I am so far behind that I don't think I can catch up. Amy, I know I need a break, but am unlikely to get one. It isn't just the fires themselves, it is all the time I spend preparing for them, cooking for them, etc. and shopping just to have the food available and stuff. It takes enormous amounts of time and energy, and as I age, I find that I have less extra time and extra energy to spare. I'd gladly completely retire from the VFD today if Tim would do the same (but he never will.....). We aren't even to the peak of fire season yet and there's another couple of months to go, at the very least, and longer if the drought persists, so I've got to address the tiredness issue or I won't survive the fire season. The Governor's Burn Ban is due to expire at the end of the week if she doesn't renew it/extend it (I sure hope she does because the conditions that led to it being implemented in the first place have not improved at all) and I dread that. If she lets it expire, our lives instantly go very downhill very quickly. I hit a level of exhaustion late last week (really, I think it had persisted all week or maybe for several weeks) and over the weekend that I could not stand, so I've really begun addressing all the things that ruin my sleep at night because I cannot keep running on 2 or 3 hours of sleep per night. As far as I'm concerned, the phones and fire radios get turned off at bedtime from now on, period, and I don't care what we miss. If the entire town burns down while we are sleeping, oh well.....that's life. Technically Tim cannot turn off his phone in case there is a police crisis at night, but he can (and has) shut down all his notifications for text messages and emails. The quiet little beeps and buzzes his phone makes for each text and email don't even wake him up (so what's the point of having them?) but they wake me up....somethings every few minutes or at least a couple of times per hour overnight. Now, they are silenced at night, but his phone still would ring if someone actually makes a phone call. Since he was promoted last year, he literally gets emails and text messages from folks at work 24/7---every few minutes some days/nights, and 99% of it is routine stuff/CYA type stuff that really isn't important, but you don't want to miss the 1% that matters. And, I am going to mention this only because it irritates the heck out of me.....he goes into his office, closes the door, turns on his computer and TV and LEAVES his cell phone and fire radio on the console table in the front entryway....right next to the living room, outside his office's closed door. The end result? He doesn't hear his phone at all, and may or may not hear the fire radio pager depending on how loud the TV is turned up---but I hear them both nonstop if I am in the living room, breakfast room, kitchen or laundry room. That stops now too. His devices are going to be in the room he is in and he can deal with their noise level however he chooses, because I am done with it. Whew. I feel better. I slept all night last night. I know I awakened briefly a couple of times, but fell right back asleep (which is rare for me) so the effort to keep things quieter is helping already. I can tell I have a lot more energy this morning, because unlike some recent mornings, my first thought upon getting out of bed was not about how I possibly could just take care of all the animals and then go right back to bed and back to sleep for a few hours. That's a useless pipe dream anyway because I cannot sleep during the daytime. So, if my first waking thought isn't about how I can sleep during the day, it must mean I slept enough during the night. Jen, I simply hate this year's weather pattern, and it is back this week for us. After starting out extra cold this morning, every day warms up nicely and we're forecast to hit 78 degrees on Thursday (snakes will be out, no doubt, if that happens) before the weather crashes again and cold rain/snow makes a reappearance in the forecast for Fri/Sat. Really? How many weeks can this same old same old pattern drag on and on. I am so tired of it. You'd think I could be out in the garden planting on the warm days (and I intend to try) but warm days usually bring us grass fires and wild fires so they aren't the big treat I think they will be. Kim, The greenhouse looks great and the puppies are so cute. I do wish they had set up the greenhouse to run in the proper direction, but I am sure you'll stop them from making that mistake the next time. In our climate, it probably isn't a critical error since there's plentiful sunlight most of the time anyway... I hope the garage sale went well and you made some cash to give you spending money at the MENF. Jacob, You mentioned needing to vent your tunnel. Yes! The heat builds up incredibly quickly. The same thing is true with cold frames and greenhouses. I think people underestimate how hot such growing areas get during the daytime and how cold they get at night, and there is a learning curve for sure. Even with breathable, air-permeable floating row covers, I can kill foot-high tomato plants by leaving the heaviest frost blankets (those that give 10 degrees or more of cold protection) on them on a winter morning---if I don't uncover those tomato plants by 9 a.m. on a sunny winter morning, they can roast under the heaviest row cover....and it is essential to have those heavy duty row covers suspended some distance above the tomato plants by hoops...you can let ultra light-weight row covers float directly on top of the plants, but not the heavier weights, and I learned that one the hard way too, and barely saved my