Gypsies bringing in the harvest

My Geranium from seed, finally in bloom!!!!

Nice Kassy

My mexican sunflower.

Thanks JJ ^_^

A close up of one of the blossoms on the hen and chicks.

One of the hen and chicks. Some blossoms are drying up already :(

Our Chicks........well they were our chicks this spring!

Our visitor today.

visitor

And the last one for now.

If had ever picked cotton all day pulling a nine foot cotton sack, you would understand the association between backache and cotton, flowers.

OK got cha now Jim, now I see where the backache comes in. Kassy nice flowers and hummingbird pictures! 49 years....now thats something to brag about!

For sure, Jim, congratulations! I hope I make it that far, only 18 to go..

Hang in there Smiley, marriage is like wine, it gets better with age.

( I guess that didn't sound quite right, the way I put it. )

I agree Jim! It seems we have far less bumps in the road than before.

I took it the way you meant it. You'll find out as you get older that what you thought were the bad times were really the best times. During the hard times we are drawn closer to each other and the Lord.

OK heres one.... I'ts so hot here I could cook bacon and eggs on my head LOL How hot is it there yall baaaa bing......

Flowers, I'll send you some of our rain to cool you down.
The old record of 7.46 inches was set in July 1912.
On Thursday, we had a monthly total of 7.84 inches. And we got another thunderstorm last night and more are on the way today yet and next week. The southern part of the state has flash flood warnings.
The skeeters are loving it, but my tomatoes aren't :(
And with all this rain, we haven't had enough sunshine for things to really take off and grow.

And Tuesday evening, straight line winds from 70 to 80 miles per hour hit my home town causing lots of damage. Small town..... about 1/4th of the houses there ended up with some kind of damage. The high school lost part of its roof. I'll see if this video will work in here. I have a feeling it won't :(
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KUmSOP0vxM

That was a mean storm Kassy, hope your rain stops soon. We are having a hot dry spell for about a week here but is supposed to cool down some next week with more chances of rain. Not too bad if you have AC in the car and home. Just can't get outside until late evening. I hope your place didn't get any damages from that storm. Just go to the local farmers market and get tomatoes, there is always next year :-)

Kassy, that is a shame because your tomato plants were doing so well. I saw the video. That must have been some storm. They had to put down 60 cows stuck under a fallen roof! How awful!

Oh were or were did the Gypsies go?
Oh were were can they be?
Well I'm heading for my BF's today.
Maybe I'll find you all later.

We're here Kassy, just hopping to and fro trying to beat the heat. Be careful going to BF's and get us somemore creature pictures. Jim, where are ya? Cat got your tongue?

Will keep an eye out for ya later Kassy.
Have a good trip to BF's.
Need you to help me figure out how to collect these seeds from liatris plant.

At BF's with all 3 of my cats and his 2. This could be an interesting week......LOL
Had we thought about me moving here more, we never would have taken the 2 for him from the girl who was looking for a home for them. Like I said, this may be interesting.

Will get some pictures of some of my flowers that are in bloom tomorrow. My Star gazer lily was oh so pretty early this evening. Didn't have the camera out there, and didn't want to fight the skeeters to come in and get it and go back out. I hope it still as pretty tomorrow.
I also have another new color of hollyhock open again ^_^
And more of the petunia's that I planted from seed are open. Got some different colors finally, other then pink.

Flowers, they had rain here again last night.
The produce stand that I stop at to pick up corn said they are having problems with potatos rotting in the ground because of all the rain. Yup, we are getting just a little bit too much of a good thing. My tomato plants have all been hit by blight. But then so have the ones at the home where I work. Blight can be caused by watering them from over head........Try to tell the rain not to do that :-(
We will get some, but no where near what I was hoping for. And that plants are so tall already that they are way over the top of their cages and falling over them. I gotta try to get a piture of how tall they are tomorrow.

JJ, is that plant also called Blazing Star?
If so, they look like they might be as interesting to collect seeds from as my lupines are.

My receiver has been down. Got mad at the provider and signed with a new company. Finally back on line.

We finally got a couple of inchs of rain. It cooled out temps down a little but next week is supposed to be 103. Can you imagine what the heat index will be with all this moisture in the ground.

Venice, did that baby voodoo ever grow?
Not all the little bulbs that I planted came up. I would say maybe more then half of them did, but then we had help from chipmucks here digging them up.
But even at home, I planted 4 small bulbs around my sons big plant, and only 2 of those came up.
Let me know please.

Jim, I'll send you our skeeters to make it even better. We have them by the tons this year. Gets to the point that you hate being outside.

It has been to dry for skeeters here but they will come now.

We have had over 15 inches of rain since June first. Anyone want some?
Corn crops are already sliking out, way ahead of time. Could be bumper crops of corn if the rain can hold off now for farmers to get in the fields.

