October 2018, Week 3, From Summer to Autumn to Winter

5 years ago

Depending on your location within our fine state, you and your garden may feel like you're still in autumn (much of the state) or perhaps winter (NW through parts of central OK) or clinging to summer (far SE OK). Isn't this crazy? So the garden chore list might get complicated this week.

If you're expecting snow in NW OK, you have my sympathy. Wintery weather is arriving. Gardening basically is over unless you have a heated greenhouse. I hope it was a good year.

If you're in parts of the state expecting the cold front to roar through today and bring your area down near freezing, harvest whatever you need to, cover up whatever plants you feel will survive with a little protection, cut blooms and bring them in as bouquets if you think your flowers are likely to freeze, and then cross your fingers and hope for the best. Remember that plants are not bothered (in the strictest sense) by wind chill temperatures, but by actual temperatures. However, if you have very strong winds as many of us have in the forecast for today, tonight and tomorrow, the winds themselves can harm the plants. If you feel like your temperatures will stay above freezing and you don't cover anything, I hope that works out well for you. Normally, at this time of the year, central and NE OK could reasonably expect a few more weeks of nice weather. If you need to cover up plants, remember that any sort of textile fabric is better than plastic. While you can use plastic (and I have done it), it will work best if you suspend it over hoops, bamboo stakes, etc. so the plastic doesn't touch the plants at all. If you get very close to or below freezing, any plant part that touches the plastic likely will suffer freeze damage because the plastic will conduct the cold directly to any plant parts it touches. Textiles can float above plants, though I also prefer to suspend them. In strong wind, the heavier textiles can bruise foliage if they are floating loosely. When suspended above the plants, the textiles don't cause that damage.

If you're far enough south or east that freezing temperatures are not a risk tonight, then lucky you! (I'm in this group, unless our forecast goes downhill.) In these areas, the rain (some of it expected to be heavy) and wind will be the issue. Even in far southern OK, wind chills tomorrow morning will be in the upper 30s, but that's more an issue for people than plants.

If you aren't freezing or frozen and aren't under water for the rest of the week, the garden chores remain pretty much the same. Harvest. Collect and save seeds if you have plants at that stage and you like to do this. Harvest and preserve herbs, peppers and whatever remains of your garden produce because the cold weather likely is coming soon even to those who are pretty far south and pretty far east, even if it doesn't hit us tonight or tomorrow morning. Mulch or move containers of plants to their warmest possible location. Remember that plants in containers are considered to be growing one zone colder than your actual zone since their roots are above ground in the containers and lack the protective warmth of Mother Earth. Build an ark. Load it up with two of each kind of your favorite plants and animals, and prepare to set sail if you're in this week's heaviest rain zones. Just kidding about that!

If or when your soil is dry enough, this is a good time to plant garlic and shallots. Cool-season annual color can be planted now. Our nurseries and garden centers in southern OK finally, finally, finally are getting cool-season annuals in stock that don't already look beaten up and harmed by excessive heat and drought.

For most of us, drought now is off the table and flooding is on the table. That's Oklahoma weather in a nutshell---swinging from one extreme to another. At our house we call it weather whiplash. I wish NE OK was getting more rain now because they're looking pretty dry in places.

If you want to force amaryllis bulbs or paperwhites for winter blooms, watch for the bulbs now and buy them as soon as you see them. Our Wal-Mart got a new delivery of cyclamens this weekend and those are lovely indoor plants for the winter months.

When your decorative autumn pumpkins and gourds have run their course and you're replacing them in a few weeks with Christmas decorations, remember to throw them on your compost piles and you might get volunteer plants from their seeds next Spring or Summer.

If you are in the warmest part of the state over in SE OK, keep your eyes open for one more generation of army worms---they are seeing newly hatched army worm moths in eastern North Texas not too far from OK, though no one is sure if this last hatch of moths will lay eggs and produce new caterpillars to chomp their way through bermuda lawns and hay pastures.

While typing this I have been listening to unwanted rain falling. Tim wants more, more and more, but I think we have had plenty. Our rainfall for the last two months in this county is off the charts, and to me, it is so far off the charts that the excess moisture is starting to worry me. While typing this, I've gotten at least 5 new messages on my phone relating to ongoing rain and flooding in our county, and the heavy rain isn't even expected until tonight. Oh, wait, that 5 new rain/flood messages now is 9. I need to get off this computer and go read them. It is foggy, misty and feels more like late November or early December. Uughh. October usually is my favorite month because the weather is mostly sunny, clear, and neither too warm nor too cold. This sure is not our typical October. El Nino is here....I believe it. I don't know if NOAA or whoever has declared that an El Nino is beginning, but in my heart I know it is.

It is chili weather for sure. We were at the grocery store and I had chili ingredients in my cart this morning when I got a message from my son asking for "your chili recipe". Ha, apparently all these years he thought he was eating truly homemade chili. I actually consider it semi-homemade. So, I sent him the chili ingredient list: two pounds of meat, an 8-oz can of tomato sauce and a package of 2-Alarm chili mix. I got back an LOL, so I guess it didn't bother him to think it wasn't truly homemade from total scratch. In my own defense, I do often make it from homegrown tomatoes pulled out of the freezer, so that could be why he thought it all was homemade. (grin) Everyone down here has the same idea---a friend of ours made his chili Friday evening. I bet he's just been waiting for cooler weather. At Wal-Mart, the 2-Alarm chili mix area on the shelves was bare, and I was thinking I'd actually have to make the chili from scratch. A few minutes later I came across a middle-of-the-aisle display of canned tomatoes and 2-Alarm chili mix and got 1 of the last 2 packages of 2-Alarm mix that was left. I'll probably cut up and add some jalapenos from the garden.

So, here we are in the odd month of Octvember. DecOctvember? OctNoveCember? Oklahoma weather is weird. It is amazing we all can garden here without losing our sanity. That's assuming we all are still sane!

Dawn

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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author

5 years ago

Oh, now we have the chili and soup club here, don't we? Actually, that makes a lot of sense as we all are gardeners and generally have plentiful produce to use in making soups, stews, chili and the like. Maybe we can swap recipes all winter. I promise to give y'all actual recipes that are better than my instructions to Chris to go buy Two-Alarm Chili mix at the store and to follow the directions on the package.

Tim is supposed to be asleep upstairs. Instead he keeps going up and down the stairs, in and out of the house with a flashlight in his hand, searching for something making a noise that is driving him crazy. My suggestions that it might be a tree limb that has been blown onto the house as the cold front came through or that it might a loose shingle flapping in the wind or might be squirrels or coons in the attic were not well-received, so I stopped suggesting possibilities to him. We've had bobcats get up on the roof before, following a house cat there, but all the house cats are indoors, so I cannot imagine a bobcat is on the roof unless it followed a squirrel up there. Whatever it is, this noise is driving my husband slightly insane.

The cold front came through within the last hour, so we're down to 50 degrees now, but I don't think our wind was nearly as fierce as what some of you might have had today---it maybe gusted 25-30 mph here. I feel fortunate that I didn't have to cover up anything in the garden today. It wouldn't have been too hard to keep frost blankets in place as long as I got it done before the wind arrived, but I would have hated being out in the mist and drizzle doing it. I usually can do it by putting hoops over the rows, then putting the row covers over the hoops and using zip ties to attach the row covers to the hoops. If I am careful with the placement of the fabric, I am not poking new holes in the fabric for the zip ties---I am using the same little holes used in the past. Then, I still use U-shaped landscape fabric staples to hold the fabric down to the ground to prevent air intrusion and if the wind is still causing the row covers to try to lift and float away, I can place the heaviest metal t-posts we have atop the fabric at ground level. Using this combination of methods, I've been able to keep row cover over beds when the wind is gusting up to 45 mph or a little higher.

The day is coming where I'll either have to let things freeze or spend an enormous time covering up all the rows, and it is likely I'll pick a few favorite things to protect when that day comes and let the rest go.

Farmgardener, With only the two of us, I also cook in big batches and freeze for future meals as well. This is a very productive method. I really like making soups, stews and chilis---the house always smells so delightful when they are bubbling away on the stove.

Kim, I hope the potted plants make it too. This was an awful day to have to be out there fighting the elements. I'm glad you now are inside and cozy and warm. I bet sweet Sophie is feeling all fat and happy tonight after having such a treat for her meal. On a day like you had outdoors today, I always hope and pray that I'll wake up the next day to discover the plants are okay and that I have one more day to try to protect and save them.

Jennifer, Did you make the vegetarian version of Cabin Fever soup or the one with meat in it? You house sounds all cozy and ready for autumn....or winter. I hope your dinner with your guests went well. I cannot imagine why it would not.

Our chickens are not amused with the constant misty, drizzly wet weather that has dominated our area for the last few weeks. I gave them some salad today, and a little ham and bacon and they were thrilled. I don't think they much care for chasing grasshoppers in the rain to pick up a little extra protein. Picard will be very amusing, especially until he gets his grown-up voice. We have one standard rooster and one banty rooster and their voices are very different, which I guess relates to their lung size being so different perhaps.

I didn't step foot in the garden today because the mist/drizzle wouldn't quit. Heavy rain is in the forecast for today through Tuesday, so I'm thinking Wed might be a good day to venture in there. We'll see. With three cold nights in a row expected, at least it might be possible the snake season will end early. That is only fitting considering it started months early in 2018. The good thing about the garden is that I got extra heavy wood mulch in about 90% of the paths this past Spring/early Summer and those pathways are not the muddy mess that the remaining 2 pathways I didn't finish have turned into now. I'd love to have a warm, sunny Saturday to go buy one more pickup load full of mulch and get those little couple of pathways done, but at this point they are little water-filled canals so I don't know if it will happen. Naturally the paths I never finished are at the low end of the garden, so all the rain runoff goes down to the end of the garden and just sits in the pathways.

