The Thunder Rolls…

And the lightning strikes…(love Garth Brooks)

And where do the schnauzers go?

Up on the foot of Carol’s chair.

  Chloe is plastered against her leg.  If the storm gets real loud, like hail on the roof, she starts trembling like a leaf.  We found that if we cover her up with a blankie she settles down quicker.

SueSue, if it gets loud, gets down and looks at me and says “Are you going to go to bed now so I can cuddle? I’m too scared!” And you know what I do… take the computer to the bed and cuddle her.

Pretty soon Chloe gets down from Carol’s footrest and comes and jumps in the bed and I’m a schnauzer sandwich…

God, I love these pups.

All Together Now…

Let’s tip toe through the

zinnias,

through the zinnias

with me…through the

black-eyed Susans

and the petunias,

bushy coreopsis,

and a hidden petunia

and, yes, I made the stepping stone.

 Bee at work

A beautiful little lantana…

Hens and chicks.

And my favorite hibiscus.  All white except for a hint of yellow on it’s pestles.  I’ve got more hibiscus that I’ll do a post on when I get photos of them all.  We don’t have anyplace to overwinter the tropicals yet so all I grow are the natives.

I hope to turn the goat shed into a greenhouse this fall and winter, but it’s too dang hot and I’ve got too much to do without biting off another chunk right now.

So I hope you enjoy the stroll.  Hetty, I don’t do near as good as you with the proper names.  Some of the plants were gifted so I’ll never know them except for their common name.  The hibiscus… I’ve got it’s name somewhere. The zinnias and the petunias being annuals are just zinnias and petunias.  But it’s all fun and like a merry-go-round of color to greet me in the morning.

What could be better?

Knee High Corn…

Or maybe a bit higher. I’ve really seen a lot of change in the corn this last week. The good day corn, as you can see, is getting going. The bad day corn is trying. Real hard. And I talk sweet to both rows of corn. Oh, and for those of you who asked, the variety of corn is Tipper’s and her family’s favorite, Silver Queen, a white corn that’s a sweet corn.

The black eyed peas are going nuts…

The broccoli is identifiable even if it's a little sick looking. This is the only plant of six that got anywhere near to being something someone could recognize.

Half the pole green beans are in trouble…

The other half of ‘em are going great guns.

The bush beans are going to the great bush bean garden in the sky tomorrow. No, that’s not quite right. They have gone more than 7/8’s of the way already. I’m going to put them out of their misery tomorrow and pull them up and take them to the compost pile. They looked worse than the poopy looking pole beans. I didn’t want to embarrass them by taking their picture in their last gasps of life. So you’ll have to take my word for it. There is no way to save them.

Zuccs are still coming on.

And the crook neck yellow squash is continuing to put forth squashlets.

And I’m going to have to figure out when to harvest the cabbage. Trust me, I will wash each cabbage leaf before I eat it because it got dosed with the squash bug-potato bug powder, too. According to the instructions you can powder all the veggies little butts until two days before you plan to harvest them, but I’m not putting any more insecticide on anything than I feel I really need to… I haven’t seen any sign of either bug so I haven’t dosed them again.

So that’s my Sunday stroll through the vegetable garden. I’m working on a flower show for your perusal in the next day or two. Stay tuned and we will tip-toe not through the tulips, it’s too far into the summer for that, but I will take you for a walk-about around the flowers that are going and growing now.

Answers To Your Questions…

And to your comments. Dang this ended up long. Who knew I was so windy? Dar… don’t you say a thing! So if you want to know what the heck I’m talking about you can flip back and forth between the comments on the last post and you’ll understand it all. Or you can just read my responses and make up your own questions or comments and live in my fantasy land for a bit…

PastorSharon - you bet we can, but I'll leave the buttermilk for you and my brother. I don't drink that stuff, and as usual, there is a story there,

Hallie, you are amazing. I'd be proud to be beside you if there was any way, but I was referring to Mary Ellen... ME... because I couldn't read it, I'd be bawling BIG time.

Aleta - if you'd asked me twenty years ago, I would have told you the same thing... I couldn't grow anything but weeds and grass, but I guess time, patience and the need for therapy of some sort turned me to the dirt... as best as I can remember I WAS NOT trying to dig a grave to bury a body…

M.E. if I could get you down here I would load you up with veggies AND let you play with my dogs...

And Dar, I haven't even ventured into lettuce land. I tried cabbage because in my mind it's tougher than lettuce. I really think I need to build a raised bed for salad stuff with all the jackrabbits around. One that I can net off.

Tina, the only other thing I know to do with okra is boiled, some do that and love it... I don't even go there. To slimy for me. Some say to boil it with tomatoes, but I say it would still not be one for me. If you decide to try it like that you might google for a recipe and I have been told that the best way to boil it is to use the young tender okra pods. You can pickle it, too, and those are pretty good munching, but I'm no cook so you'd have to look that up, too.

