November 2018, Week 3, We Are Thankful

5 years ago

As we begin Thanksgiving week, I am thinking of all the things I'm grateful for, particularly in this context, the gardening things.

Apart from the obvious that I'm grateful our family is well and everyone is happy and healthy, I am grateful that this year's garden produced well despite the horrendous drought we suffered here throughout the Spring and Summer months. I'm also extremely grateful that the record-setting rainfall we had in September and October put a firm end to the drought. I'm grateful for all the veggies, herbs and flowers we have been able to enjoy for many months, and for the preserved bounty we will be enjoying all winter.

As we continue to lose the few remaining folks our family has left from my parents' generation (the famed Greatest Generation who fought World War II), I'm grateful for the ones we have left as well as the ones who have gone on to a better place. I'm grateful I grew up in a family firmly rooted in agriculture, although by the time I was born, only two uncles and my grandfather still made a living from farming and ranching. I'm grateful I had many aunts, uncles, my grandparents, parents and neighbors who raised vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit in my childhood and throughout most of my adult life, and for everything they taught me along the way. I'm grateful I had grandparents with chickens and an uncle who raised turkeys and guineas, because it gave me a very early appreciate of raising poultry that remains with me to this very day. Back in the days when there was no internet, the learning curve in gardening was much harder and much slower than it is now when we have info available on the world wide web 24/7 just a few clicks and a Google search away, so I'm grateful I had many living mentors who showed me how to garden just by doing it themselves and letting me tag along, help, and learn from them while doing so. I'm grateful that they had gardening books I could pick up and read, even though most books on gardening back then were written purely for a national audience and weren't that relevant to those of us in hot portions of the south and southwest. Just imagine....my grandfather was trench composting in his veggie garden in the 1960s back when most non-gardening folks (and many gardening types) didn't even know what composting was. My dad had a compost pile back then too, and even though I really didn't understand as a child why he gathered leaves and piled them up in one corner of the back yard all winter and threw produce-type kitchen "trash" on top of his leafy compost pile, I get it now. So, you see, my love for using leaves to enrich the garden soil is deep-seated and a true reminder that there's really nothing new under the sun.

I'm grateful that I started reading Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening magazines back when both were considered way out there in la la land, and when more conventional, mainstream folks considered them to be publications for the "hippie" generation. I'm grateful both of those magazines steered me away from chemical use before I even had a garden of my own, so that I never used toxic pesticides on our property where we lived when I was beginning to garden on my own as an adult. I'm grateful that I was president of our high school's garden club (shocked we even had one, but feel like it came out of the new Earth Day that began when I was in middle school) because it made me realize that my peers even back then looked at me and understood me and knew I was one of those people who had to be growing something all the time. It probably wasn't especially cool to be the president of the Garden Club, but I didn't care about being cool (I was not one of the cool kids in high school, and I didn't mind that I wasn't) and I did care about gardening. See, nothing has changed!

I'm grateful I live in a country where we are free to grow what we want (for the most part) where we want it and how we want to grow it, at least as long as we don't live in a community ruled by an iron fist belonging to an HOA. I'm grateful to live in a rural area where having a garden is considered essential to happiness and no one looks at you like you're crazy when you're out slaving away in the mud and cold wind in February and March getting your cool season crops planted. I'm grateful I get to hear the sounds of nature every day, to listen to the cows and the horses, the goats and the sheep, the birds and the buzzing of the bees.

I'm grateful for all of you here who form our wonderful network and community of regional gardeners. I am grateful we have each other's friendship, camaraderie, sympathy and empathy, and that we can share the joy (and heartbreak) of gardening and life with one another year-round.

I'm grateful for warm tomatoes dripping with juice from the garden in Spring, Summer and Autumn. I'm grateful for potatoes and onions that can be dug and stored and used for many months. I'm grateful for the peppers that spice up our lives, and the sweet ears of corn we eat dripping with butter. I'm grateful for the garden greens, crisp and crunchy and so deliciously fresh, and for the garden herbs that enhance every dish we prepare. I'm grateful for wild plum jelly and fresh peaches just off the trees, and pecans we can gather in fall and winter. I'm grateful for armloads of flowers brought indoors to arrange in vases, and for the many more flowers left growing uncut outdoors so everyone else can enjoy those as well. I'm grateful for the huge shade trees, planted as tiny foot-tall saplings dug from our woodland, that now shade our yard and home. I'm grateful for the entire web of life in the garden, from lady bugs and green lacewings, to turtles and frogs and toads, birds and butterflies, and even the little nonvenomous garden snakes.

What are y'all grateful for in 2018?

Happy Thanksgiving and thank you all for sharing the gardening adventure year-round.

Dawn

Featured Answer

luvncannin

5 years ago

So very well said Dawn.

I too am thankful for all those things ( except the warm dripping tomatoes ) and

Hot water

Warm house

New beginning

And mostly all of you who keep my hope when most of this year I would've rather given

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Comments (19)

slowpoke_gardener
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Dawn, I don't think anyone could say it better than you.

I am thankful for my 94 year old mother and all the love she have given me.

I am thankful of all the tools I have and the ability to use them, be it very limited.

I am thankful for the foresight to build handicap ramps and to buy a very small tractor before I really needed them. I had not idea that mom would live with me one day.

I have been blessed in so many ways, I could never name them all.

