According to my weather app, we have a 90% chance for 2” snow on Monday. Not fantastic but I don’t mind- Nov. can be like that some years. At least we didn’t get the 2” lonejack seems to have gotten up in KC. Our daily highs have ranged from the 30’s to mostly 40’s the last few days, and look to remain that way until later in the week (though Monday and Tuesday show highs just above freezing), then showing some low 50’s. Last night was 16 F here, and a station just a couple miles from us was reading 13 F early morning. Been pretty chilly. Somehow all of my Brussel sprouts, Swiss chard, and purple sprouting broccoli all survived unprotected. All my lettuce is covered over and is doing well. I had a nice salad last night, and I’m often cooking chard at breakfast.

Our leaves took absolutely forever to drop this year. They were real pretty in many areas (especially down in Newton County in the mountains around the Buffalo River), but they just turned brown around our house and didn’t drop until just last night. Lots of raking ahead of me tomorrow.

Our early morning temperature reached 18 F. yesterday. Took until mid day for the ground to thaw! I think my turnips and daikon radishes survived.

Its 41 F. with a low on my gauge of 39 F. this morning. It was down to 23 F a day or 2 ago, My turnips, daikon and collards all look ok, but most of what I have left is in the wildlife garden across the hwy, which has not been amended and is very muddy. It seems to really make a difference when a lot of organic matter is added to the soil. I can walk in the two gardens that I have in the lawn and not get my shoes muddy. Getting to the gardens is another story, my lawn has some very muddy spots.

Dawn, I saw on last week's thread that you and little miss were doing Christmas crafts. Care to share? I'm always looking for new craft ideas, especially for kiddos.

I need to get out and do some yard cleanup. I need to do some house cleanup. I need to do a lot of things. Instead, I'm sitting on my duff scrolling facebook and contemplating a nap.

Hey Everyone! Good to see some posts. All the kids around here are all amped up from the weather forecasts and hoping for a snow day. I'm afraid they won't get it.

We had a busy weekend and I'm tired. Luckily I only work a half day on Sundays, so was able to take a little nap before tonight's activities. I am grateful for that. Normally I have Mondays alone at the house to recharge. I enjoy the quiet and such, but Tom is off work for the holiday, so it won't be quiet and restful. And, we probably won't get much done because of the weather. I'm so, so grateful for a week out of school next week. I'll work some at my other job, but it will be laid back and relaxed hopefully.

I really have very little useful or interesting to say--just dropping in to say "hi".

Jen, what age group of kids are you wanting craft ideas for?

Jacob, I would expect you and Lone Jack to have snow in mid-November of at least some years. I wouldn't expect it to happen to me here in southern OK where it was 77 degrees one day last week---might have been Wednesday. Thankfully any snow that fall this far south likely will melt as it hits and will be mixed with rain. Most trees still are heavily loaded with green leaves, so if snow were to stick to all those leaves, trees could come down under the heavy weight of it all. The snow might not even happen here....they have it in the forecast, but they've been wrong about the temperatures the last two days (Saturday's forecast low was 36 and we only dropped to 44 or 45, and we stayed warmer than forecast this morning too) so it is hard to trust the forecast.

George, That is awfully cold for this early. I hope this early cold is not a sign of things to come.

Larry, Yesterday I noticed I could walk in parts of the yard without sinking into the mud and I was so excited because at least that is progress. This morning I woke up to rain, so we probably will stop making progress towards drier soil.

Jen, Most recently, we bought a Pom Pom kit at Sam's Club that had a book of project plans, two sets of pom pom rings, yarn, glue and felt and she learned how to make pom pom animals. She had a ball with that little kit last Saturday and Sunday, making a lamb for me, a bunny for herself, a chick for her little sister and a squirrel for Tim. She had so much fun with it that she asked her mom for a similar Pom Pom kit for Christmas so she can do crafty things at her house too. She asked me if I'd buy more yard (not very much came with the kit) so she could make more animals, so I bought her four skeins of yarn in colors appropriate for animals.

She spent a significant part of this past Sat and Sun making more pom pom animals---some reindeer for Christmas presents for Chris and Jana, and a whole set of chickens (rooster, hen, and six chicks I think) to give to her little sister for Christmas. We might crochet a nest for the chicks if we have another day together when her little sister is not here. She is discovering the joy of making gifts for people and she loves the idea that she can make gifts herself, putting her own time, energy, love and creativity into them. The next time she is here we are going to make a pom pom Christmas wreath. Instructions for those are all over the internet. The kids also want to make a gingerbread house for Christmas and gingerbread ornaments for the tree, though I think we won't make those until just after Thanksgiving. We might make cinnamon ornaments too (using the popular recipe on the internet that uses cinnamon and applesauce, which I've used before).

This child could craft endlessly, so I filled up a storage tote with all sorts of random craft supplies like yarn, craft foam in a rainbow of colors, felt in a rainbow of colors, small to medium sized small pom poms in a huge variety of sizes and colors and pipe cleaners. She already had a limited amount of craft supplies here, but I kicked it up a notch with a lot more. It will be fun to see where her imagination takes her. When her mom was here on Friday, they came up with the idea to buy rainbow yarn and make a pom pom unicorn. Imagination is a wonderful thing.

One thing I got out of all this weekend crafting is that every pair of scissors in our house needed to be sharpened, so while she was making the pom poms, I was sharpening scissors. I sharpened all the scissors except my Fiskars garden scissors, which the kids don't use.

She and I often Google craft ideas for children just to see what we can find. There's tons of great projects on the internet and I remember tons of them from Chris' childhood. All summer she was obsessed with making slime. We now have about 30 half-pint jars of slime as you can make all kinds of it....regular slime, fluffy slime, sandy slime, glow-in-the-dark slime, and slime in many different colors with all sorts of things (sequins, tiny pom poms, beads, etc.) in it. I feel all slimed out, so am hoping the pom pom obsession lasts a while and leads us away from the slime obsession.

