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Man, it's been a hot one! Upper 90's most of the week, heat index's well over 100-Whew! Not much going on in my garden these days, it seems. I have pulled up most of the tomatoes, waiting on the zuchinni to give up to the bugs. I'm still making cucumbers-which I like-and the bell peppers & jalepeno are doing fine. We have hit & miss showers here in the afternoons-and they have mostly missed me. My part of the area is on water restrictions already! Muggy Louisiana!
Not much blooming, but I do have a few I want to share. My daylillies are mostly done-there are a few stragglers-this is the orange one I got from Tracie (Cougar) last year-I love it!
It has plenty of buds, so It will be blooming for a while! The Morning Glory tree is finally blooming more than one bloom at a time. It is really cold sensitive, and took a long time getting started this year:
The bees love this plant! Also, new this year, is this Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia, I think? Am I right?) It is a big plant, and I thought it was a weed at first-I planted several seeds of this, and only have 2 plants-but it is gorgeous! The bees & wasps love it, too! It's petals are velvety smooth-I WILL plant this again!
And, lastly...this butterfly was flitting around the zinnias-He was so big, when I first saw him I thought he was a little bird! So perfect-his wings had no flaws, and he was just beautiful!
Hope you liked! Have a good afternoon-Stay Cool!
Carolyn
I hope all you gentlemen had a nice day. Pete's daughter came to his house and cooked chicken fried steak, homemade mashed potatoes & fresh green beans with tomatoes & cucumber salad. Cheesecake for dessert. It was nice for someone else to cook & clean up! And it was real good, besides! I don't cook "chicken fried" anything -I always hurt myself. The only thing I fry is fish and shrimp for my son-I am dangerous with a pot of grease!
It was a hot one again today. I never really checked the thermometer in the heat of the day, but at 6:30 when I took the dog for a ride, it was 96 degrees. Last night at 9:30 pm it was 90 with a heat index of 99. Sweatin'!
My little dog is out of sorts again. The vet-AGAIN-he has a thyroid condition and is on new medicine now. He has barely moved today, except to go outside and eat a plant I think is a weed, but not sure-and now I don't know if it is poisonous. It is posted in Plant Identification if anyone can offer help.
Yesterday while mixing up the Miracle-gro and Epsom salt for the plants, this guy was watching me.
Then he got kind of huffy about it!
With this heat and no rain, I have a lot of things suffering. I threw out some more zinnia seeds, they just didn't come up or re-seed as usual this year, and I miss them. The same with my sunflowers-not doing the normal thing. The crepe myrtles are just gorgeous, though! I will try to remember to take some pictures of the prettiest ones in town and post some. Last year they didn't bloom like this-they are just beautiful!
Still lots to do before bed. A friend brought me a large bag of okra-needs to be cut up-I'll freeze it tomorrow!
Stay cool!
At 4 pm today when I went to the bank, it was 100 degrees according to my car thermometer. Heat index-107. I think it's hot! So far, I can handle it!
My kids are gone-stuffed full of seafood & sweat-it was 100 degrees in Houston when I dropped them off-I talked to Clint yesterday-it was 46, raining and a wind chill of 38 degrees in Great Falls. He wants to come home-bless his little heart-but he won't be back until Mardi Gras next year! I am so lonesome already. I don't know if I'll be able to make a trip to see him before Christmas-I've been cut back to working 4 days a week(which I really don't mind, except when I go to the bank)-and our business is horribly bad. Some days the phone doesn't even ring. We are not doing well, and there is no outlook for it to get better any time soon.
I have pulled up all my beans-they didn't produce anything worth the trouble this year. My tomatoes are dying (normal at this time of year for us), and I must say-I Do NOT like Brandywine tomatoes. All the hype I've heard about the best tasting tomato-well-me and my brother agree-NOPE! Better Boys have them beat. Their growth habit is lousy (sparse foilage, leggy, pale) but they did produce a quantity of large, clumsy tomatoes. I don't like the shoulder growth or the large stem-just not what I prefer. And I had/have a horrible infestation of stink bugs this year, so that may be part of the problem. Even my sunflowers don't seem to be doing well!