In gardening news, I planted some winter peas in the garden and in one flower bed for a cover crop. I know I am really taking a chance by planting this late, but I needed something to do with such a beautiful day. I also planted Egyptian walking onions in one flower bed. I want to clean everything out of the north garden and redo it. I planted the onions in the flower bed just to save a start of them. I may relocate them next spring or summer. The onions are a Bermuda grass magnet. I like to let the walking onions grow wild, but you cant let anything grow wild without having Bermuda grass in and around it, which is fine but it looks tacky.

The weather is damp and cold today, plan to just take it easy .
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Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Beautiful, Dawn! Yes, indeed, I'm grateful for so many of the same things you're grateful for.

I'm thankful for every day.

I'm thankful for all the wonderful people in my life, present and past, with a special spot for all of the gardeners in Oklahoma (for getting me off to the best possible start with gardening in OK), Wyoming, and Minnesota, and my new church in Oklahoma! And I'm thankful that Amy and Eileen (and Rebecca, if she ever syncs her time with us) live close enough to be able to visit them.

I'm so thankful for Garry and all my new and old children and grandchildren. And I'm so thankful that Garry doesn't care what I do in the yard, and is a willing partner in gardening now. I'm so thankful for the big yard, the hundreds and hundreds of rocks (truly am, actually), the one spot on the property that is sunny enough for the vegetables, the 100 or so oaks that provide enormous piles of mulch. I love this entire piece of property and am so thankful for Green Country, too.

Since it is apparently winter now, and GDW did keep the cilantro and dill alive and I was able to harvest all that I'll need this winter, I will let nature take its course now.

Dawn, I'm a little nervous about hunters here--but was nearly paranoid about them on the ranch in Wyoming, Deer season was about the same time we had to bring the cattle down from the "upper place" to the home place. And we tied orange scarves to the horses' manes and tails, and wore our bright orange hunting gear. It felt so weird to be up on top of a hill feeling like there were a dozen hunters scoping us out.

I think it's telling about my aphid troubles and hearing about your glut of ladybugs. I haven't seen one single one in the house. Or outside. :)
dirtguy50 SW MO z6a
5 years ago
In ALL things give thanks. This is huge!
hazelinok
5 years ago
There's so much to be thankful for. Gratitude. That is one of my goals for next year. I've been neglectful of being mindfully thankful. That needs to change. I've not always been so neglectful of it. 2017 was a hard year...and 2018 has been better, but has also been a weird year... fearful No excuses though.

SO thankful for yesterday. The weather was delightful. All the tomato cages and trellises were taken down. Garden is clean now. And so empty. The asparagus ferns were still partially green, but I cut them down while I had the time.

The cold blew in at 330 yesterday afternoon. I was standing right in the middle of the garden when it blew in. I continued to work for a couple of hours longer though,

Finbar went to the garden yesterday. It was the first time he's been outside. He was so funny. We aren't too far from Tinker, so he was amazed at watching an airplane. He stayed out for a couple of hours and then went to the backdoor to be let in. lol.

Juno was mean to him when he came back in . Maybe she was jealous?

When I look out at our property, a weird feeling comes over me. Five years ago...could I imagine that I would have this garden and these chickens? I did dream about it, but now it's real. There are things I miss. I miss the size of our old house...particularly the walk-in pantry and my huge bedroom. The large room that was connected to our living room...We had a large table there...I would always have a jigsaw puzzle in works there...and because the room was connected to the living room, I was still near Tom and could watch TV with him...and Ethan was just down the hall in the second living room usually either working on a lego creation or playing a video game.

Anyway...I am grateful to be HERE with my garden and chickens. It would be near impossible to have these blessings at our old house.

Something I thought about the other night...Ethan has never watched old VHS tapes of Lane. He's never seen him walk or talk or play. That's one things I want to figure out over the next few weeks during downtime. I want him to see his brother.

I'm tired. I'm grateful for my job and all the great people I work with. But, I am tired and am finally home after working today and then going to friends' house for dinner. I wanted to stay home, but felt obligated to go.

I've started using Zicam. So much illness and I really, really do not want to be sick during the holidays. My fire cider is not ready yet, although I dug a horseradish root yesterday! And my 3 year old echinacea root (thanks, Lisa!)

Am I rambling at this point? Think I am. lol.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Larry, Thank you for your words. You are so kind. I'm grateful you still have your mom too. I can see how the bonds between you are so strong and I know that you are as wonderful of a son to her as she was a wonderful mother to you. The sort of love and closeness you two share endures forever....in this world, and beyond. I'm grateful as well to still have my mom, who is 89, and honestly, since she never has taken good care of herself, I and all my siblings really are just amazed she still is here on this earth with us.

I think you still have a good chance of getting a winter cover crop established. I know that I have planted rye very late some years and eventually it sprouted and grew, even though it was erratic in sprouting and took quite a long while to get a good stand.

Everything I plant is a bermuda grass magnet. I rue the day that some previous property owner planted bermuda grass here on this place because I know we'll never get rid of it.

Kim, You have so much to be grateful for despite a really tough year, and I just know that there's nothing but better times ahead for you.

Nancy, If you do not have a naturally established lady bug population on your property that you see each year during the growing season, maybe 2019 will be your year to remedy that problem. You can buy and release lady bugs, and if you do go that route, I bet we can find you an insectary that only sells lady bugs native to North America, and not the Asian ones imported into this country by the millions because they are so cheap.