Bumper crop of bugs too. Something ate the rest of my buds off my pepper plant. So we should get 3 peppers from it and that's it. Something has been eating on the leaves. Good thing the peppers are getting to a good size now.

Oh, and all the rain has given us a bumper crop of weeds :-(

Kassy sounds like you have gotten everybody elses rain. Too bad about your tomatoes. It's just been in upper 80's and some 90's here with now afternoon evening showers that help, but man that humidity is un-forgiving. Bet we get some Kitty stories before the week is out :-)

Jim sorry to hear about your server, those people are just all about the money to heck with good service. Glad your back up and going.

Someone told me that corn has absolutely no nutritional value, read the can. Now that hurts my feelings, I Loooove Corn. Did read where it is one of the best forms of fiber because you don't digest it. I don't care.....I'm gonna keep eating it!

Sorry I missed you Kassy. Yea it's also called the blazing star.
I know where the seed pods are just not how to tell when they are ready. I read somewhere that you can cut the stalk and put it in a paper bag and wait for them to open but I would think if done to early the seeds wouldn't be ripe.

Hi Kassy! Hi Jim! Hi JJ and FlowerPuff! JJ, that's a pretty flower. I know some of you will cringe and want to hit me, but I don't bother with saving seeds. Although I should have some 'regale lily' seeds if anyone wants them. I can see the seed pods getting fatter & fatter!

Kassy, sorry about all that rain up there. Funny how some areas are screaming for rain and others have a deluge.. I hope you can get enough from your crops to make it worth it.

FlowerPuff, I heard that about corn too. If you think about it, it comes out the same way it goes in.. (sorry folks!) Good roughage, though.

LOL Smiley, Oh but I love corn too.
BF can't grow it for some reason. Guess it doesn't like his soil. Just as well though, because that raccoon would probably get it all anyway! Had that happen at my mom's one year when she didn't have a dog. The next year, she had a dog again, and got corn.....LOL
And Smiley, I sure hope this is no indication of what our winter will be like :-(
I'm starting to feel like we need to build an ark. Weather is predicting rain for tomorrow and Monday again..........Sheesh!

We have lots of produce stands up here, and up here some of them plant really early and then cover the rows with some kind of plastic sheeting to protect from frost. They must cover at night and uncover during the day all the time until the treat of frost is gone. We usually have corn grown in this area very early that way.

JJ, what I read on that plant said to let the seed pods dry one the plant and then collect them. I'll look up some more on them later, I need to go out and check on our beans now. And fight the skeeters if there out there :-(

I have a day lily that looks like it has a seed pod on it. I'll post the picture later. Thats the first time I have seen a seed pod on my daylily.
Jim, if I can collect the seeds, are you interested? It's one I posted last year and you liked it. Its still the only one I have of it though, other then the seed pods? Will post a picture of it after I get done in the garden.

OK, off to pick the beans :-)

Smiley I'm not saving a lot of seeds, mostly just if someone asked me for some. And the petunias I put in my barrels.
Just don't want to send someone a bunch of seeds that are no good because I plucked them to early.
The columbine, daylily, rose of sharon and hibiscus are easy. It's these fluffly ones I have a hard time figuring out when to get them.

Who says everythig grows bigger in Texas. Look at my cucumbers next to roll of paper towels.

Wow, nice JJ
Now let me ask what kind that is?
I picked up one at the produce stand yesterday that was at least that long.
It was a new kind they decided to try this year, and boy, are they ever long.
BF grows straight eights and nines.

I don't know Kassy. I bought the plants at some store and the tag just said burpless cucumbers. Most of them haven't been quite that long.
I usually just get the bush ones but they haven't done well last couple years so thought I'd try these.
Maybe burpless but not gas free. LOL

LOL JJ,
OK, I have picked up the burpless cucumbers in the store from time to time, and they are usually longer then the regular ones.

And guess what? The person at the produce stand told me they were a gormet cucumber that they are trying. Well I just looked it up and this is what I found.

"English cucumbers are sometimes known as gourmet cucumbers, "burpless", or seedless cucumbers. This variety has seeds that are very small but do not need to be removed. Longer and thinner than regular cucumbers this variety is usually shrink-wrapped to seal in moisture because they are not waxed."

And come to think of it, I didn't burp last night, and we used about half of the real long one.

My elderly friend only eats those seedless cucumbers, because she had some kind of occlusion(?) and is not suppose to eat anything with seeds.
they ae always wrapped at the grocery store in plastic wrap.

That's why I don't eat cucumbers. They give me the "err-ee-erps" (burps). Maybe the gourmet ones wouldn't do that..

Kassy, I have seed pods on my Stella D'Oro daylilys. I haven't seen them on my other ones, though.