I just got back in from picking the okra. It looks like it is about done for this year.

The peppers look good, but slowing down on production. They are past due on feeding, so a little food and water should set them up for a better fall crop.

I should be seeing sweet potatoes sticking out of the ground around the base of the plant this time of the year, but almost none are. What I did find every where I tried poking a finger into the soil was a gopher tunnel. which seems strange because I see no mounds anywhere. I have heard that if you plant a small sweet potato rather than a slip, you would get very few potatoes and a lot of vines. That looks like it may be what happens to my crop this year. I will just have to wait 4 to 6 weeks and see.

I planted Covington plants last year and liked the potatoes because they were a smaller size and kept very well, too well. I had almost no potatoes making slips by planting time this spring, but I did have a very good supply of small potatoes that I had saved for our Yorkie, he loves them. I planted mostly small potatoes rather than slips, and have a very good crop of vines that are just starting to take over the pepper and okra plants.

My daughter and granddaughter should be over here in a few minutes. We plan on going out to eat and going to see mom's head stone. It was set Fri. evening and looks very nice. It looks just like dad's stone, but brighter. Dad's stone was set 62 years ago. I will try to clean dad's stone to see if I can make it brighter, if not, 62 years from now they may look the same.

Mentally preparing for the next couple of days! Just need to keep everything and everyone alive...then, maybe, we will start the gradual cool down. I thought last week was it--but, nope. Maybe this week will be it.

My crankiness and SAD (mine happens in August) is in full bloom. I blame it on my Neanderthal variants. haha! Out of all 1200 relative on the 23 and Me list, I have the highest number of variants. I'm in the top 1 or 2 % of everyone who has been tested, I think. Honestly, I don't mind the colder weather except for the dumb Raynaud's syndrome that makes my fingers turn snow white and go numb.

Anyway...

The baby chicks are all in one coop. The mommas are back with the flock. I did the separation about an hour before dark. It went fairly smoothly. Only Buttercup, the buff orpington has been picked on at all. And, not too much. It helps that they knew each other already AND they went fairly quickly to the roost bars after being reacquainted. AND they woke up and it was a new day. I did have to pick up Buttercup and Stormy and place them on the roost bars. They weren't leaving their babies who were chirping loudly to them. Rosa laid an egg yesterday in her brooder. At dark, she eventually went to the coop and stopped stalking her baby in the old coop, who was crying loudly for her. When I went to pick up Stormy, I was a little confused because she wasn't stalking the baby coop. THEN, I figured out one of the little banty babies had somehow gotten out and Stormy was taking care of it. It's all very sad, but they quickly forget. When I let the hens out of the pen this morning, the chicks could see them and called for them again.

The four chicks who were already in the old coop know how to roost. The others were still sleeping under their mothers and didn't know how. I put them on the roost and they stayed all night. The four cuddled together, Stormy's three cuddled together, and poor Jorie was Rosa's only one and she was all alone on the roost bar. They'll integrate soon. The four in the old coop used to be in sets of two until Blossom finished mothering a couple of weeks ago and the were cared for by Buttercup until last night. ANYWAY...enough chicken rambling. Hopefully they'll make it through the next two very hot days.

Well, we got lots of wind and lightning last night. Rain fell all around us, but missed our neighborhood. We didn't even get a sprinkle. However, stuff was blown over and all over our property. I couldn't find the dog food bowls this morning. I fed them outside last night.

At work, it rained a little this morning. AND maybe we got a few sprinkles out here, but not enough to register in the rain gauge.

I got up super early while it was still a little dark and drug hoses around to water stuff. And the watering is continuing now. The cracks are so wide and deep that when I try to fill them with water, they do not overflow. I know our neighbors' have said our wells have never run dry, but I'm still a little nervous about it.

A couple of tomato plants are goners, so I'll pull them out at some point. They're in the back garden that needs lots and lots compost. Honestly, I might just start composting directly on that garden starting soon.

My tiny seedlings almost died yesterday. Luckily, I was able to bring them back by gently watering.

Tom is getting closer and closer to finishing our neighbor's cart. The heat limits our time outdoors. We woke up early yesterday, and spray painted the chairs of our patio furniture. We are going to work on the table tonight, in about 30 minutes. Put it in the shade and get it cleaned at least. It feels good to get stuff done. One reason I hate the hot weather, is the limit it places on outdoor projects.

This week, my chores are keeping everything I want to survive watered. I might get up super early and fertilize some of the plants.

I want to cuddle all the baby chicks too!

I should work on indoor projects and cook good food....but I don't like to heat up the house on these extremely hot days. Luckily salmon cooks quickly (tomorrow's dinner) and spaghetti (Tuesday) can be done on the cooktop and is also quick. We haven't had pasta in weeks. I'm looking forward to it. I'm so hungry right now.

Suppose I'll wander out and harvest the okra, juliets, and cucumbers.

dbarron, You are so lucky. The 100s aren't even done here. Our forecast for tomorrow is a high of 100 with a max heat index of 110 and much of OK will be even hotter. I hate August weather!

We were outside shortly before sunset with our granddaughter in their front yard this evening, and even though the temperature still was in the upper 90s, it didn't feel that bad. We were in the shade, there was a breeze....and an ice cream truck came down the street at just exactly the right time. There's nothing about this heat that ice cream can't improve.

Larry, I hope you don't have gophers or moles. A couple of weeks ago a mole tunnel appeared in our front yard, which is just so strange as they generally don't care for hard clay soil. It came from next door (my eyes can follow the tunnel.....), where they have a lot more sandy soil than we do. I've been so busy with all the family stuff going on that I haven't even thought about dealing with the mole but at some point I'll have to. Now there's vole holes near the mole tunnel, and this evening I found one gopher hole. So, I guess I'm going to have to get busy working on getting rid of them before they leave the yard and move into the garden....but, honestly, it is so hot that I really don't care.

I've always heard the same thing about sweet potatoes, but never have planted small potatoes to test the theory. I have seen some other people here in OK complaining that their sweet potato vines aren't making potatoes yet either though.

I hope that y'all had a nice visit to check out your mom's head stone.

Jennifer, It is so unusual that SAD affects you in summer but I suppose it makes sense based on your genetics.

I hope your chickens are fine the next couple of days. Mine don't seem as bothered by the heat this year as usual, but I don't know if that's because they have become more acclimated to it or what. I do have watermelons to feed them the next few days, so at least they'll stay hydrated.

I still feel drained from working in the heat all day yesterday. We were in the house, and the AC was on, but people were in and out constantly hauling out boxes of stuff that was going to new homes, bags of trash, furniture and appliances to be hauled to their new locations, etc., so we might as well not have had the AC on at all. I am so glad that am not a pack rat and, unlike some other people, did not attempt to haul the entire contents of my mom's house to my home. I hope they can find a place to put it all, and I need to tell them that the rest of us are not going to sort through all that stuff again when they die. I've spent umpteen years purging our house of old junk so Chris won't have to deal with all like we did yesterday, and I had no desire to haul trailer loads of new-to-us old junk home from mom's.

The few things I brought home from mom's were mostly antiques and small things: a McCoy mixing bowl I always loved, a pink depression glass child-sized tea set, my mom's baby doll carriage from the early 1930s, and an unusual vase from 1952. Today Tim and Aurora were mixing up a batch of Bavarian waffle batter in the mixing bowl for breakfast because making breakfast together on Sunday mornings is their special thing they like to do together, and when Aurora got ready to stir it all together, she bowed her little head and said a brief prayer to Granny up in heaven...."Thank you Great-Granny for the beautiful mixing bowl for us to use since you're in Heaven." Oh, my heart.......

My favorite thing I brought home was something I found in a box of childhood photos I brought home to sort through: my grandmother's diary from 1972 through 1976 and it was partly garden-related. It is a fascinating look at everything, including notable weather jotted down, how many quarts of peas or beans or whatever they canned or froze on any given day--and she kept cumulative running totals too, important things like getting the garden plowed up, or my grandfather having yet another heart attack (he had 5 and survived them all but had constant angina). At times she mentioned us, like "Dawn left on a trip to Nashville today"....from Dec. 1976...and it was fun to see stuff like that too. I noticed she put up a bunch of quarts of tomatoes in her freezer---and I did not remember that. I thought she canned them all, so it was sort of fascinating to see she preserved a lot of them by freezing like I do. Or, I should say it the other way around...it was fascinating to see I am preserving tomatoes the same way she did without me even realizing it. I also found a photo of all of us in front of my mom's flower beds in the 1960s or very earliest 1970s and was amused to see I still grow all the flowers (cockscombs, celosias, zinnias, and cosmos) that she did---certainly a hot-weather-driven choice we both made because, honestly, those are the flowers with the best chances of surviving our weather in July and August.

I looked at my garden today and it looked so hot and dry and miserable. I probably need to water it again tomorrow. The flowers are such a haven for the birds, bees, butterflies and such that I hate to stop watering and let it all die, even though I probably should. I keep thinking that surely the temperatures will start to fall and we'll start getting more rain, but then it isn't really happening. I am grateful our plants respond to temperatures and not to the heat index. They may be able to survive endless days in the 100s if well-watered, but I don't think they could handle much more than that at this point. There will be some relief this week, but is a high temperature of 95 or 97 degrees really that different from a high of 99 or 100? I don't really think so.

I don't really have an August D-I-Y project set up to work on indoors this month like I usually do. I left that sort of open-ended because of mom's health and imminent death. We want to paint the exterior of the house a different color that will look better with our new roof, but it is too hot right now to do that so it probably will be a September project. At this time of the year, maybe surviving the heat is enough of a project all by itself.

Dawn

Dawn, it's weather like this that makes me want to move to a higher altitude tropical location with day time temps averaging in the 70s. Certainly a topic for discussion lately.

Weather like this makes me think next year I will figure out an easier way to water, at least the pots! I fertilized the ones out front and watered yesterday.

I'm having a bursitis attack in my hip which sent me to the ER yesterday to make sure the artificial hip wasn't dislocated. It's a pain to pull out the wheel chair and walker again, but at least I have them available. It is better today, but there will be no walking over rough ground in the near future.

We had a birthday party for the 2 year old Sat (actual birthday is the 22nd). All 4 of my children together, which was nice.

Dawn, when my mom passed I bought a scanner on Amazon for scanning all the photos. I have a lot of my own, too. I haven't done it. Maybe this winter.

We got sprinkles of rain Sunday, and about 1/4 " Sat. It wasn't enough. Radar looked like Nancy might have gotten a good storm yesterday.

FYI Saturday was Tulsa Audubon's Purple Martin Watch, so y'all should see them staging in other parts of the state.

Have a good week everyone.

