Practical Matters For Physically Challanged Gardeners#4

I'm back home for a day. Got some more packing to do.Bills to make out etc.
I stopped at the forest rangers station and picked up more Arkansas liturature. Jim. It'll be on is way tomorrow. It's mostly on camping. That's what Arkies do. But it'll give you a sense of what Arkansas is.It was a mistake for me to read this stuff. There are so many places to camp at. I found out i can camp for half price(old age LOL) Some places that is only $1.50 a night.Others it's $2.50 or $5.00.
Bonnie, Go to the top of the page and click Accessable Gardening. Than you'll see the new thread,as you scroll down. Hope i said that right.
DD still is not talking to me i guess. That's all right. I'm going camping. Not tomorrow tho. I've got to make out bills.
Kay, you're going to have to go to the southern tip of Mo. There is a state park there with large boulders, They call Elephant rocks. They have markers in Braille.Besides the fact you can feel the rocks. I know you would injoy it. Don't think you'd be able to take any home tho.LOL
Bonnie, Hope your tummy is better. Talk about a small world. That was nice of you to offer to look up Kays fathers grave.
I went last week to the cemetary. There is a confederate soldier i kinda look after and a Vietnam pvt(who i suspect was killed over there, Was the right time.) They are near my Dhs grave. I guess i'm a coward. I just avoid thinking about wars and killing.
Al was so lucky he stayed in Saigon and not the jungle. He did go out once and did'nt tell me untill years later.
It's almst 4:00 AM guess i'll quit for now.
Vickie

Bonnie, I added you, but it's at the top of this forum. Well, if we get it made into a sticky it will be at the top. It's listed in this forum.

I found it Carrie. Thanks again.

Bonnie

My DW’s plant acquisition techniques are going to get her into serious trouble one day! I just know they are! She snagged some rose cuttings yesterday from the parking lot of the Fayette POLICE DEPARTMENT. Made a young officer an accessory to her crime even. lol. She decided she had to have any rose that could survive grueling parking lot conditions and still look so good. I told her there is no way I’m going to brave rose nomenclature to find out its name. We will just call it ‘Jailhouse Red’.
She showed amazing restraint on this trip by Kay standards. Jailhouse Red and some Queen Anne’s lace were all she brought home. And, whether or not she gets to plant the QAL in the ground is still being debated.
She calls such plants “pioneer plants.” Points out it wasn’t the cream of European society who brought European civilization to this country. The cream of European society would have never succeeded. The cream come later to add polish after the ruffians have done the real work. Amargia, she maintains, is still in a stage where we need “lovely ruffians” to handle tough sites. Lol. There are so many ruffian plants in this area, a polite. well-mannered plant would probably not stand a chance outside daily maintained beds. It is hard for people in this region to take QAL serious as an invasive. I guess when you battle things like Japanese honeysuckle, blackberries and potato briar, QAL seems like a pushover. By clipping the flowers for floral arrangements the spread of QAL is automatically controlled.
Another rainy and overcast day. A final opportunity to do some transplanting before it gets too hot.
Vickie, those rocks sound interesting. I guess I had better break out my old Boy Scout manual and practice my camping skills. I've gotten soft since I retired. .
Debra, official military reports are notoriously poor sources of complete and factual information. Omission has become an artform in such documents. (Jim)

Kay is one smart lady and my kind of "acquisitor" LOL

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1459/

Particularly note some of the angry comments I got!

Jim, do you and Kay want to be on my list of real names/screen names that I'm creating for the woolly-headed among us?

Sure, but I want to be known as "Jim". Not any of those names Kay may have called me in private Dmails while she was ticked off at me. . lol.

I already added you two - I figured you were pretty public about your names. :)

I remember that article Carrie. I posted a positive reply. Mine grows in one place and has never spread. It may be too shady. I know it likes open fields. I'm really going to have a lot of black eyed susans this year. They seem to be everywhere. My shasta daisys have spread alot also. My prize winning poison ivy is still the winner in the spreading catagory tho. Coryopsis too. One came up by my steps. Of course i let it go. LOL Just about anything that comes up here probably is wanted.
Jim don't you know if the young officer helped her it was a gift from the police dept. After all my bank let me get some dandilion seeds once. They were proud to let my have some. And boy has it spread. There is now enough for spring greens or dried roots for coffee. I also have poke salet starting. Carrie, you should have read the replys to the article on it.Course pro poke here. Some thought it the most poisonous plant ever.
Jim, One does'nt have to really rough it camping anymore. Even with the heat one can simply get in the car and turn the AC on for awhile. LOL Most camp sites have water and showers anymore. Not all but one can choose and pick. Any way you can stay here. I'll come up here for you guys. DD will be on her best behavior if she sticks her head out of her home.
Vickie

