We still have not had any significant rain here.  A couple of days ago it sprinkled heavily for literally one minute and then it was over.  Today is overcast, dull, and hopefully will bring rain.  I no longer trust watching the weather forecast (not that I put much faith in it anyway) as they say we'll get rain and even show it on their radar, then it never comes.  I spent a few hours yesterday working on weekly lesson plans for Tiger Cub's studies this coming homeschool year.  I think the drabness of today merits curling up on the sofa and spending a few hours doing the same thing.

The okra continues to do well.  I sowed between 48 and 52 more seeds this past Sunday to see how they'll do this time of year.  They are the one thing I've been told can be sown here right now.  I admit I've become a lazy gardener.  I haven't kept up my garden journal and I didn't even accurately count how many seeds I sowed ... I really must snap out of this.

The sweet basil is so beautiful and yummy!...

Lots of San Marzon tomatoes are growing (I never can get a pic of these without it blurring)...

Still no bees, butterflies, or other insects to be seen.  We did have a few bumblebees hanging out by one of our sheds, but they are all dead on our back porch now.  I'm guessing it was the smoke from the wildfires that did them in (and yes, good homeschool mom that I am, some are now in jars being kept for our Zoology 1 studies this coming year)...

Box turtle (we see these pretty often around our property)...

One of our most adorable visitors (although this is one reason why it's very important to have a fenced garden!)...

One of the firefighters told the Big Kahuna that it would be a good idea to cut down all the pine trees and palm trees on our property because they provide so much fuel for fires.  The Big Kahuna is taking this to heart, but I am not so thrilled about the suggestion or the Big Kahuna's desire to follow through with it.  I enjoy the privacy they all provide and I love the pinecones.  The Big Kahuna keeps reminding me that pines are a haven for rattlers and they are easily uprooted by hurricanes.  The palms are native and this is Florida after all ... I can't imagine not having palms!  I'm holding my ground on this one with the Big Kahuna.  We'll see what happens.  I did a quick count a few days ago to see just how many trees we're talking about.  Thirty-one pines and fifty-one palms...

Mama Cat

It's been a while since I've posted anything here.  I've been too preoccupied with the wildfires.  Pop over to my personal blog to read about that.

The 35mph winds Sunday and Monday did not do my corn any favors.  Several stalks are leaning and despite our efforts to rectify the situation, they continue to lean.  I may try to stake them this weekend ... I may not.  I will admit I am feeling rather defeated in my gardening efforts and along with being tired from the events of this week (wildfires) I just don't have my heart in it right now.  All the green beans are gone.  Our temps jumped from the 80's to 95* and they all died.  The pickleworms destroyed all the cucumber plants.  I am down to 2 zucchini plants from 5 ... whether the remaining 2 make it is yet to be seen.  I am down to 1 squash plant from 4 ... whether it holds on is yet to be seen.  They look okay from a distance, but I need to make time and give them a thorough inspection.  They may still be infested with pickleworms.  I have let things slide so badly this week.  Keeping abreast of the wildfire situation was more important.

The okra is still doing okay.  We enjoyed our first batch of fried okra a couple of nights ago.  I could eat it until I'm literally sick!

We still have not had rain and now there is not even dew on the ground in the mornings.  I am strongly feeling my attempts at watering the garden on my own are a failing effort.  We did have our first sunflower open up yesterday so that was a beautiful thing to see.

I have also noticed that my singapore plumeria seems to be thriving since I gave it a dose of fish emulsion the other week when I put it on the garden plants.  I really need to repot it soon.