Amy, I use a riding mower to get around on to do things at the gardens. This year I have used our zero turn mower to go to the garden to carry gas on, a tool box or fertilizer, or anything else that will fit on its larger platform. I installed a (4) hose manifold on the hydrant and strung water hoses to the gardens and flower beds. Most of the time I feel like walking to the gardens to water. All I have to do is turn on the water and walk to the garden and sit on a stool that I just leave out there. I have irrigation tubes to use, but it is too late in the year to install them.

Madge and I are talking about building a shelf along the deck next year to set large pots on so we can just water from the deck ( we already have water there). I ran water lines to the gardens some years ago because I knew this time was coming. I will have to check the lines to make sure they dont leak, or I just may keep using the water hoses because I keep hitting the hydrants and breaking them off.

I know it must be hard for you to take care of a home, kids, and a garden, I dont think I could do it.

I rode around the place checking water and grass. There is still plenty water for the wildlife. The grass is starting to turn brown, My wildlife garden is even more brown because it is higher and I have had fewer years to work on it. I have about 3 or 4 acres planted over there, but no water.

I checked the stock pond and the small pond I made just south of the house. There is wildlife bedding down around the stock pond. The little pond, which is only about 7' x 12' and no more than 10" deep now, has fish in it and I am not sure how they got there, but I hate to see them die. I bought a 50# bag of fish food about a week ago and tried to feed them, but they wanted grasshoppers. When I went back to day they were not so picky. I crushed the pellets with some pliers that I had on the tractor ( I ride every where on the tractor or mower) and they eat like little pigs. Now I need to figure a way to get water to that little pond. I have enough hose to reach to the pond, but I am afraid that the city water may kill them, plus I dont want to be dragging a lot of hose.

We really need rain.

My garden looks pretty pathetic right now, and it’s also been invaded. One, by what I’m pretty sure is poke weed, and two, by what’s either cucamelons or some type of wild grapevine. I’ve never planted cucamelons, because I hate them. But all of these things are growing out of the cracks in my porch concrete, out of the foundation of the house, springing from almost all my containers, and anywhere else you can think of. It’s like kudzu. I can’t keep up with yanking it all out. I’m about ready to zip myself into a hazmat suit and Roundup the whole thing. It’s making me crazy how invasive all this stuff is. I can’t wrap the whole property in plastic and solarize it. What to do?

I also have have managed to grow the Mother of All Tarragon Plants. It’s outgrown a 15 gallon pot and into the ground below it. And it doesn’t smell or taste like anything.

Green beans are toast, looks like powdery mildew. Tomatoes and peppers are trying, but they really need a break in the heat. Cucumbers are just sitting there. Squash is plodding along. I do have some PEPH peas. Do I shell them to eat them fresh? Boil or steam?

That's so cool that you found your grandmother's diary, Dawn! I know how much you're enjoying looking at it. I picked up some letters (1900 thru 1950ish)from a cousin a couple of years ago. I was thrilled when my family mentioned chickens or gardening/farming in their letters.

Amy, I'm so very sorry your hip is hurting. It must be very frustrating!

Larry, that makes me sad about the fish in your pond. We need rain too. So badly.

Y'all is pokeweed a sort of pretty plant? There's something in my garden too...I didn't pull it because it was such a pretty plant. My sister said she thinks it is poke weed.

Rebecca, I shell the PEPH peas unless they are very small and young. If they aren't dried, you don't have to cook as long. I normally boil them and add onion, garlic, peppers--and other veggie too, sometimes.

Are you planning a fall garden, Rebecca?

I did a little work in the garden from about 7 am to 9 am. I fertilized almost everything and watered. I also watered tonight and noticed a leaf footed bug on my Armenian cucumbers. So I quickly smashed it between a leaf. THEN, a dozen or so more flew in. I yelled at Tom to bring me some gloves. I think I killed them all. That was the weirdest thing. I wonder if they were attracted to the water--I was watering the Armenian cukes at the time.

I harvested okra, peppers, and the volunteer SunGold offspring tomatoes. This plant made a tasty fruit. It's more oblong than it's parent plant. Very sweet, though. This has not been a good tomato year for me. I've gotten a few...and there are blooms on the remaining plants believe it or not. The only tomato that did well is the Juliet. It is slowing down, but deserves to. That is a powerful tomato plant. I will buy seed next year. I must have a Juliet in my garden every year from now on.

Ladybugs are absent in my garden this year. Isn't that strange?

I cant find brussels sprouts seeds in stores. Any suggestions on a good variety for Oklahoma? I'll need to order them, I guess.

I won't ramble on about the chickens, but I just want to know so badly who is a boy and who is a girl.

Tomorrow will be more harvesting of okra and more watering.

Cox is finally coming to our neighborhood and it looks like they'll have to dig in the chicken yard.

That is all.

dbarron, When we moved here in 1999, it was with the goal that this would be our forever home. We still feel that way, but on hot summer days (so, basically, all of June, July and August), I do daydream of moving to a cooler summer climate. We're here to stay though since almost all my family is in TX just about 80-100 miles away, depending on their location, and our son's family is just 30 minutes away from us in Ardmore. Any place that we'd move for a cooler summer probably would have a colder winter, and I like the cold even less than the heat, and it would take us too far away from family anyway.

Amy, Place like Lowe's and Home Depot sell drip irrigation kits for containers. My very first drip irrigation kit was for 11 hanging baskets on the front/side porch, and my second one was for plants in pots in the side yard. They both were kits from either Lowe's or Home Depot. You can streamline the process even further by setting it up on a timer, though you'll need to remember to adjust the timer as the weathers gets worse (or better).

I hope your bursitis clears up quickly and doesn't leave your mobility impeded for too long.

My brother has been scanning photos for some time now, but mom had tons of them, so we ought to buy a scanner and do the same. Maybe that would be a good winter project. We're planning a reunion with our sole surviving aunt and all our cousins on mom's side for sometime this winter after the winter holidays are over and I'm hoping my aunt and the one cousin older than me can help ID some of the photos from my grandparents' generation because I do, for sure, recognize my grandparents and their parents in the photos, but don't know all the names of the different siblings and their spouses in photos from various decades. Some of these photos data back to the late 1890s and early 1900s but most are from the 1920s through 1960s.

Larry, It is important to find ways to keep doing what we love for as long as we can. I'd love to make my whole garden waist-high somehow, so I wouldn't have to bend over so much, or get up and down off the ground so much. I still can do both...but I know the day is coming when it will get harder and harder. I remember about 15 years ago after Fred gave me molasses feed tubs. I showed him tomato plants growing in feed tubs a few months later, and he promptly adapted that for himself the following season, putting the feed tubs up on sawhorses and old outdoor tables so he could grow tomatoes without having to bend over too much. He had lots of back problems, hip problems and knee problems and was undergoing back surgery, hip replacement surgery and knee replacement surgery at the time....in his 70s and 80s. He never did go back to growing tomato plants in the ground after that, even after his mobility improved following the surgeries, and I don't blame him. I wish my whole garden was in elevated feed tubs or elevated containers of some kind.

I hope you get rain soon, especially for the sake of the little ponds.

Rebecca, Do whatever you have to do to get rid of those weeds. I had to yank out cucumelons for a good 8-10 years to get rid of them and to this day I hate to disturb the soil where they grew (mostly at the west end of the veggie garden) for fear I'll stir up some old seeds buried in the soil and then they'll sprout.

I like to shell PEPH peas and boil them. If there are smallish immature ones, I snap them and add them to the shellies.

Jennifer, The diary has been fun and, in it, she mentioned the death of several of her and my grandfather's siblings in the 1970s, so I was able to understand exactly when they died. In my head I just had vague memories of them being around.....and then no longer being around, so knowing the dates of their death helps a bit.

I almost think that leaf-footed bugs are curious and just fly in to see what you're doing because they do that to me a lot, and it happens in wet years as well as dry ones. As dry as your area is, though, I think there's a chance they're wanting some water.

Pokeweed is sort of pretty, but so invasive that I don't let it stay. It is a perennial and pops up in the same places in our yard every year unless I have taken the time to dig it out by the roots.

Ladybugs always become more scarce in the heat. I still see them a lot very early or very late in the day, but not in the middle of the day when it is hot....and, lately, the middle of the day when the heat is extreme seems to start not that long after sunrise. Mostly what I see in the heat of the day is grasshoppers, grasshoppers, grasshoppers.

With brussels sprouts, they'll all grow well here. I have mostly grown Long Island Improved (superb flavor), Jade Cross, Rubine and Diablo. The last three are quicker to produce in my garden than Long Island Improved, which is a very old heirloom variety and still immensely popular because it is a heavy yielder with great flavor.

The boys will let you know who they are soon enough when they start their horrible adolescent attempts at crowing. There will be no doubt then.

I hope Cox doesn't mess up your chicken yard too badly.

The heat is horrible again today, but we did cool off a little bit more last night than we did on previous nights, so I hope that is some sort of a good omen.

The bad omen? The deer and coons have stopped coming to the compost pile. The feral mother cat is still around, but has moved and hidden the babies so I'm not seeing them (or something has gotten them). The bunnies aren't out very early or very late in the day. We're not seeing skunks, armadillos or possums. Not seeing many squirrels. So, virtually all the wildlife is hiding out now and not letting itself be seen. I want to know why. It isn't coyotes, which usually are the problem at this time of the year, because we aren't hearing or seeing them at all. Same for foxes and bobcats. It is like everyone has just disappeared. Maybe they are coming out long after dark and going back into hiding well before sunrise, but Tim isn't even seeing them when he is leaving at 5 a.m., and that is unusual.

I'm making progress with the black feral cat, Big Boy. A few minutes ago he followed me indoors to eat in the mudroom and lie there on the cool tile floor and sleep. The heat appears to be driving him to concede that there might be some good reason to come indoors after all. He slept in the mudroom all night last night until Tim let him out at 5 a.m. He fights with our other cats, as feral males tend to do, so taming him and integrating him into the family may not be possible, but I'm going to try.

The garden looks cranky. Everything is alive, blooming, etc but the plants look miserable. I understand why though---this heat is relentless. We are moving closer and closer to the end of August, so presumably the nights, at least, will begin to cool off a bit more over the next couple of weeks. Maybe the daytime highs will start to slowly fall as well. We can only hope!

Dawn

Due to a lack of family, I'm strongly considering becoming a tropical retiree. I certainly understand those of you that have families not considering that move. I'm certainly nervous about possibly living in some other country :( But there seem to be climatic and financial pluses.

Larry, you have much more ground to cover! We can't fit a riding mower through the gate to the back yard. There have been discussions for years about adding a double gate so we could drive the truck in, but it hasn't happened. We either need a riding mower or we're going to have to pay someone to mow. Ron doesn't need heat stroke pushing his mower around. I use a cane when outside, just in case I step in a hole (stupid dogs). But it's hard to carry things AND use a cane. I would do away with the grass, but we all know there's no way to get rid of bermuda. I pretty much ignore the house while gardening. Let's face it, I ignore the house all the time. The little kids are grandkids, we watch them every other Saturday.

