Garden Planted

Chuck got most of the garden planted last night.  We don't usually have a whole lot of luck with our gardens, especially since we moved to Arkansas.  We did much better in Alaska.  But then, I was the sole gardener in Alaska and Chuck is the sole gardener here.  Hmmm.....

I love planting and harvesting.  All that other stuff, not so much.  I like watering and fertilizing, and I like 'tending' things, like tomato plants, but I hate weeding.  And I'm not real crazy about 'preparing' some of our bounty, when things DO produce.  Trimming ends and cutting up green beans.  Boring!  Washing beet greens or spinach to get every bug & speck of dirt off.  Tedious!!!  I love cukes & tomatoes and all that stuff that requires little care once harvested.

Chuck worked hard to beef up our soil this year.  He had it so screwed up a few years ago.  Someone told him that horse manure was excellent for your garden, and to till in mulched up leaves.  WRONG!  Horse poop is the worst thing to put in your garden.  To make matters worse, since we had an abundant supply, he figured 'if a little is good, a lot will be better'. What didn't burn up' from whatever chemical process took place, grew into unrecognizable vegetables.  We had round cucumbers that looked like golf balls.  The yellow squash & zucchini had skin about 1/4 inch thick that resembled Armadillo armor.  No amount of steaming, boiling or beating with a mallet would make it edible!

The past couple of years, he has continued planting and has only tilled in a bit of fresh dirt each year, waiting for all the horse poop to just 'go away'.  Last year he did add some "dirt" that he acquired from the Water Treatment Plant.  I don't EVEN wanna talk about my feelings on that!!  This year he decided to get serious and it seems to me that just maybe he got it right, but only time will tell.  He brought home a load of GOOD top soil, a load of sand and bought copious quantities of Steer Manure (which is what I always used in Alaska, btw).  He got it all mixed in and tilled and re-tilled and finally got started planting.  We decided not to plant too much stuff, but I might just sneak a few plants home to add to the mix.  We only bought tomatoes, although we got several varieties, and green bell peppers, Serrano peppers, zucchini and onion sets.  We use all the onions at the Scallion stage.  For seeds we got lots of beets....for the greens.  OMG, how we both love beet greens!  I like beets real well, but he doesn't so they never get to grow up and be real beets.  LOL  Also got spinach (not sure why, as it always bolts before we can eat it), swiss chard and green beans.  Oh, and a couple more strawberry plants to add to the 3 I got last year, that actually survived!  I know that within the week I will be bringing home some cucumber plants because I simply must!! The only thing better than a sun warm, freshly picked tomato is a fresh picked cucumber!  Ahhhhh......TASTY!!!!!!

Tonight he will transform the dirt in my flower beds and we will plant my flowers and hope they do much better as well.  Last year, I bought a lot of my flowers before I left for Alaska and he intended to plant them for me, but never did get around to it.  Many of them died in their little containers.  This year, we'll get them planted before I leave!  He's very good about watering every day, so they should be safe:)

Hopefully we've got our shit together (sorry, I couldn't resist) and our gardening endeavors will work out marvelously!!!

Floral Tax News

Allow me to start off this entry bitching.

Okay.....so I wrote my bitch session all out and then deleted it like a good girl.Now I don't know what to write about.......

How about my roses?  Here's a shot of their progress thus far.  I sure wish we had known what we had when we planted them.  As you can see, they are all different types and look rather odd because they are all different sizes and growth patterns...or whatever.  But we got them from a neighbor that was moving a couple of years ago and she had cut them all down to the nubs, so we didn't have a clue.  Oh well.  No big deal.  It will fill out better soon enough.

 I have one pink one that has opened and the others are loaded with buds!  I hope I get to enjoy them before the Japanese Beetles move in!

 We did go and get plants for the garden and some of my flowers, yesterday.  I got 3 of my new favorites, Mandevilla.  I love them and the Hummingbirds love them.  It's a Win-Win for me!!  The plants get huge and trail down with clingy vines.......gorgeous!!

 Then I found some of these!  The 1st time I ever saw them, was last year in Alaska.  Terri & I found some at a greenhouse up there.  Purply magenta with green edges.  They are SO pretty and I was thrilled to see them at the Depot of Home yesterday!