She also has been using embroidery floss and beads to make jewelry and is especially partial to using alphabet beads to make jewelry for various people that features their name as part of the necklace or bracelet.

This coming weekend we might make turkeys or something to decorate the Thanksgiving table and we're going to make a thankful tree (a spray-painted tree branch with lots of twigs on it stuck into a flower pot) where we can cut out paper or foam leaves and people can write the things they are thankful for on the leaves and stick them on the tree. I'm trying to make sure Thanksgiving doesn't get lost in the rush to Christmas and also want for the kids to remember why we celebrate Thanksgiving. Plus, the 4 year old will be with us too this coming weekend so we have to do some simpler craft things that will hold her attention and that aren't too difficult for her to make.

I think we are going to kick off the Christmas season next weekend by going to see The Grinch and then taking the kids to IHOP to eat The Grinch pancakes. I bet after that experience we will come home and probably make a Grinch from green pom poms because their crafting activity usually is driven by something they recently have experienced in some shape, form or fashion.

Jennifer, I hope you get to enjoy your day today. Perhaps the rain and snow (not to mention the cold) will allow you to stay indoors and take a bit of a break. Some extra rest or just life at a slower pace would be nice, wouldn't it?

Last night when I closed up the chicken coop for the night I put fresh water and fresh food in the coop and told the chickens they were going to stay inside today and stay warm. I could tell from the way that they were looking at me that they were not happy with that announcement. It is likely they were reacting more to getting fresh water and food at night instead of in the morning than they were reacting to my words. If stomping around the coop in disgust because you just realized that tomorrow you're staying locked up is a chicken temper tantrum, then last night they were throwing a tantrum. I have left them inside all day on at least two previous autumn days when it was cold and rainy and the next day when they were allowed to come outdoors, they ran wildly out of the coop like children leaving school on the last day of the school year.

Without all this craft talk, I guess I wouldn't have much to talk about either. There's only so much we can say about abnormally early snow, bitterly cold wind chills, frozen garden plants, etc. I saw a lot of video on FB this morning of snow falling in various places in western OK, so somewhere in this state there's kids getting a snow day!

I think the overnight low on this coming Tuesday and Wednesday, currently expected to be in the mid-20s, will finish off everything left flowering in my garden except for the autumn sage which often stays green to semi-evergreen all winter and blooms on and off all winter.

I have a list of things I hope to get accomplished today since we definitely will be stuck indoors because of the rain. I've had my rain boots out for a couple of months now and have been wearing them almost daily, but last night I dragged out my fur-lined winter boots. The seasons are changing......raise your hand if you thought autumn weather would last through at least November and winter weather wouldn't arrive until December. I'm laughing here. I guess we should know by now that Oklahoma weather almost never does what we want when we want it, taking me back to my garden motto: you don't have to be crazy to garden here, but it helps.

Dawn

I'm antsy.

Sheets are washed and beds remade. Kitchen is cleaned up. That's it. I want to clean out closets and stuff and drive it all to a thrift store. Tom is being stubborn about doing that today. I suppose I can do it anyway...

Kids didn't get a school day.

Dawn, do you keep your chickens indoors on days like this OR does their coop have an attached run that they're allowed in. Mine are hanging out in the coop, but they went to the run to eat...and the door is open to the chicken yard, so one or two is going out for a bit and then going back to the coop. Because it's going to get so cold tonight, I am worried about them getting wet.

I really don't feel like going through seeds or doing any in depth gardening plans. I feel like I need to purge some of the extra stuff in our home first...and organize. They light shelf is loaded down with other stuff. I will need to buy quite a bit of seed this year. I didn't buy much last year--used up what I had. BUT, I will NOT start tomatoes until the first week of March. There is no reason to start them in January because I won't put them outdoors until mid April anyway. Just remembering those 24 inch plants that couldn't be planted last year because of the April freezes. This year's tomatoes were not my healthiest...it's amazing they did as well as they did. They got off to a rough start.

Maybe I'll walk out and look at the garden...

They were way, way off for snow totals here. Predicted total of 3”, and it looks to be mostly done and we didn’t even get an inch. It was pretty to watch all morning. If the temp hadn’t hit the low 50’s with the sun shining yesterday afternoon, the ground likely would have been a lot colder for it. Despite all of this, it’s cold outside. Looking at a low of 19 F tonight and 14 F tomorrow night. The forecast shows mostly 30’s the next few days for highs, but showing some low 50’s/upper 40’s late week into next week, no rain in sight. Could it be that the rain has suddenly completely subsided after such a soggy last month and a half?

Jennifer, I started some plans for next year’s garden, purely because I’ve been stuck inside with the incessant rains recently. My plans always change so much though. I just think it’s kind of fun, the only real reason I do it.

The carrots in my garden are so sweet after the recent cold....I somehow need to get a dozen cabbage heads fermenting in a bucket.

Jacob, where do you live, so I can come help you harvest your carrots (*evil grin*)?

I’ve never had to deal with two-legged varmints before. This is a new one.

You mean you never had birds attacking crops? Wow...they're two legged, right? :) No, I can buy carrots, though I'm sure yours are better.

This is a different weather year than I have ever seen we have snow before the cotton is in I am quite sure the farmers are not impressed going to see if this will post

HJ I'm a kid's minister, which for me means anyone under the age of 100. I firmly believe we should all never stop expressing ourselves and crafts are the best way to do so. But specifically, christmas ideas for our intergenerational class at church during December. We're going to do a short lesson on something to do with advent, then a hands on activity that relates. So far I have advent wreaths, chrismon ornaments, possibly something food related, and need one more idea. A lot of our members are elderly and going through the purge cycle so they really don't want "stuff". So things they can make for others (we also are affiliated with Jesus House which serves homeless individuals in OKC) would be good too.

Jen, that is my job too--one of them. We also have intergenerational classes especially during holidays.

My brain is fuzzy right now--bed time. But a couple of years ago, I ordered plastic round, clear bulbs. We filled them with things representing different aspects of the Christmas story. For example, a piece of straw to represent Jesus' humble birth. I can get a complete list once my brain is functioning again.

