Hope you all beat the weather

Mother Nature in general is showing us who really is in charge. The slugs, the mice and the weather are certainly hard on my attitude right now too.

This is the first time in twenty three years here that I've had to pull up hundreds of little fir trees. It was sprinkling just a little when I came in the house at five o'clock.

Willow, I'm pulling up lots of little fir trees, too. I wonder what that's about?
Sharon, I like the way you said " The slugs, the mice and the weather are certainly hard on my attitude right now too." Well put. The weather is really hard on my attitude this year, as are all the fungal diseases that are rampant. I had to treat an acacia for rust, for god's sake! I didn't even know they could GET rust! Plus, I've never had rust in my garden to my knowlege. That's why I don't grow hollyhocks. They always get rust and I rip them out before they can do anything. This is crazy.
I've got a peony that is so crippled with fungus that I'm just going to throw it out. No sense and fighting any of this.

I had beautiful blossoms on my Ms. Bateman Clematis. Then the rain hit and the wilt followed immediately. I took off that portion of the plant and the only remaining buds. Hope it doesn't go any farther than that. I haven't seen signs on the rest of the plant, yet, but I'm sure they'll follow with this weather. Grrrr.

and now, the final result of this insulting weather: a nice sinus infection. Yippee. Thanks, mother nature.

Oh nooooooooo

Ditto on being grumpy about Mother Nature's sense of humor right now.

Pixy, all my sympathy with the sinus infection! I escaped that, but did get a rotton head cold that surfaced on Sunday and has been doing it's part to make me miserable since.

I am also in the same state of mind in regards to fungus. Kathy, I lost all of the growth on one of my well established clems about four weeks ago to the wilt. I am crossing my fingers that it comes back for me... I have never had an issue at all with this one in the past.

On the plus side, my roses are showing less black spot on them now that most of the leaves are on the ground rather than the bushes.....

Okay, Julie. That is just sad. My roses have been okay (so far) so I guess I should count my blessings . . .

Mine have more blackspot than usual, but I'm just not in the mood to fight that. What lives lives. What dies dies. I keep telling myself that no one but other gardeners would even know the difference. And since we're all in the same boat this year, they will all understand. If they don't understand they can go walk through someone else's garden, preferably someone with a staff helping them. Unless I look closely, everything looks green and lush.

Speaking of having staff to help in the garden--A few of you girls are trying to do the job of a staff of gardeners. You should admire yourselves and be very easy on yourselves. You all seem to be doing a great job of it even in adverse conditions. So relax, the sun will shine again soon.

So true! Well, at least the part about trying to do a job of a staff of gardeners. I hope the part about the sun shining again is true.

Okay, rain, I know I asked for you at the beginning of the week. My plants are all watered now. And I do thank you. But it's time for you to leave now. Bye bye. See you next fall.

Sincerely,
Gwen

Ahhhh so this your fault Gwen? So glad to know I've got someone to pin it on. I'm already jumping out of my skin at the thought of a three day weekend and no chance to garden. This rain better not keep up the whole time or my mental health will beome seriously threatened.

Hope you can make some sort of deal with the weather gods - rain during the work week is one thing, but over an entire three day weekend is quite something else entirely!

Is somebody building an ark somewhere? This rain is just craaaaaazy... :)

When I went out on my front porch this morning to get the newspaper my usually calm and serene neighbor across the street threw her arms up in the rain, looked to the sky and yelled "Oh come on, that's enough!"

Hehehe That is funny... I wish I had gotten my rain barrels up and going before this... On the other hand, if it never stops raining we'll never need them... hmm...

I heard a recent prediction that we were supposed to have normal temperatures, but less than normal rainfall. It's kind of hard to imagine that right now.

Maybe "less than normal rainfall" means that it will not rain on the Fourth of July, since of course it always rains (or at least drizzles) on the 4th. It might rain ALL the rest of the Summer, but sun on that day would definitely be out of the norm.

Sorry, just feeling abnormally and unseasonably pessimistic. I'll get over it soon. Truly, I don't mind not having to do the watering chore, but the weeding is way out of line. The weeds are lovin' it, growing like crazy, and I am not coping too well.

This message was edited May 28, 2010 3:00 PM

Please send good vibrations for sun on July 10 - my daughter's wedding in the forest by a river.

Judi, definitely sun on the 10th for the wedding! It sounds lovely. Can't wait to see photos. What kind of wine did you guys decide on?

I had been nagging DH to remove the hardline to our trash pump because "we are done with water problems for the season and it's hard for me to get the mower over it". It is a 4" pvc pipe connected to a fire hose that allows us to pump the standing water from the swamp above our house into the gully below our house... the natural course that the water follows anyway, but the pump keeps it from taking our house with it....

He has been running the pump non-stop today and says that there is still a foot of water under the house. I am soooo glad for once that he procrastinated on something I asked him to do.

Judy, I hope that mother nature is just getting this out of her system so your daughter's wedding will have beautiful weather!

Oh, Julie. That must be worrisome!! I was just telling a friend from California that it's generally very green here. Looks like it will be green for awhile.

