Planting too Soon?

Well this morning after cleaning up some and getting half my laundry out on the line, I noticed that my plants not in the ground were looking a bit sad.  Sad as in drooping badly, they weren't dry, or missing sun either.  OK, well one was droopy .. three others seemed to be wilting but not drooping.

So we rushed to finish off the tomato tubs and get everybody in the ground.  Interestingly even though I only had 2 pots of basil they wound up having 7 plants in those two pots.  I am hoping they do well considering I did split them.  The mammoth Jalapeno's are in with some of my onions and my one egg plant is with my lettuce as I've yet to have them grow for me and I want to keep a good eye on it.  My sweet peppers are in the box we got 2 years ago.  Which I think I said before we are retiring the box at the end of this year and we'll move the soil to a good spot.

I still have some seeds to plant.  Three of them are three types of non-edible gourds that I am hoping to make into useful things.  My cucumbers, sunflowers, and a straight necked summer squash.  I also have to get my tiger's eye beans in the ground once I figure out where I'm putting them.

We've been having net issues for almost 2 weeks and today it just got fixed, about an hour ago.  The service guy thinks it may have just been nudged loose during a high wind and only needed a quick adjustment.  We have a meeting at the kids' school in a short while then we get to stick around as the girls have a concert tonight and we don't want to waste gas.

Thought of something interesting while hanging the laundry today .. due to the fact that a young buck has decided he likes to eat across the street.  I've heard vegetarians say that you shouldn't eat meat because the animals are beautiful.. or cute.   OK, flowers and some plants are very beautiful.. yet you eat them...  Interesting thought is it not?

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Update 6-20-2012

Hi folks, got some good news / bad news... so as typical the bad news first. Our net is down again (yippie) for probably a couple weeks to a month so I won't be writing blog posts for a little while. We had an overage on our last bill that we were one surprised by.. and couldn't at that time pay so this morning we found out that they cut off our entire cell service. What fun... but hey, c'est la vie.
 The good news, well at least I consider it good. We have been berry picking a lot right now and I have a few gallons of black berries in my freezer right now. The plants are still producing so we are going to be picking for a while. The ones on our property are producing good as the ones on the road, granted they aren't necessarily as big as some of the ones on the road. As 2 spots on the road have water that means the plants have a constant supply and the berries are huge. We are going to look up how many black berries you need to make black berry wine and once we can get the supplies we are going to make some up. The idea is to buy a complete kit for a standard red and learn the process, then move on to making some of our own types. Now all three sets of our zucchini have flowers on it. ...and not just the male flowers either if you notice the picture. I can't wait to see how big this one gets, and I can't wait for the lunches with them stir fried. We also have the starts of some cucumbers, they are tiny right now; but at least I saw two of them last night. You'd think with them being volunteer ones they would have started producing already, but they are not.
I have set up a teepee for our long beans and the luffa gourds. The luffa's are just starting to climb right now, and I expect that the long beans should “kick in” and put on enough growth soon so that they will be too. When we did that I also have started staking the eating tomatoes as they are growing very vigorously. I guess they like the chicken manure/perlite/oyster shell/ clay soil we gave them. Not to mention how well the dill plants that are growing just as well.    
     We started picking beans today, this is the first batch; they are in an 8 inch cake pan. So you can figure about how many we harvested this morning. I also picked some more Lamb's Quarters, with some male squash flowers for breakfast. I also harvested a couple leaves of the wintergreen to try to make some tea with it. I'll find out later how it comes out.
Well we are sitting here at the local library so we can get our podcasts and so I can post this today. A week from now we should have our first “farm hand” here, his bus is suppose to arrive at about noon then. So we'll see how that goes.
The kids leave on their trip next Saturday, my mother decided she just wants to do a half way drive both “ways”, which really will be the easiest way to do it. She's going to pick up the couple food items we wanted and bring them with her. The kids start the new school year on the 15th of August here, I'm not sure but that seems a tad early. All three of them will be going to the same school, just different parts of it.
 It's funny how the thought of no internet doesn't really bother me, aside from not being able to write on my blog(s). ...and this is after watching a show on frontline last night called “digital_nation”, which was about how “connected” the world is now to the internet and how people really can't “live without” their connection to the online world(s). Even more so how people who say they are “multi-taskers”, really aren't very good at multi-tasking.I do wonder to some extent if this ability to reach any bit of information we could want at any moment of the day; with it have a bad effect of any kind? What happens to creativity when you can look up any subject and find information on it?
How would you feel if you were “unplugged” even for a day? Could you manage without your connection to the world of everything? Could you live in your own piece of the world without your escape into the “connected” world? How many people don't read actual books any more because they can get a kindle or a summary of the info? Or even just a part of the book that you find interesting somewhere online?
Now please don't mistake, I do think the internet is a good tool; but to me that is all I consider it. I've been trying to keep my kids from being so enraptured in the internet, yes they are fully capable of “surfing the web” sometimes much better than me. I have no issues with using it, but I have unfortunately seen people who get so wrapped up in the internet that they do not know how to live in the real world. ...and it can affect their families, their jobs, and even their own lives. Just something for everyone to think on...

