Last week I received an email from a blog reader saying 'I hope you're ok'. I hadn't posted since April 21 and she was concerned.
I know we're all busy but it seems like we've been SO busy! And yet, we haven't done anything worthy of writing about. I will try to do better.
Here's just a bit of a summary of the highlights -- as far as I can remember.
April 30 - I went to Nevada, MO to stitch with Debbie
April 29 - Oscar went to the vet for his annual. That was a ridiculous fiasco. I gave him a tranquilizer (as instructed by the vet 2 hours before the appointment). We ended up having to wait almost an hour to see the vet (and we got there at least 10 minutes early) so it was a LONG wait for Oscar and he gets more nervous the longer he has to wait. At one point I went outside with him and he was fine but I had to hold him and he weighs 18 pounds! We're going to work on the weight. He is one of the "old style" Dachshunds and the vet says he isn't overweight but he doesn't need to get any bigger.
April 27 - Cooper is now going to obedience school (per se) twice a week in Nevada, MO. It's an hour there, an hour back, and class is an hour so that takes a chunk out of the afternoon.
April 23 - Vince and I had a one hour meeting with a nutritionist at Natural Grocer. Did you know that Natural Grocer has a nutritionist (in each store I think) and you can see them for free - as often as you like. She was amazing and she never pushed us to buy anything from the store, though we do shop there a lot.
We're back where I left off. I'm sure there was more than happened that I've forgotten about.
What's making me crazy (always something, right?) is the weather! I still haven't planted my garden starts.
This is all the plants I'm trying to keep alive. Into the greenhouse at night, except last night it was too cold even in there so at midnight, I was out bringing all those plants into the downstairs garage. Look at that eggplant on the front left . . totally outgrown it's little pot. Most of the pepper plants have peppers on them. Some of the tomatoes have fruit on them. It's so frustrating.
Wednesday night, Accuweather says our low will be 39 but, as I've said here a million times, we're in a valley and the lows are usually 3 to 5 degrees less at our house. So the plants will all have to come inside again . . bugs and all. I think that's the last cold night and I should be able to plant the starts. I have already planted the seeds but, of course, the ground isn't getting very warm so I haven't seen anything up yet.
The potatoes are starting to bloom.
The volunteer potatoes have already started taking over a second bed. If they do well this year, I'll be happy but if not, next year I'm pulling up every one of them that comes up. I've already been dealing with a few potato beetles. Guess the cold nights don't scare them.
The garlic is looking good. One year in Texas when I had planted about 500 garlic seeds, the garlic never made scapes. I kept waiting for scapes because that's when I start watching to see when I need to pull the garlic. It all ended up staying in too long before I realized there weren't going to be any scapes that year and it pretty much ruined the whole crop. This year I haven't seen any scapes yet. I'm going to be watching for dying bottom leaves so if there are no scapes, I'll still know when the pull the garlic. I need to pull it as soon as it's ready because usually the same day I pull it out, I plant okra in the two raised beds where the garlic was. I need to get the okra in the ground - the longer it's in there, the more okra I'll get.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some very important things <G> but that's what I remember for now.