I'm going to let my hair go to white. The sweet old lady thing really works in your favor when it comes to acquiring plants from unusual sources. I bet the LITTLE old lady thing would wourk even better, but I don't have the stature for that one. LOL.
Bonnie, don't go to any extra trouble on my account. But, if you find yourself nearby the name is Ronald Coleman Campbell (1930- July 3,1982) It really is a small world, isn't it?
Here's a truly wild bouquet. I doubt Martha Stewart is worried about competition from Jim. But, I thought it wasn't half bad for a guy's work. :-)
Yarrow, Spiderwort, native daylilies and native glads. Kay*

Kay, I have written that information down and it is in my purse. If I can make it through the next 2 weeks, I should start having some more time and the next time I am in Frankfort, I will stop by the cemetery. It is such a beautiful place this won't feel like work at all. hehe.

We are having a fish fry for my missionary ladies group, and we have everything set up, just need to fry the fish. It is pot luck, so whatever anybody brings will go with it.

Tomorrow we are going to a funeral for a church member, and the church is having lunch for the family afterwards. So another busy day tomorrow. Plus tomorrow night DH and I sing at a revival in a nearby city, Saturday is mine all mine, and I may just decide to spend it in the pool. Then Sunday, another potluck dinner, and the end of a revival. So Monday is looking really really good for back to normal.

Kay, I thought your picture was a close-up of the inside of a beautiful orange flower. Native glads? Unfair! But Jim did pretty well.

Our names/screen names got "stickied" which means it will always be up top for easy reference.

(Jim using Kay's account.) I didn't do it to confuse you, Bonnie. I really didn't. lol. Hope you are feeling better. Sounds like you need to be running at peak with a schedule like that. Your right, Carrie. That photo does look sort of abstract. I’ve been putting different color combinations against the newly painted den/craft room wall to see if I like them. I’m not getting into flower arranging. It just happens that around here color is easiest to find in the garden. I live with the colors for awhile to see if I continue to like the combo. Sort of like my god-daughter does with her writing and art. After she finishes something. She ignores it for a couple of weeks. Only if she still likes it after that time will she send it out to publishers. I dislike painting A LOT so it is worth it to me because I don’t end up re-painting if I decide I don’t like it. Kay knows how much I hate painting and suspects I’m just dragging my feet on this project. .
I don’t think women realize that their eyes and minds are trained to have an aesthetic sense, practically from the cradle. We guys don’t get that sort of intense training. It rarely comes naturally to us. We have to think and experiment with it.
Kay maintains that just as youth is so often wasted on the young. Eyesight can be wasted on the sighted. A blind lady is teaching me to see colors. Lol. (Actually, Kay is considered “legally” or “functionally” blind. She still has some color perception in good light, but I wouldn’t want her sorting my socks. Lol. She can’t discern between black, navy and brown.) But, by nature of being female and, perhaps, growing up around professional artist, she understands what specific colors work to create certain looks. She’s decided it is time for me to fly solo, though. Time to find out what my personal tastes are. What if I turn out to have really terrible personal taste? Or, worse, no taste? Lol.
I like camping, Vickie. Kay, DD#3 and I made a trip to Canada to attend DD#2’s college graduation. We only spent one night in a hotel. We spent our nights at parks the rest of the time. A futon mattress fit perfectly in the bed of the truck and the truck has a topper. We even made little curtains for the windows so we never had the hassle of setting up a tent for ourselves. DD#3 had one of those one-person tents that assembled in minutes. We had our fans and enough extension cord to reach the park’s campsite outlets. It was easy and comfortable. I don’t camp much this far south because of the bugs. They seem to think my Yankee flesh is an especially tasty delicacy. Lol.
Kay won the debate. There is Queen Anne’s Lace in the craft garden. No one could remember seeing QAL along roadsides that are routinely mowed so the assumption is that it can’t be that hard to control. Another rainy, rainy day. It looks like very wet summers may be the new weather pattern. (Jim)
Photo: Because all the other colors are crisp and clean, I will relocate the beige colored lilies next year. See, I’m learning. Lol.