 I got really radical with my Azaleas last fall and trimmed them WAY back, cutting off most of what they had going for them.  They haven't been flowering that well, so I didn't figure I had much to lose by trying it.  It worked out very well!  They are full and beautiful.  I just wish they kept blooming all summer.

 I would write more, but the day is wasting away and I must go pick up our taxes.  Yes, they are done and my finding of various deductions that I had overlooked saved our butts!  Put us in the 'black', thank God!!  Whew!!!  Another severe screwing averted. 

Spring Cleanup & New Toys!

It was a beautiful sunny day here yesterday and Chuck got lots of yard work done.  Flower beds cleaned up, strawberry bed cleaned up and the garden tilled.  He also got a couple of leaf piles that had accumulated cleaned up so that I wouldn't have to worry about what may be lurking in them.  Copperheads tends to blend in very well with leaves on the ground.......Eeeep!

It IS my favorite time of year here in BF Arkansas.  I got back just in time to see the Dogwoods leaf out and they are starting to bloom.  The woods behind the house are just enchanting when all the Dogwoods are in bloom!

It would have been a perfect day for riding, and oh how I wish I could have hopped on my Susie and gone with him!!  He did have a 'victim' lined up to go riding with him, but he crapped out at the last minute.  It seems his wife had a honey do list that she insisted on being taken care of.  It's hard for Chuck to find 'victims' to go riding with him and that's a damn shame.  I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I'll never ride again, but some days it's a real downer.

I got all my San Diego photos transferred to Flickr yesterday and actually got them all labeled, too!  I'm not always very good about that, in fact I haven't been very good about uploading my photos to Flickr lately.  I need to stay on top of that!  I didn't take near as many pictures as I intended to whilst in SD because of all of my careful packing, and remembering to pack my chargers for 3 other devices, I forgot my camera charger and extra battery.  Doh!   I will get it packed in one of my bags for my Alaska trip today! 25 days!!  Woo Hoo!!

Poor Gus puppy is depressed this AM.  He had to stay home with me for a trip to the vet.  He hates not going to work with his dear ol' dad!  But his allergies are acting up.  His eyes are running and he's got an itchy bare spot by his tail, so I wanna nip it in the bud early.  He'll snap out of it once he realizes that he will be going with me in the 'Ho and can guard it while I make a couple stops :-)


I was a bad girl yesterday and gave in to my desire for a new toy.  I've been wanting an iPad (or tablet of some sort) for quite some time now, but just couldn't justify spending that much on something that I could live without.  After seeing and playing with Poolie's, the desire to possess one increased tremendously!  And what did I find in my email when I got home, but a notice of a great deal on one at HSN......so.......I ordered this

If I find I'm not totally enchanted with it, I can always send it back......somehow I doubt that will happen.  When Poolie made the comment that since she got that, she never takes her laptop on trips with her anymore, I was 'sold'.  Between the tablet and her iPhone, everything is covered.  And every time I travel, especially by air, I find I want less and less to drag around with me.  I used to carry on all that I could and I just have no desire to do that anymore. 

Beasties in the 'Maters

There are about 10 Hummingbirds flitting about, feeding or waiting their turn, at the 2 feeders on my front porch.  Murphy is sitting on the table by the windows, just trembling!  I'm not sure if she is trembling with delight or despair!  LOL  She's chattering, too which is something she usually does when she is curled up near me and is seemingly content......not sure what it means in this case.  God, I love that cat!!


I had a rather horrifying experience with my patio tomato plants today.  I've wanted my own tomato plants on the back patio since we moved into this house.  For some silly reason, this is the first year I have actually gotten any for myself.  I have/had? 2 Husky Cherry plants and 1 Grape Tomato plant.  I've been tending them carefully and they've been doing so well.  Especially the Grape Tomato.  In fact, after Chuck left for work this AM I had intended to go back out and take pictures of this robust, healthy plant with it's awesome clusters of Grape Tomatoes on it.  But, alas, I got distracted by my pot of Kick Ass coffee and FaceBook.....then laundry, then baking.  In fact I was right in the middle of melting my butter and white chocolate (for my Raspberry White Chocolate Blondies...yum!) when Chuck came in the back door and gruffly demanded to know what the hell I did to my tomato plants! 

Me: Nothing.....why??
Chuck: Well, all the leaves are gone off the plants!
Me: yeah, right.  Bull shit! I'm trying to bake here.
Chuck: SERIOUSLY!!!
Me: WTF?!? They were fine when you left this AM.
Chuck: Well, you better come and look at them now.