Also, crafts can sometimes just be fun in the moment and don't need to be taken home. OR the elderly can help the younger with crafts. We are trying to figure out how to do advent candles for all ages. THAT is proving to be challending.

One thing most kids like to do is take a clear jar and brush tissue paper with glue-y water onto the jar. They can choose the color theme. IF a family doesn't want a real candle, battery tea lights can be used. It takes awhile for the jars to dry...that's the only thing.

Another thing for small kids is take a candy cane shape out of cardstock. Have kids "pattern" red and white stripes with torn pieces of red and white craft paper. It's a great fine motor skill for the kids to tear the bits of paper, as well as a patterning skill. If you want, you can punch a hole at the top and the candy cane can become an ornament with a ribbon tied through it. Also, this can be done with wreath shapes and green craft paper. Add something interesting for the berries and ribbon.

Also, kids' handprints with fabric paint on Christmasy potholders/towels.

I know I have more. But I'm dozing off....

For the Jesus House (we just dropped off food there a couple of weeks ago) maybe buy some cheap gloves, and have the congregation make gift tags with encouraging words to attach to them. Yesterday, we took Thanksgiving baskets to Cross and Crown to be distributed, and the kids traced their hands and made turkeys out of the handprints. They wrote encouraging words on the cards. Maybe something like that for Christmas?

Jennifer, They chickens have an attached chicken run and I usually let them go out into it. Today I will do that, but yesterday I did not. I will keep them cooped up inside their chicken coop, which is plenty big enough for them to roam around inside it if the weather is changing drastically like it did here yesterday (our cold air almost always arrives later here than it does for you folks further north). I keep them penned up when the weather calls for very cold rain with bitterly cold temperatures/wind chill values. On just an average cold day, as long as the temperatures are not in the single digits, I let them outside, either in their chicken run or to free-range. Chickens are not rocket scientists and sometimes stay out in the cold rain so long they get hypothermia, which can kill them. It is rare, but occasionally it happens, so I protect my birds from their own lack of common sense by keeping them indoors on a very cold rainy day.

I don't feel like doing garden planning or seed reorganization or ordering yet either. I have to be in the right mood to do that stuff, and so far I am not.

Jacob, I suppose less snow is better, right? Laughing at the 2-legged varmint comment.

With the cabbage, do you mean to make sauerkraut? Just slice your cabbage, layer it in the bucket with salt, press it down firmly (and I mean really hard) to encourage the cabbage's natural juices to release, and time will take care of the rest. I simply use food-grade 5-gallon buckets to do this. Some people use a special sauerkraut tool like the one shown below (it is called a sauerkraut stomper), but I just use a wooden meat tenderizer or a metal potato masher to firmly press down on the sliced cabbage. Oh, and if you don't receive Lehman's catalog, you need to get on their list. They have great food preservation supplies.

Sauerkraut Stomper

dbarron, I'm sure Jacob's carrots would be better.....

Kim, Does this mean the cotton crop will be ruined by the snow? I've never heard of snow falling on cotton before they could get it harvested and baled.

Moni, I am jealous that you and Charlotte got to play in the snow! The snowpersons are cute.

Jen and Jennifer, Y'all have a much bigger challenge coming up with quick Christmas crafts for all ages that can be done in a group setting. The things I do with Lillie usually take quite a bit of time, but it is just the two of us and we have all day long.

Lately we've been watching all the Christmas Baking Challenge and Christmas Cookie Challenge shows on the Food Network and she is in love with all the fancy baked goods that they make. I've tried to explain to her that those folks have a level of training and experience that she and I never will achieve, unless she someday becomes a pastry chef.

No snow fell here, and our rain mostly fell while we were sleeping---only about 0.15" in the rain gauge, which was great since we didn't need a lot more mud. It sure is cold though, and I dread having to go out this morning to feed the animals. I am sure all of y'all are much colder than we are---currently it is 26 degrees here with a wind chill of 14, but it still is too dark to go outdoors. Tomorrow morning will be colder, so I just need to shut up and appreciate whatever coldness we have today because it will be warmer today than tomorrow.

How quickly we seemed to go from T-shirts and thin cotton leggings last week (77 degrees on our best day) to heavy coats sweats, thick sock, boots, hats and gloves this week. I suspect our winter weather has set it to mostly stay and we won't really warm up for long again---other than just a warm day or two here and there sprinkled in among the colder days. The long-term forecast for the rest of November looks cooler and wetter than normal, and there's nothing in the long-term forecast to make us think December will suddenly turn significantly more warm and sunny although I hope it does.

Dawn

Dawn, thanks for the sauerkraut tips. I do mean to make sauerkraut, and I will use your method. I suppose just salt to taste (as I've done in the past)? I also will check the catalog you referred to.

Kim, how much snow fell?

Brrr, 16 degrees again this morning, and it only made it to 30 degrees briefly this afternoon, now 29 degrees again. It is sunny though. Ground is frozen so no carrot digging for me today. Tomorrow's high is 35 so it'll likely be a bit before it fully thaws out....I need to go see the pond and check out if it's got some ice to it. Was beginning to form a thin sheet of ice yesterday evening. Always so pretty frozen in the winter. Oh, I picked a salad for lunch, which was very, very hard since my low tunnel was frozen into the ground...

EDIT: Pond was not frozen :( Was wishful thinking this early. I just love viewing it when it freezes.