Sometimes Mother Nature knows what we need and supplies the beneficial insects so important to us, but sometimes I think that we humans as a community have used enough toxic chemicals over the decades that we've driven away some of the beneficial insects we need. In a case like that, I don't hesitate to buy and release what our property is lacking. In the late 1990s and early 2000s we had tons and tons of green (and also brown) lacewings. They appeared in our garden every Spring in particular, devouring all kinds of tiny pests. Then, one year, they were gone---just completely gone. It puzzled me. It confused me. It left me searching for answers about why they'd disappear from a property where no pesticides were used. As I watched my lacewing-free garden over the next couple of years, the only conclusion I could reach was that we no longer had an excessive number of pest insects to feed them. It is sort of silly had long it took me to conclude that. That gardening experience taught me that once a garden's own ecosystem is balanced, you will see less beneficial insects than before because there's not such a glut of food for them in the form of pest insects. I still have very few lacewings, though I saw more in this past summer's drought than what we've had in recent years, but have accepted that they would be here if we had a pest outbreak that would feed them. It is such a privilege to live here so close to the land and its creatures and to watch the ebb and flow of the food web over the years.

Deer season is scary. We have issues with folks poaching on our land, which is disconcerting because it is uncomfortable, to say the least, to encounter a stranger with a gun walking on your land. Tim chases them off pretty quickly. I used to spend a significant portion of every winter....basically every day all winter long....clearing away underbrush and dead trees and such in order to keep our woodland more 'open' and free of invasive plants like cedar trees. Well, I learned that keeping the woodland more open like that just meant that it was easier for folks to sneak through our land, hunting without permission, so I finally gave up keeping the undergrowth cleared away. Now, anyone who tries to hunt on our land has to fight their way through the jungle of Virginia creeper, greenbrier (huge amounts of it), poison ivy, wild grapes and other vining things that make passing through the woods difficult. I still try to take out cedar trees when I can, but I let the strangling vines roam and grow at will to help keep the poachers under control, or at least uncomfortable. It isn't an ideal solution as I much prefer the cleared woodland, but it is more practical in terms of protecting the wildlife by keeping the poachers away.

The fact that you and GDW found each other again so many years down the road and reconnected and have your amazingly happy life together just warms my heart and soul. I am sure the children and grandchildren, both old and new, are thrilled to have you and GDW in their families too. I just love stories like yours where we can say "they lived happily ever after".

As for the early and fairly unrelenting onset of winter, I find it hard to be grateful for that I must admit, but then I remember that God has a time and a purpose for everything even if we don't always appreciate it or understand it.

dirtguy, Yes, I agree with you!

Jennifer, I think that when I was younger, say....in my 20s and 30s....I took life for granted and failed many times to be properly grateful. Since then, as we've gotten older and seen so many people we know and love suffer terrible losses, my understanding of all the blessings we enjoy in this life and (hopefully) my wisdom as well have increased, and I have learned to be grateful for every minute of every day.

It does not escape my consciousness either that 19 years ago as Thanksgiving approached, I was undergoing my third cancer surgery in six weeks and just hoping to make it home for Thanksgiving, since my entire family was coming to our house (bad planning on my part to be hosting Thanksgiving in the midst of the cancer thing, but life throws you curve balls and I never thought there'd be a third surgery.....). If I was failing to be properly grateful and appreciative of every hour on this earth prior to the cancer thing, I quickly learned to be appropriately grateful.

I'm glad you had some good hours outdoors before the cold wind came sweeping in with that cold front. Lucky Finbar! He may turn out to be a garden cat. I do think Juno could have been jealous as I've seen jealous behavior from both dogs and cats when they think one of the other pets has enjoyed something they have not. We had two dogs that I swear could count. If you petted one dog four times, you'd better pet the other dog exactly 4 times too, or you'd have a jealous dog in front of you, looking up at you and demanding exactly equal treatment. Those two dogs were named Sheila and Biscuit, but were nicknamed Jealousy and Envy because of their fixation on being treated exactly equally.

I understand that there are things you miss about your old house, but I can see how happy you and your family are there at your current home and I understand how much it means to you to live there....because I still feel that same way about living out here in the country too. For everything we gave up to move here, most notably being so much further away from our extended family, I have found that moving here was exactly what we wanted/needed. I've always felt that we end up where God meant for us to be in this world, and that is how I view us being here living in this place now. Even before we bought the land and moved here, once we had walked through this piece of property with our real estate agent, I knew in my soul that we were meant to be right here. I would have lived in a camper RV or a tent in order to live here if I'd had to.

I hope you're able to use the VHS tapes to give Ethan a look at Lane. Do you still have a VCR? Or, is there some way to transfer the tapes to some sort of digital form so they can be played on the kinds of media equipment we have today?

We always have Zicam in the house. It does seem to be that time of the year again already. In our region, it isn't just that the flu and colds seemed early to arrive this year, but strep throat seems to have run rampant through the elementary school kids and their families this year...and it is only November. There's lots of cold and flu season left. It also feels like we have cedar pollinating already, as lots of folks with allergies to cedar pollen are just miserable and they/we are miserable months earlier than normal.

There's nothing wrong with rambling. Are rambling roses any less beautiful that the more sedate bush type roses? I think not. So, go ahead and ramble!

Here it is early Monday morning, too early to be awake again for the fourth or fifth night in a row. I think my insomnia has returned, but I wake up at 2 am feeling rested and refreshed, not tired and groggy, so maybe my body just doesn't need as many hours of sleep now as it once did. I know that my grandmother only slept 2-4 hours per night in the last 20 years of her life, so maybe I'm going to end up being like her in that respect.