2 of them...stripped 90% clean!.  Bare stems and only a couple tomatoes that had started to ripen.  All leaves and green tomatoes GONE! Between 9 AM and 2 PM.  5 Hours. So there we were, circling the tomato plants, scratching our heads, when suddenly I saw the biggest, ugliest, fattest green worm I have EVER seen in my life! Well camouflaged , wrapped around the last green Grape Tomato!  SOOOO disgusting!!!!!!!! Chuck plucked it off and stomped it, while I kept finding more and more!  Between the 2 plants he plucked and stomped 9 or 10 of those beasties.  Upon Googling them, I found out that they are Tomato Horn Worms.  These suckers were like 4-5" long and as big around as my pinky finger!  Nasty, nasty, nasty.  So nasty that I won't even post a picture here. 


There aren't any (yet) on Chuck's tomato plants out in the garden.  I sure hope they'll be spared.  We're having enough trouble keeping them going in all this hot weather.  What the weather hasn't ruined, the resident Armadillos have been digging up.  Sad gardening year around here, I'll tell ya'.


I keep little weather icons on my desktop.  One for here in Rogers, AR and one for North Pole, AK.  104 here today and 58 and sunny there.  You ALL know where I wish I was right now!  And not just for the weather.  I know I just missed out on 2 yummy birthday cakes!  


Sure wish I had more input on my last post about my cookbook.  Of course, since I started this new blog after not having written much for so long, my readership is down so I guess I can't expect much feedback.  Ah well....and so it goes.  All y'all will be sorry when me and my cookbook make the big time.  Just sayin'.

Doctors, Roses and Tahoes

Most things were going halfway decent this week.  Got home from an interesting weekend of camping to become besieged with outrageous allergies, mostly due to the entire countryside being covered with a plethora of yellow 'flowers', AKA, Ragweed.  The Ragweed and grass pollen counts are off the  charts here and I've got it bad.  Head and chest congestion, coughing up "pollen balls" (sounds better than phlegm) and much blowing.  Yuck.  It is very {unusually} dry and the lack of humidity and low dewpoint makes it worse.  I pray for a break in the weather SOON!

While we were camping, we had a call that our friends son was in a motor cycle accident so they hopped in their truck and headed for the hospital, but did come back later, as he was 'fine'.  Totaled the bike, but he escaped with only a broken collarbone and 3 staples in his head along with an abundance of 'road rash'.  They guy that got hurt was Roy, that used to work for Chuck.  He was riding the "Crotch Rocket" that belongs to the guy that currently works for Chuck.  No insurance on the bike.  Crazy people.

I had an appointment scheduled for my X-rays and visit with the Neurosurgeon on Wednesday.  It was to be my long awaited and anxiously anticipated 6 month check up.  The hospital lost my order for the X-Rays, causing a long enough of a delay that I couldn't see the surgeon afterward.  That got rescheduled for today.  MY surgeon was out of town, so I had to see another one.  I was NOT happy about that, especially since I couldn't get any straight answers or information out of him.  I did at least find out that my X-rays showed that all of my hardware is still in place and the bone grafts appear to be healing quite nicely.  That is very good news, and my main concern, but......I had many questions about a few issues I have been having and some limitations I am still experiencing.  Didn't get any satisfaction out of this guy!  In a nut shell, he told me that I should be happy that I am not in as much pain as I was prior to the surgery; that I need to remember that I am no longer 20 years old {WTF?}; that where I am at might be as good as it gets but I should continue to see improvement over the next 6 months.  Crap on a cracker.  That was so not how I wanted this appointment to turn out.

I did finally get my Tahoe back on Wednesday after being without it for almost 3 weeks while Chuck's van was awaiting the arrival of a new engine.  But then the water pump went out on the Tahoe, so I was without it for most of yesterday.  Good grief.  I think our vehicle situation should be back to 'normal' now and it sure feels good to have my 'Ho back!

The rose garden we put in last month seems to be a success!  The gal we bought the roses from had trimmed them all back...a LOT, and after the trauma of the transplant I wasn't sure they would fare well, but they all have a lot of new growth and we have had a bloom here and there, but now they are suddenly growing like crazy! Here's a shot I took of one bloom and some buds on Monday,


And here they are today!


yep! These are all those little buds, all opened up and quite fragrant! The other plants are getting lots of buds, as well. Very encouraging, indeed. Now if we can just get them to survive the winter :)

The Rose Garden and A Happy Horse

Well, the rose garden is officially finished and hopefully they will actually live and grow up to be somebody!