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed be...

The internet downs

Well, it's been a fun last 7 days, before today anywho... we've had RAIN! Lots of it until Tuesday when the sun came out then yesterday it was dreary with a lite sprinkling of rain in the morning. Lots of beautiful sun today though and until this after noon no clouds. As for the “other” fun part back on Saturday we apparently had a lightning strike on our telephone pole (or close to our home) and it fried our internet router, and the filter for it.

Course we didn't know it was that we just thought the phone service was out, so Monday we went to our neighbor's house and called the phone company and they said they'd have it fixed by 10am Tuesday; but did we check and see if the phone box worked? ..the phone box.. well... Silver hadn't checked that, and so when we got home that is exactly what he did. The phone worked, the router would not. So he calls internet “help”; boy is that name a joke!

They we very unhelpful, we had discovered if we plug in the router at all our phone goes dead, Silver told this too the “help” person. However, the “help” person who obviously knows more than we do kept telling Silver to plug in the router. To which Silver told the person it would kill the phone and we would not be able to call him back. Tech support's response to that was we could call on our cell phone... WOW why hadn't I thought of that! Well maybe.. because we don't have one... Silver told the person we didn't have a cell phone, “you don't HAVE a cell phone sir?” was the tech support's only response to that and apparently stunned silence. Then he tells Silver yet again to plug in the router.

Eventually Silver got the idea across that it's not a -GOOD IDEA-, and the tech person told him he could order a new router; but that it would be quicker to go tot he store and buy one... GEE... again why hadn't I thought of that wonderful idea??!!!!??? Probably because we won't have money till the 29^th at the earliest and the 3^rd at the latest... and... to drive to buy one requires an hour's worth of gas which Silver told the person. Which they also had a hard time believing as well.

I guess it's just a hard concept that someone might not have a cell phone... OR tons of cash to spend on gas and trips to an electronics store to buy things that could get put in the mail and added to a bill that gets paid when you have money. Are we really so far out of that loop? I mean come on... I got irritated Monday as considering all the rain I was not sure the school buses would be running so I took the kids to the stop myself .. just in case(call school off on 4 inches of snow what will they do if the dirt roads are flooded?). I saw the boy from down the road in brand new Nike shoes and I got a tad annoyed as I recall that family was complaining about money not more that a couple of months ago... Is it just me that gets annoyed when someone who complains about money goes out and spends it frivolously?

I get annoyed with myself when I need to buy myself some new clothing, even if it's a new pair of socks because all mine have so many holes they are more hole that sock. Maybe it's just because I really don't care much about material possessions.. that said.. yes I'd love a huge pressure canner.. BUT I only want that badly as it would help my family by letting me can things that otherwise I would have to freeze. Canning only takes so much less to run things through than to have to use a constant running freezer that I could put other things in that we would prefer to eat fresh.

Again though... maybe it's just me... We did order a new router and though they said next day delivery it arrived at 14:50 Central daylight time today... nice next day delivery folks...

Anywho another “interesting” side affect of all this rain:

This is of course my potato experiment, I took this picture yesterday morning. the green plant in the for ground in the midst of the straw is a potato plant... now the day before I took this picture I had completely covered them 'taters with straw and yesterday morning they were already peeking out. Also... This morning I had to recover them, so they are growing well.

Another plant mention... out of the rhubarb crowns 2 were coming up... now due to the rain only one is growing right now.

Hope everyone fared well in all the wet.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

We're going to Ramble today...

OK, first order of business today Paris got her first bath of the week today, she is to get them 2x's a week using iodine shampoo until her skin problem clears. She is also taking an oral fungicide once a week till cleared up then once a month after. The vet told me after if it flares up again use a anti-fungal shampoo on her.

Anyone with any non-chemical suggestions here?

OK today's major gripe...

VIDEO GAMES ONLINE

Now as I've said before I am addicted to them myself I like my farmville and if they still made them I love the old turn based RPG games. I do have issue with children playing some video games especially violent ones. Yes, technically they do not cause violence. However with the trend toward playing in the online worlds, there has been from what I have seen a great many people lying about themselves.

Now having an avatar lets you decide how you are precived in the world and for a few social "sub cultures" out there that is not a bad thing. How ever you have men masquerading as women just to get to be with more women, children pretending to be adults; and it does have an effect...

http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/116083/13yearold_raped_by_her_virtual

a 13yr old raped by a +50 man who is her "online husband"... COME ON FOLKS!

Why were her parents not "supervising" her online time? I supervise my kids' online time always and if they go somewhere I do not want them they lose it for a day or more. They have set places they can go, they can ask to look up things and I do let them play games. Now I play any game they want to play so I know what is in the game. Also if they are playing a game that has a chat function... they are -NOT- permitted to use it.

I do not know how many people agree with this but...

I DO HAVE A SERIOUS ISSUE with unsupervised internet access for children, as I hear many a time from people when I met Silver about how "you don't know" who is behind the other screen. It is doubly true when it comes to children.

So please if you have kids and they use the "net" please keep an eye on them.

Be Well and Blessed Be...