plants from cooking to death. Jacob, The short answer is that alfalfa is a broadleaf legume, not a grain/grass family crop and that's the key. The specific class of broadleaf weed killers that persist as toxic residue in compost, composted manure, animal bedding and the like can persist in grass/grain type crops, most often on/in hay or the manure from animals fed that hay. Those specific herbicides would kill alfalfa crops if used on them, so alfalfa remains clean from those particular herbicide residues. I still am very careful with chicken manure because we do use commercial chicken feed and some of those herbicide residues persisted in bagged, name-brand (I believe it was Purina) horse feed, survived the horses' intestinal tract, survived the professional, commercial composting of the horse manure, and made it into a commercial, bagged compost product sold and used in some northeastern states a few years back. It was horrifying for 100% organic gardeners to find their gardens dying of herbicide residue when they had purchased/used a brand of organic compost they'd used for many previous years with no problem. It took quite a while for the state's ag investigators to trace back the issue to the horse feed, and then they did tests to verify they had found the correct source of the problem. Meanwhile, organic gardeners and farmers there had to do tons of remediation work to restore their soil so they could use it again, and the commercial compost company had a PR nightmare on its hands. I figure if it happened with horse feed, it could happen as well with chicken feed, but as far as I know, that's never been documented. I use compost that included our chicken bedding/manure only in beds where I don't raise veggies. It would hurt to lose flowers, but not as much as it would hurt to lose veggies/herbs, and so far it hasn't happened anyway. I feel it is easier to be more pro-active up front and avoid the issue than to be scrambling later on to do a couple of years of remediation to fix the problem I allowed to occur. We live surrounded by ranchers and constantly are offered all the horse and cow manure we want and decline 100% of those offers. To me, it isn't worth the risk as I do know that many of these people use pre-emergent or post-emergent herbicides (or both) and I don't want/need/will not allow those residues in my garden ever. It is bad enough that some of my plants get killed every year from aerial herbicide drift from somebody else's use of herbicides. Some of these newer herbicides volatize so easily that even very careful applicators cause unexpected problems with herbicide drift. I'm certainly not going to willingly bring herbicide-infested hay or manure onto our property on purpose, not ever, ever, ever. Well, that's all the catching up I can do. I hope I didn't miss anything vital. I know I'm still hopelessly behind on everything. Dawn

Nancy, I've thought long and hard about how we're becoming the oldsters. It is what it is, right? I try to tell myself that what this means is that we have experience, we no longer put up with crap, we have (hopefully) gained the wisdom that comes with living for many decades and we now choose to prioritize our activities and how we spend our time based on what matters to us....not on what society says should matter to us. We are the old wise ones, and I'm good with that. I try really hard to not drive the kids crazy by saying "back in our day, we walked to school barefoot in the winter in the snow 2 miles each way and it was uphill both coming and going". lol I'm afraid I still do too much of that at times, but try to do it in a fun, humorous way. When they start telling me old I'm just going to remind them that they just bought a house that is 27 years older than me, so old must be good, great or terrific! I hate when spendy months hit like that, and sometimes it is just unavoidable. I'm glad GDW's truck is all fixed and, you know, it could have been a lot worse than $700. I feel so behind and wish I was spending today out in the garden. Instead, we just delivered a tool to the kids at the house that the kids need for this weekend, so got to see all the progress they made this week since we last were there. They're really getting the painting done. I think they only have 3 rooms left to go and all three are partially painted, and then the trim in most rooms still needs to be painted. We dropped off the tool, grabbed lunch, brought in the tomato plants that had been outdoors for 4 hours (more on that in a minute), let the dogs and cats out to frolic in the wind and sun, and have to leave in about 45 minutes to go to the 9-year-old's 10th birthday party. By the time we get finished there, it will be too late to do any gardening. Maybe tomorrow.... Kim, Be kind to your body and let it heal. I know you're really stuck in a hard place right now---trying to work after the big promotion and having to deal with the residual pain. I hope things get better quickly. Jennifer, We had fun. Ate dinner out, came home, watched the movie Paddington 2, told silly jokes, loved on the dogs and cats (every night they act like they haven't seen Lillie in 100 years instead of just the typical school day hours), etc. She was worn out and went to bed after the movie ended, and was up, dressed and out of here around 7 a.m. to go work on painting her bathroom at the new house. Her best friend came over to help her, and they were having fun when we were there, and getting some painting done as well. I wish I were out buying plants today! I am so jealous! Or, as the 10 year-old would say, "I'm jelly...." I am going to find a way (somehow, somewhere, or else) to buy some plants this weekend. I need to feed my desire to plant shop. Amy, The thunder woke the dogs, the dogs woke us. The dogs decided they had to go out (it wasn't raining yet) and by the time they came in that little storm had run right past us, so they calmed down and went back to sleep quickly. Then, the weather radio went off a little later for a Severe Tstorm thing about the same time the storm arrived with huge crashing thunder and big lightning bolts. We put the young dogs in their safe place (a gigantic dog crate they love to share) and Jersey went into her safe place (our master bathroom), and we settled back down to sleep. The rain was brief. There was no more thunder. I still was awake, so I let the dogs out of their safe places and we all went back to sleep and slept maybe 3 or 4 more hours. Honestly, on nights like that I don't know why we even think we are going to be allowed to sleep, but we go to bed believing it is going to happen. I'm glad your Grandma Suzy's came up. This morning I ventured outdoors to check conditions for hardening off tomatoes so I can stay on schedule. The wind was raging out of the W/SW and the greenhouse doors and vents are on the W and E ends, and must be open to prevent heat build up, so the greenhouse would have been a wind tunnel today with our winds gusting as high as 44 mph. So, I moved the folding tables to the front porch, put the tomato plants there and left them out for 4 hours. It was not ideal. Between the porch roof and the trees, the plants probably got only 2.5 to 3 hours of sun at most before they found themselves shaded again, but the house blocked most of the wind, so they got a little wind movement, and probably more than I think and more than they needed. Still, it was nowhere near the wind movement they'd have been subjected to in the greenhouse or out in the yard. As Tim pointed out, full exposure to today's wind likely would have killed them so I had to choose the lesser of all the evils. Their color is really great---a much deeper, darker green. You really can tell they are getting a lot of sun. It is SPRING here. All the trees are bursting out into blooms and leafing out and everything else. I mean, all the plants are going nuts, like the severe cold was the only thing holding them back and now that it is gone, everything is full speed ahead. The stores have all the plants, but I haven't had time to look at them. I'm not saying we won't have more freezing nights, but rather that Mother Nature is moving on and doing her thing and will pay the consequences, if any. Bees and butterflies are out, moths and mosquitoes, blah, blah, blah. Gotta run to the birthday party because a swim party (indoors!) with a bunch of 9-11 year olds is the only acceptable substitute for a very windy day (wind vicious today!) spent in the garden. Dawn

The other area I think would be the front yard just beyond my porch. There are wooden flower boxes and next to the downspout is a wood flower box as well. The storm water overwhelms the cement porch and gets trapped because of the wood boxes and just stands causing damage to the posts that support the overhang.

Yay for the violets, Nancy! And...you still have summer squash? The bugs killed ours long ago. Even the C. Moschata. I am pooped. So tired. We shopped today and I don't have to tell anyone that shopping is very unpleasant right now. However, Dillards allows you to try on clothes and I found a dress. It's not exactly the bohemian/fairy princess dress that I wanted. But it fits nicely and its a forest green color...and it's Robin Hoodish (not really), so I bought it. Paid more than what I wanted to pay, but it's done. DONE! Came home around 3 and sliced, breaded and froze okra. Then figured out how to use my pressure canner as a water bath canner and pickled some okra. On my own. The lids sealed so hopefully we're good. My house is getting to the point that I am very unhappy. I know a clean house isn't the most important thing in the world....but I enjoy a clean home. It just feels nice to me. However, a clean house isn't anywhere in my near future. I am hoping the robot vacuums are cheap this Christmas. That will at least help. We are celebrating Mason's BD tomorrow and that will be fun. It's at a very good restaurant that I haven't been to in a long time. Then grocery shopping and then maybe starting more lettuce seed. In between all of those things is animal care. Lots of animal care. There's always one of them doing something they shouldn't be doing or somewhere they shouldn't be hanging out. One of the fat buff orpingtons has figured out how to get out of the chicken yard. And she isn't swift. She is dumb--beautiful but dumb and wanders over by the dogs. So, I'm constantly leaving whatever task I'm working on to catch her or entice her back to the yard. And everyone is always hungry all the time. The 3 young pullets mingled with the main flock today. It went very well. Having a good rooster helps with that. They're roosting in their own coop, though. It will be a gradual thing as always. Momma Blossom will be tired of her chicks soon and those two chicks will need to move to the pullet coop at that time. Although, at least one of those chicks is a cockerel. Tom may or may not start doing meat birds and these two could be the start of it. They won't be THE meat birds, but they might be the parents of. I've named the one I think is a girl. Her name is Gwendolyn, which is sorta funny because Gwendolyn (actually related to Jennifer/Guinevere.) means white ...and Gwendolyn is a dark cornish. I'm simply rambling now.