Jacob, You're welcome. I believe the recommendation is 3/4s of a cup of salt to every 25 pounds of cabbage. I layer the cabbage, alternating with salt, for every few inches of cabbage in the bucket.....a layer of cabbage, then 3 or 4 tablespoons of salt scattered over it, then another layer of cabbage, then another thin layer of salt. When you 'stomp' the cabbage by pressing/mashing it down, you get water released. Often it is not enough water (at least mine never is, and I've wondered if my cabbages are low in water content because so often they are grown in drought) so you have to make a brine to cover your cabbage. I normally use the recipe from the Ball Blue Book, but I'll link the National Center for Food Preservation website here because they are, strictly speaking, the official source for safety-approved food preservation methods and recipes. I'm sure they'll mention this in their instructions, but the amount of time needed for fermentation to occur will vary a bit depending on the temperature at which you're fermenting the cabbage. Making sauerkraut is one of the easiest ways to preserve food and is a method that dates back centuries. In the olden days, folks kept a big barrel of sauerkraut in their cellars and, once it had properly fermented, just removed the sauerkraut as needed for meals. Once mine has fermented, I prefer to can it in quart jars for long-keeping.

NCHFP: Sauerkraut

We warmed up very slowly on Tuesday, but finally made it up to freezing just shortly after noon. Finally, by late afternoon we had hit 40 degrees. I won't say it felt warm, but that 40 degrees felt decent as long as you were out in the sunshine and not in the shade.

I can't believe your tunnels are frozen to the ground. That just seems so wrong when it isn't even Thanksgiving yet. We usually don't get cold here until at least the first week of December, so I still cannot wrap my mind around how cold it is so early in November. The stores here are full of fresh stock (finally) of cool-season bedding plants and I intend to buy some this weekend and plant them, now that I'm sure it won't warm up into the upper 70s or lower 80s again. I saw pansies, violas, dianthus, cyclamens (as small bedding plants for outdoors, not to be confused with large ones in pots more aimed at indoor growers), snapdragons, sweet alyssum and stock at Home Depot yesterday evening, already wheeled inside the store on big shelving units on wheels to keep the flats of plants from freezing overnight in the abnormally cold weather.

I'm awake in the ridiculous middle of the night because the dogs had to go outside, presumably to use the bathroom, but I think mostly it was to engage in a big howling contest with the coyotes, and now I am wide awake. When the dogs went out around 3:15 a.m., it was 20 degrees with a wind chill of 14. I think that makes this morning our coldest temperature since last February and, undoubtedly, it will get even colder as sunrise approaches, but I hope to fall back asleep before then.

I didn't spend much time outdoors yesterday, but we had tons of deer coming to eat all day long, in small groups of 2 or 3 or 4. They don't travel in a large herd during hunting season and are very skittish now compared to how calm they usually are. I looked out the bay window in Tim's office yesterday and saw a doe and two fawns walking right by the house, about 10' away from it, in the middle of the afternoon---this is a sign that the food at the deer feeding area already had been devoured and they were prowling around close to the house looking for birdseed or hen scratch.

My periwinkles in flower pots by the back door that had survived previous overnight temperatures in the upper 20s and lower 30s finally bit the dust yesterday morning. I thought they lived a good long time for heat-loving annuals. The plants in the fenced garden were mostly frozen, although the dianthus and most of the herbs (but not the basil) looked fine.

The stores here now have paperwhites and amaryllis bulbs for sell in pots for indoor forcing. I intend to buy a few this weekend even though I already have 4 from last year growing now. It always is good to have something green indoors in the winter time, and having something in bloom, even if only for a few weeks, really brightens up the winter.

Is winter over yet? (I'm kidding, I'm kidding!) I keep reminding myself that these are the cool temperatures that sounded so appealing back in the summer when it was so hot, dry and miserable. As a bonus, I haven't seen a house fly or a mosquito in several days, and I hope to not see any for at least the next few months. There are tons of varmints roaming very close to the house at night now, much more so than in summer, but all that wildlife has to eat and I'm sure they are just prowling around looking for food. I've been leaving the garden gate open so any hungry animal that is brave enough can go into the garden, but I think the chickens and an armadillo are the only ones who've been in there so far.

Dawn

Is everyone hibernating for the winter already? (grin) Where are y'all?

So, yesterday morning's low dropped to 14 with a wind chill of 7. We had an exceptionally heavy frost and light fog early in the day.

Most of the garden turned brown or blackened and crispy. Whatever the first cold night didn't get, the second cold night mostly did. Here's a brief report on the survivors: Salvia farinacea (aka Mealy Cup Sage) had a slighty wilty look to the foliage, but the foliage didn't appeared burned by the frost or freeze. The flowers look fine. Flat-leaf parsley is fine. Dianthus, which is a cool-season plant, looked a little burned by the cold and a little droopy, but will rebound quickly. The rosemary ('Arp') is fine. The sage looked a little droopy but had no damage. Autumn sage plants looked like they had a little freeze damage, but still looked happy overall and remained in bloom. Some of the upper foliage on the autumn sage plants frost damage, but foliage lower on the plant that was protected by foliage above it looks good. Everything else is pretty much done. Except......I had six pots of annual flowering periwinkles in the side yard of the house---three pots sitting under a large burr oak that still has most of its foliage and three pots sitting up against the house near the back steps. The three pots out in the yard under the tree froze. The the pots near the house have plants that look a little browned by the cold, but remain in bloom and look half decent. How this happened is beyond me because these are not cold-tolerant plants.

Leaves are coming down in huge numbers now, but our big red oak near the road, which is our best tree for fall color, is just beginning to turn red and still has most of its leaves. The upper foliage may have had some freeze damage, but the tree is so tall it is hard to tell. Smaller, younger oaks that are children that sprouted from this mother tree's acorns, all turned red a few weeks ago and have lost most their leaves. We still have plenty of oak trees with green leaves, and on those trees, the upper leaves have frost damage but the rest of the tree is virtually untouched.

Today is not nearly as cold---only 22 degrees so far, which still is really cold for November but not as cold as yesterday's morning low, which was 30 degrees below average for this time of the year.

Hope you all are staying warm.

Dawn

I'm here! I'm here, Dawn! Just checking in. Super busy in all aspects of my life. Hoping to be back tonight to post more.

Dawn, I wish I could hibernate for the winter...