Mama Cat

I'm thoroughly disgusted and discouraged.  Our squash, zucchini, and now cucumbers have been invaded.  The culprit ... pickleworms.  At first, I thought the squash and zucchini were suffering from blossom end rot.  It made sense to me.  After all, we've been without rain since the beginning of April and I'm out there every day with the spray hose trying my best to water everything well.  I came to the conclusion that I wasn't getting everything watered deeply enough and the soil was drying out.  Then I discovered some pesky little critters devouring the squash and zucchini flowers and fruits.  I'm literally running on burnout right now (so many things on my plate and not enough sleep) so I hurriedly tried to diagnose the problem and ended up not reading thoroughly enough which resulted in a misdiagnosis.  Now that I know the real culprit, what I've read doesn't leave me much hope.  Apparently they are notorious in Florida and impossible to get rid of.  The Big Kahuna is going to be heartbroken that the 4 cucumbers that were growing so well are a loss.  An organic gardening book I have suggests using Rotenone - after reading the info at that link, I don't think so!  I'm shocked the book would even suggest that.  I've been trying to combat the problem by spraying everything down with a mixture of water and Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap.  I have a sinking feeling it's a losing battle though.  I had to yank one dead zucchini plant this morning.  At what point do I give up, accept that I'm going to have to buy these things at the store (*$igh*), and direct my energies elsewhere?

The natural foods market closing has me pretty stressed out.  I have been told that they are going to start discounting items soon, but I've also been told that a lot of other customers want to know what day this starts and what time the store opens that day.  Apparently they all intend to be there when the doors open (and here I was foolishly hoping I was the only one that had that bright idea!).  I'm trying to get a game plan together, but I may as well count on that all going out the window since I have no idea what kind of mob (or not) I'm going to be dealing with.  I'll also have Tiger Cub and Lion Cub in tow ... there goes all focus and reasonable thinking on my part!  (Seriously, I love my boys, but I am very easily distracted so shopping with them, especially in this scenario, is not likely to turn out well.)

Our school year is over and I am looking forward to a break.  The lazy days of summer (okay, it's still technically spring but it's going to be 93*+ here today so it may as well already be summer) have arrived. 

And I had to smile when I was presented with this last night.......

Mama Cat

Remember the rain I was excited about last Monday?  It never came.  We finally got a bit of a sprinkle on Saturday, but nothing that made much of a difference. 

The bees, butterflies, and other insects that a garden really needs to prosper and thrive continue to be virtually nonexistent.  Thank goodness for plants that self-pollinate and for decent success with everything I've been attempting to hand pollinate.

I really must look into some sort of sprinkler watering system for the garden.  Without significant rain for over a month now, I have to admit that I have become quite tired of standing and watering everything.  I kep reminding myself that it's essential or putting in the garden was a waste.

I've learned quickly what I need to plant more of ... green beans is one.  The plants certainly don't seem to care for the overhead watering though.  It could be a combination of that and the poor quality of our well water (high in iron and sulphur).

We seem to finally be having some success (although very little) with cucumbers.  Three are finally growing well.  I'm not sure if they are ones that I attempted to hand pollinate or not.  The Big Kahuna is anxious for them to do well as organic cumcumbers jumped from $2.39 each to $2.69 each at the store.

Okra is starting to make an appearance in the garden.  I am contemplating sowing more seeds soon.  It's the one thing I've been told will grow here during the summer.

We learned this weekend that we need a successful garden more than ever.  The natural foods market where we do the majority of our shopping is closing at the end of May.  This leaves us with the lesser variety/selection that the remaining options (Target/Super Target, Publix, an independent natural foods market, and WalMart ... I loathe the thought of even having to shop at WalMart because the stores here are awful plus I'm not so thrilled with the company as a whole either).

The Big Kahuna and I finally got started on a new garden bed yesterday.  It's far from finished, but we'll hopefully complete it this coming weekend.  As I said before, I'm thinking about sowing more okra seeds so the new bed would be put right to use rather than be left to cook down over the summer.

The little sunflower patch I put in for Tiger Cub and Lion Cub is doing well ... considering.  One fell victim to Lion Cub wanting to smell it.  Poor thing thought he could put it back after he pulled it out.  Supposedly another was beheaded by a swipe of the cat's paw.  I wasn't there to witness the event, but that's the story I'm being told.  Hmmmmmmmmmm.  Two more seeds were sowed in their places and Lion Cub finally stopped crying.

I also got my first experience with fish emulsion yesterday.  It was ... interesting.  The smell leaves a lot to be desired, but it's supposed to be great for the plants.

Mama Cat

I'm putting my faith and trust in the weather forecast.  We are supposed to have rain (thunderstorms) this afternoon, evening, and possibly into the wee hours of tomorrow morning.  In other words, I didn't go out and water the garden this morning (no drip irrigation system for us at this time).  I truly hope we get the forecasted rain and that it's a good one.  We've been without rain since April 2.