Nancy, Isn't it crazy how quickly we all gravitate to good, filling comfort type foods as the weather cools and the seasons change? I do miss being able to roam around the garden, harvest and bring in a bucket of veggies and then plan the meals around what is available. That's what I really miss in the autumn and winter. Still, we always put up enough produce (even in my non-canning year) that I can harvest from the freezer as needed and still have garden-grown produce included in our meals.

It always is so tough to see the plants go in autumn when that first big freeze rolls in, especially when they have rebounded so well from summer and look so awesome. I hope you all stay just above freezing, if it is possible for that to happen (the clouds will help if you have clouds) and miraculously don't lose your plants tonight. Wouldn't that be lovely to just get a bit of a reprieve?

When I get a break from the constant rain, I'll spend part of a day putting hoops over the plants I want to protect from our first freeze whenever it is due to arrive. That way, when the day comes, all I have to do is get out there with the row cover and get that part of the job done. Sometimes it is worth it to do all that work, but other times, if multiple cold nights are coming, I just don't bother. I mostly do it just so some peppers or tomatoes can grow on for a bit longer and with this year's tomatoes being subjected to so much rain, I doubt their flavor is worth it. I think that our tomatoes have endured about 14 or 15" of rainfall in the last 6 weeks or so. That's really too much. The ironic thing is that much of that time we still were in the 90s so fruit wasn't setting anyway, but each fall tomato plant has managed to set a few tomatoes. If I'd known this sort of weather was coming for autumn, I probably wouldn't have bothered planting fall tomatoes. The plants and the fruit they've set do look great, but the excess rain probably has negatively impacted whatever flavor the fruit might develop in these cool temperatures. There's young zinnia and purple datura plants that popped up from seeds that dropped in the summer and I'm hoping they will have a chance to bloom before they freeze, but the weather might not stay warm enough long enough for that.

I have found two lady bugs indoors. This is very interesting....because it only is two. Normally as the first big cold front approaches, you have to fight your way through a cloud of lady bugs hanging around each exterior doorway, trying to get indoors before the cold arrives. So, does the fact that this isn't happening mean that the lady bugs know we aren't getting close to freezing yet? Did the lady bugs largely desert our area during the drought? If so, I haven't noticed the garden is lacking in lady bugs. Maybe all the lady bugs are out in the flower-filled pastures, making good use of all the native wildflowers that rebounded and bloomed after rain returned here and begin to ease the drought conditions.

Yesterday or the day before I found the cutest liatris plant in the front pasture near the driveway. You know, the wildflowers that seem dead or dormant and gone in July/August heat can rebound quickly and bloom really, really fast if good rainfall returns. It is astonishing. However, they often remain stunted and small. This particular plant came up in horrific clay and gravel, got about 2" tall, and bloomed little tiny flowers. Most of the other liatris plants were able to get 12-18" tall before they bloomed, but this one was really late and didn't have much time to grow. So, they aren't as spectacular as they would be in a normal year since they are so short, but the butterflies love them all the same.

Today is the first time in months that I haven't seen a monarch butterfly. I don't know if they were hiding, if they were fleeing south as quickly as possible to stay ahead of the cold or what. Granted, I wasn't outside very much or for very long today. I did see bees and grasshoppers though. Oh, and deer. Lots and lots of hungry deer.

The hummingbirds are gone, most of the song birds are gone and now it is starting to look like the butterflies are going as well. We usually have them until November at least, but this is not a typical year.

Stay warm and dry everyone! I'm thinking tomorrow morning here will begin with a cup of hot cocoa. I've waited a very long time to have a morning cold enough to make a cup of cocoa sound appealing.

As for planning the 2019 garden, maybe I'll work on that during the rainy days this week. I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that 2019 is quickly approaching, the garden needs to be planned and seeds need to be ordered. I sort of already feel behind as far as planning the 2019 garden is concerned.

Dawn

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Comments (38)

farmgardener
5 years ago
4:30 here and the front just hit. !!!!!

its 43 and the wind is north fierce, plus a light mist. Anything I didn’t carry in yesterday isn’t going and although I thought about covering some plants there is no possibility of covering staying in place with this wind. So I guess if it doesn’t escape a freeze tonight then it’s time to let it go for this year. Yes, Dawn I agree it’s chili and soup time. I made potato soup Friday and chili yesterday. I always make about 6 lbs of chili at a time and freeze 2/3 of it. It’s so handy to just pop it into the crockpot later. Time to get out the flannel shirts and houseshoes again.
luvncannin
5 years ago
You two talking about chili made mine so hungry for it. Well I had beef and rice soup instead.

I could hear you Dawn as I quickly harvested as much as possible. The wind was horrible and cold but I managed to harvest mmy sweets, basil, sage, mint, tomatoes, and seeds for basil, datura, garlic chives. Some pots I brought in but everything else is on its it's own. I wanted to move large pots around to south side but I just couldn't do it. Hope they make it.