This message was edited Jun 5, 2010 7:52 PM

Sorry, I did it AGAIN!
I decided not to do a full edit because a photo complicates things. Kay and I are trying to use the same computer for everything related to Amargia so we can just keep garden photos on one computer. But, I forget to check which of our accounts is logged in. Maybe, I should keep Kay's audio reader turned on so I hear the log in name, as well as see it.
The valerian handles the muscle tension, but I feel half-asleep a lot of the time. I could use the extra reminder. (Jim)

Jim, I didn't say anything about the wall color when you posted the picture of the vase of flowers. Personally I like it very much. However, it is in somebody else's house!! I love color, but am a coward to paint with bold colors in my house. I know anything can be repainted, but that is the rub, I really don't like to paint, and if I ended up with a color that I didn't like, then I would have to repaint, and probably have to use some primer to cover up the bold color.

I am doing much better physically. To look at me you would never know there was anything wrong. However, it is my strength and stamina that is the problem right now. I know it didn't sound like that when I posted everything that I have done in the past couple of days, but believe me, I am paying for it, and will for a couple more days.

~~~~ to everybody else, as I am tired and heading to bed. I am finding myself checking the "stickie" to make sure that I am learning names/screen names. We will know when I post something to someone and call them another name.

Happy Birthday cando1, vicki. Hope I got the names right!! A little late, but better late than never.

Thank you Bonnie, It is early. My birthday is the 8th.
Glad you are better. Try to take a couple days off and injoy that pool.
Beautiful colors Jim. When you are doing colors for yourself,What ever color you like should be the rule. Right? You gotta live with it. LOL Once years ago I had to paint my bathroom a dark grey,some DH brought home from work. I painted white daisys all over those small walls. It made a difference.
Kay it is amazing what little ole ladies can get away with.No matter how tall they are.specially if you act like you know what you are doing. The only problem is...When you need to impart some serious information you'll be ignored.LOL
Vickie

Vickie, why is your birthday wrong in the DG list then? I take it back then.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1105126/

Hey Vickie, it says June 6 on your info page. 6th or 8th...I wish you a very happy birthday and am sending big gentle hugs!!

Sheri

Kay had an ‘ABAPITA!’ experience this morning. (Ain’t Blindness A Pain In The A…Anatomy) Someone brought home those coffee shots and threw them in with the coffee creamer packages. There isn’t a difference in the way the packages feel. She was in a hurry so she poured her coffee in the blender with her breakfast shake so she didn’t pick up on the fact that her coffee tasted strong. Each Coffee Shot is equivalent to a full cup of coffee. We estimate she has about six or eight cups of coffee in her. That wouldn’t be TOO bad, but Kay is hypersensitive to caffeine. As little as 5 cups of coffee can cause schizo-effective type symptoms in a caffeine sensitive person. They can trip out on caffeine. Kay is wired and a little crazy today. Fortunately, unlike a true schizophrenic, they are aware their minds are altered and it passes as soon as the caffeine is out of their system. Kay, being Kay, has decided to take advantage of the extra energy and use the creativity of her altered mental state to do creative concrete work. For the last few days, she has been on a med that adversely affects the liver, meaning she has had a very low energy level. She tells me she is not about to waste this burst of energy just because she isn’t thinking straight. Lol. It will be interesting to see
what we end up with by the end of the day. Wired crazy woman at work. Lol. We’re keeping a close eye on her. That is my concern, Bonnie. I'm afraid I'll burn out on the bright color after a while. I know what you mean. I am in that stage. I can still do most things, but I will pay for it if I do too much. Recovery takes longer and longer. (Jim)

Jim, send Kay to my house!! If she has that kind of energy, I sure could use her here for a couple of hours.

Poor Kay. I agree with her, blindness or near blindness is really a pita sometimes. DH is always fussing at me to turn the lights out, but I tell him I don't turn them on, so he is the culprit there. My full time state is semi darkness!!

Got my outside housekeeping done. That is vacuuming the pool, and skimming it. Some on another forum are so jealous of me having the pool, that they asked me not to say vacuuming the pool, but instead, requested I use the term outside housekeeping!!

The pool is really for the DGD, but I enjoy it as well.

"Someone" should be made to experience that caffeine freakiness. I've never thought of describing myself as being hypersensitive to caffeine; I just avoid caffeinated coffee. I'll drink one cup of half decaf/half reg. but that's it, or I'll drink caffeinated tea. Actually I prefer caffeinated tea. But 5 cups of fully-leaded coffee would .def. send me over some edge I wouldn't want to visit. Give Kay my sympathy, if she slows down enough to hear you.

