Garden Update

The garden is up and growing, doing quite well despite the cool nighttime temperatures here in Wyoming. The weather guys said, hot next week, several days in the mid-90s but when I checked again today, it says mid-70s. Darn the luck!

 

We are eating radishes and green onions from the garden, with the first tomato and strawberries about three weeks away, maybe two, with some good growing weather.

 

I have discussed my onion planting on my blogs before but it might be well worth another look. I plant onions one to one and a half inches apart, yep, one or a tad more inches. I thin by pulling to eat the green onions, eventually ending with onions having enough room to grow into large storage onions. I plant mostly sweet varieties and have found that they store better than many people think.

 

We are fast approaching my favorite time of year – fresh stuff from the garden time!

 

Let It Snow

Looks like a winter storm heading in tonight-we have not had much snow yet, so let-er-blow. Weather app says blizzard conditions, yippee!

I once published a short story called, Where In the Snow is the Back Door. Hope it gets that bad again.

 

So Warm for a Wyoming Winter

Been so warm lately I cannot decide weather to tune up the lawn mower or the snow blower. Only winter I have seen that I can play golf in the morning and ski in the afternoon. But we do need snow it is much too dry here, might be in the form of December rain, but thats ok.
Well here's wishing you a wet Christmas.

-N-

And I Didn't Have to Make This Up!

Strange things are about. We left our back sliding door open a few inches to let air circulate through the house last night. It’s finally warm here. Our back yard is fenced and gated and we thought impenetrable to intruders and large puppies, but we found out differently. We were awakened in the middle of the night, okay it was five AM but it was Saturday and we like to sleep in on Saturday. A large black dog (we do not own one or know anyone with one) was drinking noisily from the toilet. (YUM) He was scared and only too happy to be led outside. I opened the back gate and he was off. Within a minute he was around to our back yard again trying to jump through the opening in our fence where our garbage cans set. I moved the cans a little closer together and he could not or would not jump in again. He made some rather deep tracks through my raised bed garden but no other damage. Looked like a very young, maybe only a few months, Newfoundland Retriever. Sure was a good looking pup, someone must have paid a bunch for him.

Snow in May?

Snow yesterday - I think I am going to have to move down off this mountain. Living at 7200 feet is great in the summer,not so much now. We built a huge snowman, snowfort and a small replica of the North Pole in our back yard -- not really but it did snow. I love snow but not in May.

Spring is in the Air

Spring is in the air. All of our snow melted the last few hours with temperatures in the seventies. I hear birds singing outside my open windows. CRAP—must have dozed off for a while. Looked out and snow still covers the back yard and the birds singing were on television. Think I will go back to sleep or maybe to McDonalds, I’m hungry. I hate daytime nightmares. Daymares?

How to Beat the Snow

More snow coming tomorrow and the weekend. I went out and shoveled this morning and will use my snow blower later this afternoon. We don’t have any snow to shovel or blow from the walks but I like to stay ahead. If I have this figured correctly I am two up on the snow. I never was much good at math or psychology but I do belief that should mean that the next two snows will not fall on my walks or drive. I tried something similar this summer but it didn’t work. I mowed the lawn in the morning, again in the afternoon and once again that evening. Then we left for a three week vacation. When we got home the grass was nearly knee high. The lawn looked like no one had mowed it for two or three weeks. I know that couldn’t be it—maybe I used too much fertilizer. I’ll watch it closer this year.
-N-

Lots of Stuff on a Cold Day

Thoughts from a wandering mind on a cold day
We have so much snow in Wyoming this winter the government is thinking about turning the globe sideways and call us the North Pole.
Looks like football season is almost over—for the non-fans—finally over
Another BCS game for another mythical championship
Another round of pro play-offs to see if the oldest man in America can take his Vikings to a championship
Can’t wait for Baseball season—not really a fan but baseball brings warm weather.
Global warming is still avoiding Wyoming, many days below zero in December and it is never our coldest month
I am still working on my retirement plans—need to figure a way to come up with another $5,000 a month and I’m out of here
Rumor mill says the economy is on the rebound, some think the government is getting us out of the recession, others think the government got us there in the first place

Gardening season may be over

Well—it’s October and that means snow in Wyoming and green grass underneath. I really hate this time of year, the constant scooping of snow from the lawn and garden so that I can mow and weed. Then more snow, more scooping and more mowing and weeding. I tried something a little different this year I duct taped (or is it duck taped—you know the gray silvery stuff) anyway, as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself. I taped with that gray shinny tape my snow blower to the front of my lawn mower, looks a bit funny when I do the driveway but works like a charm on the lawn.
Despite the snow (three times so far for a total of a foot of snow) my garden still looks pretty good. Why do the weather people on TV and radio now refer to snow storms as snow events? Despite three separate snow events my garden still looks pretty good. Of course most of it (tomatoes and onions) is in the garage. I pulled some carrots today and they were quite tasty, thank you. The rest of the garden really does not look so good, its mostly dead beans, dead peas, dead radishes, dead strawberries, dead herbs of all kinds (don’t like most of them anyway) and lots of dead flowers. And so as I started—Well –it’s October and so much for gardening this year.

"Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” at least here in Wyoming. We are snow covered but the sun is out today and it may not last long. I usually put off my shopping until the twenty-third. I am not kidding. I do this so that what I buy is about the only thing left—that way I can rest assured that the people getting my most wonderful gifts will not get a duplicate. By the 23ed all the good stuff is gone leaving me to shop for the leftovers. I try to avoid the Halloween stuff, although there are some good buys, but I avoid it because I really don’t like orange. This year I, once again, bought some things online—I buy early online so I can get the good stuff.
I will spend the next few days stretching and jogging getting ready to shop like crazy on the 23ed—hope I’m up for it.

Shoveling Snow

More snow—and this time Ice. I hate shoveling snow with ice where the sidewalk should be. Thinking about attaching my weed burner, people in Wyoming really have weed burners, to the front of my shovel. That way I can push snow and melt ice at the same time. Not sure if “Inventions Are Us.com,” is ready for that one yet. We have had about a foot of snow so far this year but have only a few inches on the ground now.

Winter comes to Wyoming

Snowed all day—must be seven or eight feet out there by now. When I walked to work it was snowing so hard I thought I went blind. Everything is white all buildings are covered and cars look like giant snow balls rolling down the highway. Last time it snowed like this it took two and a half years to melt and Wyoming became the sixth great lake—I believe it was Lake Wyoming. No one is shoveling their walks anymore we just mark them with spray paint in case someone comes by on snowshoes. I did make it to the grocery store and picked up: white bread, milk, marshmallows, pasta, sugar and flour. I was afraid if I bought anything that was not white I would not be able to find it in my pickup. Lucky for me I had a little extra time and went back and picked up some cauliflower and ream of printer paper. (Couldn’t think of anymore white food)

Indian Summer

It was cold in Wyoming, now it’s warm again. This time of year has been called Indian Summer for a long time. Now that I’ve got your attention by casually mentioning the weather and everyone loves talking about the weather. Here is why this time of year is called Indian Summer. I have no idea—just kidding.

People have speculated for two-hundred years over the derivation of the term Indian Summer. Many guesses as to where it came from have been tried but here is the correct and proper answer—or maybe I made it up yesterday.

Indian summer which must follow a hard frost is named after the time of year when the indigenous peoples of the plains harvested crops. Crops the natives planted east of the Missouri River and the harvest of wild plumbs and roots west of the big river. It was also the time for hunting, curing and storing of the meat for the winter sure to come.

There you have it from the one who knows—or made it up—Indian Summer!