I also checked fluids in car, and disconnected hoses. Now I am in warm house with large pots of bone broth cooking. Oh and Sophie got a warm meal of fat, venison, and mixed veggies. She should stay warm with that.
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Hailey, The bottles of liquid fertilizer ought to have directions right there on the bottles. So, it hit 89 degrees here today and it didn't feel quite as bad as some days earlier in the week, but it was no picnic either. I worked in the garden this afternoon while Tim mowed. I weeded, planted a few things, water those things in well with a watering can, etc. and harvested some more tomatoes---this time Early Girls. I also ate Sungolds while working in the garden---they are a natural form of gardener's Gatorade. Tim broke some sort of belt on the riding mower and didn't want to push the push mower around in the heat, so his workday outdoors ended early. He came and offered to help in the garden and I sent him to the house. I felt like he needed some free time that didn't involve working on anything. Mosquitoes are horrible, horrible, horrible here now. Now, I'm off to bed because I hope to get into the garden early for a couple of hours of work before the day gets too busy. Dawn
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Comments (30)
When an old dog who has chronic kidney disease insists he must go outdoors now, you must drop everything and take him out. If you don't, you'll find yourself mopping up the floor. There's none of that "wait a minute and I'll take you out". Nope, he is a little dictator (unwittingly, perhaps) now---one sharp bark and I drop everything and take him out because I know the consequences if I do not react quickly enough. Kim, No lady bugs around? Sometimes you can attract them to your garden (if they are in the general area) by making wheast. Or, even just by spraying a sugar-water mix on your plants. Here's some recipes for these: Recipes To Help Attract Beneficial Insects This morning I did a quick walk-thru of my garden to see how it has been doing without me and I did see some ladybugs (real American ladybugs, lol, not the Asian ones) hard at work on some of the watermelon plants. Sometimes in extreme July/August heat, the ladybugs seem to lie low---and who can blame them? I always wonder if they are up in some shadier spots just trying to survive the heat without subjecting themselves to full sun and full heat. Jennifer, It is great that Stella knows how to have a good time, but unfortunate that she chooses to have that good time in the garden. I've been leaving my garden gate open every day so the chickens can go in there now if they wish. Now that they can go into it, they no longer want to. I guess they've been excluded for so long that they've forgotten that good times can be found in the garden. Or, now that's there's no low-hanging tomatoes or melons for them to enjoy, maybe they just aren't motivated to go in there and eat grasshoppers and such. I'm glad you don't have a stress fracture because I know the time you'd need to stay off of it would drive you crazy. Still, take care and let it heal. The older I get, the more prone I am to catch the flu. I hardly ever got it in my 30s and 40s and, when I did, recovered quickly. These last 5-7 years, I seem like I get it every year and the recovery is harder every year. All my life I've heard that peoples' immune systems weaken as they age, and I see that now in my own life---at the age of only 59. By the time I'm 70, I'll have to hibernate at home during cold and flu season because I won't have any immune system left at all. On the other hand, an immune system is a funny thing. Last year, nationwide, a lot of young people in their 20s, 30s and early 40s died after they went sepsis during a case of the flu. When you go into sepsis like that, it normally is caused by your immune system over-reacting to an infection, which in these cases was the flu. What is it about the flu last year that caused young peoples' immune systems to overreact and throw them into sepsis shock? This sort of thing puzzles me. Obviously we want to have healthy immune systems but maybe not such robust immune systems that they overreact and kill you. It is such a conundrum. My garden is dry and pitiful looking, as the drought continues and no more rain has fallen here. It is what it is. August in a drought year is a tough month as it is, and the rain we got a while back was nice, but not drought-busting type rainfall. The rain made plenty of weeds sprout though. I see lots of morning glory, bindweed and foxtail grass to deal with---that will be next week as long as I don't encounter any snakes in there between now and then. Eileen, I bet it was the flu. I'm just basing that on the fact that there's low levels of flu cases being reporting across the country in August. My BIL in PA had it two weeks before I did. I did an uncommonly high amount of flu research while sick---trying to figure out if there was anything more I could learn about it that I didn't already know. One thing I learned is that it is not uncommon for the cough to persist for up to 4 weeks after you've otherwise recovered from the flu. I didn't know that, but I do remember that last year, the cough did persist for an uncommonly long time. Just take care of yourself and get your energy back. Last week I tried to do too much too soon and promptly relapsed, so this week I've been trying to take it easier on purpose so I don't do that again. Larry, I'm glad you're finally going to be able to go and get that PET scan. I hope all the news is good after it all is done. I love the deer but they sure can be destructive. What I've noticed is that when I plant stuff on purpose for them---like one of those fall and winter deer plot mixes, they ignore it. If I plant stuff for us, well, that's what they want to eat. It drives me crazy. Have y'all been watching the weather? Are some of you still getting rain? I've been out to lunch, weather-wise, not watching very carefully, while sick. Now I'm starting to pay attention again, and am not happy to realize we're back to being hot and dry, hot and dry, hot and dry. We had a couple of cool mornings earlier in the week and they sure were nice but I didn't even feel like sitting outdoors and enjoying them because of all that smoke in the air. It doesn't seem as smokey today, but then tomorrow is supposed to be really windy. I hope the wind blows away any lingering smoke, and not that it blows more smoke down to us, which I guess always is possible. Hurricane Lane has been a surprise. The last time I paid any attention to it was probably early last week and it was way out there in the Pacific as a topical depression, not expected to come within hundreds of miles of Hawaii, and not expected to do much of anything. So, fast forward a week or more, and I click on Dr. Masters Wunderground Blog maybe on Tuesday night and discover it is a Cat 4 headed towards Hawaii. By the next morning it was a Cat 5, but it now is weakening as it encounters wind shear and is back to a Cat 4 again. Still, they are going to get tons of rain if nothing else. I suppose that rain is usually good, but not when it comes in feet instead of inches. I hope everyone there stays safe and above the flood waters and out of any potential mudslides. I would joke and say why can't we ever get a hurricane here to bust our droughts, but you know, we got the remains of Hurricane Erin once, and also of Hermine, and the flooding was awful, so I won't even go there.... Have a good day everyone. Dawn
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October 2018, Week 5
Q
Comments (28)
Larry, We remain too muddy to do anything at all. Even walking across the lawn leaves footprints indented into the ground which then have water seep into them, forming mini-puddles. After a couple of months of record rainfall, it is starting to feel like the mud never ever will dry up again. We're hoping maybe most of the mud will dry up by Thanksgiving if we can get some more dry, sunny, windy days. On the other hand, all you have to do is check the mud to see which creatures are roaming your property, and most days I see fresh animal tracks from bunnies, white-tailed deer, coons, possums, armadillos, some sort of smallish cat---probably bobcats, as well as occasional coyotes. We have a ton of squirrels this year but they are so small and lightweight that they don't leave noticeable paw prints. You're such a good son to your mother. I wish her peace and contentment in her final years. It is remarkable to live to be 94 years old, isn't it? The extremes that we swing to here in this part of the country are enough to drive a person mad....too wet or too dry all the time, it seems, and rarely if ever are conditions just right. I can see a forecast low of 37 in our forecast several days out from now. If that doesn't change, we'll likely see 33-35 degrees and probably a frost in our garden, thanks to our low-lying microclimate. I think it was in the forecast for next Thursday or thereabouts, which wouldn't be too far off from our average first freeze date---a little early, but not very much. I'm going to miss all the flowers, but I'm ready to let the garden go to sleep for the winter. Nancy, It sounds like y'all are going to raise a huge amount of garlic. My garden paths are walkable thanks to the heavy amount of wood mulch on them, but the soil in the garden beds is too wet for me to do anything. I do think snake season is pretty much over now that the nights are so cold, but I won't consider it truly over until we have a couple of freezing nights. I am still seeing grasshoppers and wish they'd just die already. I found a big green one of the leaf of one of the potted amaryllis plants I had out sitting in the sun on Thursday, and flicked him off of it. On Friday, I found new grasshoppers in one of the early instars---about a quarter-inch long. Oh well, every grasshopper egg that hatches now will produce a grasshopper that will freeze soon, and that's one less egg that will overwinter and give us new grasshoppers in the Spring. So, based on that reasoning, I guess every small hopper I see now is a good thing. Jennifer, I spent the whole morning and half the afternoon cleaning house yesterday before the granddaughters arrived yesterday, and was so pleased with the shining, gleaming clean of it all. Of course, all it takes is one trip outdoors and in again by the three dogs and the floor quickly loses its just-mopped glow. It only takes a minute to Swiffer up the new pawprints, but I'm going to wear out this Swiffer pretty quickly at this rate. lol. There are days I wish the dog yard was concrete. Well, not really, because it wouldn't be comfortable for them, but I get so tired of muddy paw prints. The dogs and cats are completely over having all the mud and puddles and just prefer to stay indoors as much as they can. We all need some dry weather....and if we ever get it, then I'll spend a day in the garden. I hope you have a productive and fulfilling day today whether you chose to spend it indoors or outdoors. Now that leaves are falling in the dog yard, that helps put another layer, albeit a thin one, of something between the mud and the dogs' paws. I thought I already had switched out all the Halloween decor for Thanksgiving decor, but realized yesterday that I still have the Halloween welcome mat out by the back door, so I need to replace it with something else today. That's a minor thing in the overall scheme of things. Oh, and all the girls' Halloween artwork still is up on the fridge. Maybe this afternoon or evening we can create some Thanksgiving artwork to replace it. We have a really busy day planned, so they might be too worn out to be creative late in the day though. The annual periwinkles (these are pink with a white eye) that I have in six large containers near the back door are starting to decline as the nighttime lows dip into the 40s. I really need to replace them, and now that the weather is finally cooling down, it probably is a good time to do so at last. It is supposed to be a pretty windy day today. I'm grateful that we haven't had a frost or freeze yet because that means a lot of the vegetation in the pastures still has some green in it. Were that not the case, I'd be worried about grass fires/wild fires with the sort of wind expected today. We are rapidly approaching a worst possible case scenario, with tons of new growth that soon will freeze and either die or go dormant, fields so wet that fire brush trucks would immediately bog down and get stuck, and a lot of wind. This reminds me of 2005-06, and not in a good way. We need for the rain to stop for a while so the ground can dry up again. After hoping throughout the summer drought for rain, it seems ludicrous to now be hoping for it to stop, but we've had at least 6 months worth of rain in the last 2 months and enough is enough already. My poor compost pile just looks like a pot of soup....I don't know when it ever will dry up again. I keep adding cardboard to it, hoping the cardboard will soak up all the excess moisture. Dawn
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hazelinok
5 years ago
It hit us a little after 3:30. Quickly fed the dogs at 4 and brought them indoors. Filled the chickens' feeders and waterers and put them in their pens. Stormy and Jean Luc Picard are still sleeping in the other pen/coop. I will attempt to move them this week. Picard is ready. Stormy is such a chicken. She is scared of everything. Picard was crowing today and it's so hilarious to me.

We have a couple of couples coming over in a few minutes. I didn't make chili, but a soup that you've probably all made before--cabin fever soup. My kids liked it when they were small and it's super easy. It's a simple dinner that I'm serving them: soup, chips, and apple cake. My house looks delightfully fall-like and cozy with the decorations and candles and salt lamps. And the Autumn Equinox channel playing on Spotify.

I have no idea what is going to happen to my garden...we will see tomorrow. I harvest most of the peppers and colorful tomatoes, but didn't grab the green ones.

I have more to say, but better stir the soup pot.

Stay warm, Everyone.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Haha, just now checking in, and yep, we had chili, too! With grilled cheese sandwiches. And yep, farmgardener, I make a big batch, too, like you, and throw it in the freezer. The chili hit the spot! I told GDW things like ham and beans, potato soup, chili, chicken and noddles are sounding mighty good to me all of a sudden!

The plants all look so surprisingly good, it will be sad to see them go.
hazelinok
5 years ago
Thanks for the plastic not saving our plants info, Dawn! I didn't know that and that is probably why I got no fruit from my columnar trees this year. I covered them with plastic during the April freezes. Good to know.

Do you not add beans to your chili? Everyone likes it different. It's interesting to me.

The kids have to be on the field at 7am tomorrow. Brrrr. Half of them have colds, but they just need to hold it together until next Sunday. OBA is Saturday.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Hahaha, HJ. I just read the NYT cooking column yesterday and they were featuring "Texas-Style Chili"--with the clarification that they (I'm heavily paraphrasing here) knew they were treading on thin ice. I've been amazed, through the years, about the fierce defense from all sorts of people about THE REAL chili. LOL

I liked this remark in the NYT responses and will probably use it from time to time. My brother was a fireman and a great wanna-be chef. He got totally wrapped up in chili cookoffs (what she calls "competition chili," below. It wasn't something I ever wanted to taste. LOL . But I admired his passion--and he won many of the competitions, using a kind of mole sauce, round (?) steak, cocoa, coffee and NO beans. Through the years I've rarely made it the same way twice, But I do use beans and tomatoes; many times I've thrown in cocoa and/or strong coffee, which is kind of enchanting. I could easily fall into the fierce defense myself, but while I used to decry and ridicule the use of kidney beans, now I have mellowed so much that I TOTALLY agree with the writer of the below comment. Kidney beans are A-OK! And so is every other which way!!!

There are two classes of chili--competition chili and eating chili. The former contains cubed meat, spices, water, and masa. Onions, bell peppers and tomatoes are taboo.
The latter contains anything you want it to. It's your kitchen, you make the rules.
This particular recipe reminds me of the chili cooked up and served by the lunch ladies at my grammar school many decades ago. I remember it fondly.
I hope this note eases the religious tension that any chili recipe seems to create.
luvncannin
5 years ago
I too feel as if I am behind in planning. Since Denton area is completely different zone/ planting schedule I have lots of work to do. For instance onion planting is supposed to happen the first week of January. That's s whole month earlier than here. Next year will surely be better
jlhart76
5 years ago
I took a very "Hunger Games" approach to this cold snap. All the important stuff got moved in but the rest will either live or die as it will. May the odds be ever in their favor. (For those of you who are familiar with the books or movies).

I'm going through my seeds and trying to figure out what to plant. Once the tomatoes and peppers are truly dead, I'm going to get a load of wood mulch from chipdrop & pile it on the garden. A neighbor got a load and I'm a bit intimidated by the size of the pile: it was about 3ft high and the size of a minivan. I want to make sure we'll have cool (but not cold) weather to make hauling wood mulch a little more comfortable.