The cold wind was so brutal yesterday, and I guess today will be a little better. At least, perhaps, we'll have sunshine today. The temperatures we are having this week are more like mid-December than mid-November. This makes me wonder what the December weather will feel like. Will we have January type weather in December? I fear I am failing to be appropriately grateful for the weather we are having now and I need to work on that I suppose.

I know there will be no garden time for me this week due to the out-of-town funeral, the preparation for Thanksgiving, and the fact that the girls come back on Tuesday afternoon to stay a couple more days with us. The older one is excited that she'll wake up here on Thanksgiving morning because she wants to be the one to set and decorate the dining table. Lesson learned here? Never take a girl through a store that has lovely tablescapes set up for Thanksgiving because she'll want to replicate those lovely settings in your home even though you do not have the same resources available to those folks in the retail stores who set up the tablescapes to highlight their products. (grin) I think she'll have to make do with the dishes and silverware that we have, but I did let her pick out new cloth napkins for us yesterday while we were out shopping.

I miss the garden. I miss being able to just walk by it or into it and enjoy all the flowers. Winter time just seems dull gray and brown to me compared to the warm growing season. I readily admit that I do not appreciate autumn/winter landscapes as much as I should, and I need to work on that.

Our big red oak at the SE edge of the woodland is probably going to peak in color today or tomorrow. It looks glorious right now. I do wish the brilliant red foliage lasted longer on the tree than it does.

Have a great day, everyone!

Dawn
hazelinok
5 years ago
Dawn, we have a VCR somewhere and I just came into possession of an old--really old--VHS camera...and it's possible we could use it to watch the videos. The thing is...do the newer, smart TVs accept VHS stuff? I don't know.

I dug up the oldest coneflower. It's true that if you chew a bit of the root, it makes your mouth tingle. The roots were very small. Maybe I should wait for the next plants to age even longer than 3 years. I'll see how this tincture does--if I feel like it helps with colds/flus. It will be complete in about 4 weeks.

Also, the horseradish root was dug up. I didn't make the fire cider today, but will tomorrow. It smells delightful.

Other than that, I cleaned our bedroom today--so nice. And did laundry. Also, shopped for Thanksgiving dish ingredients. Hoping cooking will get me in the holiday mood.

I'm hoping that I don't lose this post. Tom is trying to change the wifi password. He let the neighbor kid use our wifi over the weekend, but we need to put an end to that right now.

I'm looking forward to Friday. I enjoy Black Friday shopping. I've never experienced the insanity that they talk about and show on TV, etc. Everyone has been nice or at least neutral. Although, I've only done the "intense" early shopping maybe 4 times. Once, many, many years ago when I purchased combo TV/video players. Just happened to find myself in a line that was passing out Gameboys...got one of those for Mason even though she didn't really play with it much, but it was super cheap.

Then, another year, Ethan wanted a DS and some games that were great deals...and a bike. And some Bakugan toys. We got everything we went for that year.

Then the other year we went for a Skylander game. Got it and super cheap DVDs. My kids weren't allowed to have cable in their room back then and so watched movies. And an ottoman thing for me!

I guess those are the only years I did the super early shopping. I did send Mason and her boyfriend at the time to get a BB goal for Ethan once.

Anyway...we usually get up and go to breakfast, pick up our keepsake ornaments at Hallmark and sometimes go to VS and Bath and Body Works to do some light shopping. It's fun. I enjoy seeing Santa at the mall...and the energy of it all. Which is weird for an introvert, but it's a different type of energy.

We will probably buy a tree this Friday too. It will be time for that! I haven't purchased one gift yet!

I can feel tingles of the season. Excited to embrace it all. I love traditions and their meanings. I realize everyone is different and to some, traditions and rituals aren't important, but they are meaningful to me. Once that is past, it will be time to set intentions for next year. AND plan a garden! Wheeee!
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Jennifer, As far as I know, it is possible to hook up a VCR to most newer model digital type TVs, but it depends on what sort of input connections the new TV has. Some people have to use a converter to make it work. I think that there's an HDMI converter, for example, that allows VCRs to be hooked up. So, now I have to Google it and find out how......and here it is.

How to Hook Up a VCR to a TV

It sounds like you had a really productive day both in the garden and outdoors. Since I can read your post, I guess you didn't lose it when Tom changed the WiFi password. I guess one advantage of living as far out in the boonies as we do is that there are no neighbors close enough to use our WiFi, even if they did know the password. (grin)

Back when Black Friday shopping was fairly new as a concept and still fun (for me) in the 1980s, my sister and I always spent Thanksgiving afternoon going through the huge set of glossy advertising circulars that came in that day's newspaper, seeing which stores had which deals and making a list of where we were going and what to buy at each store. We did this while the men all watched football on TV after eating our Thanksgiving meal and the kids played indoors or outdoors depending on the weather. The only time crowds were huge were when select retailers (Target, in particular) were handing out goody bags to the first 500 shoppers. The goody bags usually had product samples, a toy guide that showed all the season's hot toys that they had in their store, and coupons that weren't available via any other method. It was a big deal to get there early enough to get one of the goody bags and we always were there in time to get one even though it meant leaving the house very early because the stores were opening at 7 a.m. A careful shopper who didn't linger too long in any one store could manage to hit all the great sales in one day and finish all or at least most of their holiday shopping on Black Friday and be done with it. I did love the festive atmosphere of it all and the decorations in the malls and stores. These days, the stores put up their Christmas decorations as soon as Halloween is over, so we've already seen them well before Black Friday and I'm kind of over it.

