Mixed up my first batch this past weekend and planted a couple of containers of herbs. It not only looks wonderful, but after just a couple of days they look really happy! I have to admit, I didn't let it sit for the lime to get working, I only gave it an hour or so and couldn't wait!!! I'm so happy to have gotten the goodies and can't wait to have a few minutes to crank out some more and get planting!

This is so awful.... I was working at that time, I do homecare nursing, 10P-6A last night, and this case has two siblings with a genetic syndrome, so there are two nurses. My co-worker weighs nearly 400 lbs, and we work in conjoined rooms in a 100+ year old farmhouse, even an average-sized adult produces a fair amount of vibration/shaking when they're moving about... Lots of people up here felt the shaking, more than one person i talked to was sitting in a parked car, and thought someone was messing with them , bouncing the car...but me, i'm so used to being bounced around when i work with this gal, it didn't even register. I had the morning news on, so i heard about it immediately, said, 'Hey, Charlene, did you know we just had a earthquake?' She's pretty used to being an environmental mover and shaker, too...she didn't notice either!

Salvia divinorum. (The "divinorum" part must come from "divine" since it's apparently used for shaman and meditation rituals. So "divine" in the sense of both "deity" and "to tell or receive insight, like divining the future.") Wow, teenagers will look to anything for "fun," won't they? Glad my teenage years are (long) behind me. Although it's not like I was in the cool, "in-the-know" crowd as a teenager-- :) Next they'll be getting into the morning glory seeds-- http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/psychedelics/morngly.html http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/salvia3.htm (Another "smokin' salvia!" link) PlantScout lists zero vendors selling this plant (even the nurseries that carry obscure things), so my guess is that it's either not something easily obtainable, or some kind of wildflower form that's not decorative and therefore not readily available/desirable to the home gardener and only available if you trek out somewhere and know what you're looking for. Kind of like how everyone in my day was looking for "mushrooms," but no one really knew or would have recognized the mushroom they were actually looking for. I'm sure a lot of innocent fungi was consumed in the name of partying. Maybe I'm mean, but I have this mental image of a bunch of teens sitting around huffing on Pineapple Sage or Salvia Caradonna, all fake dreamy-eyed and mumbling, "Man, I'm sooooo wasted!" In any case, I wouldn't worry too much. As I said, it doesn't sound like it's readily available, and in most cases, wildcrafted "drugs" (like wild-harvested marijuana) don't usually have a high enough concentration of anything to really get one high--You have to specifically cultivate something to get high levels of hallucinogen, and I'm convinced that most of the time, the placebo/we're soooo naughty! effect is what's at play. And teens have been known to smoke/ingest anything (oregano, ritalin, cough syrup, etc.) for kicks, so I wouldn't worry too much about this salvia--plenty around the house for them to get into, as well. (I myself have a vivid memory of being at a friend's house on a snow day and getting into her parents' liquor cabinet to make myself a tequila 'n root beer. Tequile and root beer! Just the memory makes me ill...) Here is a link that might be useful: How to Obtain Effects from Smoked Salvia Divinorum

Carol, I'm glad you enjoyed your trip to Ardmore.....we did arrange that one cool day just for you....LOL! Be glad you are not here today....it is currently 102 with a heat index of 108 and I have the hose running in the lily pond because it is down about 6" since the beginning of the week. We just came back from Ardmore few minutes ago, and there was little six-point buck in the driveway, making his way toward the garden. I guess he was going to eat anything growing out through the fence. The half-inch of rain we got wasn't much, but our fire dept. hasn't been paged out to a fire today, so it must have helped a little. People here do not pay directly for fire protection, but the county gives each dept. some money every year--it isn't even enough to pay our annual gasoline bill, but every little bit helps. We do lots and lots of fundraisers and it is never-ending, you know. Our citizens are VERY good about supporting Love County's 14 volunteer fire departments, though, and we always appreciate that. Dawna, It broke my heart to stop watering, but I swore I wasn't going to run up an outrageous $350-per-month water bill like I did during the 2005-006 drought....remembering that all that water didn't even keep the garden alive then, so what's the point in doing it this year? Only a little over 16" of rain here this year, and I think less than 3" combined for June, July and August so far. Combine the drought with the long string of days over 100 degrees (it's been as high as 106 to 108 here with heat indexes up to 116 degrees), and the garden (and the gardener) just can't take it. We've had lots of the usual hayfield fires started during either cutting, raking or baling, but its so dry that they have been burning lots and lots of acres per fire, instead of only a few. Lots of fires along the highways too, of unknown origin, but probably started by cigarettes thrown out of windows. I've spent as much as 10 hours at fires in one day, but usually only 2, 3 or 4 hours or so on most days. I'm just too tired. Between the drought, the heat, and the fires, the garden's just sitting there withering up and dying. It's OK, though, surely next year will be better. : ) Right? Moni, I bet Montana was wonderful! Well, I'm not giving up on gardening permanently, just giving up on keeping the veggie garden alive this year. Love County is in what the U. S. Drought Monitor terms a "moderate drought" and I believe our rainfall has been "below average", and sometimes severely below average, for 11 of the last 12 months. Our rainfall is roughly 10" below what it should be at this time of year. Even when rain does fall, we normally have severe drought conditions in July and August anyway, so without the "usual" rain, we are really hurting. The garden has been very productive thus far....tons of big, huge, softball-sized onions, a lot of potatoes, zillions of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, a moderate amount of beans (less than most years) and I'm still geting okra, melons and pumpkins, although the plants look pretty bad at this point. Both our freezers are full and I have lots of onions and potatoes in the cellar. I'm still getting ripe tomatoes because the plants had tons of tons of green ones when I quit watering. At this point, I don't have much time to garden. Fires are happening with a frightening regularity....mostly grassfires and a few of the larger wildfires, a couple of car fires, and one major structure fire (over 10 hours long) at a wooden pallet factory earlier this week. I've been gone to fires so long, or in town on fire business, or running to Sam's and Costco to get food and drinks for the 14 fire department's firefighters, that I wouldn't have time to work in the garden even if I were inclined to try to water and keep it alive. I've also been on-line designing and ordering custom safety vests, hats, and t-shirts for our fire dept., so lately its been all about the fire department. That's OK. The work the VFDs do is very important and I don't mind diverting "gardening time" to "fire department time" every now and then. I just hope it all settles down by next spring (we need rain and a lot of it between now and then) so I can start over with fresh plants in a new season. : ) What about y'all, Moni? Did you sell the house yet? Did you move? Somewhere in the madness of trying to survive the heat and drought, I lost track of what's going on with y'all. Let me know! Dawn