A very nice 60 degrees here. I dumped the potted plants on the compost, which really should not have happened. Each year we say " No more, we are cutting back". Then by spring we are buying every plant we can find, along with potting soil and pots. I did save the pots because I know I will be digging them out next spring. I buried the potting soil with composted hay, some of the bulbs may be okay if I dig them out next spring, if not, I can still use the compost. Getting old and staying tired all the time really sucks.

I plan on planting my walking onions over in the wildlife garden just to get them out of the way. I dont use them often, but hate to throw them away.

I think I will be able to work in the garden soon if this weather holds.

Larry, are those Egyptian Walking Onions? I’ve been very interested in trying them. Do they really produce all winter like people say?

For Jen.

These are the items we filled our clear bulb ornaments with:

The ones at church were slightly different because they were strictly Christian. My personal Winter Solstice ornaments included things that also honor my pagan ancestry. (My personal beliefs are complicated.)

Lets see...

The only things still alive in my garden are kale and a few herbs. There’s so much clean up that needs to happen but I don’t know when that will take place.

Jacob, yes, they are Egyptian walking onions and they are as hardy as any onions I have grown. They are a strong tasting onion. I like the lisbon bunching onion better because it seems to be milder, but not near as hardy. Plant Egyptian once and you will have onions for ever.

George sent me a start a few years ago. I have moved them, given them away and just let them go. They are like a stray cat, you just cant get rid of them.. I am just pulling your leg, they are not that bad, but I do pull what I dont need and toss them out onto the lawn and run over them with the lawn mower.

If you like I will try to find some small enough to ship to you. I expect all the bulbs have taken root by now, but I think they will survive no matter what condition they are shipped .

Larry, that would be great. Would you like me to PM you? I’ll gladly pay you. Thanks for the info. I somehow don’t see very many people growing them locally, though there is somebody up in Pea Ridge (just a few miles from us) who looks to have a pretty big patch, if I’m not mistaken on their appearance. Do you know if they’ll grow in partial shade well?

Jacob, just send me your address and how many you want. When you get the package just return the postage. I think they will grow about anywhere, some places better than others. I have a lot of plants, but I suggest you only start with a doz. or two or you will soon be up to your ears in onions. ( I did not count but I expect I have two hundred +)

Thanks, HJ! Hmm, complicated theological beliefs...know the feeling. I have to remember where I am and moderate my comments accordingly. Fortunately my old church was on the more liberal side and tolerated my less than mainstream christian views.

Nothing to report garden wise, mainly because I get home too late to more than look at it as I go in the garage. Plan is to do some work next weekend if the weather cooperates.

I have a bed where walking onions and stridolo are duking it out. My husband said we should just clear that bed and start over. I said THOSE AREN'T WEEDS. It looks weedy, but the stridolo actually even shaded out most of the bermuda. It doesn't like hot weather, but it thrives in cool. I think it might have survived the freezes. I admit, I haven't actually eaten the walking onions. I could not find good info on when to pull them (apparently, whenever you need one, or as scallions). This year I have multiplier/potato onions started. (SESE). I've been disappointed in the storage time for onions and don't have a lot of room for chopped and frozen, so I'm looking for other options. [Oh, and storing onions in panty hose was less than great for me, just sayin'?].

I think my pansies/violas are still alive, and Ron says the collards survived, but that's about it.

I got a Pinetree catalog (last year they offered free shipping around Thanksgiving) and an HPS catalog. Both had ornamental cabbages that grow on a long stem and look like roses. How cool is that?

I haven't been writing much. My mother passed on the 6th and it has been very busy and I have been hibernating. I love you all and read here every day. XOXO

Larry, could you follow me so I can PM you? I never understood why Houzz requires that, but it is what it is I guess. Thanks again, so much.

Amy, so sorry about your mother's passing. Praying for you.

I also received a catalog from PineTree. I ordered from Pine Tree last year, but wasn't particularly impressed with their seed quality. I'm considering trying Victory Seed this year, I will probably order from Southern Seed Exchange again, as I was impressed with their quality, and I'd like to try Johnny's.

There are also a number of Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish seed stores I am finding that I'd like to get some seed from. My dad, who grew up near Williamsport, PA, actually says our summer temps here are similar to where he grew up, just sometimes a bit hotter with more humidity. He thinks stuff from the area would probably do fairly well around here. Interestingly, a lot of people from that area migrated around the Ozarks as they were being settled, so there is a bit of history on that side.

Jacob, I followed you. I learned something today. I may need to follow a bunch of people.

I just ask Madge if it would be okay if I put some onions in a pot on the deck, she though the idea was fine. I have done very little container growing, but if I set the onions on the west side next to the house they may grow, if not, it is nothing lost.

I also got the Egyptian walking onions in the ground this fall. Some from Amy and some from SESE. I'm very excited to have them!

You wondered where everyone was, Dawn. I was stuck in last week. :) Time warp. The yard was SO bad when I got home (Tuesday late afternoon.) So so so bad. The snow was gone from here, but there were 2-3" of it coming into OK from Kansas. And it was COLD. And there were many black plants. And many many leaves! It was too cold on Wednesday to get out, but nice working weather yesterday and today, and looks like tomorrow will be good, too.

The yard's already fairly spiffed up, so began hauling my unofficial raised bed mix of all kinds of stuff over to the raised beds. This is not Mel's mix! LOL. There's moldy alfalfa hay, 2-yr old straw, double-mulched leaves, all those fabulous breaking-down wood chips, store-bought raised bed soil, and a bit of real dirt. And will throw in a bit of Azomite.

Dawn--or any of the rest of you in the know. My big center bed of mostly flowers. There are all these dead and nearly dead plants out there, and lots of leaves, of course. I'm thinking just mostly chop and drop. . . cept for any exceptionally big stems. . . I have some double mulched leaves, but mostly just leaves that landed in the bed. What do you think? And by the way. Wow are verbena bonariensis tough! The're the last men standing cept for most of the herbs, hollyhock zebrina, mums, gaillardia.