While they were in, Suzy did get to see the Angel Trumpet bloom, and the crepe myrtles were starting (they are at their peak right now and just beautiful all over town!), I had some glads blooming-the stink bugs are "stinkin" them, too. And the few zinnias I had come up are doing good.
We didn't get this hot until July last year, so this is going to be a hot summer. I hope the hurricanes hold off until the oil leak is contained-it just seems like a whole lot of talking and no action. Another Katrina or Rita could spread oil all over the US! Is that what it is going to take to prompt quicker action? I just hope my unborn and not even thought of grandchildren get to see the Louisiana coast as I did. A whole way of life and lifestyle has been killed off and is still happening-and nothing can seem to stop it, and it doesn't even seem as if anyone is trying very hard. :(
The crabbing trip lasted all day (Don't think Suzy wants to go crabbing again!), but she got a flip-flop tan & they caught several dozen crabs, and about 4-5 lbs of shrimp with the cast net. Some of the crabs were small-but still eatin' size! Here's the boys getting them ready to cook:
Those gloves are heavily lined-but one managed to get hold of Kyle anyway! Suzy learned to peel them, though she needs lots of practice, and she liked them. We boiled the shrimp, too. They had a good time, and Suzy got to see some marsh wildlife (before it all gets oiled up!).
I picked eggplant today and 2 large brandywine tomatoes. They are rather big and deformed (kinda)-I think next year I'll stick with my Better Boys-I don't see any difference in flavor. I have 21 eggplant in this pile-Hansel is a small, oriental eggplant-ready to pick at about 4 inches up to 10. They taste good-just look so small! I'll smother some of these down tonite:
I am kind of disappointed in my production of my cukes this year. I guess the wet, cool spring we had messed everything up. Beans are not doing real well, either. I do have lots of tomatoes, but they aren't ripe yet and I had a big problem with stink/leaf-footed bugs early on. The eggplant are doing fantastic even though these are not the ones I wanted! Pete is having a hard time with his garden, too. HIS cucumbers are fantastic-and I saw some little cantelopes, but his tomatoes, okra & corn are kinda puny. He's got some big ole' sunflowers, too!
The kids got to see the Angel Trumpet blooming-it will be much more fantastic in the fall, but they got to see these anyway:
And, lastly, this is what the back patio looked like today. Got to go water-the rain has missed my house the last 2 days- So -later, Gators!
Hi, All! Clint & Suzy came in Friday, and it's been a "what are we gonna eat next" kind of weekend. He wants to basically, go fishing (he has), and eat seafood-he has, everyday so far! And that pretty much covers it! For his birthday, we went to a "hole in the wall" restaurant that has all the cajun food you could want, and a French Band to boot. Clint ate 15 lbs of boiled crawfish and Suzy got to French dance with an Old Cajun man. We have found out that- 1. Suzy will NOT eat fried frog legs (ha-ha) 2. Doesn't want to learn to peel crawfish 3. Doesn't like fried oysters, either (oh, well)-LOVES fried shrimp and catfish, and will do just about anything else! Today they are going crabbing with my nephew(Pete's son, Caleb-with the awful phone bill!)-I made her load up on sun screen and mosquito spray. Don't know if she eats boiled crabs-we haven't had them yet! We have had fresh cucumbers, green beans, squash & eggplant. I picked the first tomato yesterday.
Next weekend will be a BBQ brisket & ribs and boat riding and beer drinking weekend. It has been "HOT" & HUMID." Clint said the guys in Montana would die in our climate! Sweatin bullets every day!
Suzy is enjoying looking around my yard. The glads are still blooming, the hydrangea is blooming, the Angel Trumpet even has a few blooms. They've seen the bird feeder overloaded with all the doves hanging off it. The daylillies are still in massive bloom and the crepe myrtles are starting to bloom. The Plumeria is gorgeous, and the morning glories are finally blooming more than one at a time, and I have a few zinnias blooming. I saw a hummer in the zinnia's yesterday. I'll have some pics in a few days-just checking in!
Have a great week!
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