I picked up some 4ft posts and a roll of wire fencing from Walmart's clearance, so I plan to put in a little better tomato trellis (rather than tying them to stakes that may not hold or just letting them sprawl). And I'd like to put in an arch, though I'm not sure where. And I need to rearrange a few things. I planted some things along the front sidewalk that grew leggy trying to reach the sun, and the resut made for a not very inviting front door. And next year's goal is to be a little more organized about planting, instead of "here's a hole, I'll stick it here for now."
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
For all of you in central through north-central through NW OK to west-central OK (roughly the NW quarter of the state) who might have escaped freezing or frost last night/this morning, check your NWS forecast. There's a Frost Advisory for the lower tier of counties in that area and a Freeze Warning for the upper tier of counties for overnight tonight into tomorrow morning. Hope that you get clouds and wind as both would work against at least frost settling on plants, and clouds could hold in just enough heat to keep you above freezing if your forecast is for right about 32-33 degrees.

It is still just dull gray, gloomy, misty with occasional light rain but we aren't seeing it add up to very much in the rain gauge---maybe 0.25" or so since midnight. The heavier rain we were told to expect has been staying south of us in Texas. I don't mind---they can have it all. We're finally officially out of Flooding status for the Red River and we don't want to go back into flooding again. Our yard still is flooded, but if we ever could get a few moisture-free days, I think the excess moisture finally would be absorbed into the soil. They are adjusting the QPF 7-day totals for us downward significantly, for which I am grateful. We didn't need the 3-4" of additional rain they kept saying we'd get, and now it is clear we won't get nearly that much.

Kim, Do you mean that you'll be gardening in Denton in 2019? Or that you're still adjusting your planting dates in Lubbock from what you were used to when you lived in Denton? I am so confused.....

Jen, Even when I start out organized and with a plan, eventually it ends up being exactly what you describe....just dig and hole in a bare spot and stick a plant in it. Of course, this is all my own fault because I try to cram too many plants into the space I have. All the planning in the world can't make up for the fact that I plant far more than what is planned on paper.

I made a pot of chili this morning that will feed us for a couple of days, and I froze the excess so we wouldn't have to eat it for days and days and days.

This morning, our beloved dog, Jet, passed away from his chronic kidney disease. The fact that we'd known for months that this day was coming surely did not make it any easier. He was such a good boy and I am grateful we had him for a little over 13 and 1/2 years. He was born here and lived here his whole life. He was a perfect gardener's dog once he got past the puppy years. He loved to sleep in shady corners of the garden while I worked, at least until he got pretty old and decided to sleep inside in the air conditioning when I worked on hot summer days. He loved to dig holes. He loved to roll in cow manure and to shred and tear open bags of mulch and potting soil and scatter them around....not necessarily in any location I would have chosen. He never stole a tomato off the vine like his brother Duke might have done a few times, but he'd eat a tomato in a salad if you gave him some. He was fiercely protective of me. We all will miss him.

Dawn
luvncannin
5 years ago
Dawn I am sad for you. A good garden companion is hard to come by.

I am planning to be in denton for next years planting. I will have to redo all my planting dates to match that area.

Is that clearer than the previous mud lol.

I am almost ready to move except for the housing thing. Still working on that.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Oh Dawn. . . . poor Jet. I remember you saying his days were numbered. I'm so sorry, but I'm glad he left before he might have become miserable with cold weather. Bless his heart; rest in peace, Jet. And peace to you guys, too, Dawn. Sad for you.

Yep, Jen and Dawn, I'm very very good at that, "Oh here's a hole, I'll just stick that plant in there for now." BRR. Jennifer (HJ) inspired me today with her photos of herself picking peppers (from last Friday), so that's what I was doing today. But almost froze my hands clean off! There are a LOT of peppers, no I'm going to have to figure out what to do with them. I think I'll jump up early tomorrow and thaw out bags and bags of tomatoes and make salsa. Don't have any hot peppers from today's pickings but have a ton of frozen diced ones.

/
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Kim, Good luck with the move and with finding suitable housing. It is too bad you'll have to leave your job at NG, but there is one in Denton too.....

I feel like planting time for 2019 is rushing in on us. I know it still is a few months away and that our 2018 gardens aren't even through producing yet, but suddenly January/February 2019 seems awfully close. Maybe it is the arrival of the Dixondale catalog that makes me feel that way.

Nancy, I have a lot of peppers to pick too if the non-stop drizzly, misty rain crap ever stops. We haven't seen the sun in so long that I think we're forgetting what it looks like. The amount of mud here, after receiving roughly 16" of rain over the last 60 days, is just ridiculous. The rain was supposed to end today and then we were supposed to have partly sunny weather for a few days and then sunny weather for the weekend. Well, they blew up that forecast yesterday and replaced it with a chance of rain every day until at least Saturday, and low chances of getting to see the sun. I guess the clouds will continue to rain. I'm glad to have the soil moisture being replenished after the drought but I do miss the sunshine. Last night our local TV met hinted he wasn't even sure that Saturday would be sunny, so I am losing hope of getting to work on my gardener's tan any time soon. I can harvest in the rain, but I sure don't want to.

Thank you both for your comments on Jet's loss. It was a difficult day. Even when you know it is coming and think you are prepared, it still is hard. Jersey is now the senior dog in our family at 11 & 3/4 years and she really misses him. She whined at me until I brought his dog bed upstairs last night, even though he had been sleeping on it downstairs for the last two months. I'm not sure why she wanted his bed carried upstairs since she has her own dog bed, but I brought it upstairs.

I noticed when I awakened this morning and checked the NWS forecast page that the NWS had removed the Frost Advisory issued yesterday for parts of the state for this morning. I guess at some point they realized the frost wasn't going to happen. So, it looks like gardeners in central OK dodged a bullet two days in a row, but gardeners in the upper tier of northeastern counties have a Freeze Advisory so might not be so lucky. We are slightly colder than forecast here this morning but not in any sort of danger zone as far as the plants are concerned. This cool, rainy weather is getting so monotonous....our forecast high for today is 47 and our forecast low for tonight is 46.....you cannot get much more monotonous than that.

Our house is decorated for Halloween and for autumn so it is cheery and colorful inside, while everything outside basically is a dull shade of end-of-the-season green and dripping wet. I put up a 6' tall pencil tree in the corner of the mudroom and decorated it for the girls for Halloween. It is pretty cute---we've never had a Halloween tree before, but my friend, Fran, posted a photo of hers and I knew instantly when I saw it that I wanted to put up a Halloween tree for the girls. Our tree has orange Christmas ball type ornaments on it. The stores had black ones, but I didn't think they'd stand out enough on a green tree. I also found strings of lights at Wal-mart that were candy corn, spiders and something else I can't remember now, and used those and strings of green, purple and orange lights. I added Ghost garland and pumpkin garland, and then some black spiders and white skulls. I would have liked to have witches, black cats and bats on the tree, but didn't find any of those. Oh, and it has glittery pumpkins in shades of orange, green and purple. They aren't really ornaments---they look more like a bowl filler or vase filler type thing, but I attached ornament hangers to their stems and made them into ornaments. For a spur-of-the-moment idea, it turned out really cute. Now, there's no way I am taking that tree down after Halloween and putting it away for a month until it is time to decorate for Christmas, so I'll just take off all the Halloween ornaments and decorate it with turkeys, autumn leaves and artificial pumpkins and gourds for November.

Tim likes the tree idea. He suggested I could replace Christmas ornaments in January with snowflake ornaments, and then decorate it with hearts for February and Easter stuff after that. I am not so sure about that. I think that after Christmas, I'll take it down as I'll be tired of looking at it by then no matter how nicely it is decorated. On the other hand, if we stay rainy nonstop for the rest of the year like we have for the last few weeks, decorating a slender holiday tree tucked into the corner of the mudroom may be as close as I get to doing anything with trees, or leaves, or pumpkins for the next few months. I don't even know how/when I'll get garlic planted because our soil is so extremely saturated that planting anything seems foolhardy and it may stay wet for months if El Nino is declared.

Chris and I were planning Thanksgiving last night and he was really getting into the meal planning. (Firefighters tend to be great cooks and he is no exception.) We're hosting it here at our house, so he and I were working on menu ideas and what kinds of pies to have. With a small family---there will be just the six of us here---you cannot have too many pies or everyone will feel obligated to eat too much. I think we settled on two kinds of pie---one double crust apple pie and some sort of meringue pie, flavor still undecided. Normally we wouldn't be planning Thanksgiving this far in advance, but it is rainy and we are beyond bored.

With nights in the 40s this week (and daytime high temps in the 40s yesterday and today), I am wondering if venomous snake season has ended. I think it might have ended, at least for the most part. I know we need to stay alert and aware of where we are walking or reaching until after the first hard freeze, but I do think the risk is significantly lower now. The other day we got home after dark and I hopped out of the car and walked from the gate to the mailbox without watching my feet in the darkness. Normally I'd have my phone out in my hand with the flashlight feature turned on, checking the ground ahead of me. So, I can tell I'm already relaxing a bit about the snakes.

We have a gazillion deer here feeding day and night. They'll eat anything I toss out on the ground. I don't know where they all are coming from. Well, that's not really true. While I don't know for sure, I suspect the new ones are coming from the flooded river bottom lands near us. While the floodwaters have crested and should be receding, the deer may stick around a while now that they are finding people's deer feeders. Of course, once deer hunting season starts, they wise up and become a lot more reclusive. Unfortunately, there's a lot more coyotes lately, undoubtedly pushed up out of bottom lands by flooding as well. We wanted to live surrounded by wildlife when we bought this place, and we probably got a lot more wildlife than we expected, but I'd rather live surrounded by the wild things than live in a city with little to few wild things around. We are very fortunate here. Unlike some parts of our county, we do not have any roadways or bridges under water, so at least there's that.