I got my Pinetree catalog, too, Amy. I was so sad about your Mom passing away, as you know. Just so so sad.

And yes, the ornamental cabbages looking like roses sound VERY cool. I believe I must have some. Don't you think you have to have some? Have any of the rest of you grown them?

I didn't know that either, Larry. I guess I'm going to have to follow everyone! :)

Well checking out. Oh--the cilantro and dill did just fine under their frost blankets, so I got a bunch of both frozen today.

I never liked anything stiff and scratchy lying in the flower bed. I would toss it out to the side and run over it with the lawn mower, blowing it back into the bed.

We've got the grandchildren for the weekend, so the girls and I are sitting here watching Spongebob Squarepants and making pom pom reindeer. Now, if that isn't an exciting Friday evening, then what is?

Today was gorgeous and the temperatures overachieved....72 at our house and 74 at the Mesonet station. I did notice, though, that around 3 or 4 o'clock you already could feel the temperature dropping and a chill in the air. I guess tomorrow the cold front comes through (for us, it will arrive in the evening hours) and ruins everything. Exciting news! Some of our mud puddles are starting to dry up. We have one big puddle SW of the garage that has been there since the rainfall returned in September. It will almost (finally) dry up and then it will rain again and refill the puddle. We'll see if the puddle manages to dry up this time before we get more rain.

Walking onions don't do well for me, but I've only grown them in the front garden which has clay soil and drainage issues. I think perhaps voles or something eats them in the winter time, or they just fade away. I think the longest I've been able to keep them alive is for three years.

Amy, The onions that store best for me are the long daylength types---like Copia, Highlander and Red River. Usually they will store for up to about 7 or 8 months as long as I waited until they were fully mature to harvest them and then cured them properly. It also helps if they weren't overly wet when harvested. In a really wet year, they seem too wet internally and just don't cure well or store nearly as well as they do in a more average year. This year my short daylength and intermediate daylength (the ones I saved and didn't chop/freeze) types still hadn't started sprouting by November, but I felt like they were getting close, so I chopped up and froze the rest of them early in the month. I still have a lot of the long daylength ones and they should last into 2019. Until recently it seems like we've had a lot more humidity, what with all the rain and all, so I think they may not store as long as usual this time. We have dry air now (and grass fires.....).

Nancy, It is good to see you back, and I think your soil mix probably is better than Mel's Mix.....which I've found drains too quickly here in our hot weather and doesn't have the level of microbial life in it that I prefer in my raised beds anyway.

Chop and drop sounds fine as long as nothing was horrifically diseased. More and more every year, I leave as much of the garden standing as possible for as long as possible (usually January or February) so the little creatures still out there in winter have the plants for shelter and whatever food value remains in them. Here at our house, verbena bonariensis usually blooms sporadically all winter. Even if it freezes back to the ground on a very, very cold night (and it didn't freeze on our 15-degree night), it comes right back out with new growth almost instantly. Malva sylvestris Zebrina is about the same, and then I get the new ones from reseeding that pop up all winter long. Oh, and I forgot the comfrey. I have comfrey spreading everywhere (like it or not, this is what it does) and the cold didn't bother it at all.

The ornamental cabbages that look like roses sound cool. The variety of ornamental kale that I have grown (several years back) that looked like a rose was called Crane and it came in pink and white at the time, but now there is a red selection of Crane as well, though it still looks pink to me (just a darker pink). They have newer varieties now like Lucir Rose, Lucir White and others. Sometimes I see them listed as ornamental kale and other times as ornamental cabbages....they pretty much all look the same to me. With Crane, if you really wanted it to look like a rose, you could cut off the outer green leaves and leave just the inner colored leaves. This also contributed to the rose-like appearance as it left it with a longer stem like the long-stemmed florist's roses have.

Amy and Nancy, I am so sorry about the loss of both your moms. I know you're going to miss them terribly.

My mom is still alive (through the grace of God and thrice-weekly dialysis) and is 89 years old. Last night my brother had to break the news to her that her younger brother had passed away from complications of Parkinson's Disease. He was our last living uncle of the 12 uncles we had in our lives when we were children (mostly on my dad's side), and he was one of my gardening uncles from whom I learned so very much. So, now mom has no living siblings but does still have her two sisters-in-law who are her two brothers' widows. I know we all are lucky to have our loved ones live to such an advanced age, but that doesn't make losing them any easier when their time comes.

The Asian lady bugs had been non-existent since the weather turned colder but today were assaulting every exterior door by the hundreds---every time a dog, cat or person went in or out, the lady bugs tried to come in with them. I told the girls I was going to get out the shop vac and vacuum them up and put them back outside a few minutes ago and the four year old protested that she loves them and they are her pets and I can't do that to her pets. (sigh) So, I guess I'll wait and vacuum them up after the weekend is over and Tim and I are home alone. Mostly they are in the mudroom, but a few have made it into the living room, dining room and kitchen. They are so helpful in the garden, but I don't want for them to spend the winter inside our home.

Dawn

How do y'all use walking onions? They are super cool.

Jacob, you're near Pea Ridge? My husband's father's family is from that area. His grandmother (great grandmother?) (dad's side) owned the Elkhorn Tavern. His dad is my grandfather's age, so I get confused on generations. They were the Scott (Cox) family. They have stories from her from when Elkhorn was used as a hospital during the Civil War and the family retreated to the basement....blood dripping through the floor boards. His father played in the area as a child (remember he is my grandfather's age and was born in the 20's) and found cannonballs among other things as he played and gardened.

Yay! Amy and Nancy posted! You've both been on my mind and in my prayers. Glad to hear from you.

We've had ladybugs trying to sneak in today, too, Dawn. Even at school.

I am hoping to work outdoor tomorrow. SO excited to have a day at home and NO obligations. DO you know how excited I am about this? It's like a child at Christmas. I can just be home and not have to do anything at all. And a high of near70? I can clean up some garden for sure. I love all the things I do...all my activities and jobs, but you know that my favorite thing is being home. I could take a year off from work and never be bored.