My hip is better today. I'm still using the cane, because I'm afraid of falling, but it is just an ache today.

Dawn, I've always ignored Long Island Improved because....I don't know...I went with hybrids. Now I have to buy some seeds. The trouble is I never seem to get them started in time. Ron loves Brussels Sprouts, to the point that I'm kind of sick of them.

We have chances of rain later in the week (at least here) and after tomorrow it's supposed to be cooler. Let's hope.

I wonder if the box stores will put the drip kits on clearance at the end of the season. We went to Big Lots the other day looking for clearance stuff, but anything I might have wanted was gone. I have gotten greenhouses there in the past, but I don't think they had any this year.

Rebecca, I like my southern peas cooked in chicken broth. I know traditionally ham is added, but if you're not adding ham, try chicken broth.

Shouldn't there be seed sales now? I kind of need a fix. Got a Wild Seed catalog in the mail, but no sale.

Dbarron, Cupertino. I told Tom I want to move to Cupertino. We found us a house. It's a 781 sq. ft. 1 bed, 1 bath fixer-upper. AND they only want $429,000 for it! LOL. It does come with an acre. It doesn't get very hot, nor cold there.

Okay...I was just checking in. Need to be productive today, so I'll make some picked jalapenos.

Hee, well I was hoping to be find some place where 50K would buy a small home and my money would go at least 2x as far as here.
So far, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Portugal, and maybe Spain come to mind.

Yes--how wonderful to have your grandmother's diary, Dawn. I know mine didn't keep one! Speaking of grandmothers, I miss her. She was the best Grandma. And so was Grandpa the best. I was so lucky to have them in my life.

Dbarron, funny you mentioned those countries. I fell in love with Peru when I visited with my brother and SIL in 2013. I said I was going to retire and move to Ollayantaytambo Peru. I was putting money into my 401(k) like crazy and had researched it thoroughly. Beautiful country, wonderful people, a good expat community--and yes, money went twice as far as here. Then met Garry. Dbarron--they have wifi everywhere in Peru! How crazy is that!? LOL

Sign. So hot. With the heat index of 109, I thought of the perfect work today! We have the small 5' high freezer in the quilt room (and now our big upright frost free one is in the garage and working), but it's about 25 years old and isn't frost free. SO. Perfect day to defrost it. I unloaded it and the big one had enough room to get everything jammed into it. Then Garry loaded it up on the dolly and set it out in the sun. Defrosted that baby in no time! We only have to defrost it once every 2 years. Not bad!

We went out to the beds to see if we had any produce--nada. Pulled a few weeds and sweat was running into our faces. I watered all the container plants this morning and that was enough of that heat! We were going to take the cats to the vet for shots this afternoon (as they take walk-ins after 1 pm), but the cats were nowhere to be found. They have been staying in lately, but they must have gotten stir crazy. Well, we gave up. So I called and made an appt for them in the morning hours, since they hang around us for a while in the morning. And Tom. . . . taking Tom to the vet is a fantasy. Ain't gonna happen. But the other two will be good to go.

So we got groceries instead. I have so many meat products all of a sudden I have no idea what to fix for dinner! Jury's still out; I better be thinking soon.

Does humidity bother your hip, Amy? How about cold weather? And no, the rain missed us. We were in town, and Wagoner got a nice rain--but it went by west of us here.

Haha, the yard looks cranky here, Dawn. The raised beds look riotous, with the cucumbers and squash going crazy. I love that. Yes. Cranky. I need to be tearing out the giant crabgrass plants (makes weeding go fast though :) ) but it is just too hot to make my self do it. I got two large Cappuccino Rudbeckia at Lowe's yesterday when we were there. They are gorgeous! Have any of you seen them? The flowers are large. Maybe they won't fall victim to mildew as easily as my others do. I'm going to take out some of the Tithonia--may need to go get a couple more of the rudbeckia. I should pull a bunch more stuff (flowers) and put more in. . . too hot. lol

The ladybugs have more than their share of predator bugs, too. With our population of dragonflies and wasps this summer. . . We HAD lots of ladybugs early in the summer, but when the wasps arrived in force, seems that's when the ladybugs vanished. I know many caterpillars probably fell victim as well, but we sure have had a lot of butterflies, so SOME of them made it, apparently.

Okay. Bacon and egg sandwiches with melted cheese on top, and tomatoes. Too hot to do dinners. Later, all!

Nancy, what will you do about Tom's rabies shots, etc.?! I hate taking cats to the vet. I used to say that I would rather take both dogs at the same time (and y'all know how difficult my dogs are) than Charlotte. We took Finbar to TSC for his preventative care last month. I am beginning to think that was a mistake. He was the only feline in a long line of canine. I'm pretty sure they're not used to dealing with cats even though they advertise an "outdoor cat special". I asked for them to test him for feline leukemia, which you must do before giving them the shots. When she neglected to do that, I asked and she said that he was too upset to do that and then she said, "oh, wait. I gave him the shot." !!!! Ugh. So...hopefully he doesn't have it and the shot triggers something. He has developed a cough since that experience. OH! and they want you to take a "sample" to be tested for internal parasites, which you KNOW he has. He kills rodents and things. I can't follow him around all day looking for a sample and both cats use the litter boxes. I finally caught him (using one of my garden beds!!!) and put it in the tube. For some reason I assumed I would mail it in. But, no. I have to take it to one of their labs within 12 hours. I don't know where their labs are. I wasn't given instructions on that. Anyway...I'm afraid he has lungworms or something similar. I'm going to HOPE he doesn't have feline leukemia and they just made it worse by giving him the shot. I guess you get what you pay for. (although it wasn't that cheap honestly.) I'm sure it's a great option for dogs, though. As long as the dog has no special considerations.

dbarron, I have friends visiting from Portugal. We had lunch with them on Sunday. I asked if it got *this* hot there. They said, not really...maybe for a day or two. Their average high is in the 80's during August and their average lows are around 40 in the winter months. Can you imagine the garden you could grow there?!

Amy and Dawn, thanks for your brussels sprouts suggestions. Should the seed be started like NOW?

Dawn, that is creepy that your wildlife has disappeared! Aliens? Something more sinister? (I just finished Stranger Things last week).

Our patio furniture is complete and we even purchased new cushions and a new umbrella for it. So happy to get some stuff complete. Just need to buy a couple of turquoise pots. I saw some at Lowes, but will have to wait until next pay day.

Our neighbor's cart will be finished when Tom puts all the pieces back together. Easy Peasy. We put a water sealer on it last night.

Just the regular stuff in the garden....nothing new really. The Seminole continues to dominate and will take over every inch of the garden within a couple of weeks, I am afraid.

Y'all's opinions on using white vinegar to kill grass/weeds?

Next up on the project list: the hinged hoop and a temporary potting bench. I don't want to use my new (old) table for potting stuff now. It looks so nice and I want to keep it that way for as long as possible.

dbarron, I think that being a tropical retiree would be awesome for someone who's not too tied down to family. In that situation, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I find it hard to bear if I go a couple of weeks without seeing the grandkids, so I don't think it would work for me. Tim's sister and brother in law kinda have an ideal situation (but their first grandchild just arrived this past Spring, so we'll see if things change, lol). They have something (think it is a rental house, the same one every year) in Florida they can flee to in the cold weather months and then they go back to PA in the warmer months. They did downsize from a very large family home in PA to a much smaller one, but one of their daughters bought their previous home, so it still is in the family for family gatherings.

Amy, Y'all need that double gate into the back yard! I cannot remember life before our riding mower. It is 17 or 18 years old now, and we've been discussing replacing it as Tim has to replace several parts on it per year. I keep telling him he is getting a new lawnmower, but one part at a time.

All of next year is going to be about redoing all the landscaping around our house. I know I cannot get rid of all the bermuda grass completely around the house, but I hope to get rid of all of it on the south side of the house, and in the southern half of the backyard that sits between the house and detached garage. Next year will be the first year of seriously working towards turning as much of our landscape as possible into a no-mow landscape now that the trees finally are big monsters that shade a lot of the ground so I can have some shade-loving plantings beneath them to replace the sunn-loving plants we've had for so long. I've been giving it a lot of thought and doing a lot of preliminary planning for it this year. (Tim has no idea how extensive my plans are. lol.) If we could work seriously on one-quarter of the yard per year, we could have it all done in 4 years. The front yard won't even be that hard in the long run because the now 20-year-old trees are shading out the bermuda, but the challenge may be to find a ground cover that the voles won't eat. I probably need to go with a native groundcover that is similar to what we have in the woods, since they don't seem to eat those plants. I'm sure the bermuda will work hard to come back in the southern side yard and back yard, but there's grasskillers for that. Of course, no matter how much grass we take out, how many raised mulched beds we install and how much hardscaping we put in around the house, we'll still have a couple of acres to mow beyond the yard itself. Still, pasture mowing is pretty straightforward and easy on a lawn tractor compared to mowing around the house, shrub beds, fencing, tornado shelter, etc. and then having to drag out the string trimmer and edge it all. I'd be content with lots and lots of hardscaping around the house softened by occasional well-mulched planting beds of low-maintenance shrubs and perennials. Well see what sort of fencing we come up with to protect the plantings and we'll see how hard the bermuda grass is to eradicate (I already know it isn't going to be a piece of cake). Tim isn't really on-board with the idea of a largely no-mow yard because he likes mowing, but I think he'll change his mind as we do the work. It isn't like he won't have 2 or 3 acres to mow beyond the yard anyhow.

Brussels sprouts from seed can be pretty amazing. One year, Fred's son (Billy Fred) sowed brussels sprouts seeds in their red clay garden in the spring. I think he sowed them too late and the soil was too warm and they never sprouted. We assumed the seeds rotted in the hot clay soil. Nope. Around late Sept or early Oct the seeds sprouted, surprising everyone, and Fred and Billy Fred were harvesting brussels sprouts around the end of Dec or early Jan and had them all winter and spring.

I haven't been watching online for sales, but it is about that time. Usually Renee's Garden Seeds and Peaceful Valley Farm Supply have seed sales in late summer or early autumn.

Nancy, This is a great time of year to defrost a freezer! It is too hot to do anything that doesn't involve ice or water.

Speaking of water, I woke up to such low water pressure this morning that I couldn't do anything. It was just a tiny trickle coming out of the faucet. Five or six hours later the water company had fixed whatever was wrong and suddenly we had our water pressure back, but too late in the day to water the garden, so I guess I'll do that tomorrow.