Kathy, Now that we have the trash pump in place, I don't give water a second thought. We had almost 3' of water under the house the winter before last, and DH was in Phoenix for a month at the time, so I had to deal with it on my own. THAT was worrisome! We had two sump pumps under the house, and I bought one more, and still they barely kept up. This new pump rocks... 4" jet stream of water going into the gully, so as long as it is running, we will have no water problems. Not really fond of the white pipe laying in my pretty little creek and having to haul the mower over it, but a small price to pay for peace of mind!

I don't know what wines they have chosen. They went on a wine tasting jaunt with some friends and I was out of town at the time. They selected a few and took some bottles home to have a few more times before making a selection. I totally forgot to ask them the winners!

Julie I hope your home does not float away. A foot of water under the house does not sound good.

Sun is expected for tomorrow. :)

Yeah. That sounds like the right pump for the job, Julie.

Sun tomorrow? Yay!

So it's Gwen's fault! I wondered who to blame. Gwen, please stop all that praying for rain. You don't know your own power, woman!
I have a client who got out of her car just as a downpour started. She got so mad she kicked her car. Our of character for her. Usually she'd just stomp around.

I came home today to find that my boxwood hedge by the front door is falling apart in the middle, just like a perennial that needs dividing. It's just too water logged for words.

OK, here it is--tomorrow. Where is that sun you were talking about?

That sun the weather folks forecasted has not arrived. I woke up all excited but when I looked out the window, rain. More rain. It's supposed to dry up this afternoon but I'm not holding my breath! Instead I'm sitting in bed watching a documentary about WWII and answering email that I ignored all week.

I'm also trying to imagine my daughter and her husband coming to live with me next winter. Her husband just found out his school district is laying off teachers, and he won't have a job next year. It's not final yet, and the parents of his students both past and present have marched into the school and demanded they keep him. It's a big mess, but I think I should get used to the idea that they may live with me for a year since my daughter is in grad school. That will mean 3 cats and two dogs in my little house. Hmmmmm. I love them both dearly and it might be fun, but a big change. They both say they cannot live with Ari's parents and they would like living with me. We'll see.......

Good chance to practice your communal living, albeit a bit cozier than you had anticipated.

LOL - I had pictured the communal living thing to be with a peer group, not one of my kids and her husband!

This message was edited May 29, 2010 11:09 AM

I alway figure I can survive anything as long as I know when it will end.

Julie and Don lived with us for about 6 months while they were in between houses. It was very easy, but then we have lots of room here. It was really great to have someone else do part of the cooking and cleaning too.

A friend of mine who was a real estate agent once remarked that he admired the Vietnamese immigrant families he was working with. Large extended families came to this country and lived in very small quarters together. They worked multiple jobs and saved their money and then were able to lay down cash in a few years for very nice houses.

When I think about it it reminds me that the short term doesn't last forever, but the benefits of the short-term sacrifices really can sometimes.

If they come to live with me they said they would rather be in the basement (it is two finished rooms & cable tv) than in the guest room which is next to my room on the second floor. That would give us all a little privacy. It's mostly two more animals that worries me. Their dog is almost a year old and rambunctious and needs a lot of exercise. Hopefully Ari will be picking up substitute teaching jobs and some of the days Mary will be in class and studying. I know it will be worth it in the end, and it's not for long term so we can do it!

I have had to move home with my mom with my oldest son a few times......lucky she was always there to help me out.

I think this is going to become yet more common, as jobs are more difficult to come by and retain in these fluctuating times. The cost of living isn't going down and you still need to eat and put a roof over your family's head some way. My sister and her 2 kids lived with me for a year when her son was born and his dad was not being particularly helpful. It was a full house, 3 adults, 3 children, a cat, a dog and a guinea pig. We had one bedroom for each family and the third bedroom was the playroom. I'm sure this sounds tame to Judi with her 7 young ones.

Well yes there were 7 young ones, but I was young as well. That the difference! There are so many teachers being laid off for next school year. It's frightening to think what is happening in the schools. Where are our priorities?

I am thankful I have a home I love and can share when need be. They also own a house but will rent it to give them income. It's a 5 bedroom house and can bring a nice amount in rent. I'm glad they don't yet have children!

Ooh. That's a good idea!

Yesterday was an absolute bust here on the hill. It was cold and gloomy and rainy and WET WET WET. Even when it wasn't raining, you couldn't get motivated to go out and muck around in the mess. Mom and I did spend over three hours walking both of our yards with ammonia spray and slug sticks trying to make a small dent in our slug invasion. It is still sopping today, but I WILL get outside and get something done... will try to find a dry spot.

This is my back yard yesterday afternoon. Keep in mind that the ugly white pipe is the one that I was trying to get Don to put away for the summer. He ran the trash pump all day on Friday, and several times yesterday, and my creek (that has a 3" drain going under the driveway.... had we only known, it would have been a 8" pipe and life would have been a lot easier!)

It's almost June for cryin out loud! I am supposed to be worried about making sure my sprinkler system works!