kerryh's Blog
kerryh's Blog
Last Post 5 hours Ago
Jul 23, 2008 | 9:41 AM PST
GRANDMA STILL DRIVES!!!
Grandma's letter. She is eighty-eight years old and still drives her own car. She writes:
Dear Grand-daughter,
The other day I went up to our local Christian book store and saw a 'Honk if you love Jesus' bumper sticker.
I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting.
So, I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper.
Boy, am I glad I did; what an uplifting experience that followed.
I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good he is, and I didn't notice that the light had changed.
It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn't honked, I'd never have noticed.
I found that lots of people love Jesus!
While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like crazy, and then he leaned out of his window and screamed, 'For the love of God!'
'Go! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, GO!'
What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus!
Everyone started honking!
I just leaned out my window and started waving and smiling at all those loving people.
I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love!
There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach.
I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air.
I asked my young teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant.
He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something.
Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii , so I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign right back.
My grandson burst out laughing.
Why even he was enjoying this religious experience!!
A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me.
I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed.
So, grinning, I waved at all my brothers and sisters, and drove on through the intersection.
I noticed that I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the love we had shared.
So I slowed the car down, leaned out the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away. Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!!
Will write again soon,
Love, Grandma
Jul 21, 2008 | 4:34 PM PST
A time to live and a time to die. 
I had to put my old dog Denver down last Friday, that was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. His lungs were full of tumors and he was having to stuggle to breath.
I read somewhere once that if we go to are grave knowing one good friend and one good dog ,we have had a good life.
It was Superbowl Sunday 1997 . We were at a party and I mentioned I sure would like to get a lab. My friend said "come with me". We went to this farm and into the barn . There was 11 puppies. The mother was a golden lab and the father was a very lucky dog. I sat down on this bale of hay and this 5 week old puppy came and crawled into my lap. I took him back to the party,he never left my lap. My friend asked what are you going to call him, I was hoping Denver would win, so that's what I named him... but they lost to the Packers!
Denver never left this yard, if I would leave the back gate open he would go around and set on the front step and wait for me to open the door. He loved to eat my garden produce!!! Grapes Srawberrys Tomatoes etc !!!
My sister and family came to stay for the weekend and the only spare bed I had left was the couch, We all went to bed , Mary hollered at me, "what does this dog want, he keeps looking at me?" I said well you are on his bed!!!
The vet came and put Denver to sleep on the couch with me holding him in my lap. It was hard but it was the right thing to do. He started out on my lap and that where where we ended. Sure do miss him, I find my self going to call him for something, go outside, share a snack, whatever. This to will pass.
Happy Planting, Kerryh
Jul 13, 2008 | 8:57 PM PST
Haven't had time to set down at the Garden Guides... to busy gardening.
I love July In Montana, and since all the rain it is still green. We have been going to the mountains the last couple of weekends. Just playing. The hill sides are covered with flowers.Always take my book with me and see how many wildflowers I can name. We still have snow on the tops ,which we haven't had for a few years. The water is still running high and the dams and lakes are filling again.
Everthing in the yard is blooming, I seen I have a few rasberrys on my new plants. And the roma tomatoes are prduceing, they are so cute. I have had to prune alot of my trees, I didn't notice till now but I had a lot of damage with that last snow storm. The splits in the branches did'nt show till the leaves got so heavy to finish pulling them down.
The pond plants have finally reach there height and filled in.I need to move a few plants that are not doing so well now because of the shade from the apple tree.
Finished painting the house.Got the dry creek bed in my new project, The quaking ash have grown 3 inches already. And the wild flowers are in full bloom ...awesome. I have this mountain meadow garden in my minds eye and it is hard for any one else to see any thing but a mess. I am stuck till Jim tears down the old tin shed, he is not too fond of this, and I am having a hard time motivating him. LOL. .
My zukes are growing like crazy but no fruit yet, I have a potatoe growing in the compost pile. It will be fun to see if it grows spuds. The alfalfa is growing good. I will be able to cut and dry it soon for tea . I have never done this before. Interesting!!!
Happy Planting Kerryh
Jul 1, 2008 | 4:07 PM PST
A friend of mine has a dear friend that has lost everything in the flood in Ceder Rapids.