We just this minute got paged out to a grass fire on I-35. I hope it is a little one because I am not in the mood to be out there dragging coolers of cold drinks around while hoping those cars speeding down the highway don't come off the road and hit us. We haven't had a big fire in maybe 4-6 weeks and are really overdue for one.

Rudbeckias don't like my slow-draining clay. Even well-amended and draining what I think of as fairly well, they've never done well here in it. I love the way they look, but they don't love our growing conditions. I might be able to grow them in the back garden, but the voles make everything back there pretty iffy. I think they are gorgeous and I have seen the Cappuccino ones, but they're high-risk plants for me.

Jennifer, For this fall? Brussels sprouts seeds should have been started between mid-June and mid-July and then the plants put in the ground between mid-July and mid-August. You might get away with directly sowing the seeds now. After all, Billy Fred's spring-sown seeds that I mentioned above didn't sprout until soil conditions were right in the autumn and he got a harvest a very few months later, and it was a great harvest.

If you really want to use vinegar to kill weeds, buy the horticultural vinegar (yes, there is such a thing) that is much stronger than kitchen vinegar. The one that Bradfield Organics makes is 20% acidity compared to kitchen vinegar's 5% acidity. Be sure to wear googles when spraying it as vinegar that strong can badly damage your eyes if it gets into them....like if the wind blows the mist back into your face. Most people that I know who use vinegar have found that in our climate it only kills the top growth and may have to be reapplied to kill the roots. It is a nonspecific herbicide so will kill everything it touches, making it good for certain uses (like killing weeds in the cracks of sidewalks and patios, for example, or in mulched beds with widely spaced desirable plantings) but not so good for other uses, like killing weeds in lawns since it will leave ugly dead spots where it touches the grasses.

It sounds like you and Tom are getting some projects completed! Yay! We are so far behind on typical summer stuff because we've been gone to hospitals and nursing homes, for illnesses and funerals and such so much this summer. I'm trying to get us back into a good routine again but it is hard. Tim is the acting chief of his PD for the next two weeks while his boss is out of town, so I expect he'll work some long hours and not really begin to get back into any sort of routine until September. I don't think life is going to slow down around here for a while yet, but I'm trying to resume some sort of routine that seems normal. Except for mowing. It is too hot to mow, even first thing in the day. I'm waiting for cooler weather. In the absence of regular rainfall, the lawn is not growing too much anyway, and what grass there is right now is turning brown and curling up in this heat. Our chances of rain the next few days are really low, about 20-30%, so I don't expect much rain or much improvement. Despite the rain that has fallen here in July and August, the cracks in the ground are still there and the pastures are awfully dry, though not as dry as they are in the parts of SW OK through central OK where drought and abnormally dry conditions continue.

Somebody mentioned our disappearing wildlife. This is so rare. Usually it is because something big is hunting them. There are not many predators big enough or scary enough to make the coyotes and the deer lie low, so use your imaginations.....I've seen no sign of any larger predator, though, and I haven't heard them either so there's that. Of course, last time I didn't know they were here until I saw one....and then I absolutely, positively did know. Someone in our neighborhood posted that they saw a cougar some time back....maybe in winter, but I've heard nothing since then.

I need to walk down to the mailbox and get the mail. Normally I don't mind walking down there and back, but in this heat, it isn't my favorite daily chore. I always carry a cold drink with me so that if I fall and break a hip (hey, it could happen!), at least I won't be lying on the ground dehydrating.

Dawn

Too hot here to do much outside (seems to be the recurring theme right now) so I started back on the genealogy books. Mom did research for decades, and now I'm trying to make sure it's all entered into our family database, and all photos are scanned. I'm a quarter of the way through one 3" binder, and have 30-odd left to do. Then i plan to start scanning the old photos that haven't been identified (other than "I know great grandma Maud is in that photo somewhere"). Thoroughness is good for a researcher, bad for the people left to clean up after it.

Nothing to report garden wise, unless you count the grand canyon forming in my front yard. Much longer & the pups will start tripping in the cracks!

Garlic question. Is hardneck or softneck better for Oklahoma? Or does it matter. I've never been wildly successful with garlic and we use SO much of it.

I'm actually making a list of things to purchase inspired by brussels sprout seeds. It's weird to already be thinking about what I want to purchase for the spring, but I am.

So far on my list:

*Red Malabar (my seed must be old because I get nothing.)

*Stewart Zeebest. It's back in stock, so might as well get it now. I'm enjoying our okra this year and it's doing very well.

*Drunken Woman lettuce

*Silverwhite Silverskin garlic

*Romanian Red garlic

Anyone have any opinions on those choices?

I'm laughing at myself because usually at THIS exact time, I'm thinking about/shopping for band stuff. Now, I'm shopping for seed.

Maybe I'm crying a little too.

Although Ethan's first week of classes have gone well except the college's AC was out on Monday. Can you imagine?!

He joined their jazz band too. That is exciting and there's already performances planned.

Dawn, I mentioned the disappearance of wildlife. I think the demogorgon is in your neighborhood!

I'm afraid I might be too late with the broccoli too. Not just the brussels sprouts.

Favorite broccoli for the fall months, Anyone?

Jen, have you done the ancestry/23andMe tests? Genealogy is so fun and interesting but can get overwhelming when you're back to a great, great, great, great grandfather and you have his name, but there's two men in the area where he married your great, great, great, great grandmother with that name who could fit.

With the DNA tests, people who you KNOW are on that side because of shared names, could be the missing link to helping you find the exact connection. Because, obviously, you share their DNA (t's been tested and you know the exact chromosomes that you share) and have that surname in your family. BUT, it takes everyone cooperating and not everyone wants to...or has the time. And maybe are a little suspicious of why you're so excited about it all.

Tom is adopted and did it as well. He met his bio family years ago and is great friends with his siblings. It's amazing how much they are all alike even though they did not grow up together.

My sister's husband was adopted too. He recently found his birth mother and 2 siblings. His drive, curiosity, intelligence, and desire for higher education did not come from his family--he is an only child, but his cousins/uncles/aunts/etc. They all...struggle to work and make a life. However, his bio family, including his mother, are all highly educated, etc. The drive to take that path came from his genetics. So interesting.

But genetics are not everything. Nurture is equally important. For sure.

And, Jen, I have several Grand Canyons on our property. The chickens's legs are falling into them. I do try to water the cracks every couple of days.

I've thought about doing one of those tests. But for now, I'm too busy validating all of mom's research to worry much about continuing it. Though Family Search and My Heritage send emails about "we found a new record match for you" and I've added a few (as yet unsubstantiated) ancestors to the line.

I have a co worker who did the ancestry test and found a sister she never knew about. Another co worker's husband (he was adopted as a baby) took one and found his biological family. It's amazing what modern science can do. Mom used to write a column for the local paper, and one article was on the "modern marvel" of using computers for your research.

I got drunken woman lettuce in a swap last year solely because of the name. I need to do some prep work this weekend so I can plant lettuce, carrots, etc. With the cooler temps, it might be a good weekend to get out & do some work.

I’m thinking about my fall garden. I need at least one more salad tote for spinach, and I want to try growing Audreys oat grass during the winter. She loves it so much and really misses it when it’s cold out. I think the totes should let the greens overwinter, unless we get something unusually frigid. I’ve got a few things to rip out this weekend. The cooler temps should help the tomatoes that are trying to come back, but a few are getting yanked. I need to decide what’s going where for fall, I’m determined to get edible carrots and beets, but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong with them. If I get them to sprout, they don’t fatten up. I need to make pesto too. I’ll put most of the cucumbers out of their misery. Do I even have time to replant them and the bush beans? I want to start lettuce and spinach, but I also want to know that the super high heat is done first. Maybe I’ll just get the totes ready to go.

I love Drunken Woman lettuce. It is both tasty and a beautiful plant. Also slower to bolt than most.

In my opinion, and I am by no means an expert, soft neck garlic does better here. Personally, we don't care for the flavor of exotic (non grocery store) garlic. Some are really hot when raw. Doesn't mean some hard necks don't produce beautiful bulbs. What I did was go to the farmers market and buy several different varieties to try. There's a lady at Cherry Street that sells them with variety names on them. I think the silverwhite siverskin I grew in 2017/18. I did not have a good crop that year (not necessarily the varieties). This year I grew Italian soft neck. I like it, though I thought it would drown this spring. The truth is, my first crop, which was grocery store garlic stuck in the ground late...like December, was my favorite garlic crop. I guess we aren't garlic gourmets. Elephant garlic is actually a shallot and very mild, in case you're considering it.

Stewarts Zeebest made gargantuan plants the first time I grew it. It has done nothing this year. Most of the seedlings have died. Maybe it hasn't been watered enough. None of my okra are doing well this year.

Broccoli: all time favorite is Piracicaba. It does not produce big heads, but lots of smaller sprouts. The more you cut, the more you get. It is heat tolerant and stands up to the cold well. The Bonnie variety I got at Lowes this spring has done great. I have grown, and liked purple sprouting, but you plant in fall for a spring crop. Packman is an old favorite, but seeds are hard to find. I did not like Aspabroccoli, supposedly tastes like asparagus. It was not a vigorous plant for me. I tried Bluewind, which seems to be being pushed as a replacement for packman. It is ok.

Dawn, get in the car and drive to the mailbox. And take your gun with you! Talk about heat and cougars and then WALKING to the mailbox.

Today my little redheaded grandson is officially 2. The older boy starts first grade today.

I watered the front pots yesterday. An hour later it down poured. More than half an inch, so I didn't have to water the back. The wind blew the closed patio umbrella over. Either the wind or the rain knocked over the amaranth. Eileen said she had hail in Catoosa.

I checked my list of seeds I need, though I know I used up some other things that aren't on it. I've been looking for them at my usual vendors. Where do you get County Fair cucumbers? I guess I got them from Vermont Bean Seed. But I don't need anything else from them. Oh well.

I agree, Jen, (hopefully) our cooler temps will make it more pleasant to get outside and get some work done.

Rebecca, a few more of my tomatoes will be pulled out soon too. They are just...dead. Some of the others are mostly dead but are making new foliage and some have blooms. We will see...

Rebecca, do you have a specific pesto recipe you use?

Amy, I'm jelly of your rain. It rained here at work for a good bit. Texted Ethan to see if we got any there. Nope. Not a drop. Maybe it's a blessing (it's really not) so the Cox guys can finish up their work in our neighborhood. There's already giant cracks, so Mother Earth has made it easy for them...they can just drop their lines in those cracks. And done.

Maybe your okra has had too much rain? Y'all have gotten quite a bit, right? My okra was sad until the end of June. Then came the heat and now it's happy. I harvest a small basket every day.

Amy, thanks for your broccoli suggestions. I am jotting them down now. I need to figure out how to grow lots of broccoli. It is another thing we eat often.