The Cana you sent me - the reddish one - is looking kind of tattered. What is it supposed to be looking like? It's still just foliage, but it's a little bedraggled foliage. The weather here was hot and summery for about four days in May but now it's back to cool and always about to rain but never actually raining too much

Guess i'm caffene insensitive. It never seems to bother me. Tho i always drink one or two cups every morning. I drink ice tea at night some. I have trouble sleeping but it is'nt caffene related. Its mind related. LOL
Poor Kay, Hope she comes down after while.I can't think of an antidote unless it'd be herbal tea.

Water and food to dilute the caffeine? I know I'm always starving when I have caffeine coffee.

Kay, hope you are feeling okay this morning. Caffeine jags are definitely no fun, especially when they wear off.

Bonnie, I am always envious of people with pools and then I always remember the maintenance and get over it pretty quick. :-)

Jim, maybe the color will continue to grow on you. Four years after installation, I like my orange/ochre countertops more than ever, but everything else except the floor and a wallpaper border are white, so it isn't an in-your-face-all-the-time color. You could try the easy experiment route. Maybe tack up sheets or curtains or even tablecloths in colors you might like to go with the walls? Live with them for a bit to see what complementary color appeals to you most before you go to a lot of trouble in repainting or going around the orange? Not so hard on the back...or the knees...or the shoulders...LOL. Although the colors did not reproduce truly in this picture, you can see how the white tones down the counter and the border balances it with the red. You should have seen what it looked like when I bought the place. Weird colors, plywood countertops, missing cabinet doors. Lots of work done and still to do. And I have time. :-)

My boss is a creature of impulse (ADHD) and decided I needed a new bedroom set. (don't ask me why, I dunno) So he buys this big huge set of Bassett furniture that is much too large for the size of my rooms and now I get to figure out how in the world to set it up and still have room to walk around it. :-) Have a couple of kids coming over after work today to help shift the furniture, spread the mulch still piled in the driveway, and empty some junk from the garage. Not too much outside work today for me, though. Supposed to be 96 degrees and better than 70% humidity. plllbbbbpppptttt. But they are young and hale and hearty and I have great expectations for their production today. :-)

I wish I knew some young and hale and hearty people that weren't my offspring! "Oh Mom!"

My birthday mixup had to have been my mistake,since i'm the one who filled in the info.
Carrie, i surely wish i knew some hale and harty people who were'nt MY offspring too.
((((Hugs Kay))))
Debra, Hope you had fun directing the placement of your furniture. Watch that temperature. We've already been given the"Drink plenty of water" warning.
Vickie

Sounds like you need a break from your offspring, Vickie!

A practical matter for dealing with disability: how do we protect ourselves from scams, rip-offs, stolen meds, stolen checks, etc. For instance, I ALWAYS use my debit card as credit so I don't need to put in my PIN - ever since I had a PCA memorize it and steal my card and use it. We didn't have evidence to file charges, but we knew who it was. THANK GOD we only had $75 in the bank that night. Ha ha ha. Changed numbers and PCAs. We couldn't really accuse her -- just let her go for other reasons.

well, I didn't get the warning, but I am aware of drinking plenty of liquids. It was 91 here today, with loads of humidity. This is too early to be this hot in my area. This is weather we normally have in July and August.

DGD and I spent the afternoon in the pool. It was heavenly. Once I finished the vacuuming, we got the floats and just lazed the afternoon away.

lovemyhouse, (Debra) the newer pools are pretty close to maintenance free. I have a chemical canister with an adjustment on it, and when the chemicals get out of balance, all I do is turn the dial higher for more chemicals, or lower for less. Other than the vacuuming, and the initial cleaning when we open it, it is nothing like the older ones where you had to do all the rigamarole with the sand filter and backwashing etc. We do have to dismantle (easy to do) the filter once a week and clean it, but that is about a 10 minute job. We throw in a package to shock the pool once a week (oh, need to run do that now) and that is it!!

I went to the Ohio River Valley Gardening Round Up on Saturday. Drove through torrential rain most of the way (120) miles, and enjoyed it once I got there, but it was a monster trip. I think my head is still hurting from the tension of driving in that rain. Too dangerous to pull off, so no other choice but grip the steering wheel and drive on. Saw 3 tractor trailers who had hydroplaned and flipped, which did nothing to settle my nerves at all.

