rockybane's Blog

I mowed today and did some general yard work and just looked at my flowers and admired them. My impatiens I planted in amongst the hostas are starting to spread out and they look pretty good around that tree. 

In the front of the house my wave petunias are starting to spread out too. I can hardly wait for them to make huge mounds of purple and pink blooms. My morning glories are growing too. I have several of them set out in different spots.

For some unknown (to me) reason, my flowers and veggies aren't growing as fast as they have in the past.  I have amended all the soil they are planted in, and they should be way bigger than they are for this time of year. Never mind, they are pretty  and they please me.

I only planted about a dozen tomatoes this year, and one of them got broken over by something, don't know what, maybe the wind, or a dog, or a cat, or a runaway basketball. No mind, I still have plenty to use. 

Almost all the seedlings I raised just withered away,  they wouldn't grow, as I said, this has been a strange year for me and the plants. I didn't get any sweet peppers to grow any larger than 3 inches high, and they just died. I was at Lowes yesterday and picked up the last sweet pepper plant they had. It's a yellow bell pepper, so it should be colorful as well as tasty!

I am going to set that dude out in one of my flower beds and baby it and see if it will produce for me. 

I have three potato plants in a tub by the front porch, I had thrown some peelings in that tub back in the early spring, and they grew. I love asking visitors if they know what kind of plant that is in my flowers and some don't know what it is although they've raised potatoes in their gardens for years. I guess it's that thing about them being out of context. When I tell them what it is, they're like "duh".

Soon maybe I'll have some pictures to post.

The grass in my yard is getting lush.....that's a better word than overgrown, it makes a better mental picture, I guess. 

  I have not had time in the past week to mow, between more rain we've had, the grandkids staying over, and Memorial Day and any other excuse I can find--oh yeah, here's one--it costs about $12 for gas to mow my yard these days. I'm solely to blame for that since I enlarged my yard several times through the years, and I'm in the process of enlarging it again.

But.....I love grass. I love the green velvety smoothness and the smell of a freshly mowed yard, and I don't mind it too much when it's lush, that is before it makes seed heads and is classified as hay!

If I had to pick whether to have only flowers or only grass, I'd pick grass. I know I'm probably way in the minority here, and that's OK by me, it takes all kinds.

I also love trees, and especially big shade trees, it just gives my soul a soothing feeling to be sitting out on a carpet of smooth grass under a big shade tree. Takes me right back to my parents and grandparents homes when I was young.

All of us sitting outside under the trees, visiting or playing, enjoying each other. Going to the grandparents home in the summer to have a potluck with all the extended family, too many to fit inside, so we had dinner outside in the yard, boards laid across sawhorses for tables, sitting wherever you could find a place, singing along with whoever might have brought a guitar, or Grandpa getting his fiddle out and somebody doing a jig while he played along.

Precious memories for sure. Some I'd like to carry on in my life, with my family.

I knew that I would.........every day is a song around here-lol. My kids have always accused me of having a song for every situation, and I pretty much do. I'm always belting out a song that seems to fit. One time at school the kids were griping in music class because they were required to watch a musical. One of the other kids said "Musicals are stupid.....nobody goes around busting out singing all the time, that isn't like real life." My son answered and said "They do at my house, all the time." He's right-lol-I love to sing!

Today was a good day. Though it misted rain all day, off and on, I went down to the creek property we own and got a few buckets of good, rich dirt to mix into my flower beds.

I stopped at an old house place on our property where we lived for a few years and dug up two different kinds of iris that I never got moved to our house we live in now. I also found some wild sweet williams growing, so dug those up also, and set them out in what I call my "desert", because it's extremely rocky, thin dirt, and that's the same kind of soil (if you can call it that) that they came out of. Hope they grow.

I set out four of my tomato plants that I broke down and bought, my seedlings are about 4 weeks old and only a couple of inches high. None of my seeds did well this year, last year must have been a fluke. This time last year they were 4-5 inches high and needing to be set out.

I set out some impatien seedlings yesterday that looked spindly and small, I hope the "real" dirt and good sunshine will make them grow.