Also, thanks for your thoughts on Drunken Woman. I think I remember you talking about it in the past. Maybe that is why it stuck in my head while I was looking at the SESE site.

Also, thanks for sharing your opinon about garlic. I like it all--strong, mild. I'll get a hardneck and softneck and see how they do. I've never been super successful with it, in the way I want to be. There's actually some coming up behind the shop that I stuck there 3 years ago. A neighbor gave those to me. The other ones I've grown are just grocery store ones. I've chosen poor locations for them.

Okay...so y'all help me out, please, if you can. Peas are supposed to NOT need a lot of feeding, right? (or wrong?) Should I fertilize my pea seedlings in the back garden? This is the garden that needs a lot of amending. The soil is sort of sandy.

Lunch is over. Back to work.

Peas *should* be able to fix their own nitrogen, but that depends on soil microbes or inoculation...but that's also only one of the many nutrients/micro-nutrients required for plant growth (though the primary one). I wouldn't think a adding a micronutrient boost would go amiss. Probably not even general NPK fertilizer, though I'd wait for someone else to chime in. Just my thoughts.

Jennifer, If you think your peas look hungry (poor color, slow growth or poor production), then feed them. The worst thing that will happen is they'll put some energy into foliar growth for a while and then they'll form peas. I don't see a downside to feeding them.

Amy, lol, lol, lol. I am not going to get in my car to drive 300' until I get so old and feeble that I have to! The walk is good for me, even in the heat. I always carry a gun every single day because of snakes, skunks, and other varmints, and I carry a drink on hot days because once upon a time, Fred's wife fell down while getting the mail, broke her pelvis and laid in their private road, quite a distance off the public road, until somebody came home and found her there. I believe she was lying there in pain for 2 or 3 hours at least, and I don't even think she was that old at the time....maybe in her late 60s. She survived it, but her ordeal reminded me that it doesn't hurt to carry a cold drink and phone (and now a gun) when I walk down to get the mail. If I start carrying much more down to the mailbox with me, I won't have enough hands to carry the mail back up to the house. Of course, so much of the mail nowadays is junk so who cares about that stuff? On the other hand, we get a lot of fire department stuff, especially big padded envelopes and cardboard boxes with parts for fire trucks, so some days I need a wheelbarrow.

I agree with your assessment of Drunken Woman lettuce. The first time I bought it, it was sold under its full real name "Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed" and for some reason that name amuses me so much more than just the shortened version "Drunken Woman". With garlic, I like garlic grown from grocery store garlic every bit as much, if not more than, the fancier ones I've bought at considerable expense as seed garlic in the fall. Maybe I just have simple tastes. Softneck does better for me too, though I often grow some of both.

Happy Birthday to your darling 2-year-old grandson. The time sure flies by. I hope your older grandson enjoyed his first day of first grade---he is such a big boy now! Aurora adored 4-year-old pre-K, but then seemed somewhat surprised that she has to go back every week day. I'm not sure if she thought it was a temporary thing or what, but she isn't as happy now that she knows she has to keep going back. She told me on Saturday that it was boring but after her first day or two she had said she adored it, so I'm not sure if she really knows yet if she likes it or not. Perhaps it just depends on whatever mood she is in.

I bet the rain was wonderful. I watered the tomatoes in pots this morning. Some of them have very small tomatoes---between quarter and half-dollar sized that must have set on the plants during our last rainy spell a couple of weeks ago. Those are the start of our fall tomato harvest. The tomato plants in the compost pile are going strong, but the chickens peck the fruit since those plants aren't caged and are readily accessible to the chickens.

I think the last time I bought County Fair Improved cucumber seeds, I got them either from Totally Tomatoes, which no longer carries them, or Vermont Bean Seed Company or Gurney's. I haven't bought them in a while because the last packet I bought was the big one and I've been using the seeds from it for at least 3 or 4 years now. I live in fear of everyone dropping this variety, which would be so horrible since it is the only one resistant to Bacterial Wilt.

Rebecca, I think you have time to replant cukes and bush beans if you do it no later than this weekend. Of course, it depends on the weather---although I think it has been a really, really long time since we had an early first freeze.

Jen, My older brother (all 4 of us kids are adopted) found three siblings this year, and I believe it was through ancestry.com). The 2 that live in Texas (another lives in another state) all came to both the family visitation and to mom's funeral, so we other siblings got to meet them. It was uncanny how much they looked like my brother and they seem like lovely, lovely people. I was happy for him, but at the same time, I have no real desire to go searching for strangers to whom I might happen to be blood-related. It just isn't important to me. I feel like my family is the people I've grown up with and loved all my life. I also think that if somebody wants to find their unknown family, they should go looking---why not take advantage of the modern-day technology that makes it possible if that is what a person wants to do? Some of my relatives who've done it found happy endings and others found out horrible stuff they'd rather not know, so a person has to be prepared for whatever they are going to find out.

Jennifer, My best guess is that there is at least one cougar roaming, merely because in the past, that has been the only thing (other than hunting season, lol) that has made the deer lie low and virtually disappear. I just don't want for that demon to come here to our property.

I saw the feral mama cats kittens briefly last night. She really keeps them hidden for their own safety so they are totally wild and run and hide if they see or hear me. I'm going to try to tame her and them, but it could take months and months of feeding them to make even the tiniest bit of progress. I could put out a live trap and catch them, but that hardly seems like the way to build a trusting relationship with them.

I worked in the garden for 90 minutes very early this morning, pulling weeds and deadheading flowers and I only got 1.5 out of 14 raised beds done, so it isn't like I'm going to miraculously make up for weeks of neglect but any progress is good. I had to stop because I heard a rattlesnake and couldn't see it, so the only smart thing was to leave the garden. I hated that.....and that is why I don't spend much time in the garden at this time of the year.

We have not had rain, but some is in our forecast. One forecast model shows us getting very little. The other shows us getting a lot. Guess which one I hope is correct? We remain hot, dry and windy today, but the heat index is not nearly as bad as it has been. Our temperatures are just a couple of degrees cooler (97 so far today compared to yesterday's 100) but our dewpoint is lower so it feels much better out there.

We have had huge hordes of hummingbirds for the last two weeks. I'm always so happy to see the large numbers of them in August, except that this is the peak, and it is all downhill from here. At times we will have as many as 4 hummingbirds fighting over one feeder, although we have 6 feeders out now, so there's plenty to go around. I think the male hummingbirds just cannot help themselves---they have to assert dominance even if it means they have to engage in battle all day long. There's many more hummingbirds visiting the nectar plants in the garden and around the house, but they seem to be coming to the feeders more now than they were just a couple of weeks ago. I like seeing them. From my living room, I can see three feeders and two trumpet creeper vines, so I can watch hummingbirds all day long if I want to.

There's still a lot of grasshoppers in the garden, but not as many as we had 2, 3 or 4 weeks ago. I also saw a wheelbug today. I'm sure he is finding plenty to eat, and he may be the reason I'm seeing relatively few pests now. The butterfly weed plants still are in bloom but have no oleander aphids on them now, so I suspect the ladybugs finally got them all cleaned up. There's tons of butterflies. One bunny rabbit came out to eat around 9 a.m., when early in the summer they were out at daybreak. I feel like the wildlife is in hiding.

A couple of days ago I got the fall catalog from Wildseed Farms and am working on an order from them so I can overseed the front pasture with a wildflower mix and I want to plant their poppy mix somewhere....maybe in the back garden or on the eastern edge of the front garden. I want to get my fall wildflower seeds actually sown in the autumn at the proper time, so I need to finish that order today or tomorrow.

Dawn

Rats, lost my post and am now sleepy, so later. We got a ton of rain early this morning, so can't mow. I'm happy about that,, as I came down with a nasty chest cold yesterday. GDW and I haven't had one for 3 1/2 years! So I'm okay with it. Besides, gives me an excuse to be lazy and take naps. :)

Hope you feel better soon, Nancy!

We have the most beautiful black cloud directly over our neighborhood, a cool breeze, lightning and thunder.

But no rain.

Lol!

We are getting rain now. I was watering the south garden and could see the rain coming in from the south. So I came in and typed a post telling about the rain, my garden,and my fish, then lost power,and post. I am trying to post on my tablet now, which is too small for me to see. We have candles burning all over the house so we can see and no step on our little dog.

It is 1030 and the power has come back on and it is still raining. I won't be mad if it rains all night.

Still have thunder here. We need the rain, but I wish it would be a little quieter. Our little girl is terrified of storms so she's been even more Tigger than normal.

I haven't contributed in ages.

Sorry.

Really haven't done anything much
gaden-wise since June. When I returned from my what looks like "annual
summer avoid Oklahoma trip" I had huge cracks on my property.

But
amazingly there was plant-life present as well. It took a long time
watering at a slow pace (to avoid total runoff) to get a small patch
moist enough to continue digging out Bermuda grass. at the same time also started to
slow water my tomatoes, amazing... there were tomatoes! and, the
cantaloupe, plus all along the house, as the soil had shrunk away from
the foundation. Once those areas started to actually take on water, I
also started to water my living fence, and my cannas. So sad, I missed
most of the blooming there... but low and behold, they are starting to
bloom again now.

My three flower areas out front have
recovered as well (besides the plants that had just died, and my
moon-flowers are blooming gorgeous right now, and my castor beans are
awesome looking as well.

I am not sure, if I will hang out
here (Oklahoma) next summer... but I do have plenty of soaker hoses now,
and could let my plants survive if.....Thankfully I had a
couple of rainfalls since I am back, and last night even got crowned by a
rainbow, once I finished washing my car in the rain.

at the north west corner of the house

my fig tree

moon plant circle out front

moon plant circle now, with show for size reference

cantaloupe patch, not planted by me... must be a survival seed from compost... and I have a WHOLE BUNCH of cantaloupes now on there

Canna I picked up in Marlow Oklahoma

Canna I got from Barbara

Canna my daughter rescued in Edmond two years ago

rainbow from last night, where I manage to get 1 and 6/10 of an inch of rain. I really thought, I would head out on my bike a few minutes ago, but as I was gathering stuff in the garage another cloud burst happened, and this gave me time to add these pictures. Thanks for looking.

Moni

It's possible we got 2 inches of rain last night. My rain gauge was a free one that I picked up at a garden show...it only holds 2 inches AND I'm uncertain if some of the water is from when I watered the garden right before it rained (of course and you're welcome) got into the gauge, but that wouldn't have been much if at all. Regardless, we got rain and it was more than just a few sprinkles.

Dawn, you mentioned making your backyard lawn-free. That is what I want to do too. The area I want to be our "backyard" isn't very big, but I want it to be paths and perennial shrubs, ornamental grasses, containers, and small trees (and maybe a culinary herb area). I would also like to increase our patio size just a bit. There is a very small grassy yard in front of the shop's porch that has a short retaining wall framing it (to help keep the shop porch from flooding during rainy times. It's likely we will keep grass there, except we want to build a fire pit in that area too. Our house's back patio faces the shop's covered front porch.--it'a that area that I want to be the "backyard".