Wondering who is getting rain and how much? Here's the 60-day rainfall map from the Mesonet:

Mesonet Map of Rainfall for Last 60 Days

Dawn
jlhart76
5 years ago
Looks like the majority of things are fine despite our low temps. A few bit the dust, but the tomatoes still look good, the basil made it (trying to get some seed for next year so I really don't want to harvest yet), and the peppers are sulking but ok.

Sorry to hear about Jet. Our puppies are so much a part of the family that it hurts to lose them.
OklaMoni
5 years ago
jlhart, let me share a basil picture with you. :)

Basil was planted in late May. Then I was gone till late August.

Cut one of the basil plants WAY down, and look at the group,

plus that one now. ;)
jlhart76
5 years ago
Moni, that's one of the things I love about basil. It takes my abuse and keeps on growing. I have 3 right now that are going to seed, looks like a couple more weeks & they'll be ready, so I'm hoping the frost stays away until then. Otherwise I won't have seed for next year.
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago

Nancy, I cut the Aji Dulce down to a stem a couple weeks ago, and now look at it.
hazelinok
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Catching up...

First, so sorry about Jet, Dawn. I know you'll miss him. It's always so hard.

I did not make the vegetarian version. Usually, I'll fix it vegetarian and fry up some hamburger meat for the meat eaters to add. This time, it was just me who was vegetarian, so I made it the normal way. I didn't eat. Well, I had a Coke Zero and some apple cake. I wasn't very hungry. I have been considering adding meat back into my diet for nutritional reasons. Haven't done it yet, but did order a small turkey from Natural Grocers for Thanksgiving. I was like the Portlandia people in the video I posted a few days ago on FB. "Tell me about the turkey...." It's a certified organic, free range turkey. I also contacted OSU OKC for some local farms that sell meat.

Jen, I really enjoyed The Hunger Games books. That's what I call it when I throw out something yummy for the chickens--Chicken Hunger Games. OR we have Fun Friday toys at school. The kids stand behind the half court line while we toss out the toys. I always use the bullhorn speaker and say, "may the odds be ever in your favor". We get a kick out of it. They (both the children and chickens) scramble to find something, there's wailing, and crying, and fighting (or clucking and squawking) ...sorta like when the tributes come up in those clear cylinder things and then it opens and they're running to get weapons and other items. We're really not that mean, we comfort everyone and assure them that everyone will get a turn. It is sorta amusing though.

Your Halloween tree sounds adorable, Dawn. I like the idea of a seasonal tree, but I can see by February, you'll have your mind on gardening and might not feel like dealing with the tree.

Thanks for sharing your pics, Rebecca and Moni. I enjoy seeing everyone's gardens.

I still have a lot of peppers to pick. We seem to be in the clear as far as frost goes for a couple of weeks, so maybe they'll get a little bigger and then I'll do a second pepper harvest and probably just chop and freeze this batch.

Many of the plants look unhappy with the cold temperature, but they aren't dead yet. Actually some of the Armenian cucumbers are dead. Not sure why though.

The basil is looking a little sad too. It almost looks like something has been snacking on it. Rosslyn Kaye is the hen who has been getting out lately, but I didn't think hens ate basil.

Anyway...I have a very busy (rest of the) week ahead. I will try to check in and keep up. OBA is Saturday at Broken Arrow, so we will be shopping and preparing for that after today. Tom will be on his own tomorrow because it's my long work day, (and we're making these ridiculous YouTube videos that I am in. Talk about being out of your comfort zone!) but he can fill the propane tanks and purchase the pork butts. We'll do Sams on Thursday. Stock the trailer on Friday. Anyway...take care everyone.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
I've been missing in action from here and FB the past couple days. I got lost. I got lost on Goodreads. Anyone here on Goodreads? Well I WAS on Goodreads, but hadn't checked in for like five years. . . and in the meantime changed email addresses. To my EXTREME consternation, Goodreads couldn't find me!!!! So I had to start from square one on my books.

Mind you. Books were my first love and have been a great love of mine all my life. Five years ago, I swear I could list every single book I'd ever read, by remembering what age I was. There were a lot--and of course, I probably forgot some. But I was up to like 500 or so.

Interesting in re-creating the past two days. My memory is not as clear. That was really interesting. Proof of the aging thing. I'm not really upset about it so much as just fascinated. Also, my focus has shifted a bit. We're always the same person, kind of, that we always were, and yet not.

Jacob!!!! Are you there??? Take notes. KEEP A JOURNAL!!!!!

Beatrice Woods, an AMAZING person and artist. An enchanting personality. She journaled. . . and published an autobiography in her 90s. No way could she have done it without journaling. Thoreau!

Jacob, just saying. JOURNAL, and be disciplined about it!! :)

My mother actually used to get mad at me when I was a kid, and would say, "Would you get your nose out of that book and get outside to get some fresh air?" Can you imagine????? I to this day feel GUILTY when I read, instead of "accomplishing something." Thanks, Mom! SHEESH! (My solution to that was to go climb up our maple tree with my favorite book and read up in the maple tree! Genius, don't you agree? LOL That was one of my very favorite places to be, outdoors. My older brothers built a kind primitive sorta treehouse platform up there, but they grew tired of it, so it was my special place.

So for two days I've been listing books I've read on Goodreads. And it has made me so nostalgic! Furthermore I've discovered another 40 books or so that I need to read! AGGHH. I told GDW tonight that I don't plan on sleeping for the next two days. Got too much to do.

Oh my gosh, I was in salsa HELL today. Well not even! I was in pre-salsa HELL. I took all the tomatoes out of the freezer--10 1-gallon bags, and set them out to thaw so I could run them through the sauce maker. I had no idea how long it takes for tomatoes to thaw out. A long time. AGGH. So, I began putting a bag at a time into defrost mode in the microwave. I had the oven on, so put bags on top of the stove. I had THE BIGGEST mess in the kitchen. It turned out to be pretty much an all-day affair. I was fit to be tied. Hey! THERE's an expression--are the rest of you familiar with it? Truly, I was in the kitchen all day long, and the worst part of it was that the kitchen was filthy when I ended. This was a DIFFICULT day.

On the up-side, While I was waiting for tomatoes to thaw, I could be in here building my book list on Goodreads. Also having to wait for phone calls to complete my responsibilities with Mom's end of life issues. I've been so freaked out and pressured by this. I will be SO thrilled to just be able to mourn her death, celebrate her life, and MISS her six months from now. For the past 3 months it has been nearly unbearable stress, trying to get her affairs and end-of-life issues settled.

I had to laugh at the basil stuff, you guys, so went out and took pics of the jillions of basils I have this year. Moni--Jen.

Rebecca--aji dulces are monsters. Don't think I'm gonna grow them next year! LOLOL. BUT, I DO admire them! SHEESH. My favorites this year are the Marconis (they get BIG), the Charleston bells (they get BIG), the Ashe County pimentos, and the , the , the. . . . forget what they are. Get back to y'all on that. :)

Okay, here's the deal. I'm trying to bargain with God. I told Him I need another 40, at least years here. Got too many books to read, too many gardens to grow, too many good things to do, too much to learn about Him. I am on a growing-in-love binge. . . .

I haven't begun to digest that Mom is gone. Mom has been in my life for my whole 70 years!
So it's like she's always there. . . even though we don't talk real often. But since the 1980s, I always had to go back to check on them at least once a year, and sometimes twice or three times a year. I didn't have a lot of money. SO, I never had a choice of traveling other places. I'm definitely processing stuff. My heart, my mind, my feelings. . . everything is kinda topsy-tervy. I've had some great people helping me through these quagmires of rules--Mom's Nursing Home director, and, believe it or not, a director of Medicaid for Wyoming. I was lucky enough to get HER, because my area manager had quit. I know most of you don't understand the exact deal. . . but let me just say. . . . it is an absolute nightmare at the exact time you do not need a nightmare. And I got two angels. Mom's nursing home director, and the main Medicaid manager in Wyoming. And both of those people (women), were AMAZING.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
jlhart76
5 years ago
I work for Medicaid, so I can understand. My office is next to our call center, so I get to listen to them talk to people all day. Those people are amazingly patient. I understand it's stressful, but when they keep repeating "if you don't stop cursing me, I will hang up....ma'am I am trying to help you if you'll just let me finish..." all day long, I have to admire their restraint. There's a reason I don't take phone calls.

Goodreads...It's been a while since I logged in. I've slacked off on my reading, so maybe I should pick that back up.
luvncannin
5 years ago
I am not a cat person but they are cute.

Basilis
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Jen, I always let my basil go to seed right in the garden. It comes up everywhere the next Spring, and I just yank out (or transplant) the seedlings that spring up in places where I don't want them, and let the others stay. Abundant reseeding is one of my favorite things about basil---once you get it going and growing in your garden, you never have to plant it again unless you just want to add new varieties. Mine is all going to seed now and I'm making mental notes about where to expect to see seedlings next year. I used to go to tons of trouble to collect, dry, bag and label seeds of all sorts so I could sow them the next year and gradually came to the realization that Mother Nature would do all that sort of seed-saving and planting for me if I just left her alone and didn't interfere in the process. I am amazed at how well it works. Sometimes I am surprised when seedlings pop up 20 or 40' away from where the basil grew the previous year, but surprises like that are fun.

If you don't get seed for next year, I can dig up seedlings, pot them up and bring them to you.

Moni, Basil thrives on neglect, doesn't it? I think it is one of the hardiest things I grow when it comes to being able to just plant it and forget it. I think it is great that you planted yours before you went off on your European adventure, and then came back and had it still there, growing and just waiting for your return.