She and so many more across the States and in other country's have had such terrible saddness, with the tornado's and flooding and now the hurricane season is begining. We never know how each day will end. . If everyone that reads this could say a small prayer... it would create a prayer chain that would surround the world.
Hope tomorrow finds you safe and well, Kerryh
Jun 22, 2008 | 8:21 PM PST
Tag: compost
I don't spend a lot of time inside in the summer except to do my "wifely " duties. I tell anyone that comes for a visit if you want to see my house in order come in the winter time LOL.
I think every thing has started to grow ...finally. Had to move a few plants. That last freaky snow storm we had a few weeks ago, broke of some major branches, plants that were in the shade are now in full sun. My begonia's were drying out so I moved them to the back yard, the next morning after a night in the cool wet soil there leaves were plump and the flower heads were looking up again. I am going to miss that one branch on the pear tree, it shaded my living room. Oh well, to every thing there is a season.
With the gas prices the way they are, we are not planing any trips this summer so I went a little nuts at the nursery this spring. Any old excuse will do !!!
June 29/08 I have the west side of the house to paint and then I am going to the plant the area between the house and the neighbors. We have used that area to park Bubba the camping bus and the hunting rigs. It is horrible dirt so I have been adding compost and working the soil since April.
It is going to be my little mountain meadow, It will be years before it completely fills in because my favorite thing about gardening is watching the plants grow , so I buy little plants. The two Quaking Aspen I bought were only 3ft tall. They were so cute. LOL.
I'm going to put a dry creek bed in, with a lot of evergreens and wildflowers. I put in 3 Bitter Sweet, and one honey suckle vine to climb on the chain link fence . I don't know anything about Bittersweet. I'm not too sure if they even will grow in MT. But will see. If they don't make it thur the winter I will replace them with Englemens Ivy ,that is a awesome vine.
I got two little Ponderosa Pine and snow on the mountain over the weekend. I think I am done planting till fall it is so hot between the houses, I thought I would stoke out placing rocks today. 
I am getting up at 5 and paint . I can't place any more rocks till I do that.
The front of the house is filling in nice, Jim put up the arbor for me yesterday. He said, "Are you done yet"? LOL Never is a gardener done LOL
When we built the garage I lost my little veggie spot as well as the berry garden, so I dumped a wheel barrel full of almost cooked compost on the lawn!!! I planted squash, I swear compost will grow anything. LOL
I think because the compost was not completly cooked it was warm enough that when we got that last snow storm the plants never got set back. How cool was that ?
Happy Planting Kerryh
May 31, 2008 | 6:23 AM PST
so it's set back and watch things grow time. This is my favorite time, It still amases me after all these years a little seed can become a hugh tree. The white ash tree I planted from seed is over ten feet tall now.
I am trying some thing new this spring. I planted alfalfa in my new rasberry bed.
I planted the type of rasberry you mow down in the fall, so I figured I could mow both and put them in the compost pile.Alfala is a wonderful fertilizer and cover crop.
I have a awesome cousin who is completly organic,recyles everything. Paul is truly a Granola. He lives on a lava rock near Pahoo Hawaii. Raises organic goats. Anyway I was talking to him one day about getting a few bunnys , my compost pile was not heating up. He said "Why go to all the trouble of bunnys when I could just go buy the feed, and put it in the compost pile or better yet, just toss the pellete in my beds. I have been doing this for 3 years now. I did not have to use a any jump starter such as Miracle Grow this spring. My plants are a couple of inches taller than my neighbors this spring. And the soil in my beds is wonderful.
I was checking out another garden site and came across a site where the members were talking about useing rabbit feed as a fertilzer, It really does work. And whats really cool about it. A fifty pound sack cost me ten dollars and lasted me 2 seasons so far. I am going to buy a bunch this fall and toss it on my lawn. It sure won't hurt and maybe it will jumpstart the grass be fore the weeds.
I apply it pretty thick in the fall and lightly in the spring. It breaks down fast and the worms love it. It smells good too. Anytime I can use somthing other than a chemical ...Awesome. Now if I could find an ant killer, that I could put on the lawn and in the beds that would 'nt kill everything else. Any ideas?