I have it all planned and it's so pretty in my mind. It involves pushing the chicken yard to the back side of the coop and making a second pen on the other side of the coop. I would like the front of the coop to be pretty... and chickens destroy any plans to beautify any area. They just don't care. I painted the coop door turquoise to match our houses front door. I would like to put flowers around the door and maybe a small bench or chair. Anyway...I would describe it more in detail but it's hard to explain without pictures.

All of this will cost a lot of time and money, so will not happen overnight.

Looking forward to checking out the garden this afternoon. See if it's perked up some.

Sure hope everyone got or will get rain this weekend.

The rain missed us yesterday and last night, but I was happy anyway watching the radar and knowing that so many people were getting good rainfall. This morning, a little after 8 a.m. the rain finally found us. We ended up with 1.5" in our rain gauge, though some parts of our county received substantially more and some other areas got no rainfall. Any rain in August is good, or even great, and the best part might me that the rain has kept us very cool for August---right now we are 72 degrees at noon.

Nancy, I hope your cold gets better quickly.

Jennifer, I'm glad rain finally, finally found you.

Larry, Hooray for the rain, and also for the power coming back on. I hope you got rain all night long.

Jen, Jersey hate thunder so she spent all morning hiding in the bathroom. Now that the rain has moved on, she is sleeping on the sofa in Tim's office.

Moni, It looks like your garden is doing great. My cannas cycle in and out of bloom all summer and autumn until the first freeze, so hopefully, yours will do the same. I'm glad you got decent rainfall. Hopefully all the large cracks in the ground will fully heal. Ours are awful out in the areas where I don't water, but I have been watering the soil around the foundation with soaker hoses that stay there year-round for this purpose.

Jennifer, There are multiple reasons that we are just now going to get around to turning our back yard area into the area I've always wanted. First, I was waiting for shade trees we planted 18-20 years ago to mature, so I could put in plants that like part-shade. Secondly, Tim never has wanted a fence around the yard. I understand where he is coming from---where he grew up, no one fenced their yards so you could stand and look out and feel like your own yard went on forever. He loves that. For so long, I've acceded to his wishes and gone without a fence. Since we have so many deer, it would be impossible to have the plants I want in our landscape without a fence. Well, I've lived here 20 years without a fence, so now we are going to put one up and Tim can live with it for the next 20 years...or longer. Third, I've just never pushed the fence issue because he was so opposed to it, but I'm over being the nice one and I've made it very clear to him that we will have a fence because it doesn't make financial sense to plant a whole new landscape just so the deer can eat it....that makes plants just really expensive deer chow. Since he hates wasting money, he either can put up the fence to protect the financial investment in new landscaping, or he can pay for new plants every year to replace what the deer eat---I think that having the fence will appeal to his inner frugal Yankee. Finally, it always has been an issue in terms of having time to do it. I think we just need to bite the bullet and carve out time to do it while we're still young enough to do the physical work ourselves. Somehow this winter, we are going to find the time to get the yard fenced. I'd like to do the whole thing at once, but will settle for getting only the back yard and side yard done if we don't have the time/money to do it all at once. The part I really dread is the bermuda grass removal.

I agree with you that chickens make it hard to make and keep an area beautiful. Now that we only have 5 chickens left, I think it will be easier to do this than it would have been with a larger flock. I'm also not opposed to keeping them within their fenced chicken run and eliminating free-ranging altogether. If we do that, we'll build them a larger fenced run.

Everything I want to do is only in my mind and Tim basically said "whatever you want to do..." He is good at doing the physical work as long as I dream up the plan. It probably will take longer than I think, and undoubtedly will cost more than we want to spend, but we'll just chip away at it bit by bit. I would like to work on all the hardscaping....fencing, gates, arbors, some sort of pathways and raised beds....maybe a deck....this winter, but much depends on the winter fire season. If it isn't a bad winter fire season, we could get a lot done. If it is a bad winter fire season, it will be a bad spring fire season as well and I'll have to be more patient as we'll be really time-challenged. If we could get all the hardscaping and structure type projects done, then I could mostly do the landscaping part, in terms of planting and all, pretty much on my own. It wouldn't bother me if it takes a couple of years to get all the new plantings done. I'm a patient person when it comes to stuff like that---mostly because I am a frugal person and like to pay for stuff as we go along. Plus, I am going to be incredibly picky about the plants we do plant, and sometimes it takes a while to find what you want, especially if you want uncommon things that you cannot just walk into a big box store and buy. I foresee a lot of trips down to Ft. Worth and Southlake next year, and even to Dallas, so I can buy some of the less common plants I want from my favorite nurseries down there. Everything except shrubs and trees will be planted in wire cylinders sunk into the ground for vole protection. The raised beds will be lined on the bottom with 1/4" hardware cloth to exclude the voles. I might have gotten sort of cocky and skipped this step, but suddenly voles and moles are all over the front yard, or at least the part of it that is a sandy-clayey blend and their presence this last couple of weeks has reminded me of the importance of lining the beds with hardware cloth.

Oh, it has started raining again. I am not complaining. We need every drop that might fall. Parts of our county have experienced flooding due to heavy rainfall, but not our part. If it were to continue raining for a while, maybe we'd get some flooding too---though I'd rather we did not.

This rain is such a gift! I wish the break in the heat would last, and maybe it will...kinda, sorta. We're supposed to be back in the mid to upper 90s by Monday and then cool down again. The hummingbirds aren't wild about this rain and are spending a ton of time today hanging around the hummingbird feeders hanging on the front porch where they can stay dry beneath the porch roof.

Out in the garden, there isn't much new. Obviously I am not getting to deadhead or weed a couple more raised beds today like I'd hoped I could, but it is very important that the rain fall so it's all good. I did notice yesterday that the onion chives are blooming. They seem late this year---the garlic chives already have gone through several rounds of blooming. Our garlic chive planting area is huge, and I don't think voles bother them, so I'm planning to dig and divide them this winter and plant them directly outside whatever garden fence we put up. I've never had deer bother onions or chives. The white blooms of the chives look great with the surrounding white blooms of the zinnias and cosmos.

Here's the 4-day rainfall map. I chose to link it because some areas of OK have had several days of rain and I wanted to capture all that rain on the map.

4-Day Rainfall Accumulation Map

Have a great day and a great weekend y'all. Let's all enjoy the cooler weather and the rainfall for however long it sticks around.

Dawn

Went looking for fall plants today. Neither Lowes or Home Depot had brassicas. HD said their next shipment on Monday was to have fall plants.

So glad Larry and H/J finally got rain. (The rest of you, too). We got a little more than 1/2" yesterday and Ron said there was about 1.5" in the gauge now. (First 1/2" not emptied.)

Lowes had the prettiest white bougainvilleas, and I'm not fond of white flowers. I didn't get it, I killed the one I bought last year.

I think I'm going to try direct seeding some brassica. I also need to put carrots in the ground. Maybe if it's not so miserably hot.

I found a horn worm on the Cherokee Purple in a pot. It already looked bad, but the horn worm took what little foliage there was left.

After I posted yesterday I found my first okra pod. It came from a Mama Payton, which is my biggest plant at 2' tall (seriously?) That variety came from Victory and I think it will be on my "always" list.

Amy, I wonder if all HD will get plants on Monday. I think I'll buy some brassicas too since I got a late start on seeds. The broccoli I started last week hasn't sprouted yet.

Dawn, SO glad you're getting rain. Now, Watonga and Chickasha need a turn.

So far we haven't had wildlife come up to our yard to eat plants. I say that and just looked at the garden, and half of my bush bean plants are gone--mostly gone. Just the stem is left. This happened sometime between 8pm last night and 4 pm today.

Anyway, we won't fence the backyard other than an ornamental picket fence I want on the west side to run down to the coop. It is mostly to define the backyard as a backyard if that makes sense. However, I understand your property situation is different from mine. I wouldn't mind a fenced backyard. Tom doesn't even really want to put the ornamental picket fence up OR even the two crepe myrtles I have planed for the west side of the yard. He likes to drive into the backyard when he feels like it. I had to remind him of our neighbors' beautiful yard and that they don't drive on that part of the property and there's no reason to drive on that part of our property. I've designed it so that a truck can get through to all the necessary areas.

We are going out to eat tonight. I'm feeling like Thai food. I like to cook Thai food too.

Enjoy your rain, People. :D

Amy, I'll look and see if fall plants are here yet, but I'm pretty sure they don't arrive in stores here until later in September. Or, maybe I'm busy with other stuff and just don't even notice when they hit the stores.

Last year when it was so wet at planting time, I had okra plants that were very slow to grow. They did take off and grow well once we got hot and dry, so I'm convinced that don't like excess moisture too much. Eventually they reached full size and productivity but it took them a while. This year I planted okra later, and our rain pretty much stopped in June so they weren't stunted this year.

Jennifer, Yes, I understand about using a picket fence to define an actual yard within larger acreage and it is exactly what I want to do, but I just don't think it would keep out the wildlife. We'll see what Tim and I come up with. We have wildlife in our yard pretty much 24/7 so, without a fence, no new plantings survive their first year here. We had a heck of a time getting young trees and shrubs established in the first place after we moved here because the deer and other critters pretty much devoured everything we planted. It drove me crazy. If anything we have more wildlife now than we did when we moved here in 1999, and I blame all the development down the river in the Thackerville area for that....the casino and all that stuff undoubtedly displaced a lot of wild animals that came up the river a few miles to our area.

I always am careful to plan traffic lanes no matter what else I come up with---Tim likes to be able to take the truck various places on the property so I cannot plant anything or put up fencing that would ruin that...but I still could have the fencing I want as long as we put in a truck-sized gate, so there's that.

It rained on and off all day long. We ended up with 2" in our rain gauge and I feel so relieved now. It is nice to know the ground is wet and all the plants everywhere got a nice drink of water in the form of a slow soaking rain that didn't all run off before it could be absorbed. I don't think only two inches will close up the cracks in the ground, but at least it is a start.

Enjoy your dinner out!

I do hope the areas that still haven't had rainfall finally will get some. We never reached our forecast high today because it drizzled on and off all day in between heavier bursts of rain. Our high temperature for today was at midnight and it was 81 degrees at our house. We spent most of today at 72 or 73 degrees which was so heavenly, and now we have warmed up all the way to 75 degrees. Not bad for August!

We have Lillie here for the weekend and are looking forward to that. I think dinner out tonight, and shopping and a movie tomorrow are on our agenda. The swimming pool always is a possibility but in order for that to happen, rain cannot be falling and it has to be warmer than 70-something degrees. I imagine tomorrow and Sunday will oblige us by being hotter than today.