I tend to spend Black Friday getting out all the Christmas decorations and putting up the Christmas tree. I think if the weather is nice this week, Tim and I might spend the day putting up the outdoor Christmas decorations too.

I love the holiday rituals and traditions too, and I love having the house decked out from top to bottom with holiday decorations. It just looks so nice and festive. My mom never really was into Christmas very much, so from the time I was 11 or 12 years old, I always was the one who put up and decorated the Christmas tree at our house. Maybe that's one reason I still love doing it---just because it has been my tradition for so long.

Since there's no real garden work to be done, I might as well be inside decorating the tree. Well, there's leaves to rake. Lots and lots of leaves, though we don't rake them up all that much. We just run over them with the lawnmower, picking them up in the grass catcher and dumping them on the compost piles and garden spots. We probably have enough leaves on the ground now to keep Tim busy for several weekends. For some reason he absolutely adores raking and gathering leaves, on or off the riding mower. I think it goes back to his memories of him and his dad raking up all the leaves every autumn and burning them, which is what folks in his community did with their autumn leaves back in the 1960s and 1970s just to get rid of them. We surely do not burn up our leaves here.

Other than needing to tidy up the house a little bit, I don't have much to do to get ready for Thanksgiving because we've already done the grocery shopping and all that. I will clean house today before the girls come to stay and then all of us will try to pick up the toys that "we" get out daily so that the house still looks neat and tidy on Thanksgiving Day. Really, they are pretty good about putting up the toys, but things still have a way of multiplying on table tops....like doll clothes and doll baby bottles, for example.

For a couple of months now, we've hardly had any songbirds around since most of ours seemed to depart during the extra heavy rainy spell of Sept-Oct. Now that it is getting cold, our bird population seems to be growing. I don't know if all these birds were further north and came south to us here, or where they came from, but it is good to have a yard full of cardinals, blue jays and other songbirds again. When I go outside in the mornings now, there is a welcoming committee of birds waiting for me to put out some sunflower seeds for them. They sing and carry on when they see me coming, which is pretty cute to witness.

Oh, and fire season is returning now that all the grasses are dried out and have become fuel for fires. We had a grass fire in our fire district about a mile from our house yesterday, but we missed it because we were down in the metro for the funeral. That drove Tim nuts.....he worried that no one was up here to put out the fire. That's the unfortunate thing about getting CAD pages on our smart phones---you can see what you're missing. I don't mind missing the fires because, you know, if we aren't home we aren't home, but it bothers him to miss a fire. I'm not happy about the return of the fire season, but we knew it was coming. It could be a bad one because all the heavy rainfall of Sept-Oct made a lot of grass and brush grow. We haven't had much rain since the multiple freezing nights froze back all the vegetation, so things are pretty dry. Even our mud is finally drying up. I think if we have another dry week or so, all the mud will be gone---at least on the surface. I'm not going to miss the mud when it all finally dries up completely.

Dawn
Megan Huntley
5 years ago
I've skimmed but hopefully this long weekend will have the opportunity to read in-full.

Most of all, right now I'm grateful my surgery went well and without complications. Even the pain from recovery is less than what I lived with on a daily basis for years! I nearly backed out of having the procedure for fear that I would yet again be disappointed and continue to suffer, but I kept faith and so glad I did. I'm also grateful for answers. Pathology revealed that nearly life-long inflammation caused by endometriosis resulted in terrible scarring of my lady parts and appendix and is likely what led to the troubling finding on a colonoscopy a couple years ago. I'm also grateful I was able to keep one ovary so that I'll enter menopause gradually when it's time, not instantly and in a way that would increase my risk of heart disease. And while it was disappointing that they found more endometriosis growth, I'm grateful that it was found and removed instead of going undetected. I did develop a bacterial infection after surgery - which was actually the hardest part of the recovery to date - but it didn't require additional hospitalization or surgery, just a course of horse-pill antibiotics to recover from, so I'm also very grateful for that.

There's so much more...This has been quite a year and several times I felt like I'd hit my limit when more continued to come, but like always happens, things turned around or were dealt with in the best way they could be. Some continue to be dealt with, my mom is still living with us and non-committal on her plans AND my BIL's divorce has caused him to turn to substance abuse. However, everyone, especially my husband who is so amazing he's better than winning the lottery, is dealing with all this exceptionally well.

It was a trick getting there but my house and yard are now pesticide free! And through the process of it all, I came up with what I think will be a beautiful plan for a dedicated vegetable garden without looking like a postage stamp plopped in the middle of a suburban back yard. Something somewhere between a traditional vegetable plot and an edible landscape, I hope. I was also able to convert what was intended to be an edible landscape bed into a beautiful native garden that was littered with butterflies in the fall so I can only imagine what it will be next year. Oh, and I had monarchs! I started milkweed from seed 3-4 seasons ago but was unaware it'd been sprayed every year. With the end to the spraying, monarchs found it and we hosted a few of their caterpillars. I'll always be down on neonicotiniods but it almost seemed like Mother Nature knew when the plants were finally safe. They weren't setting seed pods which means nothing was landing on them, but after a few months I started seeing butterflies drinking the nectar and a few months after that, milkweed moth caterpillars followed by the monarchs. I can't tell you how grateful I was to share that with my daughter.