I would think maybe useing rabbit feed like I do would not be a good idea if you lived in the country and had wild critters around. You might wake up and find a herd of deer lounging under your bedroom window.LOL
Happy Planting Kerryh
May 27, 2008 | 12:39 PM PST
today, so I will catch up on my garden site. It has been raining for days and the only thing that is growing is the weeds. I planted grass seed this spring and I swear there must have been millions of dandylion seeds it the package. OMG I have dandie's blooming everywhere. If I spray for them I will kill my clover. What a mess. I did not have very good grass to begin with now it's really ugly.
Every ten years I rip out the front yard and redo it. This time I brought the beds out away from the 100 year old foundation. Replaced the flowers in the beds with gravel and big rocks and used sand stone to bring out the front of the beds and to double for a sandstone sidewalk.I started last fall and finished planting last week. There are so many ground covers to choose from.
I think I am going to have to redo the lawn with sod, the soil is so old and the weeds sprout before the grass does. "I hate grass"
My neighbor was kind enough to build a beautiful "stone wall!' on our property line that made my new flower bed look awesome,and I still have one side of the house to paint and stain.
One of these days I am going to sit and enjoy my yard... LOL
Over the holiday my daughter and I took the train from Shelby Mt to Spokane WA. What a awesome trip. What a wonderful way to travel. We sat in lounge chairs in the observation car through Glacier Park, what a hoot.
Spokane is truly a beautiful city.
Holly and I have never rode a public transit system before. Once we figured out the scheduals, we went all over the city on a $2.50 pass for the day. The Spokane River was at it's highest that has ever been recorded and we took a gondola ride over the falls. 
Wow...that was awesome. We visited the Manito Park and Riverfont Park. The pink Horse Chesnut trees were in bloom. 
And all the spring flowers were beautiful.
the Japanese Gardens were beautiful.
What a wonderful trip ,I would love to see the gardens in July too, will have to do another trip in a few years. Happy Planting Kerryh
May 1, 2008 | 2:36 PM PST
been to nice to be indoors. Been catching up on a few must do projects. The roofers came yesterday and started on the house, They are almost done with the house and will start on the gargage. That hall storm, we got last summer really did a number on everyones roof. I got two sides on the old garden shed wire brushed and ready for paint . The can said 50 degrees... I have 3 days off next week I must have a talk with the mother nature and see if she can help out, just this one time.LOL I have ordered vines to go up the two sides.
The flower beds are all ready for plants, I think the bleeding hearts I planted a month ago when it was so nice died.They have not come up as of yet. I do that every year. I go into stores like Walmart and see these boxed plants, bring them home and kill em, because the ground is still to cold to plant anything.Oh well if they were in the store they would have dried up by now. Why do those store get plants so early?Because planting nuts like me buy them!!!!
When I ordered plants from the catalog, I told them not to send it before the 10th of may or I would not except it.Good grief it was in the teens just a few days ago.
It amazes me anything is alive this spring. The buds on my plum tree is black and crispy as are the lilics, How sad another spring without that wonderful smell in our gardens. What is really cool is how sturdy daffodil's and tulips are. They were under 16 inches of snow and they never even layed down.
Apr 21, 2008 | 3:56 PM PST
WE GOT A LITTLE SNOW YESTERDAY.... WOW SET TWO RECORDS ...COLDEST PLACE IN THE COUNTRY AND MOST SNOW FOR THIS TIME OF YEAR . GOOD GRIEF I HOPE IT IS OVER
Apr 21, 2008 | 5:44 AM PST
Ya right... At 6:30 this morning the temperture was -1 and the wind chill -12.
I am almost certain I won't be getting many apples or pears this fall! We here in MT have a saying... if you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes it will change. I would really like to see that happen now!
Apr 20, 2008 | 7:05 AM PST
I WENT OUT SIDE AT 6 THIS MORNING WITH A TAPE MEASURE. IT READ 14 INCHES ON THE PICNIC TABLE AND WAS STILL SNOWING. IT IS TO CONTINUE TILL MONDAY...GUESS I AM STUCK IN THE HOUSE DOING MY WIFELY DUTIES AGAIN! LOL HAPPY PLANTING KERRYH
Apr 19, 2008 | 4:05 PM PST
The only good thing about this day is being able to catch up on everyones blogs. This site is awesome.