Have a pleasant evening everyone!

Dawn

Almost 4” in my rain gauge today. Good weekend to get some stuff done outside.

Haha, Rebecca! Lotta rain! I lost track. I emptied it out twice today but can't remember what it came to. Not 4", certainly, more like 1.5 or 1.75 or so. But plenty. Unlike many of you, we have had enough rain often enough that we haven't had to do a lot of extra watering. In fact, probably too much rain; I'm going to have to pull out the Mexican sunflowers and tomatoes this week. I'm iin a bit of a panic as I'm needing more nectar plants. I think I'll throw in some zinnias. What else?? I have lantanas, echinaceas that are worse for the wear. . . This has been the most evenly spread out rainfall since I've lived here.

Your weekend plans sound divine, Dawn. I wish I had a little one I could have out here. (Actually have a couple in mind, but don't know their families well enough yet.)

Rebecca, the restaurant at the marina is very good this year. VERY good. Not a big selection, but good food. Come on up one of these days! They're just open on Fri, Sat and Sunday though.

I'm so glad you got rain, Dawn and HJ!

I have a question re Meot Jaeng I Ae Hybrid. The plant is so dense, it's easy to miss the squash. I found one and it wasn't even green anymore, it was tan and hard. My question--could this be edible as a winter squash type??

Amy, I used to not be fond of white flowers, also. But my friend Scott told me his favorite color was white--because they showed off the most out in the yard--and last year with the ammis and moonflower vine, I discovered that I agreed with him!

Moni, I enjoyed your photos--especially the cannas. Thanks! (Especially cannas because I have nowhere to grow them. I have tons out in back that make a fine hedge, but not enough sun to bloom. Still, they make a fine hedge. :)

We took Tiny and Jerry in for their doctor appointments this morning. GDW said he was up half the night worrying about how to get them contained in their cat carriers. (AFTER the fact.) I jumped out of bed this morning at 6:30. . . and at 9:30 while he was getting ready to go into town, I plunked each kitty into a carrier and we were ready. GDW was flabbergasted, because he thought it was going to be a wrestling match. They were both upset going in, to the point where Tiny was panting. They behaved impeccably once there, and we set them loose in the truck coming home. They were much more comfortable with that, though Tiny was still distressed enough to be panting.

Re Tom, HJ. I visited with the vet about it this morning. She said they have friends with cats like Tom, and she feels like once in every three years is a good compromise. The thing is. . . are the shots more important than the trauma they go through. I'm on the fence. Well as we talked it out this morning. . . the chances of Tom getting infected with rabies are slim to none, as he is such a fraidy-cat. He's not going to be duking it out with any rabid animal. Fleas, ticks, we can treat those. And since he's with two animals who are being vaccinated, he's probably not immune-compromised, just as GDW and I are not, since we are here along most of the time. Nevertheless, we did get a sedative prescription from her, and will set up an appt for him. We give him the sedative 2 hrs before the appt. We'll give it a try--maybe it will work and maybe it won't. Tiny has not gotten chunkier. In fact, he's about the ideal weight for him. He is definitely a big boned and very thick-furred kitty, but weighs in at 11.1 lbs, and Jerry 10. I suspect Tom will be close to 12 lbs.

Larry, had to chuckle about all your candles so you didn't step on the little one! Love/hate those times here. Kind of exciting at first, but 5 hours later, not so much. And five days later, definitely not so much.

Thai spring rolls, HJ, fantasizing about them. Sigh.

Amy, I'm needing fall fill-ins, too. Can't find em yet. I know I want to plant a ton of cilantro, and have those seeds. But need to order other seeds. I'll pursue that this next week.

Take care, all!

Rebecca, That's an incredible amount of rain! I bet your plants will go wild with new growth! I hope you can get a lot done in this pleasant, mild weather.

Nancy, Stores might have some nectar plants available now or next week if you don't have new ones started to plant in the garden.

Because I succession planted flowers instead of veggies, we have nectar plants everywhere. Obviously I've never had quite this many flowers in the veggie garden, since they now make up about 95% of it, and the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees are present in huge numbers because they've certainly noticed. And, well, because we were so dry there's almost nothing in bloom in the pastures---a few yellow daisies and white asters here and there and some Mexican hat and greenthread daisies in the front pasture are just coming back into bloom after previously being mowed down by Tim, but I think the liatris will bloom late or not at all because those plants in pastures were turning crispy brown from the heat and lack of water. I did notice some of our goldenrods in the pasture are forming buds so they'll bloom soon. With the pastures fairly bare of blooms, even more little flying critters have been visiting the garden regularly. I'm pleased to have so much in bloom for them this year.

We haven't seen Lillie in almost 2 weeks and it looks like she's grown about 2" since then. I guess she's having a growth spurt. I think it is hard on the girls having opposite weekend's with each of their dad's because they don't get to be together on the weekends right now, but that will change at the end of this year and they'll get back to being on the same weekend visitation schedules with their dads again. Really, it might not be too bad for each of them to get to be the only grandchild on autumn weekends. Because of the five year age difference, really I guess it is 5 and 1/2 years, they like different things, including different movies so there's lots of of compromise in making weekend plans like where to go or what movie to watch when they are together. When only one of them is here, we can choose the movie that child specifically wants to see, so Lillie gets to see movies that are for older kids and Aurora gets to see movies aimed at very young ones. It might not be all bad to be the only child with the grandparents on any given weekend now that I think of it.....but if we take one shopping one weekend and buy her new shoes, we're careful to take the other one shopping for new shoes the next weekend so they know they are being treated the same.

I think you'll just have to cut into your overgrown summer squash and see if it makes a good winter squash too. Some varieties are multipurpose and can be used either way, but some are not---some are just really stringy and seedy inside and are not good eating quality winter squash. I haven't tried it with Meot Jaeng I Ae so don't know what sort of flesh it has when it gets large. I have had them hide from me to the point that they were too far gone to eat as summer squash when I found them, and I just gathered all those (it was some of all three Korean summer squash varieties) and piled them up on the porch as porch pumpkins for fall.

With white flowers, it depends on how heat-tolerant they are. I like the ones that are white and stay white, but some white flowers just cannot take our July and August heat and low moisture and turn brown on the edges of the petals almost the minute they bloom. I don't care for those. With so many whites in bloom in our garden this month (cleome, garlic chives, several varieties of cosmos both short and tall, several varieties of zinnias, both short and tall, daturas and jasmine), I am loving the way they look, especially in late afternoon and early evening when that white really pops against the plant foliage.

I'm not sure what kind of nectar flowers you're hoping to have for fall, but maybe if I list what I can remember that's blooming in our garden and flower beds now, if there's something I have that you don't have, maybe it will give you some ideas. So, here goes, from memory and probably not a complete list of all that is in bloom, but I'll try: Coral honeysuckle, morning glories, mina lobata, cypress vine, cardinal climber vine, yellow bells (Tecoma stans), orange bells (I don't remember the variety, also Tecoma something....maybe Jubilee), hardy hibiscus (Luna), zinnias and cosmos in many heights and varieties, cuphea 'Diablo', roughly six different varieties of lantana, verbena bonariensis, dianthus, autumn sage--at least 4 different varieties, one with raspberry red blooms, one (Hot Lips) with red and white blooms, and two different ones with red blooms (Furman's Red and Radio Red), moss rose, Texas hibiscus, firebush (Hamelia patens), Mexican sunflower, cleome (Helen Campbell White, Violet Queen, Cherry Queen and Rose Queen), yellow butterflyweed (and the oleander aphids are all gone!), angelonia in shades of pink and purple, pink salvia, blue meadow sage, Yvonne's salvia, a dwarf form of gaura that stays more compact that any other I've grown, two varieties of Russian sage, Texas hummingbird sage, echinacea (about done, I think, unless the rain revives it), viper's bugloss, Jasmine (in pots to overwinter indoors), Pride of Barbados (Caesalspinia pulcherrima), Laura Bush petunias, gladiolas (about to finish up), salvia farinacea, marigolds, several short forms of celosia spicata, tons of the taller (up to 6' tall now) celosia plumosa, white and purple daturas, comfrey (cycles in and out of bloom all summer if I keep cutting it back periodically), sunflowers, globe amaranth, red grain amaranth, canna lilies in yellow and orange, trumpet creeper vines in yellow, orange, and red-orange varieties, chaste tree (a particular favorite, along with comfrey, of the bumble bees), four o'clocks and 'Dracula' cockscombs. Then, there's the herbs that are in bloom, and they include dill, sage, rosemary, basil and lavender. If all of that is not enough to provide nectar for the butterflies and hummingbirds and others, then I don't know what else I can do. It is likely that my coleus plants all are flowering now because I haven't been pinching them back lately. Not in bloom yet? The cape honeysuckle, which usually doesn't bloom until September, and the roselle plants, which don't bloom until Sept or Oct and always are in a mad race to bloom before the first frost or freezing weather arrives. I often have to harvest them on the night before the first freeze whether they're ready or not, and I do it in such a hurry that I just cut off the branches (they are huge monster plants 7' tall by then with a base at least 6" wide so I cannot pull them up) and carry armloads of them up to the house, where I then can harvest the calyces and preserve them. Later on, when I have time, I'll dig out the frozen/dead bases of the roselle plants and toss them on the compost pile. Really, it would be late to get much of anything sown from seed to bloom if you're sowing seeds now, so you'll be at the mercy of whatever the stores or nurseries have on hand now. I haven't looked at the plants this week to see what is in stock, but normally at this time of the year it is mostly marigolds, zinnias, moss rose, angelonias, lantana and, perhaps, the first chysanthemums (though we are still too hot for them here). There, I hope I gave you some ideas.

This morning we awakened to the sound of raindrops on the roof. After waiting so long for good rain to fall, it seems like an abundance of riches to have it fall two days in a row. The rain was just quick pop-up showers and only showed up on radar as a very narrow band that didn't affect much of our county, but these showers gave us another 0.40" of rain, for a total this week of 2.4". Tim's far-fetched dream of mowing the lawn this afternoon just died because everything outside is heavily saturated and dripping with water---it is our own little rainforest here today. Maybe it will be dry enough to mow tomorrow afternoon. Who knows? We have shopping to do today, and the movies this evening, and swimming to squeeze in during the afternoon hours if we get back from shopping quickly enough, so I'm not sure when he thought he'd be able to mow anyway.