Chuck worked SO hard on such a hot day to lay this out and get the stone set just right! I love stone, always wanted a stone wall and he has given me the next best thing. He bought a huge truckload of these great stones back when we first bought the house and has made me several flower beds from them.  These pictures aren't the best, but you get the general idea.  Hopefully when the roses take off again and are bursting with green leaves and blossoms, I will get some better pictures to show off.  You can sure see how dry and 'crunchy' our lawn is from the lack of rain! We've even got a couple of tress that are dying... :(

I sound pretty optimistic for someone with 2 brown thumbs, don't I??  But I insist that I should be able to grow roses since it seems that everyone and their brother has roses growing in their yard.  The garden is in direct line of my view to the horse pasture from the window by my computer.  It will sure be pretty WHEN it takes off and they grow nice and pretty.  The lady we bought them from pruned them a LOT....almost like they need to be pruned back about in February, at least in this part of the country. Ah, well. Time will tell.  We got 9 bushes for $60, which is a great deal and not so expensive that we would be out a whole lot if they don't make it.

For my Dixie update, I am SO happy to report that she is doing quite a bit better already!  She seems to be losing some weight on her "crash diet", which helps and she is also getting back to being her frisky self, so we know she is feeling better!  Yesterday, we let her out into the pasture with Susie and they ran and played and Dixie even kicked up her heels a bit!  I was elated!! The farrier will be here again Wednesday to trim her hooves again, which is great cuz they are sure growing fast with no shoes on, as well as her limited exercise.  But she's up to getting a bit more of that, now, from the looks of it and that will aid in the weight loss tremendously!

Southern Fried Yankee

The heat wave and dry spell continue, here in Arkansas.  All sorts of records are being broken as temps stay above 100 with heat index up to 115 most days.  In fact the days have turned to weeks and we have had no rain.  Everything is dry and crunchy...especially our lawn.  I have thrown away 1/2 of my plants because even after being watered twice daily, they are still dying.  It's really sad.  And everyday I light a candle and send up a prayer of thanks to the person that invented A/C!  LOL

Yesterday was a very fun day, in spite of the heat.  My dear friend, Victoria and I went to a nearby town to check out what was reputed to be an awesome quilt and yarn shop.  We left there, not only empty handed but very disappointed, as well.  It is unheard of for me to go to a fabric store and leave empty handed, but nothing inspired me.  I was mostly focused on checking out their yarn because nice yarn shops are far and few between in these parts, but I have more yarn just in my sewing room than they had in their entire shop!

The town we went to, Siloam Springs, is right on the Oklahoma border and about a 38 mile drive from Rogers.  It has some great older homes and fun little shops, so we did drive around and check them out.  Sure wish I had taken one of my cameras, but with yarn on the brain, I wasn't thinking about taking pictures.  It was very interesting to both of us {having both been raised hard core Catholics} to see that a couple of churches were being turned into homes!  We weren't even 'allowed' to enter a non-Catholic church, so the idea of living in a church, at first, made us both gasp!  But then, of course, we laughed at our silliness.  Times have sure changed!

All of our traipsing around the various Antique shops and such, did us both in, though.  V had knee surgery a few months before I had my back surgery and it bothers her to over-do it, as well.  I fared better with my shopping trips with Riley than I did yesterday, for some reason.  It was great fun, but we were wiped out and actually cut the day a bit shorter than originally planned.  The heat didn't help any!

As for my progress, my physical therapy ended about 3 weeks ago, and I must admit that I have not been doing my exercises as diligently as I should be and I need to work on that.  It's been almost 5 months and I'm pretty discouraged about the potential 'quality of life' that I will be left with.  BUT, he said that it would take a year, so I try to be patient.  I finally have my 6 month check up scheduled, for Sept 29th and I am SO anxious to go and see if I am healing properly and how things look on the inside, as well as to get the surgeons input on my progress.  Most days I try to make myself do more than I really feel up to doing, just because I feel that I NEED to.  Sometimes it works out okay and other times I am sorry.  I'm beginning to feel that that will always be the way it is.  I sure hope not, but I really don't know.  I can safely say that I am glad I had the surgery.  In spite of the ordeal, I am much better off the way I am now, as opposed to pre-surgery.  There is no question about that!  I do know that alot of what I am experiencing now, is due to nerve damage that took place during the surgery.  Not necessarily "damage", but simply the moving and repositioning of the nerves to accommodate the changes that took place in there.  That still affects my legs a great deal.  Bah.  Enough of that.