Rebecca, I found it was possible to cut back peppers, pot them up and keep them going for years if I wanted to bring them indoors in the winter. We have house cats, though, so it was harder than it sounds in terms of keeping the cats out of them. For a few years I overwintered them in the unheated greenhouse, but I haven't done that in a few years---we always have a few nights even in the warmest winter where I do need to put a heater out there or lose plants like the peppers, and I really don't like having to drag out a heater and extension cord to do so. I know plenty of people heat a greenhouse all winter and keep it fall of plants, but I'm not one of them....having learned long ago that a warm greenhouse attracts mosquitoes and field mice in winter, I decided that a cool greenhouse was preferable, even if it means I cannot overwinter peppers

Jennifer, You need to eat, woman! For the nutrition and all. I do understand about not being hungry, though, especially if you've been working in a hot kitchen. When I make a more time-consuming meal, like fried chicken with all the fixings, by the time I'm through frying the chicken and making everything to go with it, I'm often too hot and too tired to eat it myself. This might explain why we don't have home-made fried chicken very often. When Chris was a kid, that always was his chosen meal for his birthday dinner.

There are some local farmers on our FB gardening pages who raise local meat and who do so organically. To me, that sounds fairly hard to accomplish because organic feed apparently is hard to find in OK, so some of them source it by the truckload from Texas. I'll try to compile a list of them the next time I'm on a FB farm group page with a few minutes to spare so I can jot down the names of their farms. Sometimes the farmers I follow on FB aren't necessarily carrying their own line of meat, but they source it from another local farmer who doesn't sell at farmer's markets and they'll have it at their farmer's market sale days so their customers can pick up meat while getting their CSA shares or while making produce purchases. You also might find locally grown organic meat through the Oklahoma food co-op.

I cannot even imagine how busy you and Tom will be this weekend, and doing all the preps prior to the weekend. I hope all goes well and that the kids do well at OBA. At least it seems like the weather will be sunny and pleasant, which will be so nice for all involved.

Nancy, I've always been a voracious reader but have less and less time to read as the years march on, it seems. There's always so many things to do, and so little time.

Salsa Hell has been the theme of my summers for as long as I can remember. I took this year off and it has been amazing!!!!! I have loved every minute of not being in the kitchen making salsa, but as I count the dwindling jars of 2017 salsa in our pantry, I know I will need to break out all the frozen tomatoes, peppers and onions soon and have my own Salsa Hell weekend. Maybe in early November or something. We'll see. I haven't missed all the mess, the endless hours spent prepping, or the clean-up. I haven't missed the hot, steamy kitchen either. Sometimes, when someone posts whatever they are canning on FB, I miss canning for a minute, then remind myself I'm on a break and I get over it quickly. I have been looking at all the empty jars stacked in storage tubs in the closet in the spare room and thinking how odd it is to have than many empty jars. Not odd enough, of course, for me to suddenly take up canning like crazy again. I don't think I'll ever go back to full-fledged, summer-long canning like I used to do. When I resume canning in 2019, it will be more limited and basically for our family, not me canning everything under the sun to give away. I just don't want that huge workload any more. I might make candied jalapenos, apple pie jam and salsa to give our nieces and nephews in Texas for Christmas, if I can get motivated between now and then. I've given them salsa, candied jalapenos, jam and jelly for so long for Christmas that they expect it and I do hate to disappoint them. Even my nephew's best friend expects me to show up this year with a case of goodies for him, and I don't want to disappoint him either. I could knock out enough for all of them in one weekend, if I am organized and don't have any big distractions.

I know the expression fit to be tied well and there are days that it applies to me as well. I suppose it is an old expression, but it is a good one.

I know it is hard to process that your mom has departed from this earth, but I think she still is with you in a lot of ways. I talk to my dad inside my head all the time, and I hope he hears me....and he has been gone for over 14 years now. Your mom is out there somewhere just like my dad is.....it just is hard for us to picture them because we've never been to Heaven and don't know exactly what form it takes. I have faith that it exists and that they are there.

I'm glad you've have two sweet angels on your side as you deal with all the end-of-life issues. It is complicated for sure. My parents made all their final arrangements and paid for everything when we were kids in the 1970s, wanting to spare us from all that. Later on, as they aged, they did all the POA medical, legal and financial paperwork and such which has made everything easier for us to deal with in their later years, and added my brother to their financial stuff so he could handle all that end of it. This has been a lifesaver for sure. He has done a great job of handling mom's finances, and I am his backup so I often joke that he has to outlive mom so I won't have to try to deal with all that stuff from afar. So far, so good, as she is 89 and he is 61. I know how lucky I am to have him there, living just a mile or so from her, and keeping an eye on her daily.

The furbabies are adorable and clearly enjoying autumn. I can tell our nights are getting colder, because Lucky finally has decided to let me 'catch' her and bring her in at night, though not until after dark. She's made a fun game of staying outside at night all summer, which drives me crazy with all the wildlife around here, and she likes to run at you when you call her, but she turns and veers away so you cannot catch her. That is fun for her. Last night she was cured up on her bed on the porch when I went out to call her around 10 pm and she just let me pick her up and bring her in. Normally, in better weather, she'd jump and run, hoping I would follow her and join the game. It is possible that the coyotes lurking nearby at night recently might have helped her decide it is better to come indoors.

We remain cloudy, foggy, misty and drizzly each and every day, but the amount of rainfall accumulating in the gauge now generally is less than 0.10" per day so the mud is not getting much worse. Of course, in these conditions it isn't drying up either. With the weather being too cool for snakes to be out, I ventured out into the garden for almost an hour yesterday. I just spent the time pulling up the endless morning glories, bindweed and cypress vines that seem to sprout daily, and manage to climb all over other plants when I'm not out in the garden daily. I pulled a huge pile of them and left them in the pathway to dry out. I'll haul them out of there later. I noticed that the Texas hummingbird sage plants are huge and making tons of seeds as I finally stopped deadheading them. They are prolific reseeders. There's still a ton of flowers in bloom, but not many butterflies or bees visiting them in this weather. I did notice tiny bees and other pollinators (likely tiny parasitic wasps) all over the flowers on the parsley plants yesterday, so at least someone besides me was in the garden. Well, Lucky was there too, and some crickets. Pumpkin is "over" the garden at this point and all he wants to do is climb the arbor and sit on top, or walk along the top wooden rail of the fence 8' above ground. Maybe he thinks he can get a bird if he is that high up, but the birds have mostly gone south so I'm not sure what he is thinking. (Not that he gets many birds because I yell at him when I see him even trying to do so.)

The river is completely out of flood stage here now and falling, but Lake Texoma remains in trouble. They're releasing water as much as they can within reason (without flooding folks downstream from the lake), but it still looks like the Kingston area of Marshall County is going to experience severe flooding issues. When this happened in 2015, there were roadways cut off there that left folks trapped in their homes for weeks unless they have a boat to take them in and out. I fear that may be about to happen in that area again. This is one of the hazards of living too close to the river and to the lake.

Sunshine is in the forecast for the weekend. I cannot wait. It has been a while since we've seen it. I don't want for us to go back to having highs in the 90s, but at least getting to see the sun would be a nice change.

I'm running out of ways to keep myself busy indoors while the outdoors remains so yucky, so I started making my cats a cardboard haunted house scratcher like the one Target sells. Mine won't look as good as Target's, but the cats will enjoy it just as much. The Target one looks like this:

Target Cat Scratch Haunted House

Isn't that cute? I'm using theirs as inspiration but mine won't be quite as fancy. I did most of the background painting yesterday. Today I just have to cut out the doorways and do the decorative painting of the trees, pumpkins, ghosts and such. I gladly would have gone to Target and bought them one but by the time I discovered them online, they were sold out....and, unfortunately, the nearest Target to us is more than 50 miles one way, so we don't drop in there often. If we lived in a town with stores instead of living out here in the sticks, I bet I would have discovered this early enough to get them one. The cats are about as fed up with the endless drizzle and mud as I am, so they'll love having something new to play with.

Dawn
hazelinok
5 years ago
I love the cat haunted house! Your cats will have so much fun. I'm sure you're having fun making it, Dawn.

And don't worry. I eat. Quite a bit and quite often. I just wasn't hungry that night. We had eaten at Ted's for lunch.

Love the picture of your cats, Nancy.

I'm ready for it to be 8:00, so I can go home. So tired today. Wine Wednesday.
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago
Nancy, whenever my mom told me to go get some fresh air, I just took the book outside and plopped down in a lawn chair with it. I’m also redesigning my pepper garden for next year. No hot peppers, no Aji Dulce. Maybe a sheepnose pimento, but really just a few bells. I love Charleston Belle, too, but mine didn’t do anything this year. Really, the few peppers that did anything were unpalatably bitter. Don’t know what I did, never had that before.

HJ, my friend used to be vegetarian, but had to start eating meat again, partly for nutrition, but also because she was having trouble being grounded enough for her practice, and was told that eating some meat will do that. Still doesn’t eat red meat, and is mostly vegetarian, though. I’d like to thing we get enough grounding from gardening, but she is not a gardener.

I cannot get any spinach or lettuce seed to grow to save my life. I’ve replanted 3 times with this years seed, twice right before rainy periods. Nothing. I also have green beans coming up, hopefully they will have time to make something before we freeze. Sugar snaps aren’t doing anything either.

Kinda feeling like a garden failure because I can’t grow those easy thingd right now.
hazelinok
5 years ago
Dawn, forgot to say "thank you" for the meat suggestions.

Rebecca, Nancy brought a pimento pepper for me (at the SF). I really, really like pimento peppers. They are much tastier than bells (to me!) I love them stir fried or even just sliced up on my salad. HUGE fan here.

I like hot peppers too, though.

What does your friend practice? I'm fairly sure that gardening called to me because it is so grounding. So good for me.