I also dug out from around an old elm tree and I'm going to try to put my hostas there. They really needed dividing this year and I haven't yet because I didn't have anywhere to put them. I think they'll look nice under this gigantic elm.

All in all, it has been a good day. My shoulder is aching from digging with a shovel in this stuff that passes for dirt around here, my hips are aching from the same, but I don't care, I had a good time digging, planting, and getting that dirt under my fingernails.

I've got a feeling that something, beautiful's coming my way...(actually, the words are "I've got a beautiful feelin', everything's going my way), I just got it in my head the other way and that's how I sing it, lol.........

Anybody remember that song? You'd have to be about my age. It used to come on the radio every morning when I was a 6-7 year old kid. It was a popular song at some point in time and a local radio personality sang it every morning as his theme song to open his show at eight o'clock. When that song came on, it was my cue to gather up my school stuff, my mom would drive me a quarter of a mile up our old gravel road to catch the school bus.

Every now and then when I first step outside in the morning, I find myself belting out this song, it sure did fit today. It was gorgeous. The high ended up being around 80 degrees and that's close enough to perfect, for me (to quote another song lyric).

The sun was so bright, the trees are leafing out, they have that "lacy" look that I love this time of year, all the blooming trees are blooming, the iris are starting to bloom, they are probably my favorite flower, if I can choose one, which I really can't, but I love iris very much.

I had to run errands most of the day today, and do some mowing at a cemetery I take care of, but just being out in the sunshine after all the rain we've had was wonderful.

I hope in a few days I'll be able to really enjoy the weather and plant something. ?And mow my own yard. It's getting high, but it's so lush looking I just don't care much. LOL

It's funny, I guess, my first blog was being thankful for all the rain we'd received, and I wanted even more, now I am complaining of too much rain. Guess I am a grouch. No surprise there. My goodness! We have had 15 inches of rain or maybe a little more since the start of February, and now they are forecasting more rain for next week. Enough already! Everything is full and running over. I hate to complain about too much rain when we have needed more rain the last several years, and there are still places in the country that need rain badly, and it doesn't change a thing by my complaints, but it's enough, and too much when it's flooding everywhere around. It has soaked into the ground as much as it can, now we need some good ole sunshine to make things grow.

It is chilly here again, for a day or two, and they are predicting frost tonight in the low ground. We are high enough we shouldn't get frost, but it is still chilly and unpleasant.

You'd think with all the rain, everything would be lush, but I think everything is almost drowned out. The grass in the cow pasture is not even as tall as it should be for this time of year.

My seedlings I have started indoors are pitiful things, indeed. I think I may have drowned some of them also, while others have dried up from want of water. I don't know what went wrong. I kept them moist, but not wet, but then some of them would be powdery dry before I noticed, while the others would still be over-damp. I think it might have been the potting soil I used. I purchased two different brands at two different times, and in my pursuit to save money, I did not buy the best quality.

I have roma tomatoes, and some Better Boy, but they failed to germinate the way they should have. The plants are still tiny, by this time last year I had 5 inch plants and was running out of time to set them out, they were getting so big and bushy.

I had almost 100 % germination of Heavenly Blue morning glories, and Crimson Rambler morning glories, but they are the ones that seemed to be fine one day and dried up the next. I only have two of the original red ones left, and have started over with some in cold frames outside. I have several up there.

Well, enough complaining.

Surprisingly, I had about a 99% germination on impatiens, I have never got them to germinate before, it was kinda an afterthought this year, and I am surprised! I think that is a major word in my gardening experience is "SURPRISE!!!"

My hollyhocks have germinated well, also, and although they aren't as big as they should be, I am hoping that after I get them set outside, they will grow wonderfully.

The lilacs this year were as beautiful as I ever remember them being. I took a few pics of them, and of a flutter-by that happened to hold still long enough for me to click. I'll post a picture of them in my photos. The daffodils were beautiful too.

I got some hostas today from the place where I work, and some beautiful ground cover that has purple spiky flowers on it, (not vinca minor, I have some of it too, tho). I planted them on the north side of my house where the sun hardly shines, so I'll see how they do there.