This may be my last trip. I am unable to drive at night, and now I have experienced this horrible rain event, and it scared me bad enough that I will never go that far by myself again. I left overcast skies at home, but drove right into the storm. I heard later that places that were in that area got about 4-6 inches of rain in less than 2 hours. That is a lot. So my world is diminishing, again, sigh.Not feeling sorry for myself, but I sure do love my freedom.

Carrie, that is a horrid experience, but even if it was only $75.00, I would have turned her in to keep her from getting another person with that same scam.

Bonnie, we had no evidence. The card was gone, the money was withdrawn using the PIN in her town at the time of night when she would have just gotten there from work, but no EVIDENCE. No fingerprints or smoking gun or anything tangible, it would have been our word against hers. I had another PCA who always makes a point of turning her back if I'm using my PIN (which I don't do often any more), my kids knew it, it was just not secure enough to swear in court that I was 100% certain it was her. 99 %, certain enough never to trust her again, but not 100%.

You should have asked the bank to check security tapes. Her picture was probably there, and that would have been the best evidence there could be. But crooks always have stories ready to use, she would have probably said she was making a deposit or withdrawing money from HER account, but again the bank could have verified that too.

It was at a gas station. Boy, a bank would have been easier. $75 worth of gas.

Wonder if her usual mode of transportation is a Tank to hold that much gas?

It wouldn’t work, Bonnie. You wouldn’t get much work out of Kay no matter how much coffee you gave her. You have a pool. My DW can’t resist any body of water. The presence of alligators and water snakes are the only reason we get any work out of her around here. She would be at the river or in the pond all the time, if it weren’t for those guys. Lol. Well, she might do your “outside housekeeping”. I'm a white knuckles driver in rainy weather myself. It is not so much the rain. It scares me the way some people don't even slow down and adjust their driving to the conditions.
Carrie, just cut the tattered canna leaves off at the base. It will produce more leaves. They come out curled into a tube and unfurl. It is fun to watch. It will bloom later in the season.
That was a lot of gas. That is about what I would pay if I filled my near empty tank and picked up some extra for the lawn mower.
Debra, the one color I’ve settled on so far is “Navaho White”. That looks a lot like it.
Do you know Bowie, TX? Isn’t that in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area? That is where Kay's eldest sister lives.
Hope you like iris, Vickie. Kay is still evicting plants with little scent from her area. I saved the iris collection by saying they should go in the Cando garden. I want to put the perennials in large pots. (Painted, flipped-inside-out, small tires, if you want to get technical about it.) I don’t know any reason they wouldn’t grow in pots. Iris for spring color. Daylilies for summer. If I tell Kay it’s for your garden, I have a good excuse to shop for daylilies. Lol. Are they doing okay in large pots?
Our fig tree is only about thigh high. It was a surprise to discover little green figs on it today. Spanish lavender is blooming. Lilies are beginning to fade and the cannas aren’t blooming yet. I would like to find something for my little ornamental bed to fill in that gap. It is mainly a foliage garden, but I like to have a few flowers blooming throughout the season. I’ll have to pull a raid on Kay’s seeding benches tomorrow and see what I can find there. :-) (Jim)

Ornamental oregano?

Hm-m-m, that’s a possibility. I just read the ornamental oregano article and put origamum laevigatum “Herrenhausen’ on my “want” list. (It is scented so keeping Kay away from it could be a problem. Lol.) I’ve grown Golden Oregano before, but I’m trying to keep yellow tones out of this one garden space. There are a lot of yellows elsewhere. (Jim)

Jim, when my Internet is back up at the house later this week, I will post a photo of the oregano in my yard. If you like, I can dig up a section and send it to you for experimentation.

Debra

I want to come live at Debra's house.

When I first got the house, I was SOOOO thrilled. Had been saving clippings for years of rooms and yards and plants. Started buying pretties and just putting them in wherever...and letting them dry up and wither away. Starting the third spring, I tried it differently. With the Wayside eBay account starting plants at $0.99, I got about 200 from them over the next two years. Those that survived, I was happy. Those that didn't, I wasn't too heartbroken. From there, I actually started to READ about what ones did better in clay soil and hot, dry conditions. :-) A lot of what is flourishing is in the herbal line. It is fun to put in stuff that smells good, looks good, and doesn't need a lot of hand-holding. So there are many different plants in the front yard, if only one or two of each. Have lots of work still to do in the side yard going back toward the garage. The back yard is going to be problematic. Have to keep it safe for the dogs. Maybe rubber mulch? Pea gravel? Astroturf? :-)

Lunch is over, back to work. Fingers crossed the home Internet is back up this evening...