Some of us just like to talk. No specific topic here,
just friendly conversation, if its about plants, even better !
SHOOTIN THE BREEZE WITH DG BUDS
Here is a thread about palms native to Texas.
It seems that Sabal Mexicana and Sabal texana are the same species.
http://www.sunpalmtrees.com/Cold-Hardy-Palm-Trees-Texas-Sabal-Palms.htm
OT (if there is one):
Had jury duty last Monday. What a huge waste of time for 90% of the jurors who showed up... Mind you, I honestly don't mind being called for jury duty and see it as my civic duty to serve when called BUT... when you have about 250 to 400 people show up on any given day who then sit around for hours waiting for their number/name to be called and then sit/stand around for a hour or more waiting to be interviewed for a jury panel and THEN all are told they're not needed is very frustrating. Fortunately, they at least let people go home/to work/whatever after your group is selected to go to a court but you're not needed.
No wonder people try their best to get out of serving... 2.5 hours in traffic, a wasted half+ day doing nothing but waiting, being crammed into a reasonably nice but hot jury room with several hundred other people... and all for $6 a day of which half went for parking. Bummer...
JMO
Steve
Was it county or federal ?
They usually call way too many people because of the no-show rate.
And in Dallas Co, six bucks doesn't even cover the parking fee !
Cant do jury duty. For working people its a days loss of income- MOST stuff is settled OUT of the courtroom, I understand the need, and the frustration, but it ends up being the same folks called over and over and over for no reason. The smaller counties have a hard time finding Anyone to do jury duty since they dont have a decent population pool to pull from. I would be predisposed to a bad and negative attitude after having to face more nonsense - if chosen. No wonder most things are settled before the hearings.
Of course most Texas and Mexican varieties are same- the designation was prob only meant to show which side of the Rio they grew on when found anyway. That pride thing of where we are when once we get there..
Missin the fruits coming ripe in the south since the northern and eastern states think it is a joke to need fruits in the diet...
Thank God we are no longer required to do jury duty after age 70, what a relief!!!
Skeeter - I agree with you re it is my civic duty and am happy to do it. Seems like in Dallas the parking is paid for but I really don't remember. Anyway, whenever I've made it as far as what is known in Texan as 'vo dire', I get dismissed b/c I have a conflict of interest. Or a few times b/c I mumbled something snarky but was actually overheard. Oops. Interestingly, to me anyway, is that I once was called to a minor traffic court case in Austin in the mid-90s but the defendant didn't show. As we were leaving, he did arrive, too late of course. However, I realized that it was a former boyfriend from the '60s and wondered what I would have done. (No, he didn't see me and after so many years I don't know if he would have recognized me.) Would I have said anything? I'll never know. But it was only a minor traffic (not injury) case. Like maybe too many tickets or something. The past is the past so there you have it.
Kit, don't know how you "don't do jury duty". Here if you don't show up they send law enforcement to pick you up. If you show it is like Steve said very tedious process and rarely do they excuse you from the summons.
They tried- i have shown for one once. The next 2 notices in the mail were 6wks late rcvg them. Snail mail is carried by trucks, but trucks have no addresses. I told em notes on backside of forms and mailed in- OTR driver not in state. They quit tryin
I have served once, meaning picked.
Just today I got a notice, but I guess yhat
Now that now that I am blind they will probably excuse me.
Dunno if they willl or no, chuckl- they might consider that a plus. They get their lists from when you register to vote or update your licensing. I remenber being amused in Huntsville because several of the inmates have outside addresses and register to vote. They get served jury duty as well thru the mails. Doubt they are eligible to serve. How is summer treating DFW area? Some of the Iowans I speak wih are reporting they are expecting 123* days this summer
Kitt did you really mean 123 degree days ?
It "feels" to me like this year is a little cooler
than usual. Hopefully it wlll be wetter than
usual, too.
We desperately need the rain and it will keep
the temps a little cooler.
I would love to have my electric bill lower in !
For Iowa the farmers are expectin some scorcher days yes. Am in Illinois now and picked up a gardening show. The brutal temps and winter winds killed evergreens, pines, tons of deciduous trees. The ground froze to 18" depth here. I see grasses thriving. Not many wildflowes but a white fleabane type asters and a few yellow flowered ones. They are trying to get a message across to these people that if 50% of a plant is dead, take it out. Fertilizer will not bring it back to life. So a weatherman joined the show and Lake Superior still has ice, but there will be no more 30* nights- put your tomatoes in. Said that in spite of the seemingly LONG winter, as of Memorial Day everything is pure normal for weather up here. They discussed Bayer Science new product Iron Hedt (hed it) and how it works, and something new from somewhere else that is a once a season treatment to lawns and done and is organic, but dont have info enough to talk about it. There was a website given on recycling granite and the business is doing very well. recyclegranite.com I think.
123 degree days, yes. The west and NW is scorching dry
OUCH !
I hope they don't have a drought again.
I know I could not stand living any
farther north than I am now.
Son just spent his first winter in
Canada & he says there are still ice
patches here & there..
Baja? They havent come out of drought yet. Even in western half of Oklahoma. The Mississipi River is really a dividing line in climates that is very visible from air, and the drought is affecting every crop realky hard. Ground water is disappearing as well. Thanx ffor the link, I need to go read it! I was curious when it was mentioned.
I was reading the long term weather predictions on NOAA and they are expecting the drought to worsen throughout most of Texas, except for Eastern counties for the next three months. Not sure if I misread, but I think they implied most areas in Texas would see rain totals of less than an inch throughout that same 3 month period. Calling for El Niño to begin in late August. Hope so :))
As of an hour or so ago, DFW Airport got close to 2" of rain. Dallas got zip. Someone told me it's raining in Grand Prairie. Hope it's going to come this way.
