually get their onions in the ground here no later than the OSU recommended dates (and often much earlier) don't have onions in the ground yet. As far as Fred and I know, I'm the only person who's planted onions already, and it is getting terribly late in southern OK to plant short-day types. This may be the first year I've ever had my onions in the ground before everyone else. I just keep an eye on my soil temperatures, my air temperatures and our 8-10 day forecast when making planting decisions. I won't plant if the soil is too cold for whatever it is I want to plant because seeds won't germinate and transplants won't grow while the soil is too cold. Our soil has been shockingly warm this week in the raised beds, which made planting beans and corn possible. I need to tackle the weeds growing in the mulch in the grade level areas because those areas are too wet to work so they haven't been touched since autumn and are growing a healthy crop of cool-season weeds. It is warm enough that 4 o'clocks, daturas and the dreaded bind weed are sprouting. Ugh. I hate bind weed. Today is so windy and cold that I may not go out to the garden at all except to harvest asparagus. I might spend tomorrow catching up on the weeding in the grade level soil if it is dry enough. It it is too wet and big clumps of soil come up with the weeds, I'll just have to wait another day or two for it to dry out more. I will tackle the clean-up of the back garden next week. It is all grade-level soil with no raised beds, so has been too muddy for me to venture into it at all. The perennials back there are up and growing well, though, so apparently the constant moisture hasn't bothered them. So, what's a gardener to do when they can't garden? Starting seeds indoors is about all that's left to do on a day like this.

Larry, That is a beautiful and awesomely tall example of variegated reed grass! Maybe yours is going to get head high to the Jolly Green Giant? Jacob, If I didn't have the 8' tall deer fence all around both garden plots, the deer and I would not be friends. I think Bambi lost her mother, perhaps to a hunter. We have tons and tons of fawns this year---it seems that most does had at least twins this year and one that comes regularly has triplets. I love seeing them. If only the fawns could stay little, cute and adorable forever. People who hunt the property due west of us (it is the buffer that sits between us and the river, so they get a ton of wildlife) are getting pretty large bucks every year....say they sit on their property and wait for the bucks to come off our property. I rarely see the bucks because they feed at night, but I know they are there because every now and then late at night when we are out late, we spot them as we are arriving home. I tried for the first 8 or 10 years to have nice landscaping around the house/yard, which my husband stubbornly refuses to fence off with an 8' fence. The deer ate every single thing I planted, so I finally gave up. Now we just have trees, shrubs, trumpet creeper vines (because apparently the deer don't eat those), grass and some four o'clocks. Everything else? Hostas, hydrangeas, roses, perennial salvias, any annual flowers I planted for color, day lilies, etc......all deer chow. They even would eat the tough, prickly leaves of the hollies in drought periods, but finally the hollies are so big and old and tough that they don't bother those any more. If I ever convince Tim to surround our house and yard with a big ugly fence to keep the deer out, I will plant everything I've ever wanted around the house. I think his desire to not have a fence is much stronger than my longing for one. Where he grew up in Pennsylvania surrounded by woodland, nobody had fences so you could look out and feel like you owned hundreds of acres of forest as all the back yards and farms just sort of flowed together. So, he remains anti-fencing based on fond childhood memories from the 1960s and 1970s.....even though, if you go back there to his childhood neighborhood now, everybody has fencing and the farms and woodlands mostly are housing subdivisions with lots of fencing. I still think that someday I'll at least have a fenced back yard I can landscape. We'll see! Nancy, I am so sorry about your mom's passing. I know I don't "have to" comment, but I want to. Tim and I send you and your family our deepest and most sincere condolences. What an incredible, long life she lived, and you did everything you could to move her to the place that was best for her to live out her final stage of her life. You were a great daughter and I suspect it is because you were reared by an amazing mom. When y'all do travel to Buffalo in a few weeks, I wish you a safe journey. I do think Tiny Dude needs to travel with you so he can enchant and delight your friends and family who see his photos on Facebook and undoubtedly want to meet him in real life. Many cats travel well in a cat crate. Do they microchip cats like they do dogs? If they do, I'd get him microchipped in case he escapes from the vehicle, or at least get him a collar with a tag so you could put your cell phone number on the tag. Being close to the interstate where wrecks are frequent, we get lots of requests to watch for/search for pets that escape from a vehicle (not necessarily a wrecked vehicle---pets can bolt from a broken down vehicle when someone gets out to check and see why the engine is acting up or to change a tire or just when their owners stop at a gas station or fast food place). Sometimes you can find the pet, even weeks later, but it is hard by then to figure out which traveler passing through was searching for that pet if they aren't tagged. In my meager 20 years of living here, an early winter almost always equates to a bad winter. Or, for snow-starved southern OK, a really good winter. But, we don't get the ice storms that folks