Mis-labeled Plants – Friday May 21, 2010

So in the great expanse of our garden great strategy is made to fill without overfilling the garden with plants. So, when Bonnie Bell, via Wally-World said that certain plants were yellow squash and other plants were zucchini squash, I believed them. Why (oh why!) didn’t I get them from Mr. Exley as I should have? Well Bonnie Bell at Wally-World sold them individually and Mr. Exley has them in packs of 6. And I didn’t want 6 of any one kind and I didn’t know who else was gardening that might want some. Lesson learned. Go to Mr. Exley’s next time.

I bought 1 each of supposed yellow and zucchini squashes. Containers were loaded with plants so I separated them. No problem.

Nope. Big problem. We now have 4 thriving, threatening-to-take-over-the-garden yellow squash plants and NO zucchinis.

We like yellow squash to a degree, but one of us here at this household doesn’t care for traditional squash casserole (and it ain’t me). So, an alternate recipe that she (luckily) found will satisfy us both.

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Who else but Paula Deen, y’all? Y’all think we ain’t got nothing better to down here in the south but to cook delicious buttery food, y’all?

But it’s okay. She is a good cook. She just ain’t your doctor, as the t-shirts the waiters/resses say in her restaurant. Which isn’t really that far from us y’all!

Anyway, here is the stash I brought in this week.

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We have some bloom rot that we have to work with so I pickes some that were very small but kind of ripe. And then, we had the perfect combination of hot sun and someone-left-the-sprinkler-on-way-longer-than-they-intended plus rain. Such as, sister said she emptied 5 inches out of the rain gauge in the garden after the sprinkler and rain.

Ooops!

Enter monster squash.

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And that is how many squash I had left after I made the recipe that calls for 3 cups cooked squash and is supposed to feed 6.

I see a lot of squash and onions, squash casserole and other squash delights in our future. Along with giving away a lot of squash. Unless bloom rot takes over. Which it had better not do. Because we do not know how to fight it.

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And the variation mentioned of adding red potatoes to it, that’s good as well!

Not to change the subject or anything but we over at Mama and Daddy’s for supper tonight since a brother and nephew from out of town were in town for the evening.

I had to check on Mama’s supply of flowers and we’re down to a few right now.

Magnolias:

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And Hydrangeas:

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Back to mis-labeled plants, we have been awaiting the first blooms from the twin crepe myrtle trees in our front flower beds. Because we have a green house, a green yard, white trim, nearly black roof & black shutters we wanted some color. So last year we bought red crepe myrtles, the deep red variety.

So we thought. The plants were amazingly hearty and the plant farm told us we should be able to divide the 2 trees that were growing in the same pot. Lois whacked through them with a machete and they never winced or dropped their leaves. Well, they did wait until this year to bloom and low and behold, they are white. Not the deep red that we both wanted.

But we are not the kind to rip them out because they weren’t quite what we wanted. No, we take in things that people rip out because they don’t want. We have a whole stack of them, in fact. Two pallets of free pavers that were too hot for the pool they surrounded. It gets hot in the south, y’all. So if you come to visit us and want to sit on our future patio, don’t forget your flop-flips.

 

Comings and Goings – Wednesday May 19, 2010

A weekend in SC in March to celebrate 2 birthdays with The Neighborhood Gang.

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Later, I went to SC again to stay with Ginny while her husband was gone to a bachelor party.

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A nice relaxing weekend. Shopping at Jockey Lot. Chinese supper out. Watching the boys play ball.

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Sunday lunch at a botanical gardens.

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Then the beginning of May it was a trip to Ohio for the wedding of a friend. We got to stay with Very Good Friends.

Here is a sneak peek of the wedding:

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Literally.

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We sat in a side room in the front so as long as the heads in front of us parted, we had a great view. It was a beautiful wedding and you can see more HERE if you want.

And then on Sunday we went to Holmes Co. to eat lunch with a great group of ladies plus one new boyfriend. Velma has beautiful flowers so I indulged:

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Went to the funeral of the wife of my mom’s cousin in Montezuma and go to see most of my siblings who were also there for the funeral. The next day we enjoyed having Steve and Christy here for lunch and a long chat. We seem to have no limit of things to talk about!  

And this past weekend was graduation for Tyler and school end program and picnic. More pictures to come later.

While I catch my breath.