This will be getting picked right after lunch today...

It's our first zucchini of the season!  I took this picture last Friday (I think!) so it's gotten quite a bit larger since then and is ready to be picked.  Tiger Cub has decided it's going to be used for zucchini bread, but I have a feeling the Big Kahuna will override that decision and insist that we have fried zucchini for dinner tomorrow evening instead.

Mama Cat

Wow, there's so much I want to say today.  Hopefully Tiger Cub and Lion Cub will grant me peace enough for a while to express myself in a reasonable manner!

First of all.......

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Tiger Cub is still on the mend and suffering from sinus headaches today, so it's been a school-free day.  I've taken the opportunity to go through the house gathering up items for the recycling bins, donation, and the trash.  I was doing well with this before I got sick last week so I'm happy to have the energy to start again. 

Guess what's for dinner tonight...

Yep, straight from the garden!  Tiger Cub is quite picky and will normally not consider eating squash under any circumstance.  After I brought these beauties in he remarked that he was actually looking forward to giving them a taste test tonight.  Unfortunately on my green bean picking mission, I had another snake encounter.  This is what, #5 now?  What in the world is going on around my house this year?  I am not liking this at all.  I had let the dog out with me and was distracted by him nosing around where he shouldn't be.  Thankfully I looked in front of me just in time.  I screamed, ran, screamed some more and the snake made a fast getaway into our wooded area.  I screamed so much in fact that it brought on a coughing fit and I lost my voice again for awhile. 

Anyway, more news from the garden....... guess what this is.......

Corn!  I don't hold high hopes for this particular planting.  They are all midget stalks in comparison with the second (later) planting.  They are just midgets, period.  This was still an exciting sight to see this morning considering I've never had corn get this far along before (tried it just once before).

The Big Kahuna is anxiously watching the cucumbers...

and I'm anxiously watching all the okra plants...

I know the Big Kahuna had big plans for this tomato (as in fried green tomatoes), but it started turning red long before we thought it was finished growing.  It's very much a miniature tomato...

A couple of shots of the garden as of this morning...

The little sunflower patch I made for Tiger Cub and Lion Cub seems to be doing well.  It's full of critter tracks every morning, mostly from our own dog and cat.  *sigh*

Now I have two children bickering over a cardboard box so all hope of reasonable thinking has gone straight out the window.  In other words, that's all for now folks!

Mama Cat

I've returned to the land of the living and now Tiger Cub and Lion Cub are sick.  *sigh*  I had hoped they would avoid catching my germs, but I suppose I knew deep down that it was bound to happen.  We had plans to attend an Earth Day celebration on Saturday (a wildlife hopspital was one of the scheduled attractions), but we sadly missed out.  Tiger Cub was so disappointed.

I was able to tolerate the heat enough to work in the garden for a bit yesterday.  It felt incredible to be outdoors!  The Big Kahuna and I discussed my plans to expand the garden.  Hopefully we'll get the supplies we need this week and do the work this coming weekend.  We'll do it lasagna style again and let it cook down over the summer so it'll be ready for planting in mid-August.  Hopefully, and prayerfully, no hurricanes or tropical storms will ruin, damage, or destroy our efforts.  I also determined that my three potted plants ... corn plant, glauca ti, and draceana ... all need larger pots.  I didn't spring that one on the Big Kahuna yet.  I'd love to purchase new pots for all, but there's so much else that needs to be done around here (remember, we're about to enter year 5 on our total house remodel) that they are not a priority.  I need to do some research and see how well they would do planted right in the ground.  I remember the nursery they came from cautioned us not to do that, but I've also learned over the years that you can't believe everything you're told at nurseries. 

Glauca ti...

Mama Cat

As Tiger Cub said in his last entry, I've been sick this week.  I'm still sick, but hopefully on the tail end of whatever this is that's had me down.  I've been telling the Big Kahuna for weeks now that we both needed to get a neti pot, and now I"m more convinced than ever.