Mason and her boyfriend came out..as well as one of her good friends who is a traveling nurse and has a couple of weeks off before going to her next job in Colorado. It was a nice evening. Her boyfriend is also a vegetarian, so I made veggie lasagna and chopped salad. Also, had bread and brownies. Tom grilled some Italian sausages for himself and Mason's nurse friend. It was a good night, but I am exhausted. We had our Thanksgiving Feast at kindergarten today...then I came home and made lasagna from scratch. That was quite a process. I am so ready for a hot bath and bed.

My brain needs to shift into Thanksgiving mode tomorrow. I think it will. Usually it has by now, but tomorrow--spending time at home--should get me there. Wow. I have so much time off next week...yay...it just dawned on me. :) Feeling happy for sure.

Jacob, your onions should be there Monday. A lady at the post office wants me to bring her some onions on Tuesday, and I still have plenty.

Hi HJ. I missed you, too! All of you. . . miss y'all and wish we lived closer to one another. I am SO excited and happy for ya to have a day at home and NO obligations. Know that is rare at your age. I have a FB friend who is relocating to Edmond! She wants to garden, said she'd be asking me for advice. . .I told her about OK Gardenweb--that's where the real experts are. . . and encouraged her to join in the group when she gets moved in. (Just posting in case you are lurking, Elizabeth. :) )

Also, re Thanksgiving. . . Amy and Eileen and I were visiting about our next meet-up. I suggested next weekend. LOLOL. That's how out of the holiday loop I am. And the trip to Wy through my calendar totally off-course. I kept thinking today was like Wed or Thurs. Anything but Saturday.

However, GDW and I labored intensely, shoveling topsoil into wheelbarrows, mixing with shovelfuls of wood chips, peat moss, raised garden soil, scraps of moldy alfalfa, 2 yr old straw, and comfrey. It is my most un-favorite gardening chore. Very hard on the lower back. But we raised the beds levels by 3-5 inches. Although I tossed huge amounts of green grass clippings, and food scraps and fish in the beds a month or two ago, I'm thinking there will still be a shortage of nitrogen, because of the huge amounts of topsoil, raised bed soil, wood chips, mulched leaves, straw and moldy alfalfa.

But I'm thinking need to add more nitrogen. Alfalfa meal.

Just laughing at your last post, Larry--the lady at the post office wanting the onions. Love it!

GDW and I are both weird and matched. Most guys are not excited about holidays. Most women take care of that--would you all agree? Well, I am the exception among women who do holidays. I worked SO many hours and So hard at jobs that I didn't have time for holidays and by then my surviving son was grown. . . . The other thing was that when Russ died, I realized none of the other stuff mattered. After he died in 1986, I never again had a Christmas tree--partly because of me realizing how ridiculous it was and partly because my kitty/kitties might destroy it. So there it is. Religious traditions are beautiful, but not essential to salvation.

Love.

Larry, thanks a lot. Laughing at the lady at the post office comment....Now let’s hope that our mailman delivers to the right address this time *sigh*.

Jennifer, we live just a few miles from Pea Ridge. It’s a great little town, and there’s a feed store there (Webb’s I think), just a little county store, that sells garden seed and seed potatoes in the spring very cheaply. Always had the best of luck with their stuff.

So it was your husband’s great grandmother’s family that we have read about owning the Elkhorn Tavern when visiting the Civil War Park so often. I would like to hear more about this.

All this Christmas talk in November!! I love Christmas, but can’t we just worry about that in December? Our lives are so oddly predictable....As the Christmas supplies coming into stores in September proves true.

I’ve been attempting to go to bed early, so that I can get up early and get schoolwork or outside work done before breakfast, but it is just too challenging for me. I can’t come to make myself go to bed....I just love to stay up all night working on projects and/or researching various topics, and if I try to go to bed, I will be kept up thinking about those things, for hours, and will be dead come time to wake up. Currently researching military tactics to force myself to sleep....Do you see where I’m now headed? Yet another rabbit hole...

Lots of lady bugs made it into the mudroom Friday, and there's some in the sunroom. A few made it into the house. I told the girls Friday night that I was going to vacuum up the lady bugs and put them back outdoors (I use the shop vac and they survive being vacuumed up, so no harm is done to them) and the 4 year old was very upset. She told me I couldn't vacuum up her favorite 'pets' in the whole world and send them back outdoors to die in the cold, and she said she wanted to play with them and talk to them. (sigh) So, I told her we'd let them stay indoors for at least the weekend, meaning that as soon as she leaves Sunday afternoon, I'll have the shop vac out, searching out every one of those little beetles and returning them to the outdoors. I'm not sure what good it does---on every sunny day they are swarming around all the doors, trying to come in every time a human, dog or cat goes in or out. I don't really want to spray any sort of pesticide to keep them away from the house, so am resigned to them continuing to fight to come in and to me having to vacuum them up and put them back out until it finally gets so cold that they stop swarming. We even had a couple of them in the car yesterday. Oh, and true to her word, the 4 year old will pick one up if she finds it, carry it around and talk to it. She wanted to catch some and have them sleep with her, but we overruled that little plan. I think somehow they are even getting into the mudroom around the exterior door frame, which I thought Tim had re-when we repainted the exterior of the house 2 or 3 years ago.....so, we need to examine that area and see if there is a gap somewhere that isn't filled.

I am so happy to see lady bugs of any type outdoors in the growing season, and they surely do eat tons of small pests because I rarely have any issues with things like aphids. However, their garden usefulness still doesn't mean they are welcome to come into our home for the winter. They can overwinter in the garage or greenhouse all they want, but I don't want them indoors.

We still have butterflies, despite multiple heavy frosts and nights as low as the mid-teens. At this point, I'm not sure how they're surviving, but the garden does still have dianthus and salvia farinacea in bloom, so at least there's that. I've seen various butterflies flying low over the now-brown pastures searching for something, but I can't imagine what they're finding there, if anything. Even the native autumn asters are frozen and gone, as is the native blue sage, the helenium and all the other late-season fall wildflowers.