At the Rate of Shuttle Speed – Friday May 7, 2010

On April 20th the shuttle Discovery landed in Florida. And being the partial geek that I am, I was once again intrigued with the numbers involved: speed, altitude, etc. This time they routed it to come in across the USA from Washington state down to Florida.

I hoped we would be able to see it but the partial cloudy situation in our western skies made it a bit tentative whether or not it would be visible. I followed the live coverage on Fox News.com. When it was over Georgia I went out to look. I saw several planes in different parts of the sky and 1 object in the western sky. It was faint to the naked eye but I’m pretty sure it was the shuttle. I was talking to someone for a few minutes and when I looked again it was gone.

At liftoff the shuttle, boosters and external tanks weigh 4.5 million pounds. Orbiting speed for the shuttle is 17,000 mph. Can you comprehend that? I can’t! The descent is 20 times steeper than a commercial flight.

These stats are the only ones I wrote down from this landing:

Altitude: 209 miles; minutes from landing: 34; speed: 16900 mph
Altitude: 53 miles; minutes from landing: 27
Miles to arrival: 2700; altitude: 46 miles; speed: 16000 mph

These stats are from a previous landing in Texas that I had written down during the live coverage. I’m assuming they’re pretty typical of shuttle landings.

14800 mph at 7:35 minutes from landing
11000 mph at 6:40
9000 mph at 5:95
7000 mph at 4:50
6000 mph at 4:15
5000 mph at 3:37
4300 mph at 3:04
3600 mph at 2:15
1800 mph at 1:12
365 mph at :30

In case you don’t like numbers think of it this way, in 7 minutes it went from travelling 14800 mph to 365. I wonder how the shuttle is designed to absorb that so those aboard don’t lose 3 months worth of lunch. There was a sonic boom as it’s speed decreased to below the speed of sound.

And the amazing thing is, the only way that man can do these things is because of the consistency of God’s laws. Gravity doesn’t change from day to day. There are many absolutes in science that enable them to be able to do mind-blowing feats such as this.

In The Beginning there was no sonic boom to blow the world into place. It was the design of a loving Creator.

 

Thursday April 29, 2010

It’s a girl!!!

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Well, it was pink, anyway. The silly thing was so big and the stem so long that it spent most of it’s life on the ground. Gotta love my poppy field.

Closeup (does this not seriously remind you of a 5 oclock shadow??):

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And Thing 2 with a tiny visitor:

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And our lemon tree survived the cold winter. Some blooms to show for it! Come by in November and hopefully we’ll have some fresh squeezed, homegrown lemonade for you!!

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It’s been fun gardening this year, especially since it seems to be going better than last year. I gave them some plant food and then we had a good rain and they really greened up quickly.

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If you ever make a raised garden, don’t do it quite like we did. This would be better if it were 3 separate beds tha you can walk between. That way you can just reach in to work on it. The tiny bed in the far left is our new asparagus garden. The little shoots sprouted and grew so quickly that you could almost watch them. Several inches in a day. I believe we are supposed to wait a year or two before we’ll harvest anything from them.

The yard has been weeded and feeded or is it wed and fed? English is a strange language. And the lawn has a few stripes, thanks to yours truly. I simply cannot seem to get it spreaded as evenly as I should. I’m not sure if I’m overlapping too much or not enough. It’s not very bad just enough to see what’s going on!

And the kohl is rabi-ing.

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Love how water beads on the leaves.

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And we have plenty of kale if you want some for garnishing or eating.

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And now I’m really trying to decide if I want to plant a certain vegetable. One word that describe it is

mucilaginous

 

Know what it is?

 

Art in Pennsylvania – Friday April 23, 2010

So, if any of you Pennsylvania (or other) folk go to the Gospel Express auction tomorrow, you can see 2 of my canvasses up close and personal. And you may even bid on them if you want.  I’m generous that way.

A 24×36 of this:

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and a 16×20 of this:

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And they are much more brilliant in print than they show here (or at least on my screen). So if you decorate in pastels these may not be for you.

You know, seeing my art on display gives me a funny feeling. Kind of like you parents when your child performs. What if people don’t like what they see? What if “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” in this case means my vision is off?

Okay, I’m not that paranoid about it, really! And I have a 24×36 of that first one to put somewhere in my house. And as you know, we did not decorate in pastels.