Ahhh, my daughter. Nothing, not even my garden, brings me as much happiness, gratitude or joy as she does. As I mentioned, my husband is amazing and I couldn't ask for a better partner than he. I'm so glad I stopped to do this post, and Dawn I'm glad you posed the gratitude question. I try to live a grateful life, but pausing to enumerate and frame specific things as gratitudes definitely casts it all in a different light.
hazelinok
5 years ago
Hi Megan! Good to see you post. I'm glad your surgery went well and your recovery too!

Your garden vision sounds lovely...I hope to see pictures of it in the future.

I hope your mom and BIL are able to get help in the different ways they need.

Hang in there...sounds like you're doing amazing despite the hard things. :)
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Hi Megan! Your poor Mom. . . she needs courage? Your BIL. . . oh dear. Yep that's a lot of stuff going on. I'm thrilled you're doing so well! EXCELLENT!

It's really not too cold to get out and work today, but I'm not in the mood. It's also a good day for reflecting and reading, so that's what I'm doing. The cats are in and out, in and out. Tiny likes being out but likes us to come out with him. He keeps coming to the door; I think he wants in; and he bounces away. Then if I DO go out, he is right on my heels wherever I go. I think he wants me to go do some more weeding or putting soil in the beds. Maybe Friday, Tiny.

We'll be going to our daughter's tomorrow--our daughter who has a great hubby and the four wonderfully fun kids, now 13, 11, 9 and 9. Three boys and one of the twins is their only girl. Love these kids and haven't seen them in about five months! I wish I could take Tiny with us, since the girl adores cats, and he's a friendly little dude. We had planned just to have Thanksgiving here or drive to Broken Arrow. I had mentioned Thanksgiving here to the three not-too-far-away girls and the granddaughter a month or more ago, but all of them are insanely busy. I know they really are, and so it became clear that wasn't going to happen; but this one called a couple days ago, and I'm tickled she did!

The cilantro and dill are growing back and are just fine right now, I do have one large pot of rosemary that I'm going to have to bring into the art room or bury it in the lawn; for sure it won't survive winter in the container. But it's a special rosemary; I forget which one, but know it's not super hardy, so better bring it in, anyway.

I hope you all travel safely if your traveling; otherwise that you have a nice day off tomorrow, or a peaceful day if you're retired or not working an outside job.
slowpoke_gardener
5 years ago
Even though my wildlife garden was a big flop this year I found some large daikon radishes and turnips when I went over to plant Egyptian onions. I have near an acre of clover that looks better than the austrian winter peas in the picture. The sweet potatoes I found when I dug out the onions.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
Bought seeds at Pinetree today. 20% off with code GIVING2018. No, I probably didn't need them, but the bulk were spinach and lettuce which are short lived seeds and mine might not be viable. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Sale goes through Sunday. Don't forget the code like I did last year ;)
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Amy, There you go being an enabler! I probably do need to order spinach and lettuce seeds, but with the grandkids here 24/7, this might not be the right time to do it. Maybe later in the week after they're gone. I noticed yesterday that I had a ton of emails in my inbox, and most of them were from seed retailers offering holiday savings.

Larry, That's some nice surprises to find in your garden. I'm glad the clover is doing so well.

Nancy, It sounds like Tiny needs some garden time with his mama. Hopefully y'all can spend some serious gardening time together soon. Enjoy the visit with the kids and grandkids.

I have a rosemary that has survived 3 years in a pot. It probably is Arp. I also have an Arp or a Hill's Half Hardy rosemary in a raised bed that is about two feet tall (the bed is 2' tall, the plant probably is about the same) so it is about the same as container gardening since the bed is so high above grade, and that one probably is 4 years old. When I buy plain old ordinary Rosemary that is not labeled as Arp or Hill's Half Hardy, those others tend to not make it through the winter.

Hi Jennifer. I hope your holiday is great.

Megan, I'm glad that the surgery is giving you relief from long-standing pain and sorry about the bacterial infection.

Family is everything, it is true. I am grateful I married a man who not only would tolerate my gardening obsession, but who also still is my best friend to this day---a little over 36 years after we said I do. Sometimes I feel like we have been married forever, but then I get a reminder that we have not been.......this week, at my uncle's funeral, the preacher mentioned that he and my aunt had been married for 60 years. To me, 60 years together is hard to comprehend, but then Tim's grandparents were married for over 75 years at the time that death separated them, temporarily ,from one another. If I ever could wrap my mind around someone being married 60 years, I know I cannot comprehend a marriage of 75 years. That makes me feel like Tim and I are just beginners/rookies. Having a precious child or children---that's just the cherry on top of the sundae of life!

Like Jennifer, I hope your mom and BIL find their lives moving forward in a positive way soon.

Today was a typical November day. It started out really chilly and then got pretty sunny and warm later on. With all our Thanksgiving work pretty much done, we went to the park/playground with the grandkids for a couple of hours and that was really fun. Every day from tomorrow through Saturday the weather just gets better and better, and then cold weather comes back on Sunday I think. Or Monday. I imagine most of y'all will get hit harder by the cold than we will. We had one fire today---a barn fire. Tim was gone to it for a couple of hours and I stayed home with the girls. I am not going to drag the girls off to a fire, period. Not ever. We saw some butterflies out at the playground and that was a little surprising as our nights have been as cold as 15 degrees. Sporadically we have a lot of smoke in the air at times, supposedly from the California wildfires. We also seem to be having a lot of cedar pollen issues early this year----I am so not ready to have to deal with allergies in November.