JoJo, I think you had problems with a lot of rain this spring didn't you? And a cool spring doesn't help in trying to get a garden going, even in raised beds or barrels. When I checked yesterday it was 64 F. and rainy in your neck of the woods. Whatever can you grow besides apples? Albeit, the best damn apples I ever ate…

We do, Caroline, have quite a bit of wind I guess. Folks back in the olden days used to tell me I needed horseshoes in my back pockets to keep from blowing away, but I'm learning to ask folks who know (gardeners, nursery folks, etc.) what to grow around here in our area. I figure if someone else had good luck growing it here in central Oklahoma, then I stand a modicum of a chance to keep it alive and maybe bearing fruits for my labor. And I try to plant twice as much as I should and hope and pray for at least half as much to harvest and if I have more than I need or want I have a large family and a few friends that will take the extra off my hands. I haven't gotten the nerve to try to sell it at the farmer's market because those people KNOW how to grow anything. and everything.

Stacy, you cool chick you, the one thing that I worry about around here is skunks… but only because of the dogs. I have this fear of them bounding out of the dog door in the middle of the night and then coming back in and jumping up on my bed to tell me that they chased off the skunk… and smelling like they were sprayed. If my prayers are answered, that will never happen. We do have gophers or moles or voles… I don’t know which because I only see the remains of the dirt piles where they’ve been digging, but I do find grubs whenever I dig in the garden or the flower beds and I throw them as far into the field as I can without getting off my butt or my knees, depending on the position I’m in at the moment. I’ll have to try the Bayer Feed and Protect if it helps with grubs.

Evansmom… I’m still trying to figure out the veggie garden stuff. For example, I came in a couple of days ago with the statement that next year I’m not only planting in rows to make it easier to weed, but I’m marking the outside edges of what I’ve planted so I don’t have to dig over hell and half of Georgia Oklahoma to find my dadgum onions and potatoes. I’ve been so used to randomly planting flowers for a more, oh, I don’t know, maybe a cottage garden effect and believe you me that is not very smart in a vegetable garden.

MargaretHall, I’m having fun showing you and anyone else that stops by ‘the garden’. Always in hopes of improving my knowledge base is one of the reasons I like to take the photos. Another reason is it helps me to remember my mistakes… like don’t random plant in the vegetable garden. And I’ll try to remember to do the corn photo update on Sunday… or maybe Monday.

Robynn, my dearest sweet Robynn… I know about all the weeds… way more than I want to know. Please feel free to keep your share there. It will give me something to do when I win the lottery and come to visit you and all the other blogging friends that I’ve met and come to love.

This has been really fun. I may have to do this more often… especially when I’m tired and a little brain fuzzy. All your comments and questions make blogging fun and hopefully keep my brain active.

Oh, and I'm going to try to start commenting to the comments in the comment section. I'll see how it goes...

A Farmer I’m Not…

I have been experimenting with garden stuff that likes the red dirt.  I’m finding out that potatoes like our dirt, squash seem to love it, bush beans, not so much, pole beans, yep, and black eyed peas love it.  Okra does good and tomatoes, well, the jury is still out on them.

Cucumbers, I know if we find the right breed they’ll grow and I need to plant another batch of radishes because the first ones are all gone and they were good.  I should have planted them two weeks ago, but see the title of this post. At least I’m learning a thing or two…

I tried cabbage and broccoli.  Here’s those results:

Gorgeous head  

not so much so. almost broccoli but not quite.

I thought at first I was feeding the rabbits with my broccoli, but then saw Colorado potato bugs on my potatoes and realized they were getting my cabbage and broccoli and the squash besides the potatoes.

Then came the squash bugs.  So now I’ll have to say I’m not an organic farmer or even an organic gardener because I went to the farm store and got the baddest chemicals I could to combat them.  I became the g.i. Jane of gardening.  I will fight for my few morsels of food.  I figure I can wash my food pretty good and I don’t like sharing with bugs. 

The rabbits… well, they provide exercise for the girls.  They have fun chasing them and the rabbits think it’s fun, too, since they know the girls can’t catch them.  They will tease them and then take off, schnauzers hot on the trail and low to the ground.  Then when they get too far ahead the rabbits will stop… hop a hop or two back towards the girls to make sure they don’t lose interest and, once again the chase is on.

It takes so little to entertain this Gardner that is not a farmer but working on being a gardener and a better Gardner.

What A Corny Gal...

Did you know that Johnson & Johnson is coming out with a new product?


A frozen BandAid.




Yep. It's for cold cuts...


I love corny jokes. Probably because of how I was raised. In a house where corny jokes and puns ruled.

Time for the corn report. This middle photo the good day corn is on the right.

The bad day corn is on the left.

I took this from the north end of the bed. The other two photos I took from the south end of the bed so the good day corn you'll see on the left.

It looks odd to my eye to see the photo this way because I'm sorta lazy and the end closest to the house is the south end so that's where I usually take the pictures...


There... doesn't that look more natural?