further north get in bad winters so what a lot of you might view as a bad winter, I might think of as a delightfully cold and snowy winter....if we get snow. If we don't get snow, then who cares? All winter without snow means is that we are cold and wet. I don't like being cold and wet, but I love snow. Not that I've had much snow to love. Our county does sometimes get the ice storms that bring down trees and power lines, but so far, that sort of weather never has come as far south as our house---it has made it down to maybe 3 or 4 miles north of us though. The bad thing is that if we get cold enough for ice and snow, then we get cold enough to lose Zone 8 plants that I planted here in order to see if they would survive here. They will survive here for a few years until we get an extra cold winter and snow. So, I sort of hope for snow, and sort of don't. I rarely plant Zone 8 plants here any more, although I planted a couple this past year.....which pretty much guarantees a cold winter is coming so it can wipe them out. I haven't seen a hummingbird since a week ago Thursday, but left the feeders up in case any were going to ride down on the big cold fronts. I haven't seen any, but will leave the feeders up until Monday or Tuesday, just in case, and then take them down. We ended up with the oldest granddaughter coming to stay with us for the weekend after her plans to spend the weekend with her dad fell through at the absolute last minute. We are always excited to have her come visit for a weekend, even if it wasn't planned. So, we ate dinner out with her, her mom and Chris last night, and then they headed home to get sleep before the busy work weekend with long shifts scheduled at work. We went to Wal-mart after dinner and bought everything we needed to stay home indoors and out of the rain today. We're going to carve pumpkins, which she has been dying to do....but I wanted to wait for cooler weather so the heat wouldn't ruin the Jack-o-lanterns. I think the heat isn't an issue any more. We're going to decorate Halloween Jack-o-lantern cookies (pre-baked and sold with a decorating kit). She has a long list of Halloween crafts she wants to make, including the Halloween version of a gingerbread house (we'll see about that one), so we'll work out way through that list as much as we can. I awakened at six and saw on the radar that the rain was almost here so rushed to get the dogs outdoors ahead of the rain's arrival. Whew! That was close but we made it. We're supposed to have rain all morning. How deeply into the afternoon the rain lasts is the unknown. I wish it would blow through faster, but it might be a long, rainy day here. We're ready for it and aren't planning on going out in it. I have some amaranth in the garden with huge flowering seed heads I'd hoped to have harvested and drying by now, but the relentless rain has kept me from cutting them. I keep hoping for a warm, sunny, windy day without rain so they can dry out some and then I'll cut them. I think if I cut them while they are so wet, they'll just mildew and look awful. I want the flower heads for autumn flower arrangements, but the rain may ruin that idea. When I planted the amaranth seeds in July, I wasn't expecting record rainfall in September and October. Have a lovely Saturday everyone. I hope those of you that the rain keeps missing will get some of this moisture plume left over from Sergio. The unfortunate thing is that it seems largely to be traveling over areas that already have had too much rain recently, so flash flooding and flooding likely will occur in those areas. The Red River is up and running fast and looked ugly last night, so this rain will just make that worse. I am thinking the winter wheat crop here likely is ruined. Too, too much rain even for seeds to sprout and grow, so it is more likely that if the seeds sprout, then the young plants rot. That's so unfortunate, but that is how life goes here on the southern plains. Dawn

I suggest that you go in with more than a mention. Oil companies have massive amounts of money and could financially, easily put in another road. But putting in a road involves rights of way, and sometimes land purchase which can translate into a long waiting time to drill which I can assure you is not going to happen. Before you go in, see if you can get some info/suggestions about alternative routes so it will look to the commission like any possible road change is doable in a reasonable amount of time. Don't make the mistake of thinking that any oil or state commission is on your side. You can get concessions, sometimes, but they involve planning and work on your part before you ever walk in and propose them. The trick to getting concessions from the commission/oil companies is to look at the world with their eyes, and to suggest changes that are quick and efficient and will shield them from possible liability, like a safer road. Morals isn't going to get it so try for the effective changes. They will spend money but do not want to spend time. And go in prepared, if you show up and just whine you are going to get ignored and you will have lost your 'first impressions' advantage. And, one more suggestion. If the trucks are not flying but actually doing the speed limit, don't overstate your case; it may be that a suggestion by the commission might be made to change custody/location of the child if there are no records of accidents but your son insists that the current setup is dangerous. Don't open a can of worms you can't close. If you agree that oil has bought up all the politicians, and your grandson's location might hold up a well, and that could be changed by an oil bought politician asking a judge to make a custody change, well you see where this is going. If there are police records of accidents in that area, however, that is powerful info bring records of the reports with you.