Lightning And Other Stuff

We got hit last Friday. URGH!
It would have been nice if it could have stayed farther away from me than 5 feet -
It hurt! It felt like every muscle in my body had contracted as hard as it could. The muscles around my rib cage still hurt - they feel like they've shrunk 2 sizes. The tingle wasn't too cool either. You know how it feels when you stick your tongue on a brand new 9 volt battery? Times that by about a thousand and add your whole body. I was on the floor for a few minutes deciding if I was still alive. lol. The top of my scalp and my neck still feel weird, but not painful.
The concussion from the crack! when it hit the ground was so loud that it took out my oldest son's hearing for a little while.

This is the hole it left in the ground outside the window where I was sitting (it looks small compared to what it looks like in real life) Sorry it's a little blurry, but I was still shaking when I took the pic:



It blew the iris right out of the ground and pulverized the rocks that ring the tree (threw the rubble all over). There's a huge hole in the pathway and the plastic underneath is gone. There is a long scar mark that shows the path the lightning took up the tree. It swirled around it like a snake right to the top and blew of big chunks of bark. Harumph - the first thing anyone asked was, "Are the fish OK?" What, forget the humans, are the fish all right? lol.

My husband and I lost both our computers, the router, both tv's, the cable box, the modem, S's monitor, D's motherboard got zapped, the phone (I can't remember what else, but it was anything connected to cable or phone lines). It disintegrated the switch on the surge protector. Yeah, that didn't do much good.

Bro-in-law and sis-in-law gave me their old comp. Yay! D is going to use youngest daughter's with messed up motherboard as it can still work for basic stuff and she's getting youngest son's old one since he found a cheap one for himself on Craig's List.

Note to God: D lost his job, we lost Ronnie Tuesday and now the lightning. That's three. Are we done now??!! Please?!

Happier things -

I saw some turkey vultures sunning themselves. They're beautiful birds as long as they stay away from me. (Oh, Lordy, maybe it's another sign. ~sigh~)







I thought this swarm of ants on our front step was cool, but it kind of grossed me out at the same time.



A fabulous cauliflower we pulled out of the garden this year (that's a quarter next to it for size comparison).





OK, I guess that's it for the moment.
If you don't hear from me for a while, well, something else bad has happened and I don't want to think about it!
:(

Mid July Update

Wow, what a difference two whole days of heat, sun and no rain can make. The ground actually looks dry - I'd forgotten what dry soil looks like!

For those of you in the upper eastern states - hang in there, it's on its way. I'm outside blowing the good weather in your direction. Man, my lips are tired! :(

An update on how well the tomato bale experiment is doing: Fantastic!



Thank God I haven't seen hide nor hair of the blight. ~fingers crossed~ Pays a bit to start your own seed in this instance. I think I only have one close neighbor that gardens and he grows his own also.
:)
Bonnie Plants first said they accepted that they were to blame, now this:

Dennis Thomas, Bonnie Plants general manager, insists there never was any evidence of blight at any of the company's 61 growing stations nationwide and that his company did not ship out any infected plants. "None whatsoever," he said. "The last inspections we've had in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and in West Virginia today, showed negative."

One of those things that makes you go, hmmmm...

On to happier stuff.

I only got one plant from the strawberry petunia seed (stupid weather!) but what a bloom it is!


Things that are finally taking off:

Popcorn


Potato (don't mind the weeds. potato is a DH thing, not a me thing, so unless he weeds them...)


Peppers (looking better!)


Onions are looking good.


Carrots have gone bonkers!


Yellow and green bush beans are finally flowering. Interesting how you can easily tell which row are which.


We had the first cabbage salad of the year yesterday. Yum! Was fabulous. I honestly should have let it go a few more days, but well, you know...
The cauliflower is almost ready and huge.
Half a gallon of peas in the freezer so far.

I guess that's it for the veg, so on to what few flowers I have that the freaking slugs didn't eat.

The view from my living room last week.


The honey bees are swarming the borage now that the sun has returned.


The bee balm is finally open for the hummers. They've been cleaning out the feeders in a day!





I lurve gloriosa daisies.


The lavender is looking beautiful.


Lilies are so fab they almost glow.


and last but not least, the coolest visitors of all to my flower beds-


Hope everyone's gardens are growing like gangbusters!
Happy gardening.
:)

(wow, I actually titled the post as June instead of July - talk about a Freudian slip - I'm still subconsciously waiting on some nice june weather! lol)

Getting Started

.
Finally, yay!