My fence is coming along, maybe not as fast as I would like it, but hey, I've waited years for a new fence, so it's fast enough. When we do get it finished, then I am going to begin planting things out in that part of the yard, and by the fence. It's going to be pretty, I can hardly wait.

It's time to garden!!!!! It has been so warm and lovely the past few days. The trees have budded out and some have tiny leaves, almost overnight, it seems. It has been really windy, almost blows me off my feet sometimes (which is VERY windy) :), but all that wind is drying up the ground. I've seen oodles of people tilling up their gardens, but mine is still just a little too damp.

Spring is finally here to stay, I just feel it. Of course we'll have a few more blustery days here and there, the ol' "blackberry winter" or whatever, but the staying cold is over. Of course, it IS April! It's about time! This seems like one of the longest winters I have lived through. It seemed like it would never end..........but now there are flowers everywhere and things will start to look lush if the sun shines long enough without more rain, which we do not need. The redbuds are fully bloomed out, and beautiful to see, everywhere. The dogwoods are starting to bloom and they are thick around this part of the country, the woods will look white for a few weeks. They are gorgeous.

There is still a lot of flooding. Two of the lakes have almost merged, the water is so high that where it goes over the dam seems almost level. My husband said the lake under one bridge is so high he thinks you could hold on to the bridge with your hands and your feet would touch water. I took some pictures to send to my son who lives away from here, but I can't get them to post, but take my word for it it is awesome in a scary way.

Yaaayyyyyy, winter's gone, yaaayyyyy!!!!!!

I've never been very good at starting plants indoors, I really don't have the room or the good windows or lights, but of course I started some anyway!

Now I have a lot of sprouting babies! I planted tomatoes, sweet peppers, jalapeno peppers, hollyhocks, morning glories, impatiens, gypsophilia (sp?), scarlet runner beans,and something else which shall remain nameless because I can't remember what it was and I don't want to go look right now. They're all up. Most everything came up, what few didn't got re-planted yesterday.

 I want to plant some outside, but the weather won't let up, we've had about 14-15 inches of rain since the beginning of February, which is highly unusual for this part of the country. And it may frost tonight, hope it is the last one for the spring.

All in all, I am enjoying this spring, anyway. Just knowing it is spring lifts my spirit like nothing else. And the up side of all this rain, everything has never looked so green. Now if we get some warmer weather too, we'll be dining on morel mushrooms-yummy...............
........
 

I am sooooo excited! We are finally building my post fence I have wanted around the  south side of my yard! I'm taking about a 20x200 stretch of field to become more yard. More mowing, but more places for flowering objects, also!

It has a barb wire fence there now, that's all we've ever had around it, of course, to keep the cattle on their side, even though it is so old that some of the calves just step through and come into the yard whenever they want-lol. I call them my yard calves.

So, I've been wanting this post fence for several years, even cut some of the posts myself, before my knee became an issue.

Guess hubby finally took pity on me. It's been a rough winter, and I don't deal with winter real well, just a lot of griping, but anyway, hubby told me Sunday that he would cut 6-10 posts each evening after he got home, and we'd put them in every night.

So far we have 14 or so posts put in, actually 28 because of the way we're building it. When it gets a little farther along I'll post some pictures of it.
 

I can hardly wait to get it put up, so I can start planting things in that part of my "new yard".

We're supposed to get 2-5 inches of snow here tonight---maybe....the line they draw is around 10 miles south of here, and the snow is supposed to be south of that, just hope the snow remembers that and stays where it's supposed to.

Last week we were supposed to get 10 inches of snow, and we didn't get any, while all around us they got 5-12 inches of snow. That is the kind of mis-forecast I like!

Tomorrow I am going to start some seeds indoors and see how I do. I've said before that I don't have much success at that, but you know the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again". So I will.

 I  have just a few packets of seeds right now that I've been gathering little by little,  so tomorrow I will start some Crimson Rambler Morning Glory, Heavenly Blue Morning Glory, some old fashioned single bloom hollyhocks, and some peppers and tomatoes. I'm also going to try to plant some spinach outside and see what happens.