Chuck is outside building my rose garden bed.  Time to go supervise the planting :).  Pictures tomorrow and a Dixie update.  Stay tuned!! 

Roses and Horses and Finches....Oh My!

My lovely daughter, Terri, has a faboo friend that is quite the gardener.  She has gotten Terri into it big time.  So much so that M constructed Terri a greenhouse and built wonderful garden beds for her!  Anyway, Shany {Terri's friend} created a rose garden as a memorial to her mother.  Shany lost her mother to cancer a few short years ago and seeing as how her mother loved roses she planted a lovely plot and even had a nice sign made.  That got me thinking.  My Mom loved roses.....yellow roses.  AND....roses seem to grow really well here in BF Arkansas.  Everyone seems to have thriving rose bushes, except me of course, because I always thought they would be terribly complicated and I would kill them for sure! Anyway, after seeing Shany's rose garden, I decided to give it a go.  I also had some influence from our dear Poolie, as she has some incredible roses under her care!

My plan was to have my Timmy help me build a rose garden while he and Riley were visiting.  He has really gotten into helping Terri and Shany with their gardens and we had a plan!!  Alas, time ran short and Chuck didn't have time to do HIS part in all of this, so Tim and I didn't get to build my rose garden together :(.  HOWEVER!  As luck would have it, the lady at the end of our road {who used to work for a nursery~and who's house was surrounded by gorgeous plants and flowers, including many roses} is moving!  Last night on his way home, Chuck stopped to see her and came home with 9 rose bushes and 2 HUGE SunPatiens plants (a form if Impatiens only HUGE)!  What a surprise!!

The plan is to build a big bed out of some rock we have that he made me a couple other flower beds out of.  And since the bed he made me for my Hydrangeas has taken off and done so well.....and since roses allegedly like the same conditions as Hydrangeas, he will make the bed for me in the same area of the yard.  Which, BTW, just happens to be near the pasture fence and in direct line of my view to said pasture, from my computer and sewing machine!  If they live, it will be prefect!!  She seriously pruned them, as you can see, but I suspect she knew what she was doing.  Her only advice was to water in the morning and again in the early afternoon and give them rose food once a week.  She said they don't like to "go to bed wet".  LOL  So....I think I can handle that.  I think I can, I think I can.......Of course I will be researching online and will greatly appreciate any and all input from any of you that are successful rose growers!!

And, in other news.......I was quite envious of Poolie's daily gathering of finches at her feeders!  I often see finches out on the fence and flitting by the window, but only after her influence did I finally decide to acquire some finch feeders.  Well, they went undetected for so long....5 or 6 days.....I was about to move them one morning, when lo and behold, I had a visitor!  That was about 2 weeks ago....and all this time I only ever saw just the one.  But 2 days ago, there were 3!  And this AM there were 5!  I am thrilled.  I love having birds around, just outside my windows and although I do miss my favorites in Alaska, there are so many down here that don't live up there!  The gold finches (only visit Alaska briefly), Cardinals, Indigo Buntings, Blue birds, House Finches, and I musn't forget the Hummingbirds!!  I'm still working on pictures.  For some reason, they seem to take flight when I quietly open the door, with camera in hand and a rambunctious Cocker Spaniel comes out of no where and goes bursting thru the door!  I just need to remember to camp out on the back deck, while Gus is at work with Chuck, and quietly wait for them!

And Dixie is doing a little better everyday.  Although I wish we had a horse size scale so we could weigh her and see if her "water and hay" diet is helping yet.  Can't see any difference yet, but with horses it does show fairly quickly.  She had to come over and investigate while I was watering the roses this AM.

Actually, her appetite hasn't been that great and she hasn't even finished all of her hay until yesterday.  Apparently it is improving, as she appears to be liking the taste of the fence......better keep an eye on her that she doesn't start eating it LOL  And I just noticed the ripples in the water trough!  Susie was taking a drink, just out of sight of the camera/phone.  :)