With my dad having another heart attack and the hubs' job set to disappear (ugh!) things have gotten way behind around here.
Well, just us. Most certainly not the plants. They know it's time to make an appearance, ready or not.

So far planted in the garden:
Broccoli
peas (I know, I know, we are way late!)
cabbage
cauliflower
Brussel sprouts
and potatoes.


Hey, at least it's a start.
The belt broke on the rototiller (ahem, the yearly go-round with the beastie. Some things never change) and another is on order - translation = "We can't get you one for at least 2 weeks." ~sigh~

We made a quick trip to TSC to see if maybe they had a belt that would fit and they have chicks in. Oh, man, I'd love to have some chicks! Our coop was dismantled ages ago and there's no way finances will allow one right now. A lady in the store came up while I was looking at them and said, "Oh, how cute!" Her husband looked at her and said, "Yeah, cute now, then they get big and you eat 'em." She about freaked. When she glanced at me after he said that, I nodded and said, "Yeah, then you eat 'em!" Poor woman, I thought she was gonna faint.

Anyway, still on deck and waiting in the wings:
radishes
lettuce
and carrots.

Now, to the good thing - my nephew brought me 4 dump truck loads of wood chips for mulch. Yay! Hey, it was free and I'm smilin'! I got a little of it spread on the perennial beds where I can see things popping, but I'll have to wait on the other beds for the reseeders (both flowers and weeds) to show themselves before I can tackle those. Besides, spreading mulch is no fun in 90 F heat. I'll wait until it cools down in a few days. I really can't imagine what it's like not to battle weeds non-stop all summer long and never really finish before starting all over at the beginning again. It'll be a new experience! Seriously, I've never been able to have mulch before. Yes, sad. Very sad.

The pepper and tomato seedlings are looking awesome. I'm so proud!
Sent some cole sprouts to my niece. Remains to be seen if they get planted or not. I'm sure she'll get to it, eventually.

My gosh, I am soooo excited about that mulch . . . y'all have no idea! Seriously, I could PMP just thinking of it spread everywhere. Those piles are bee-u-tee-full!
Lordy, I'm such an easy garden date. lol.
;)

I'm so very proud of my youngest daughter! Out of the blue, she noticed the lady that volunteers every year to clean out the school's flowerbeds struggling a little to get it all done by herself and D ran right over there and offered to help instead of going to lunch and recess. How sweet is she? What'd the other kids do? Why, stood and stared at them do it, of course. :( Yesterday, the lady came in the school and gave D some potted-up pups from her aloe plant as a thank you. Awww, that was so nice! D wasn't expecting anything for helping and was very shocked. She has them sitting at home on her desk next to her comp. They might have to be moved for more light, though.

Oh, and another good thing - I have sprouts out the wazoo from my WS jugs. I'll make a list soon. But I'm much more excited about that mulch!
.

Overwintering Successes - So Far

.
.
I was so happy to finally be able to get outside and see what made it through - so far.
I'm not stupid enough to think that old man winter might not give us one more good smack upside the head, but here's to hoping, anyway.

The two rhubarbs that we transplanted last fall are budded. (thought they weren't too happy about their location as I wasn't able to harvest anything after two years)

Some lavender made it! I can't believe it. I was sure it was all going to croak as I left it in an exposed, wet area all winter. But, tada! It's out there and alive. Even seems as if it has grown a lot.

A few of the rhody seedlings are looking good. A surprise there, too! I can't find any of the azaleas.

I'm not too sure about the garlic, though. They had beautiful green shoots last month, but then we got a quick thaw that was just long enough to get rid of the protective snow cover, followed by ten below 0 F. I dug one up just to be nosy, and the roots look good, everything else just looks like mush. I guess I'll just have to give it some more time and see what happens.

I got some pepper seeds (chinese giant reds and a mix, 56) in soil last Friday the thirteenth. (Figured that was as good a day as any the way our luck has been running) No sprouts yet. It's much too early to expect any.

This weekend I'll be sowing the green ones. All I have is the leftover Cali Wonders, so they'll have to do.

The cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and broccoli seed I started a while ago are growing nicely. Short and bushy - perfect. I'm also out of seed for those now.

Only two weeks to getting the tomato started. Oh, I can't WAIT to smell that foliage!

We started getting the ponds cleaned out, but with the temps going into the mid-teens F this week, we'll wait until next weekend to get the pump and filter up and running. We lost two koi. ~sigh~
:(

Oh, on a side note, I had an opportunity to tell the Nielsen Company exactly what I thought of HGTV, and wow, do I feel better!

Seeds Sown And A First Haircut

...