The long-AWOL deer herd returned today and were standing in the neighbor's pasture staring at our back door when I walked out the door: three bucks (one is pretty big and the other two slightly younger and smaller), three or four does, and two or three fawns. They re scoping out the driveway, the dove-feeding area and the compost piles. I put out two buckets of cracked corn for them, figuring if I didn't put out extra for that large herd, then the doves weren't going to get any cracked corn today. The deer were too happy to see me (or, rather, to see the buckets of corn), and the biggest buck came within about 8' of me (with a 5-strand barbed wire fence between us) before I yelled at him to back off. Had he not moved back, I would have carried the corn back into the garage to teach them that I won't put out the bird seed if they cannot stay out of my personal space so I can do it safely.

That's it for now. We're headed out with our girl.

Dawn

Nancy, I was just thinking about coming up and joining you some Friday night for dinner at the marina. I follow them on Facebook and the food looks yummy. Back in the 90s, the restaurant there was legendary for the Whitehorn Burger. People came from all around for it, and the hand cut fries and onion rings. I still dream about those days.

I’m starting to formulate a plan for the fall garden. Tomorrow may be my work day, after the morning rain. I‘m collecting garlic from Cherry Street to plant this fall. Need parsley and dill. And lettuce and spinach.

My 7 foot tithonia is leaning heavily after the rain. I think I will have to stake it. The bug friends love it. The cosmos tree is dying without ever having bloomed. I was talking to a flower vendor at Cherry Street today, and her flowers are rea struggling with the weather. So much that she’s taking a few weeks off from the market until she has enough to make it worth coming in.

I‘m thinking some focaccia bread sounds good to go with the pesto and fresh tomatoes. Lots of rosemary and garlic in the bread.

I laughed about your grand daughters liking different movies, Dawn. Our 6 year old likes all the horrible commercial videos the toy producers put out. He has even been banned from the leggo ones because his parents think he gets too wound up watching them. I managed to get him to watch Harry and the Hendersons and The Never Ending Story, but he whines until he gets into it. The 2 year old likes Lindsey Stirling on Youtube. She plays violin, well more like fiddling. I am amazed, he likes to watch music videos more than cartoons.

I think I'm glad your deer came back Dawn. Maybe the big predator moved on.

We did not get as much rain as you, Rebecca, but the weekend is not over yet. Do they still sell the garlic with variety names at Cherry Street? Focaccia always sounds good.

I was sorely disappointed with the veggie and herb selection at Lowes. Even the "fall" tomatoes looked too small to get ripe fruit before frost. The only herb I would have bought was Arp rosemary. They had lots of basil varieties, and some mints. No, the mints were at Worley's. The guy there said they didn't start fall brassica this year.

Nancy, the squash...I used to feed it to the chickens when it got too big. If you like pumpkin seeds, you might roast the seeds. I can't remember if I cooked any like winter squash, but if I did it didn't impress me enough to remember.

I suspect the white bougainvea would not tolerate too much sun, but the blossoms were so delicate looking. I wonder if they could grow in the front without as much sun? Maybe I like yellow flowers because they show up well from a distance. We all know I'm a sucker for peach and coral, just because they're my favorite colors.

There is white stuff on my sorghum. I didn't touch it, don't know if it's mildew or if it's normal for sorghum. It's starting to "bloom", I would like to get seeds, especially since the storm destroyed my amaranth.

Have a great weekend.

I just came in from checking the garden, and picking a peck peppers, well not really, but almost a Walmart bag full. I have given away 3 or 4 bags of peppers this week and 2 or 3 bags of okra. The garden looks pretty good except for the tomatoes. Disease and insects have taken my tomatoes, I have a few blooms, but too many insects for any fruit. The sweet potatoes ( if I have any ) may split. I plan to dig them in a few weeks anyway. This may be the last year I try to grow sweet potatoes because it is to hard for me to dig them. I try to plow them up with the tractor, but I dont have the right equipment.

We have had a really good rain, Ft. Smith has reported well over 5 inches, I expect we got a little less than Ft. Smith. All the creeks are running now so there should be plenty of water for livestock and wildlife.

My neighbor is really upset about the deer. He says he has been shooting the deer, squirrels , and rabbits. I dont blame him for being upset, but he waters every day and fertilizes every three weeks and has no fence of any kind. I will keep growing a wildlife garden because I am growing it , first, for the organic matter for soil improvement, second, for wildlife. I hope he continues to grow anything he wishes, but if he plants 1000# of winter peas next month like he said he is going to do, I expect his deer problem well be worse next year. So far a $100.00 investment in post, wire, and a fence charger keeps my garden deer free ( when I use it ). I have used electric fences for years to protect flower beds and gardens. I have even used them to keep cats and dogs out of the flower beds.

So...we (my mom and I) went to a fancy party tonight. A woman I've known since I was a youngster and her husband's 50 anniversary party.) Gary England was there. LOL! Anyway...being the introvert that I am...my energy was drained within 15 minutes of cheek kissing and so on. SO I snuck out and was pleasantly surprised that on the east side of their (very, very fancy) estate, there were two raised herb beds with very healthy looking herbs.

Sad thing is our daylight hours are decreasing. Back in June, it was still light-ish at 9. It is that no longer. However the temps are so much nicer. Still hot, but not brutal. I was just sad to NOT be able to work on our property tonight because of a stupid fancy party that I didn't even want to go to...but was sort of forced. Tomorrow and social activities won't be any better. I am so selfish. I just want to be home and in my garden and playing with my chicks.

We went to the Westmoore parent preview today. Talk about weird. We didn't need to be there by 8 am to set up for the auction or food line. We just rolled in and watched the preview of the new marching show. It was weird for Ethan too. He watched it from the bleachers. His girlfriend is still in HS, so we went to see her and visit with other band parents. Several parents from Ethan's class were there, so it was very nice.

Obviously, all of this socializing has killed me...so I'm off to bed to sleep it off.

Hopefully Monday will be a good garden day, although it's supposed to be hot.

Having a great weekend, hope the rest of you are, too. Because I've got a cold and feel kinda miserable out in the hot yard, and am too fatigued and disinterested in housework (LOL, not that fatigued, more like disinterested), I've been doing nothing but reading! (Not TOTALLY true, but close to totally true.) I pulled out all but one of the tomato plants, gathered some cukes and squash, deadheaded, tore out a couple more tithonia; put in the Cappuccino rudbeckias. Watered here and there. Vacuumed a bit. And read, mostly. GDW and I both have done SOMETHING in the way of housecleaning AND yard work this week--works out really well, I'm finding. This is a new development for both of us. We're learning if we do SOME work every day, we don't need marathon cleaning sessions. Only took me this long to figure this out. Love it. Mostly because then I can read to my heart's content the rest of the day! Yay!

Okay, thanks, Amy and Dawn--I'll cut the squash open tomorrow. Pretty sure I know the answer. I think the answer will be, "Look closer, N and GDW, so that you don't have to throw out overripe squash."

Dawn, Russ and Wade were 12 months, 3 weeks apart. When both of them needed my 24/7 attention, I was SO appreciative of their Gma and Gpa taking just one of them for a weekend. That meant the one they had got 24/7 attention, and the one I had got 24/7 attention, too. It's such a gift to the little ones!

The nectar plant list was mind-blowing. I had to copy it onto a word doc and sort of line it up and sift it out. Many, if not most, of the plants you named won't work here cuz of the shade. But certainly some. I'm going to turn the raised bed out in the driveway area into a perennial bed, I think. Rudbeckia, milkweed (with a few tithonia at the back (it's 3.5 ft wide), and salvia. None of those three thrive in any of my other beds, but all three are nectar champs, AND natives.

I am getting SUCH a kick out of the cucumbers, Korean kudzu, and large Seminole.

Blessings to you all, entering week 4. XOXO

Rebecca, I think tithonia plants always get tall and then start leaning or falling over---it is what they do. (grin) I tried to help mine out by planting them right up against the garden fence so it can hold them up, but you just know how that will end---they'll just start leaning over and then fall away from the fence instead of sort of leaning against it.

Amy, White on sorghum likely is sorghum downy mildew. I don't think it hurts the plants except that if you are growing the sorghum for a grain harvest/seed crop, it can interfere in grain/seed formation.

Larry, Sometimes people never learn. There's a guy here who tried to grow corn for years....planting 4 long, long, long rows...maybe 100 or 200' long. He is close to the river and the coons always get all his corn. Every single bit. I don't know if he shoots them, but one year he trapped 18 (I didn't ask if he released them elsewhere or otherwise disposed of them) coons as the corn was nearing maturity and still he never got a single ear. Now, why in the world didn't he put up a hot wire around the corn patch? I have no idea.

Nancy, I was afraid you didn't have enough sunlight to grow many of the same nectar plants, but I thought I'd post the list in case any of them sounded possible for shade. I do have the cuphea growing in an area where it goes from full morning sun to full shade around noon and it does well there, but does become a bit etiolated as it stretches for more afternoon light. It blooms fine though.

Jennifer, I bet it was incredible to see a veggie garden like that on the grounds of a ritzy estate. I thought the photo of your and your mom together was awesome, by the way.

I had wondered if you and Tom were going to go through band withdrawal this year. I'm glad Ethan's girlfriend is in band so you have a nice reason/excuse to go to their events.

It sounds like everyone had a lovely day.

We shopped till we dropped, lol, because Lillie is 10 and that is fun for her. We shook things up though so it didn't feel like a typical Saturday of running errands and buying groceries and, oops, while typing this I realized we didn't stop at the feed store to buy hen scratch. I guess we can do that in the morning. Anyhow, we ate breakfast out at a different place, shopped at different places (though CostCo still had to be a part of the day), and ate lunch at a different place. On our way home after a late lunch, we drove past the Grapevine TX Botanical Garden with a great child's playground right next door, and now I have that on my list for a future Saturday outing. The nearby community garden looked pretty burnt up from the heat, though there still were a lot of PEPH plants that looked fairly happy and productive. I bought 100 tulip bulbs at Sam's Club so I can put them in the garage refrigerator to chill.

After this morning's rain left new puddles beside old puddles from the previous day, Tim conceded defeat and acknowledged that he will not be mowing this property this weekend since his mower is only a mower and not a boat.

I had to stop at Hobby Lobby in Lewisville TX and get some stuff for a cake I'm baking next week. Between all the seasonal decor (autumn, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas) and the AC in the store really being cold, we felt like it was already autumn until we walked out the door into blazing heat in the upper 90s. Being in that store got me all in the mood to decorate for autumn, which I usually don't do until September, but I may do it a few days early this year.

I try to avoid Lowe's and Home Depot in late August because they'll get in fresh fall plants that look so good that I'll get the urge to replace a lot of my tired ones instead of letting them just hang on a couple more months and go to seed. I don't even want to look at veggie transplants or it will make me want to buy some and plant them and I don't really have time for that. Plus, there's that whole rattlesnake issue.....

I'll start next week's Week 4 post tomorrow. I was going to do it now, but suddenly I'm so sleepy I am pretty much falling asleep sitting up.

Dawn