We got 2 tenths of an inch, but better than nothing.
Kirr, I got interrupted while looking at the granite site, but it looks
interesting.
I love rocks :)
They have several locations in YX.
Becky, where zactly is Lipan ?
I liked the recycled granite website but it didn't discuss a potential issue with using some types of fancy pants granite and other stones. And that is - - - some can definitely be slippery when wet. I wonder if they've done anything to the surface of the finished pavers (some definitely looked like they'd been recycled from upscale kitchens) to maybe rough 'em up.
I have a couple of long, narrow, heavy, unfinished pieces of Burlington Stone. It's left over from my house remodel in '98 and has been hanging around in my yard ever since. Think I might have mentioned this on another post long ago and far away b/c I remember going outside to measure them. Anyway, since I haven't found any use for this stone (other than my kitchen countertops and the hearth of my fireplace) in all these years, if someone wants 'em and is strong enough, etc. send me a D-Mail. Here's a color swatch: http://www.stonesource.com/?stone=broughton-moor-2
Please don't send me any ideas of how I might use them. They're too unwieldy and I'm not a stone mason. Just would be happy if someone more creative than me would like them. Can't beat the price.
They have shaved the stone thinner from what I understand. She made the business and invented tools and train people to handle it, will have to look farther into it when I get to Tx the 31rst.
Lipan is west of Fort Worth, south of I-20 off 281. It's somewhat northwest of Granbury.
Flowerchild (I just love saying that btw), if it gets closer to RU and you still have that Burlington stone (and someone to help you get it there lol), I'll gladly take it! I've seen some pretty nifty uses for those types of stones in a garden setting. I'm thinking I could repurpose them as a stacked border to edge a new flowerbed, or standing them up on their sides and planting succulents within the ridges between the stones..
Sorry to leave you hanging Becky, just got back from the shore, back to reality, and DG lol! Yes Stephanie is right, I live somewhat NW of Granbury.. Lipan is 70 miles due west of Fort Worth, if you take I-20 :)
And btw, wasn't able to liberate any palms from port aransas.. I didn't hardly see any wild ones! Honestly I must have confused it with Galveston island.. It's been awhile since I had been to either place. I didn't score any seaweed either, there was no room to drive it home :(
I did however bring back 2 blackfoot daisy, some pink hibiscus cuttings and a cream w pinkish center oleander. Along with some mystery seeds! Aaah I am a seed freak, what can I say!
I hope you can root the blackfoot daisy. They are so temperamental. I do know that once established, they don't like a lot of water and they need good air circulation, so do crowd them. I pretty much ignore mine and don't "baby" it too much.
Becky no prob, I have more time than money LOL.
Did you at least get your toes wet ?
Or take any pics ? I was thinkin the seaweed
would be good in soup.
Stephanie, the blackfoot daisy were so shallowly rooted, I completely dug them out and now they are sitting waiting to be planted. Honestly I may try potting them.. Is that crazy? It's just that I don't want them getting watered by my MIL (my garden "partner" lol)! It's either that or they get tucked in next to a cactus so the dogs don't trample them.. Right now they are happy and even have new blooms, some seed from them also :))
Becky 1, I swam with my kids and loved every second! I'd move to the gulf in a heartbeat, reminds me of home! The seaweed would have been great in my garden, so sick about not having gotten any..
Nice pictures Becky2, that is a lot of sea weed, at first i couldn't tell the last picture, then i realized it is a hermit crab. Also it looks like you had been in the water too long, your hands are wrinkled.
The beach is where? It is great til the hurricanes hammer, shake head. Lousy afterward. Had heard where there is seaweed they have reluctantly gotten the dozers after it because it was over peoples heads and blockin the beaches
Seaweed in your garden? ? ? Wouldn't the salt kill your plants? Also, is all seaweed edible? I can't imagine eating that stuff that washes up out of the gulf. . . . . . ..
Kitt, it was port aransas :)
Yes lots and lots of seaweed! The city mostly leaves it since it provides food for the birds (tiny shrimp mostly), but since PA is also reliant on tourism, they clear it in the spring when it gets excessive. If someone wanted to start a business making seaweed frets, they would do great there! I was gonna gonna bag some up, rinse it real well to get the salt out, let some dry, till some into my veggie bed this winter, add some to my compost, then make a fert tea I found a recipe for online. If you submerge it in a bucket of water, the tea is usable after 2 months.
The hermit crab is in my 13 y/o hand, he didn't get outta the water at all unless he was hungry! Lol he was pretty "pruny" the whole trip :)
Last summer I got a picture of my then 7 year old great niece Eliza. She had made a jump rope out of seaweed because 'that's what the mermaids do'.
As for fertilizer, I'm a big fan of liquid seaweed. Even better if it's combined with liquid fish. Plants love the stuff.
Well mebbe we should go on a field trip !
Ok I'm in! LOL
I thought about you guys yesterday when I went to Costco and passed the freeze dried seaweed! LOL!
L) I didn't know they have it, even if they ARE from California.
How forward thinking of them !
But you do make sushi with it.
LOL!!
Who's hot today? We had very high humidity and I'm surprised I didn't melt while trying to work out in the garden. I think I'm going to have to take up gardening by the moon or go out with one of those head lamp things and work at night, garbed with a mosquito net jacket and hood. Even trying to work in the shade was too much for me today.
Heck yeah, after an hour and a half of tending unruly tomatoes, I called it quits! I need to get my butt out there earlier or something..