The rainfall mostly has stop falling here, and the last couple of times it was only small amounts. Our mud really is beginning to dry up in earnest. I am so excited about that.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Dawn
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Friday morning is starting out windy and warm, with a few sprinkles in parts of our county. The Mesonet map doesn't show any sprinkles fell here, but the dogs went out and then came back in a little wet, so we had dew or something.

My goal for this weekend is to avoid the stores as much as possible, and to take down the Thanksgiving tree and other Thanksgiving decorations and to begin putting up the Christmas decorations. Tim's goal is more outdoorsy---to cut grass and gather up fallen leaves to dump on top of the compost piles. I'm not sure how well that will play out in the strong wind gusts expected today.

Because it is deer season and everyone is out hunting on property adjacent to ours, the deer are behaving oddly this year. They clearly know our place is a safe haven where no one hunts, so they are hanging out in the front yard within 5-20 yards of the house, which is a bit too close for my taste. Instead of going back to the usual deer feeding area about 100' west of the house, they come out of the woods directly adjacent to the house and search the front yard and side yards for food. Today Tim put some food out at the usual deer feeding area, but put more food out near the driveway right beside the house because that's where the deer were standing and waiting, as if to say 'feed us here'. There's not much difference except that the usual deer feeding area is more open and exposed with pasture land near it, and woodland a bit further away.

The red oaks still are putting on a good show (some of them, at least). The big red oak at the front of the property is a bright glowing red while another red oak beside the front porch is a deep burgundy red. A few red oaks are in between-changing from early colors of a golden brown to red, and in the sunlight at some points during the day, their leaves look almost, but not quite, orange. It is a weird color change/combination that I haven't seen before.

The garden, being mostly frozen, doesn't look so hot, but the autumn sage remains in bloom and so do the dianthus and salvia farinacea. There's a lot of birds now and still a few butterflies. I hope they enjoy the lovely weather the next couple of days before the next cold front comes through.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Started out windy and cold here! It's presently 52 and raining a bit. Three of the grandkids came home with us last night for a couple days. They're fun. We'll have to dig out the poker chips or board games. Tiny is enjoying them a whole lot. Tom and Jerry? MIA. Lot more food to fix with five than with two. Crazy how that happens! I try to fix stuff kids love when any show up. . . so tacos tonight.

The nice dog that showed up yesterday is still here. Groan. And of course with three rowdy playful grandkids here visiting, no way is that dog going to go anywhere else when he can get attention and pets from them.

On the other hand, every time I try to let the cats in, that stupid dog comes running, and the cats scatter. Agghh. Kids were fun today, we did a bit of everything. Started putting together jigsaw puzzles, but they're HARD! lol

It did end up warming up rather nicely by dinnertime. I hope we'll have time to get some more soil in the veggie beds tomorrow.
hazelinok
5 years ago
It appears everyone is busy because this thread is so quiet. Good to see posts from Dawn and Nancy, though. Nancy, seems like you're having a fun Thanksgiving weekend. We love jigsaw puzzles too. I haven't done them much in this house. It's hard to find a place to leave one out. Finbar and Juno would probably carry off pieces too. Someday I'll get back to doing them. I enjoy them SO much.

Dawn, we shopped yesterday. Got some good deals. ON had 50% off of total at register. That was the worst line, but they were very efficient. Picked up my seasonal soaps from B and BWs. Got a couple of things for Mason at VS. And one of our keepsake ornaments. Waiting for the other coupons to come in the mail before buying the others. Should be anytime now. I've learned to wait until after Black Friday for my better Hallmark coupons to come.

Oh, we bought a new tree. I got a "fir" that is the color of sage instead of the more traditional looking fake tree. These cats are going to be an issue. I've not had too many issues with cats and trees before....but these two, they will be a challenge.

Today will be the day to put the lights on the house.

Other than that, there's not much news. Especially garden news.

Hoping everyone is enjoying their weekend. :)
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Nancy, Is it possible that the dog lives somewhat nearby, but his family might be out of town for Thanksgiving and the dog escaped from his yard and came looking for company and attention? Regardless, I bet he is enjoying all the petting and loving attention from the grandkids. I bet y'all are having lots of fun. During the last week, we had the grandkids on Friday-Saturday-Sunday and then Tuesday-Wednesday-part of Thursday, so we had lots of fun together and now Tim and I have the weekend and next week to recover before they visit next weekend. Grandkids are a ton of fun, but somewhat tiring as well. Don't get me wrong---I love every second with them, but then I do need time to rest and recover afterwards. I wish I still had the same energy level as a 4 year old and a 9 year old, but I don't.

Last week was a Grinch weekend planned just for the kids. First, I already had bought a Grinch storybook planned on the 2018 movie The Grinch, and it came with a board game. I had it stashed away so I could take it out and surprise them at the appropriate time. We went to a theater in Gainesville TX to see the movie, The Grinch, on Saturday afternoon. As a bonus, a costumed Grinch character was present in the theater lobby so the kids got to do a "meet and greet" with The Grinch and have their photo taken. They were so thrilled. He also walked through the theater a couple of times which thrilled all the kids....big ones and little ones alike. Later on, at home, we read the storybook and played The Grinch board game about a billion times. The next morning we went to IHOP for breakfast and we all ate something off their The Grinch menu, including hot cocoa with minty green whipped topping and little red hearts. This was a thrill for the kids, though the food was just typical IHOP food....but somehow I guess the pancakes are tastier when they are dyed green and have whipped cream and little red heart sprinkles on them. Over the next few days, we played that board game a lot. I'm all grinched out, and if I never eat at an IHOP again, I'm cool with that. (Grin....the things you'll do for your grandchildren! lol) I'm glad you and GDW are able to have the three with you right now. Hopefully the cats will come out of hiding.