No, not a haircut for a kid (the last first one of those was 17 years ago). For the onions.
:)
They're so cute!

I sowed the cole crop seeds today:
Broccoli
Cabbage
Brussel Sprouts (I'm hoping the weather cooperates for them a bit better this year)
and Cauliflower

There's still two more weeks to go before I can get the pepper and tom seeds started.
~sigh~ It's so hard to wait!
Crap - they're already getting these plants in the ground down south.
Yes, zone envy rears its ugly head. Even Flighty is seeing lots of green!
My ground? White, frozen, undigable and depressing.

Total WS jugs to date = 21 (yes, I'm a slacker)

A quick aside:
Trudi, at Wintersown.org, has changed how people have to go about getting the free seed offer. As of tomorrow, March 1, you have to print out a dated page and send it with the SASE postmarked within a week of that date to get them. Really, I understand her reasoning and people who take advantage of these offers suck, but what are you suppose to do if you don't have a printer? (like, right now, I have no ink, and at $20ish a pop, I won't be getting any soon!) This may leave some of those that are very deserving of these offers with no way to get them.
:(

Oh! And I'm going to do the 'Hay Bale Gardening' this year as an experiment. Our neighbor is getting rid of a bunch of them that are already degrading, so yay! I can't wait - like I need something else to obsess over.

...

Transplanting

Yay!
The weather in this neck of the woods has finally broken. It's nice. And it looks as if it will be sticking around for a while.

I'm full of that excited feeling gardeners get when they can finally get their hands in the soil, and feet - and butt. The youngest planted a whole row of broccoli in the garden yesterday - on her butt. It's such a wonderful thing to know the soil is finally warm enough! :) It was fabulous to have her working in the dirt with me. She thinks it's no big deal, but to me, it's always the most joyful time with her I could ask for.

My plans to get all the cole crops in a week ahead of last year didn't quite make it, but 5 days is close enough.

Transplanted and sowed yesterday:

Broccoli
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Brussel Sprout
2 types of head lettuce
Radish seed
Carrot seed

No sign of the peas yet, but I'm betting they'll start making an appearance this week.

I wanted to get so much more done yesterday, but got stopped in my tracks by another migraine.

I finally scraped together enough to get a new pair of glasses and learned something very interesting about my migraines from the eye doctor yesterday.
My regular doctor hasn't bothered doing anything about them as his answer to everything that is wrong with me is simply because I smoke. "Quit smoking and it'll go away."
~sigh~
So, he has had the same answer all these years about my migraines - quit smoking and they'll magically disappear. Trust me - if it were that easy, I would have done it years and years ago. Hindsight.

Anyway, I haven't been able to get new glasses for six years and when the eye doctor checked, my glasses hadn't been adjusted for my more dominant right eye. The last time I got new glasses, I thought it would help with the headaches (because, when you're straining to see, you can get headaches). I simply figured it was because I was doing so many small crafts and straining my eyes for hours on end. But, getting the new glasses last time didn't make any difference in the amount of headaches I was experiencing.

This doctor (bless him!) says, "No wonder you're getting headaches. Your lenses aren't adjusted correctly for your dominant eye."
Huh?
So he explained to me what was going on with my eyes and said with the new glasses my migraines and headaches might ease up. He showed me the difference with those flippy-lensy things, and I swear, it was like looking at the world in a totally new way. Not just clearer - different.

I'm going to be so overjoyed and miffed at the same time if all these years it has simply been my glasses!
After I get the new ones and wear them for a few weeks, he wants me to call and let him know if it made a difference in the amount of migraines and headaches. I hope (for my sake and his) I can report positive results. He seemed pretty sure it would make a huge difference.

On a different note, I was a naughty girl.
When we went to the casino for our free bingo for the week, I swiped a begonia leaf from one of the displays they were yanking out.
Shhh! Nobody saw? Right? And it was just lying there!
Ok, the hubs just ignored me as nothing surprises him anymore when it comes to plants, but youngest son was mortified. I got the, "I sooo can not believe you just did that" look, followed closely with the eye-roll.
He has yet to discover how deep this 'plant obsession' of mine really goes. Wouldn't it have been much worse if I had picked up the whole plant, roots and all, and walked out with it rather than just a broken-off leaf? It was headed for the trash anyway.
Well, that's my story and I'm stickin'!

So the leaf got sliced and mounted on some potting soil and I'll see what happens. How bad can I really screw it up? If it doesn't work, it was worth the experiment. My Aunt D does it with hers all the time. Of course, she has a green thumb to die for. lol.