It will probably be easier for me to eat beef rather than chicken. I haven't committed to it yet, but am going to try. Before becoming vegetarian, some meat freaked me out. Because it's almost like I could feel if it had suffered in life. Some meat didn't. (I realize that sounds crazy and it could all be in my imagination.) When/if I do eat meat, it will probably only be 2 or 3 times a week...just enough to get some of those trace nutrients.

I'm so happy to be home. I can't wait to get into the salt bath and bed. So, SO happy Ethan doesn't have to be awake so early and we can all sleep until 7:30 or so.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Haha, Rebecca. . . I would have had to hide the lawn chair a couple blocks away. HAHAHA re re-designing the pepper garden!!! I was doing a lot of muttering today! I finished up Salsa Hell (Dawn, I am so so happy you liked the description!!) And then went to cutting and freezing a whole tub of peppers; and roasted a big batch of poblanos. And finally got the kitchen back to a semblance of order and cleanliness.

AND so, there were a ton of pepperoncinis left in the tub that weren't crisp enough for me to care about, so tossed those. A bunch of jalapenos that don't have any heat now, so tossed those. But the GAMBAS (that's the other good one I was trying to remember--they look almost exactly like the Ashe County pimentos, my new favorite.) The gambas are awesome, too.

And so like you, am redesigning MY pepper bed for next year too. BUT I changed my mind on aji dulce. They are nicely crisp, so I will grow one next year. I read that they are delicious in stir fry, and you have to admit, they're cute.

AND then went out and mowed the whole yard in nothing flat. I attribute that to the fact that the temp was 69% and that I haven't smoked for 2 weeks. :)

Love the little cat haunted house, Dawn, and loved your description of the cats now that fall's here.

The little spoiled brat Tiny. He can have ATTITUDE! He adores me. I of course adore him. I'm kinda maybe too protective of him when he's outside. There are some dogs nearby that chase cats, and I'm sure would kill them if they could. I keep a careful eye on Tiny to make sure he knows his yard and follows his brothers' advice. So I generally bring him into the house by 6 and don't let him back out again. Well last week, he'd eaten at 5 and gone back out. I went out to get him at six and he growled mightily and almost had a fit. I thought I'd hurt him, at the time. Now I've figured out, no, he's just telling me he's grown up and can take care of himself. LOLOL And so since then, he's growled more, I laugh, and have given him more latitude. We're workin' it out.

Dawn. . . yes, with regard to our loved ones leaving us. My Dad died in 2002. I ADORED Dad. He was the gentlest, kindest person ever. AND, though his family had never taught him anything about gardening he grew a great garden. I'll never forget one of his greatest lessons to me. He invited me to go along whenever he went somewhere. For example, he was an electrician and often had to go to the country to fix folks' electrical problems. (By the way for all you old-timers, one of the people he went out to see was the movie actor, Robert Taylor. He had a small ranch in Johnson County Wyoming. I had no idea who HE was, of course, but I do remember he had the most remarkable nice blue eyes and he was very nice. Dad and little me, we'd sit at the Taylor's table after Dad fixed the problem, and we'd have cookies and visit.

But I digress. The LESSON: We were driving down to Mayoworth. . . a rural neighborhood about an hour away from where we lived, in Buffalo, Wy. Quietness made me nervous. I thought if I was with someone, there had to be talk. And my Dad didn't talk much. So although I idolized him and adored him, I thought he must not like my company much or me, since he didn't talk.

So I thought I had to perform and get him to like me, so I'd start chattering, talking, anything. I knew while I was chattering that I was chattering nonsense. ..

On one trip down to Mayoworth, Dad said to me. . . " Nancy, we don't always have to talk. If YOU don't have something you really need to say, you don't have to talk. "
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago
HJ, she is a professional astrologer, psychic, and medium. One of my old college roommates. Amazing person, amazing gift, beautiful heart. I’d trust her with my life.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Jennifer, I'm hoping you were able to finally make it home, enjoy Wine Wednesday, and get some rest. You cannot go into this weekend too tired! Some other weekend, yes, but not this one because you are going to stay so busy.

Rebecca, Hmmm, pepper bitterness generally only is a problem is you are harvesting them and using them green. They only truly shed the bitterness when allowed to ripen to their full mature color, but there are different degrees of bitterness along the time scale so that the further peppers progress away from being younger and smaller to being older and larger, though still green, the more the bitterness usually fades. I don't know of any weather or nutrient condition that makes them more bitter, but if I run across any description of something that does, I'll try to remember to come back here and tell you.

When our mom told us to go out and play, it was pretty easy for me to go out, play a very short while, and then quietly slip back into the house and go into my bedroom and read. With 4 kids coming and going, if you were quiet once you were indoors, you could get away with that.

With the seeds that you're sowing that won't sprout, are you surface sowing? That is what works best with me with green seeds---I broadcast sow on the surface of the growing medium and don't cover them up. I do lightly pat them down so they have good soil contact. I don't know if the seeds of greens necessarily need light to sprout, but I know they sprout better (and at a higher germination rate) for me if I don't cover them with soil. I got lower germination rates and slower germination when I covered them, even lightly, with anything---even compost or the lightest amount of peat moss.

You are NOT a garden failure. It is either the seeds or the growing conditions that are failing you, so be kind to yourself and please stop feeling like a failure. If I were to allow myself to feel like a failure every time something in the garden doesn't go my way, I'd be so depressed and disheartened that I'd give up gardening. Instead, I push on relentlessly, overplanting everything, figuring if one thing doesn't work, another one will. And, on a lighter side, this is Oklahoma where the weather is cray-cray, so just blame the weather when something fails!

Jennifer, You're welcome, and I agree that gardening is grounding. I feel like it surely is as good for our bodies as it is for our souls.

I understand how you feel about meat, and I think you are not imagining it---you just have a soul that likely communicates with the souls of the animals. I feel that same way about people, especially native people here in the USA. When we visit a state park, for example, which is the scene of large battles between the native Americans and the European invaders who called themselves Americans, I swear I can feel the souls of the native Americans talking to me....like, I am walking in their shoes on their land, though not in a literal sense as I am not at war with anyone. I feel their pain and suffering when I walk an area like that--not in an intellectual way, but in a true emotional/intuitive way. The first few times it happened to me, I felt quite unsettled by it and then I decided to just accept it and to not try to overanalyze it or to fight it.

I hope y'all enjoyed sleeping in today.

Nancy, I really used to live in pepper hell because I'd grow 15 or 20 kinds of peppers and wear myself out trying to preserve them all. Now I grow only a few kinds, and only the ones we adore most, and it has made the pepper section of the garden easier to control, and has made the inevitable kitchen mess/workload more manageable too. When we first moved here and I finally had a sunny space to grow stuff (in the city, we had far too much shade so my garden was tiny), I grew far too much of everything. It was fun, but the garden and my life both are more manageable now that I have cut back and am trying to grow only enough excess beyond what we eat fresh to give us some food to preserve instead of trying to grow as much as possible and then ending up worn out from dealing with all the excess. It did take me about 15 years of growing far too much of everything before I started cutting back, and I still am trying to get the balance right so we have enough of each thing, but not too much of anything. Well, with tomatoes, I'll likely always grow too many just because I like to have a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors and flavors. If growing too many tomatoes is my worst garden vice, then I think I'll be okay.

Tiny will learn. Even Yellow Cat, who roamed our neighborhood for a good 10-12 years as a semi-feral cat before deciding to move in with us for his retirement years, still had to learn. After a lifetime of dodging wild things, he still liked to come inside and sleep all day and roam all night, which made me nervous. After a bobcat chased him up onto the roof of our house during the middle of the night, and I awakened to horrible screaming and had to quickly open a second story window to bring him in off the porch roof, he quite abruptly became an indoor cat at night, and outdoor by the day. By then he must have been 14 or 15 years old at least. He might have learned the lesson of nighttime safety a bit later than I would have liked, but he learned it, and then he lived for several more years to enjoy his retirement before he died of old age.

My dad was naturally quiet by nature, and I took after him, so I never really was a chatterbox. Our oldest granddaughter? She'll talk 24/7 if you'll let her, and I never knew constant chatter could wear me out until now. We are trying to teach her that it is okay to ride in the car, for example, in companionable silence if you don't really have anything to say that isn't just mindless chatter. It is getting better, bit by bit, but we have a ways to go yet.

We got drizzly, drippy, mostly misty rain most of the day yesterday, so no sunshine yet again and today is expected to be pretty much the same. The heavier rain is expected tomorrow. I miss the sunshine. The amount of mud we have is unreal. In the back where I feed the deer, the mud is just a churned up mess, so I keep moving the feeding area to grassier spots without as much bare ground showing, though the deer don't like change.

The dogs and cats both are going stir-crazy from being indoors so much, and I am right there with them. Whenever I let them go out, or when I go out myself, because we are in between bands of rain/drizzle/mist and it seems wise to run outdoors while we can, it almost immediately starts to rain again. Just let me walk down to the mailbox without a raincoat or umbrella, and it will start to rain as soon as I am down there, 300' from the house. It happens every time. I'm so bored with being stuck indoors I have cleaned out the spice drawer and thrown away out-of-date spices, which meant (of course) making a list of the few that I threw out so I'd be sure to replace them this weekend. My constant cleaning out of drawers and things might be making Tim nervous. He survived the closet cleanout, but I haven't really touched his dresser drawers, nightstand drawers or anything in his office (where all the desk and printer table drawers are crammed full of stuff) and I think he might be worrying that someday when he is at work and I am bored, I might clean out the desk drawers and throw away some of his precious junk. Of course, I will not but the thought of it probably has him antsy. I am dying to get my hands on the garage/shop which is 1200 s.f. of 'stuff', some of which he actually needs and uses but much of which seems to be 'just in case we ever need it again' type clutter. I might make the garage/shop my 2019 project and work at it month by month. He'll have to be home when I do it though, so he won't worry I am throwing away too many of the things that he deems important.