The weather guy said we are in for the worst storm we have had this year. I was hoping he was just talking fertilizer.
I looked out my window and there was a robin all covered with snow. Poor little feller. The one good thing is we really need the moisture, I would have rather had a gentle rain. As long as the snows cover the branches I don't usually have any damage.
Have a good day and happy planting Kerry
Apr 15, 2008 | 12:16 PM PST
Tag: compost heap
It has been too nice outside to be at my pc. It was 70 in my back yard yesterday ,today there are snow flakes flying around.
I was not going to add any beds or plants around Jim's Garage. I was going to downsize... ya right. I could not stand all that bare ground and open spaces LOL. My neighbor had a pile of rocks, laying by his back gate, So I made two beds, their each about 3ft around. The soil is awful, I dig down about 12 inches and I come to this coal looking really nasty stuff. So I dug down about 2ft. I dumped that nasty stuff in the alley. I put a weeks worth of kitchen scaps in the hole added my compost and then added a sack of cow poo. When the end of May comes around, those two beds will be ready to plant. The worms will have mixed my scrapes and compost ,and all I will have to do is take the pichfork and fold it together. I have had to do that with most of my yard.
Soon after we moved here, 30 years ago. I decided to plant a vegetable garden between my neighbors and my house. This was before I found out about the wonders of compost. The beans and peas did okay, but my radish just keep getting taller, and nothing underneth. I asked my neighbor, "what the samhill is wrong with this radishes, I never seen 3 ft radishes before"? he laughed and said , In th early 1900's his house used to have a still on the 3rd floor and they thur out all the spent corn and such out the window. The soil was just nasty,we started useing the area to park our camper and boat.
About 5 years ago I started a big compost area there, I kepted moving it around and now the soil looks good, I am still going to make a raised bed, I want to plant a few veggies, It will be fun to see how they turn out.
Happy Planting Kerryh
Apr 6, 2008 | 4:55 PM PST
every gardener's favorite month...here in Montana it is my least favorite.
The paper said we have record snow in the mountains, thats cool , maybe we won't be burning up in June. The fires were terrible last summer. We didn't go camping once because of the fire danger.
In April the nights are freezing and the days could be any temperture. The home and garden show was yesterday and it was snowing at times so hard you could not see the cars in the parking lot. I did not buy any plants! Today it's 50 in my back yard!!! I don't dare even start to clean out the beds and disturb the mulch, even though I can see green and the top branches of my apple tree has started to open up.
Tomorrow I am going to the nursery and check out the rasberry plants,and I want to finish my barberry hedge. I did get the fertilizer on the grass, I am sure I looked a little crazy walking around in a circle speading fertilizer in a snow storm. But that really is a good time to do it. It really melts in fast.
My squirrel is loving his gourmet food LOL. Happy Planting... kerryh
Apr 4, 2008 | 7:50 AM PST
so I am going to spend time catching up with everyones blogs.
The weather can't seem to make up it's mind... spring or winter. It 25 at night and 50 in the afternoon.That is really hard my plants, and me also.I love my dog until spring and I see all those yellow spots in my grass. It really is a mess. I did'nt turn on the sprinkler this winter like I have in the past. And we didn't get much snow either. Some one said lime ??? .has anyone used that remedy.?
I went to the local ranch store yesterday and got some gourmet sqirrel food LOL. I have a squirrel that likes my back yard and he doesn't seem to get intimadated by those damn sparrows, so I thought I would invite him to stay by feeding him this pricy food LOL. Corn, sunflower seeds and peanuts. Hope the sparrow don't like it...barey got the food in a dish and set on the picnic table and he was down the Mountain Ash and waving his tail. I'm sure I am going to be sorry for using my picnic table for a squirrel feeder...I have a squirrel house in th front yard, Got babies last year . They were so cute. We had a black one in the neighborhood untill someone smucked him on the street.
Someone in the neighborhood really likes squirrels because I dig walnuts ,pecan and hazelnuts in my flower bed.and those trees don't grow around here.Do those litttle guys really remember where they plant all those nuts. Oh Bill that pepper idea really did work. No more holes in the front bed.
Well I must do my wifely duties, Dishes vacumming etc. Happy Planting Kerryh
