It’s been a very busy last few weeks. It’s also been unusually hot, more like August weather. I started cleaning out my flower beds, putting down newspaper and mulching and tilled up the garden area. I replanted corn, but with the dry weather the second planting hasn’t come up. Watermelon, cucumbers and cantaloupes started coming up and were promptly eaten by bugs. I’ll replant this weekend just before the next rain. I finally put my volunteer tomatoes in the garden. I had a couple of beautiful plants coming up in a compost pile, so I dug them up and into the garden they went.
The warm weather has encouraged some of my daylilies into an early bloom. Late irises are finishing up their bloom cycle. I had planned an open garden with a brunch on May 26th, but there’s no way I’ll be ready both in the garden and the house. My house is still a wreck. For some more blooms this week check out my gardening blog.
April 2012, I reported 1.18 inches of rain from my reporting station to CoCoRaHS. After planting corn twice I began to wonder if it was fruitless putting in a garden again this year. Last Thursday it finally rained 0.92 inches, almost as much as last month. Monday I measured 1.78 inches in my gauge and more is expected. I may have to think about putting catfish in the garden. The rain gave me an opportunity to separate and move my heirloom tomato plants into larger containers in my greenhouse. I’m not sure what I’ll do with all the plants as I have a lot more than I can use. I also got flower seeds started.
Some times, those of us who live in the country take for granted what we have. Sure there’s a lot of work involved, but it’s the little things that loose sight of. A couple of high school friends came out to see my flowers. All of a sudden Richard said, oh listen, a Bob White. I haven’t heard that since I was a boy he said. I’d gotten so use to hearing it, that I wasn’t paying attention to it.
The cities of Tuscumbia, Florence and Sheffield all had historical walking tours each Saturday in April. I made all of Tuscumbia’s and posted a lot of the pictures on the Remember Tuscumbia page on Facebook. On Confederate Memorial Day, a ceremony was held at the cemetery to honor over 100 unknown soldiers from the Civil War. New headstones were made for each grave recently.
The hooligans have been busy chasing whatever runs or flies. A chipmunk made the mistake of trying to cross the driveway. Blackie was on the job and charged in hot pursuit. The chipmunk ran into the garage hit the front wall, made a turn, hit the side wall, and made another turn toward the other garage door. While Blackie was still looking for it around my pile of tools and newspaper I shooed it toward the open door. Levi came walking up to the door about that time and the chipmunk ran between his front and back legs, and made a turn toward the front walk. Levi and Patches started the pursuit outside. Once it disappeared, Levi soon lost interest and took a nap while Patches hunted for it. Blackie was still going through everything in the garage.