On the other hand, we'll never move to another place again because just the thought of packing up that garage/shop building would make him decide that moving is not going to be worth it. (grin) Seriously, when we moved here, we knew this was our forever home. However, I didn't know that "forever" applied to every piece of anything ever put in the garage.

I'm really starting to get worried about the prospect of an El Nino winter. If the rain continues on through February the way it has been now, planting is going to be delayed for weeks if not months. I cannot decide whether to order my Dixondale onions for the usual early arrival date in February or to strategically order them to arrive 2 or 3 or maybe even 4 weeks later than usual in case the garden still is a mucky mud hole like it is right now. They've raised our chances of El Nino developing for winter here in the USA from 65-70% to 70-75%, so it is seeming more likely, even if it is going to be a Modiki El Nino instead of a regular one.

Dawn
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago
Explain Modiki please?
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Now I REALLY don't have time to sleep--for the rest of my life! Yeah, Dawn, I can only begin to imagine the next 60 books I either have to read for Goodreads, or probably some I have, on your lists.

This might seem silly to many of you. . . but because I loved books first in my life (BTW, was an English Lit major, before I was an art major), of all my interests, I always kept track of my books--well, especially all the books that meant something to me. I read a lot of trash--no memory of those whatsoever. I have had the most amazing trip, still ongoing, of books I've read, re-creating the list through my life.

And now I have like 30 new books I think I must read before I die. LOL

I tell ya. . . don't have time to die!

GDW went to town looking for 96" fluorescent bulbs for the art room. And of course there were none in Wagoner, so he went to Muskogee. We discussed this. I declined his invitation to ride along. I was into my Goodreads obsession.

But after he left, I felt guilty, as I always do about anything that has to do about reading, so went out to get after the Bermuda grass bed. I took the shovel down and went to town. I HATE BERMUDA.

I told myself I'd work on it til Garry got back. Then a long long time into it, I realized GDW had to go to Muskogee and thought OK, I can quit. But I couldn't quit, cuz I'd sworn to keep weeding til he got back. BOY was I glad to hear that truck pull into our driveway!

But I am SO excited about getting this bed cleared.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Rebecca, Normally, the Sea Surface Temperatures the scientists measure that will indicate that an El Nino is likely to be developing are measured in a specific region that runs westward from South American near and along the equator. Sea Surface Temperatures have to reach a certain amount above average for a certain number of months in that specific area before a classic El Nino is declared. The time frame has to equal five sliding 3-month periods....so April-May-June is one such period, May-June-July is the 2nd, June-July-August is the 3rd, etc.

Over time, scientists have discovered that sometimes, when those high SSTs are located more in the central Pacific than in the usual El Nino region, then we get a different sort of El Nino called a Modiki El Nino or El Nino Modiki. The difference in the classic and the Modiki is the effect they have on different parts of the world and, for our purposes, different parts of the USA.

So if you are used to seeing certain weather trends in your area when we have a classic El Nino, you might see different weather trends with a Modiki El Nino.

At the present time, most scientists believe we'll have a weak Modiki El Nino with effects less strongly felt in the USA. For my part of the state, NOAA translates that into odds we will have a warmer and weather winter....but not crazy precip numbers....just somewhat higher than usual. Your local weather forecasters ought to be showing the graphics that show what NOAA's winter weather forecast means for your part of the state.

Nancy, I have a long list of books to read, and grandchildren in the house for fall break from school, so I guess tonight the only book I'll be reading (aloud) is How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Now, I'm headed to their room to read that book. I know y'all are jealous that you are not reading this same book tonight. (grin)

Dawn
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Our local TV mets had the NOAA winter outlook graphs on the news last night and described what it likely meant for us. I assume all the TV mets at local stations do the same, and am sure the national evening news does the same because I saw it on the CBS Evening News last evening too.

In case y'all missed it, here's NOAA's Winter Outlook, released 10-18-2018. Note that the colors they use indicate the chance in percentages of, for example, above average, average or below average conditions. If your location is in a white area with no green and no brown shading, then your outlook is for EC (Equal Chances), which they define as a 33% chance conditions will be above normal, 33% chance conditions will be normal, and a 33% chance conditions will be below normal. The 'normal' conditions they are referring to are 30-year averages.

NOAA WInter Outlook for Winter 2018-19

Now, if someone wants to learn more about El Nino as well as how the various weather organizations interpret the data (hint: they all do not agree) and what their various outlooks say, there was a terrific post on this topic on Weather Underground yesterday. It was written by Bob Henson, and it shows how different organizations can interpret the same data and use it in their outlooks

WU Blog Post: US Outlook for WInter

In the years that I've lived in Oklahoma, I've learned that most of the time, the La Nina portion of the ENSO cycle means my part of the state will tend to be hot and dry and will suffer from drought. The El Nino portion tends to mean we will be wetter in winter, but some years we also are significantly colder and other years we aren't. For me, the important part isn't the heat or cold, but how much moisture falls because the moisture has more impact on the garden performance than the temperatures. There are plenty of years we are ENSO-neutral, with neither La Nina or El Nino developing. Sometimes one or the other of them tries to develop but then just runs out of steam and never really develops in a way that affects our weather. Of course, how much either La Nina or El Nino affects us can depend on its strength as well as the AO/NAO. Keep in mind that y'all may not be affected the same way that I am. Often, it feels like my weather is out-of-step with yours, like when all of you are getting plentiful rain and I am in drought, and vice versa. That has to do with my weather seeming to be more like the weather in Dallas than the weather in OKC or Tulsa.

Because of animal, bird and insect behavior that I've been observing for weeks and weeks now, I have been fearing a bad winter with colder than average weather, which would not be what NOAA's outlook is forecasting. Keep in mind though that we can have an above average or average winter in terms of temperatures but still have some really cold spells. And, we can have a ton of snow, but if it is dry snow that melts down to next to nothing in the rain gauge, we still could have what is technically classified as a dry winter.

I think NOAA's winter outlook for my area looks a bit better than I was expecting.....if they are right and if the conditions they expect do fully materialize. Even in the warmest of winters, though we still tend to have a big cold blast, usually in December, when our temperatures drop down into the single digits, so it isn't like we're expecting to have a Miami Florida type winter regardless.

I can see from the radar that patchy rain is making its way across the state this morning. Maybe this is the rain's last hurrah for this week, and maybe tomorrow we and our gardens will see the sun shine again. I'm contemplating planting my garlic in one of the tallest raised beds, or in containers, because our ground here isn't going to dry out for a long time even if the rain stops falling, and I don't think it will. In our area, this heavy autumn rainfall that has been occurring feels like the classic run-up to a wet El Nino type winter. With at least 17" of rain locally in the last couple of months, all the ponds and creeks are full, and rivers and lakes overflowing. It is worse to my immediate south in TX, where the DFW metro is having record-setting rain, having received about 24"+ of rain in the same period. While drought-breaking rain is great, the consequences down there are not good---flooding, roadways failing by sinking or cracking, etc.

Today's a grandchild day here at our house so no garden or garden dreaming or planning for me. Among other things, we are going to decorate Day of the Dead cookies and Jack O'Lantern cookies and we are going to make glow-in-the-dark slime. I think all of us gardeners have a little bit of a mad scientist within us, as we concoct our potions like compost tea and insecticidal soap, or perhaps garlic-pepper tea as a plant spray. Well, today, my inner mad scientist will be concocting Halloween season stuff indoors since I cannot be out playing in the dirt in the garden in whatever rain we get here. I'd rather be out in the garden, but the weather just refuses to cooperate.

Have a good day y'all.

Dawn
jlhart76
5 years ago
Nancy, I'm like you in tracking my books. Though I don't have nearly a fraction logged into goodreads. Most of what I have on there is my want-to-read lists. Between all of tthtthe recommendations from friends, "since you read this you might like that" and ones I've picked up, I think Ihave another 50 or so years' worth. And I've gotten out of the reading habit, so I really need to pick it back up.

Dawn, thanks for the offer for basils. Might take you up on it if I don't get seed. My biggest problem is I'm still figuring out where to planteverything so I don't have a lot of reseeders yet. In a few years when I get tired of rearranging everything each spring, I'll let things come up as they choose.
slowpoke_gardener
5 years ago
I am trying to put my garden to bed for the winter, but it sure needs a diaper change. It is too wet to do much, but I have to work when time and weather permits.
luvncannin
5 years ago
That is great Larry this rain is hard on a gardener isn't it .we don't get enough then we get too much. last night my grandson told me that I wasn't taking very good care of my garden this year just look at it I tried to explain that the weather was being hard on the garden not me
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Jen, If you need basil in the Spring, I'll have it for you.

Larry, My garden is the same sort of muddy mess. I cannot really do anything in there yet, but at least the sun came out today and for once, lately, it didn't rain. We did start out with heavy fog this morning, but at least there was no mist or drizzle. I'm hoping we can dry up some before the next round of rain comes along in 4 or 5 days from now.

Kim, It always seems like we either get far too little rain or far too much. I hope you were able to make him understand why too much rain is a problem. To me, too much rain really is worse than not getting enough because we always can water when there's not enough rain falling, but it is hard to impossible to easily remove excess moisture from the ground when too much rain falls. There have been years I've dug little trenches in the garden to carry away excess moisture, but I wouldn't go to that trouble at the end of the growing season like I would at the beginning of the season.

I believe our county has had record rainfall for the last two months---most ever for this particular time frame. It is not a record we want.

Dawn
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
I went out today, while it was drizzling all day. I cut out a lot of leaf lettuce for salad and yet more peppers for salad. I've been working working working. . . . tearing Bermuda out inch by inch.