Jennifer, It sounds like y'all had fun and got a lot of shopping done. Had I not been so tired after most of a week spent with the grandkids, I might have gone to ON because I did think their sale prices sounded great. It was nice to sit at home and not go out and fight the crowds though.

There's no real garden news from here either. I am keeping the amaryllis bulbs watered and they are growing, so hopefully we'll have some flowers by Christmas. With amaryllis you never know---sometimes that grow and bloom quickly, and sometimes much more slowly. So, I just hope for the best. One year they all bloomed after New Year's, but another year they bloomed around Thanksgiving. Some years they bloom in succession for weeks and weeks (I have six of them) and those are my favorite years. I start them about the same time every year, but there seems to be no consistency in how long it takes them to come into bloom in any given year.

We got half the Christmas lights up on the house today, but a fire and very windy conditions prevented us from getting more work done. Everything here is so dry now since all the vegetation has frozen multiple times, and the cured fine vegetation catches fire quickly....and then the fire moves rapidly in the sort of wind we had today and will have again tomorrow. Would y'all believe our high temperature hit 79 degrees today? It actually felt pretty nice, but the strong wind made it feel cooler than you'd think 79 degrees would feel. Also, the relative humidity plunged down to 15%....hence the fire this afternoon. Tomorrow is supposed to be quite a bit windier, so we will stick close to home and try to get things done while understanding, rationally, that fires are likely and our Christmas decorating plans might get pushed out into the future.

A little while ago the head of our local Fire Association sent us all a reminder that one year ago today we were fighting a fast-moving, wind-driven 200-acre wildfire that was a major threat to one home in its pathway and was a more minor threat to a couple more homes. While we stopped the fire from forward advancement just a few yards from the home and barn that day, burning trees and logs kept rekindling in the strong winds over a period of several days and we kept having to go back out and extinguish hot spots. I was getting over the flu/bronchitis that week and being out in the smoke every day really was setting back my recovery. I was coughing my head off out there. It was a rough week. Tomorrow's weather will be virtually identical to what we had on that day last year, so we're all crossing our fingers and hoping for the best---we do not need a repeat of that day. I think I cooked food for the firefighters every day for several days in a row that week so I could feed them out there at the constant return trips to hit new hot spots that were flaring up. How odd is it that we get a total repeat of the weather 1 year and 1 day later if tomorrow's forecast is correct and verifies?

Usually I take down the Thanksgiving decorations immediately after T-Day and put up the Christmas tree but I haven't done it yet, and I might not do it for another few days. I am tired, and I keep looking at all the pretty autumn decorations and thinking that I could be happy to keep looking at them for a while yet.

Our big red oak out front has peaked and is declining, which makes me sad. I'd say that 85% of our trees are pretty much bare now, and I think a ton more leaves will come down tomorrow. There are still some big red oaks in the woods that are a brilliant red, so at least we still have that bit of autumn color.

The bunny population is returning. I don't know if they are cycling up because the coyote population might be cycling down, or if it is just that coyote population has retreated to the nearby river bottom lands because deer hunters are out running around everywhere with guns, but for whatever reason, we've seen more rabbits in the last 2 or 3 days than we've had in months.

Someone near us has had a guy with a Bobcat type tree cutter clearing cedar trees and fence lines for a couple of days now....and the noise from that thing is a tiny bit annoying. Mostly it upsets the dogs, who seem to think the constant banging and crashing of it hitting and taking down trees is a threat to them in some way. Thus, the dogs are not spending much time at all outdoors. I'm not complaining, though, because cleaning up the land, which is adjacent to ours, keeps all of us a bit safer if a fire breaks out. I hope they take out all the cedar trees as those things burn like torches.

I cannot believe we are nearing the end of November. This month has flown by.

Dawn
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Hi HJ! Hi everyone else. Oh my. I totally lost track of those kids' ages. LOL. The three who were with us for the past 2 days are 12 1/2 and 11 and 11. I LOVE having kids around. I absolute LOVE the way young folks' minds work, and I LOVE watching them grow and love exploring who they are as people. I love to visit with young folks and see what they have to say. I don't bake cookies or goodies, don't buy junk for em or I plan activities for them, as such. I did get jigsaw puzzles out, and drawing materials and markers and stuff. Did have pets to offer em. . . okay three pets. Titan, Tiny and the stray, Tippy.

And one of the 11 yr old twins was an ENORMOUS help while I was mulching leaves and then hauling more soil stuff to the raised beds. He and I got four wheelbarrow loads over, after we'd already hauled 5 bags of mulched leaves.

His sister wanted to know when she could come for a painting lesson (she didn't mention it until a couple hours before they were leaving or we could have spent Friday on it. ) I told her to find out from her Mom when she could and just to let me know. I expect both of those brothers will come back then, too.

Their parents and older brother, Russell, came late in the afternoon for chili and visiting. Good good time.

November 2018, Week 3, We Are Thankful

luvncannin

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