I'm waiting on a Stella d Oro lily I ordered that hasn't shown up yet, I love that bright yellow color. 

I have some zinnia and marigold seed too, but I don't know if I'll start them now or not, I usually just throw them down outside when the time is right.

There is more I'm going to try, in time. I have always wanted to grow strawberries, and just haven't committed to them yet, but this may be the year.
 

 My knee that was giving me trouble still is, a little, but it is much better, and I can't wait to get outside and start doing something.  The birds are singing, the peepers are peeping, the crocuses are blooming, the daylilies are sprouting, the brown grass is even standing up straight--everything knows that spring is almost here, and I feel so antsy, just waiting, waiting, waiting......

I have always been a daydreamer. I got in trouble a few times in school, back in the day, for daydreaming. I might be looking out the window thinking of riding my bike, or digging in the dirt (I liked it even way back then-lol) Hey, I can't help it if my imagination was more interesting than my schoolwork.

Anyhow, I do more daydreaming than actual doing, I suppose. For one thing, everything turns out perfect in my daydreams, and not near as much work to make it so. Also it's way cheaper than actually having to do whatever it is I'm dreaming about.

For many years I was too busy with the kids to do much more than mow the yard and grow a few flowers, and a little bit of garden. I always wanted to do more, just didn't seem to have the time. Now I have lots more time, but my body is full of arthritis (osteo, not RH) and I am getting low on cartilage in one of my knees, and I can't do a lot of what I used to. I used to be a strong, strong woman. And that is part of my problem now. I used to do almost more than my body could stand.

This winter I'm dreaming of a fence, and enlarged yard, again. I have thought of fences for a few years now. I want a pole fence or rail fence around the south side of my yard instead of the barbed wire we have now. I already kinda enlarged the yard out that way. I built a wishing well out there, and last Mother's Day my DH and kids got me a southern magnolia tree and I planted that out there, as well. I kinda thought that would get me some help with my fence, but so far it hasn't worked. I threatened to just turn the well over and roll it into the yard, and our cattle stripped several branches off the magnolia tree, but I read somewhere they don't do well if you move them, so I guess they will stay there, for now at least.

My DH and DS keeps saying they will help, in fact, when I mention I'm gonna do something out there, they don't want me too, says it will take me too long, and they can have it done in a snap. Trouble is, they never find a snap to do it in.Now my son has moved thousands of miles away, so he's off the hook.

In all fairness, my DH is the most hard-working man I know, he works outside all the time, in all kinds of weather. If you look at my pictures of the snow we got, just know that my husband was out in that working.

I have nicknamed myself the Little Red Hen, because I'm the only one in the family who is interested in gardening, or yard work, or growing flowers. They sure do appreciate the results, though.

Now I know, sooner or later, if I live long enough, I will get it all done, I am too stubborn not to, it just would be nice to have a little help. So I sit here daydreaming, and doing a little scheming about how I can get something done a little easier.

I have this silly little thing....I hate it in the winter when it gets dark so early, so on December 22 I feel like a pagan, because I start celebrating that the days will be getting longer once again! They really don't for several days, they stay about evenly divided between daylight and darkness, but just knowing we have passed that day makes it better for me.

Now......I am getting anxious to start some seeds indoors. I've been growing things for years but I've never had much luck starting seeds indoors. Most of the time they just wouldn't even come up. I don't think I have much of a green thumb. But last year I started tomatoes and sweet peppers indoors and had wonderful success. I also started marigolds, petunias (which I've never even got to sprout before) and after years of trying, an avocado seed grew a small tree.

I don't know what I did different, but it has inspired me. Now I want to start more things indoors, and get a good, cheap headstart on my flowers and veggies. I just have to decide what I really want to grow, because I don't have much room to spare.

Wow, I wrote a whole page in my blog, and when I clicked on post, I got a page that said, "Whoops" not logged in! I was so logged in!

I can't remember even that far back, but I was commenting on our weather the past several days. We had several days of temps in the 70s, and then when the cold air came in, "whoops" again....we had tornados all night in this area.

I don't usually pay much attention to the weather, several times it has stormed in the night, and even had tornado warnings that I slept right through and didn't know anything about until the next day when my MIL or married daughter told me about it. But last night spooked me, I admit.