We have the girls all day today, and then a funeral in Fort Worth tomorrow, so my brain hasn't even thought about Thanksgiving much yet, except the meal is all planned and taken care of. So, really, it is just a matter of cleaning house Tuesday, and then spending Wednesday getting ready. Oh, and squeezing in a trip to the grocery store sometime, perhaps Monday on the way home, before the stores get too crazy.

The house has been decorated for Thanksgiving ever since the day after Halloween, so at least that part of it all is done. I know some people have Christmas trees up already and all that (why? why so early?), but I redecorated the mudroom's pencil tree, changing it from a Halloween tree to a Thanksgiving tree on November 1st, and I love that Thanksgiving tree with its Thanksgiving decorations. I think it looks a lot prettier than the somewhat scary Halloween tree did. The girls adore having a holiday tree in the mudroom, and both they and Tim have lobbied for me to keep it up year-round, changing the decorations with each holiday and season, but I am not inclined to do that because I am not crazy, At least I don't think I am crazy. It is one thing to spend a little time decorating an autumn tree for Halloween and Thanksgiving, when the rain is falling almost daily and I cannot be outdoors anyway, but it would be another thing to let decorating a tree seasonally pull me away from gardening time any at all once the gardening season starts, so after Christmas the tree goes back into its box and into the attic.

Winter is my least favorite season, unless we have snow on the ground (which we almost never ever do) and it already looks like and mostly feels like winter here. I have tried to learn to appreciate the subtle variations of color in the wheat-colored, brown, and tawny golden fields, but I just cannot. All I do is look at those fields and long for the green plants and flowers of the growing season. When we drive past a field of winter wheat or rye grass and I see the green, that makes my day. Our dog yard does have a nice carpet of winter rye, and it is the best-looking part of our property at this point. It looks awesome, undoubtedly because the dogs fertilize it daily. It is small enough that it is easy to mow in winter, which isn't true of the yard in the years when we overseed it with rye grass, which we didn't do this year because the rain never stopped falling. It is hard to overseed the lawn with free-range chickens because they'll run around and spend days eating all the rye grass seed before it can sprout, and I'm not inclined to keep them cooped up in the chicken run for a couple of weeks until winter rye can become established.

After Thanksgiving is over, I'll take down all the autumn decorations and put up the Christmas decorations. That's how I spend Black Friday, as I simply refuse to step foot in the crazy stores. Oh Lordy, I do not want to sound like my mother or grandmother talking about how things were different back in the olden days, but I remember how, way back in the 1980s when Black Friday was a big day, there were truly great sale prices you never could get on any other day of the year---and people still were civilized and didn't fight over the last Christmas Barbie Doll or Cabbage Patch doll or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy. We'd run into friends while out shopping the Black Friday sales and would stand and chat and be perfectly relaxed and in no big hurry, trading info on what gifts we had found in which stores, and I miss that sort of thing nowadays, with the way Black Friday has become more like a competitive, winner-takes-all battle of some sort. I refuse to participate in it at all. This year I've noticed a big trend by the retailers to be pushing us all to go out and Christmas shop this weekend for the Pre-Black Friday Day sales in order to beat the Black Friday crowds. Oh, give me a break! The retail world drives me nuts any more. We try really hard to keep the Christmas gifts simple and to focus on Christmas as a time of togetherness and making memories apart from the gifting. I feel like we often lose the spirit of Christmas if we pay too much to the retailers and their endless pushing of the "hot toys" or "hot gifts" of the current year. If the retailers want to get me into their stores at this time of the year, they need to have big displays of potted, growing amaryllis or paperwhites, Christmas cacti, etc......or maybe they could be sneaking the spring-planted bulbs into a corner of the Christmas-oriented garden center madness we have now That, at least, would get me into a store.

It is deer gun season now, and even though we don't allow hunting on our acreage, it is a scary time with people firing off guns everywhere. We try to make a point of wearing red or orange every time we step foot outdoors during deer season so that nobody hunting on adjacent property will think we're a deer and shoot us. I had a bullet whistle by my head one day years ago, so close I could hear it go past me and am grateful to God to this day that the bullet, fired by a teenager two properties away from ours, missed me and our next door neighbor both. It was very scary, and our next-door neighbor immediately went next-door and read that family the riot act about irresponsible firing of weapons in such a way that the bullets are a threat to innocent people on their own property. Since that day, we keep the dogs indoors as much as possible because Jersey is the same color as a white-tailed deer, and she runs like the wind and leaps like a deer. Fortunately, gunfire terrifies her so it is easy to keep her indoors in deer season because she doesn't even want to be outdoors. The two smaller dogs probably have learned their gunshot anxiety from her, so they cheerfully trot outdoors to do their doggie business and they run back, pawing at the back door and barking until I let them back in as soon as they hear gunfire, no matter how far away it is. As far as we're all concerned here, deer season cannot end soon enough (the current deer gun season ends December 2nd, if anyone is wondering).

The garden still looks pathetic and will for several more months, but at least the rosemary, sage and parsley remain green. Oh, and the onion chives and garlic chives, dianthus, salvia farinacea, autumn sage and malva sylvestris 'Zebrina'. The asparagus still is green too, which is quite vexing. I like to cut it back to the ground after it turns brown, but so far it is refusing to help me out by turning brown so it continues to live on, green and billowy, swaying gently in the wind.

Jacob, I took the onions to the post office in a clear plastic zip-lock bag. ( bought a flat rate container there to ship them in). The lady was an oriental lady and wanted to buy a bag of onions. I told her that I would give her some instead. I will take her a clump of larger onions because I am not sure of her gardening knowledge. I will leave the soil and clump intact and take her a large box of compost and tell to look on the internet for the method she wants to use to grow her onions. I am sure that by late next summer she will have more onions than she knows what to do with. I also did a huge sales pitch on OK garden web, telling her that if she likes to grow things this is the place to be.