I was in the back bedroom today and someone started beating on my window. I raised the shade and Carol was out there in her chair. She's pointing to the back fence so I raised the other window shade that looks out east toward the back fence and there was a nice sized white tailed doe walking along on our side of the fence. She's probably a two year old and she looked in great shape. I didn't have time to get my camera before she went back through the brush and over the fence.

I may have to get some corn to supplement the grass they eat and try to get them comfortable to come by for a snack so I can get photos. I had seen tracks along our south fence line a year ago and about a month ago I saw tracks going through the garden.

That's all from red dirt land this evening. I've got some more garden photos I want to share but it's late and blogger isn't wanting to load any more photos so piss on 'em I'll put them up tomorrow with windows live writer.

Tiny Visitors…

And a flower show.  Bees and butterflies and an occasional frog have all been almost as busy as me.  I decided that today is a good day to show you a few photos. 

In this picture of a cone flower there are two different types of bees and a butterfly.

I think I’ll call this one butterfly on coneflower with branches…

This is a native clematis. I’d not seen one like this so I ordered it last fall and it has done well.  The tiny bell-shaped flowers are about the size of my thumb.

Two butterflies and a bee.  My sunflowers have brought a myriad of callers.

How could anyone look at this ruffledy pink daylily and not smile.

This is new to the garden this year.  It’s a hibiscus called “Texas Star".  It’s not a blooming marijuana despite the look of the leaves.

Another worker.

Bro called me out on the back porch a couple of nights ago.  This little guy was hanging out on the handle of the swiffer sweeper under the porch light.

Heap good hunting ground. The light brought in the moths and bugs and he had his own private buffet.

Ahhhh, morning glories. 

That’s all the eye candy for today.  We had a storm front blow through last evening, clear up for a couple of hours, then built up and rained for several hours.  Which means I don’t have to water today which is good because I’m hurting from the barometric changes.  The front broke the triple digit heat we’ve had  and we are only going to be in the low 90’s for the next week or so.  More like normal temperatures.  Well worth any pain I’m dealing with today.

I hope you all have a great weekend.  I’ll be posting the corn report at some point but for today I’m just going to go out and smell the rain fresh air and watch some of the British Open and I might even take a nap.

Wanna Get Married?

 

Or should I just put ‘em up for auction on ebay? The zucchinis, not the Crocs.  I picked these biggies this afternoon.  

  I have to admit that I knew these were growing and wanted to see how big they’d get before I picked them… I couldn’t stand it any longer (no pun intended).  I didn’t want them to go bad.   Seventeen inches long.

Do ya think the zucchini plants like the red dirt? These are my OU Crocs that I throw on to run outside and check on the dogs or to water the barrels… So I thought I’d shoot the zuccs with them so you’d get an idea of the size.  The size is women’s 8-9 or mediums in Croc sizing. This was before I found the tape measure. I didn’t want anyone to think they were ‘baby crocs’.

Now for the weigh-in….

DRUMROLL

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 Yep.  Eight pounds.  That’s 3.62873 kilograms.

Anyway you look at it it’s a lot of zucchini!!!

Planted and watered and lovingly encouraged to grow to an excellent post size for your viewing pleasure by the old red dirty dirt girl.

Snork.

It Runs In The Family…

 

 

One of my nieces sent me the following e-mail…

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What is the difference between Bird Flu and Swine Flu?

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For bird flu you need tweetment and for swine flu you need oinkment.

 

I forwarded this e-mail on to various family members and friends.

My baby brother, a doctor who works at an urgent care division of a hospital, sent this           e-mail back to me…

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I saw a case of "Chirpes."

It is a canarial disease.

It is untweetable.

Laundry Day…

I'm adding a proviso- I have a king sized bed. The jeans and shorts look skinnier on it... The clothes I wore when I was younger would fit two in one pair now.

I did my laundry yesterday. I was having a lazy day inside after I got the outside stuff done early, nobody else was needing to do their wash so I got after it.

I had washed my grungies, i.e. my working jeans and shorts. I threw them on the bed to fold or hang and I got to looking at them…

I had to laugh at the progression. I wear clothes a long time. I wear them o.u.t. When my jeans get stained with whatever, they become yard jeans or painting and yard jeans or nasty cleaning job jeans or car washing jeans… You get my drift.

When they get too many worn places in the legs and knees, they becomes working shorts. I cut them off. The older I get the longer the shorts are cut. When you look at the following evolution of clothing, please understand that these clothes are all CLEAN. They have paint on them as well as red dirt stains and a blood stain here and there.

Enjoy the following photos and be very proud of how clean your laundry looks.

My newest working pants.

Next oldest. Dirt, paint, etc.

My Daisy Dukes. These are probably 15 years old. At least. The red on these is paint, as well as the yellow and white…

These are only about ten years old. They are somewhat longer.

These are my most recent cutoffs. These are the only one of the three pairs I’ll wear if I have to run to Lowe’s or Atwood’s or the grocery or whatever. I don’t wear the other two pairs of shorts except around the ponderosa here.

I do try to dress my age…