It started early in the evening while we were at a high-school basketball game. There were warnings for several counties and towns west and north of us. It continued all night.

We went to bed, and I was soooo tired and sleepy because I had hardly slept any the night before, so I kept dozing and drifting in and out of sleep, but I was listening to the radio reports of the storms and kept waking up.

There were tornado warnings for towns and counties all around us, mostly to the west and north. It seemed all the storms were pretty much missing here, but finally a warning was announced for our county. I got up and looked outside, but there was nothing happening here, so I went back to bed. I stayed awake until the warning had expired, but still I just dozed and woke up. Warning after warning came over the radio, still mostly to the west and north, but then around 4'oclock this morning, our county got another one.

This time I looked outside and there was thunder and lightning, rain and wind, and then it started hailing, which really kinda scared me. I got dressed and then I woke my husband, who never gets excited about the weather, and he even got dressed and put on his shoes, which told me he was concerned.

I sat on the couch with my 18 year old daughter and we watched the radar on TV.

The storm was moving about 75 miles an hour and it was over in just a few minutes. I don't think we got an actual tornado here, more of a severe thunderstorm, for which I am so thankful. The only damage we had was branches, mostly small and medium sized ones.

Others in the surrounding areas were not as fortunate. One school had it's roof tore off, several businesses and homes were destroyed, and two ladies in two different towns lost their lives. One woman was 84 years old and died when her home was demolished. The other woman was 55 and went back inside her trailer house to get the family dog.

My heart goes out to all who have suffered because of the storms. This is normal spring weather, not winter weather, very unusual for winter, and one of the only things I don't enjoy about spring.

Tonight may get down into the high 20's, say, like 29 is the forecast. I still haven't taken in any of my flowers, so I may have to do that before bedtime. I think I'll just take in my angel wing begonia and some stems of my impatiens. I did that last fall, and I couldn't believe how well they fared, and how much money it saved me this spring when I put them in my outside planters.

Must be, the weather has finally cooled off, it's been in the fifties for the past few days here, but thankfully, no frost yet. I  guess I am the oddball around, I don't care for fall, except that I don't have to water the flowers as much, and they do get lush again, just in time for the freeze to kill them. Oh well, soon enough and it will be spring again. I feel like the past summer has been wasted at my house, anyway, I've had a bum knee and a bad back all summer and couldn't do any of the things I had planned to do. Maybe I'll be fixed up and feeling better next summer, and I can put up the fence I have wanted for three years now.

Now I will look forward to Christmas. I absolutely skip fall. I don't decorate for fall, or Halloween, I just let my summer flowers last as long as they will, then when they are gone, I just wait until I can put up Christmas decorations. The only concession to fall  is Thanksgiving. We always have a big Thanksgiving dinner,

Enough griping.

I have added a few pictures to my albums and they are pretty, to me at least. I'm not the most skillful gardener, don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time, but the few flowers I get to grow provide me with lots of pleasure. I had an overabundance of kittens this year also, so they have helped to decorate the garden.

Soon I plan to add some more pictures of the creek. It is beautiful there, and there are a few places that are downright gorgeous.
 

It's raining again for the third day in a row.  I am very thankful for it, plus I love rain, to watch it fall, hear it hit the roof, it makes me chilly to hear it falling, but I love to wrap up and just sit and watch it. Soft, slow, gentle rain, soaking into the dry parched ground as fast as it hits.  We've needed rain badly for a month or more now, and were beginning to really get nervous about fall pasture, hay, and such. Our yard was almost completely dried up and gone, we don't water our yard, it's too big and it just has to get what it gets.

We still need a toad-strangler, gully-washer type rain to fill up our ponds and flush out the creeks.  One pond is dry except the very bottom of it about the size of a car hood, and it is just mud. And I also already wrote about our swimming hole slowly drying up.

Another thing I like about the rain is I don't have to water my flowers, and they look so much better when it rains on them instead of the water you put on them. I wonder why? Softer water? Perhaps.

Anyway, I'm really thankful for the good rains we are getting.........