We have 2 stray outside kitties now, Sam the siamese who has never been shy and follows me when I'm outside the gate, he will sit at the gate and meow at me if I'm inside. I think he is the sibling of BC, a black cat that adopted us just before Ike, and who evacuated with us. There is another black kitty out there who may be their littermate as I first saw it across the school yard about the same time. It is very skittish and I can't even get close enough to tell if male or female. Sam is going to the vet to get fixed as soon as we get back in the houe. I think the guy across the alley is responsible for them, I've found siamese mix kittens before. I'd like to confront him but have no proof-except empty litter boxes outside his house and the cats hang around his yard. BC prefers to go outside, so do my 2 cats who have the run of the house and yard-they choose to stay out most of the time. BC prefers the alley-dry and sandy, Oscar the neighbors yard behind her garage, no idea with Gomez or Sam. Gomez(female) is the only one I've had problems with spraying in the house, and not often. I feel bad for Sam sitting outside the gate, he's such a pretty cat, blue cross-eyes, perfect posture. I feed him and pet him about every day, sometimes I don't see him. Tally HO!

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Bon, They might be fine. With onions you just never know. My onions have no mulch on them this year and I don't intend to mulch until and if this infernal rain stops falling. I need for the soil to be able to dry up as much as possible in between rainstorms or in between rainy days. My usual heavy mulch strategy is on hold for some areas of the garden because the soil is far too wet as it is and I don't want for mulch to prevent it from achieving whatever little bit of drying out it can get between storms. I think one reason I have so many lovely volunteer plants this year is because the onion bed is not mulched. From that bed, I have dug up and moved hundreds of Laura Bush petunia seedlings, hundreds of moss rose seedlings, and dozens of catnip, basil, lemon basil, and chamomile seedlings. That onion bed is the gift that just keeps giving, and I didn't even use all the seedlings I dug up. A lot of them got pulled up and composted. It is relatively weed free and volunteer free now, but I weed it every single day that rain doesn't keep me out of the garden like it is doing today. I see good onion plant great, nice leaf development and happy plants, but even well-amended clay in raised beds can stay too wet if the rain falls several days a week like it has been falling lately. I'd have it mulched if I could, but that would almost guarantee the onions will rot. So, you know, even though you're drier than we are, the lack of mulch might not be hurting the onions as long as you keep them well-weeded. More so than most plants, onions cannot abide competition, so keeping them weed-free helps produce bigger, healthier onions. I have the pathways mulched to prevent soil splash and its related diseases. I have the tomato beds, the rows of sweet corn and the bean beds mulched to prevent soil splash and related diseases. I have the flowers mulched. The onions, though? If they are to survive, they must remain unmulched. Including the rain that has fallen on my garden today, we're approaching year-to-date rainfall of 14". It sounds good, no? Well, actually, no. That much rainfall this early hurts as much as or more than it helps. I'm not panicking yet, but after looking at my forecast for the next week, I am starting to think the back garden will not get planted because it is going to stay too muddy too late in the season. More and more this year's rainfall reminds me of 2007---when I still had tomato and pepper plants in containers in May and June because I couldn't put them in the ground.....and the plants in the ground were waterlogged and growth was stalled and some were dying. I ended up planting a lot in cat litter buckets and 5 gallon buckets that year because there was no other way to do it. Peppers are perfectly happy in cat litter buckets, but indeterminate tomato plants in 5 to 7 gallon pots require an incredible amount of water and fertilizer to stay happy even when the ground is too wet for them. 2007 was a horrible weather year. While 2014 started out kind of wonderful, the longer the rain falls, the more likely we see a repeat of 2007, or even 2004. While 2004 was great overall, the spring was far too wet with over a foot of rain in one month. I want rain and I appreciate getting it, but we're at the point that it is too much at once. I don't even remember what my onions did in 2004 or 2007 but I think they struggled and some bolted and some died. I always plant tons of them to allow for some to drown, burn up in drought, or be pounded into oblivion and our crazy weather is why I do that. I wish we could send all this excess moisture over to SW OK, particularly to the Altus and Duncan areas. Their lakes would love all the water runoff we are having here.

The real issues are needing separate storage areas so that you don't accidentally accelerate the ripening of the one thing or another and some are best left in the dark (think root cellars). On the herbs, some should be air dried and they are usually tied into small bundles and hung up so that air gets them from all sides. Some also dry better in a dehydrator. Don't you love being so much more involved with your food? I too loved the "California" drawer, they really work but being open to both the area below the floor and into the attic it functions like a chimney in the case of fire and are probably not permitted by code anymore.