I am so thankful that Tiger Cub can do a large majority of his school work independently.  That was especially helpful when I lost my voice earlier this week.  It's also amazing what one can find on television when camped out on the sofa.  We don't have the Sundance Channel on our cable, but we do have the ability to watch a bit of programming from there on one of our free On Demand channels.  I entertained myself with a few and learned more about green concert tours, water catchment systems, cleaning up some of America's rivers, desalination of sea water, cork furniture and furnishings, and a variety of other things. 

The ducks have been here a few more times, much to our delight.  I accidentally scared them off yesterday when outside tending to garden duties, but was pleased to see them fly back over with an additional friend.  Hopefully they'll keep coming around.

A few squash, green beans, and cucumbers have been sighted in the garden...

And I finally discovered what this lovely bluish-purple flower is that grows among our grass ... eastern blue-eyed grass.  I love when Tiger Cub picks a bunch of these for me.

Mama Cat

This past weekend brought excitement our way Saturday around lunchtime.  The Big Kahuna went out to feed some bread to the fish in our pond and happened upon a couple of gorgeous visitors.......

Please excuse our ramshackle dock.  Goodness only knows just how old it truly is and it's now definitely in need of an overhaul - other things have taken priority over this though.  It's been probably close to three years since we've had any ducks show up in the pond so we were all thrilled to see this pair.  They were very skittish so I wasn't able to get very close to take pics (thank goodness for zoom lens!).  I've been trying to identify what kind of ducks they are and am down to two possibilities - mottled ducks or mallard ducks.  I've enlarged the pics, but they are too blurry for me to make a positive identification.  According to this book in our home library, it is most likely that they are mottled ducks.  We left Saturday to go to town for errands and they were gone when we returned, but they are back this morning and sitting on the dock.  We certainly wouldn't mind if they decided to take up permanent residence here, but we feel that's pretty unlikely.

I also think I have the Big Kahuna convinced to do a second garden bed.  I've presented my case and I am pretty sure he's cool with it.  The garden seems to be coming along well, but I am still concerned that there aren't enough bees or insects around for pollination so I have continued on with attempting to hand pollinate the few squash and cucumbers that are beginning.  And remember the unwelcome slithery visitors I blogged about a few entries down?  I've had two more encounters since.  Most likely they have been this (I'm not liking what I'm reading here about the aggressiveness or the bite) or this - either way I'm not happy about it.  Four encounters in 11 days is way too many for my liking.  The latest encounter was yesterday while I was mowing and based on the behavior I'd say it was the first possibility I mentioned.  Thank goodness for riding mowers with cruise control.  With that handy little feature it's possible to mow the yard with your feet up in the seat with you!  Hey, the further away from the ground I was after that, the better.  I was so shaken that I wasn't paying attention though and managed to cut off the top of one of the sunflower seedlings in the patch I made for Tiger Cub and Lion Cub.  I think Tiger Cub has forgiven me and I planted another seed this morning. 

Saturday also meant a trip to the library.  I have a love/hate relationship with our library system.  I love it because we have many branches all across our county with an enormous selection of materials.  I hate it because they changed the hold policy a year or so ago.  They used to hold items placed on reserve for five days once they arrived at the location you specified.  Now it is only three days.  I have to place holds on Tuesday morning for Saturday pickup because some items will arrive at the library the very next day (which means Saturday is the final day for pickup before they are sent back).  Some items don't immediately get pulled from the shelves though and don't show up until a week or so later.  I value my time and gas is expensive so I can't run back and forth constantly to the library.  I have finally accepted (though grudgingly) that I take whatever is there by Saturday and the rest I just do without.  Checkout is for three weeks so our trips are spread out like that.  Anyway, one of the books I got is It's a Long Road to a Tomato: Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City for the (Not So) Simple Life by Keith Stewart.  I love to read, but don't often find (or make) the time.  I've jumped right into this though and am pleasantly about halfway through at this point.

And to wrap up on a silly note, here's our goofy boy leaping in the air to catch a treat Tiger Cub had tossed while we were out working in the yard yesterday.......

Mama Cat

First, I want to say thanks to those who left comments for Tiger Cub - he was thrilled!

I'm still slowly working away at trimming our woods.  One of our chainsaws tore up a couple of nights ago and the Big Kahuna is having to take a bit of a break from helping me because he's broken out in a slight rash on his arms and legs.  A good deal of our wooded area is comprised of Brazlian pepper trees and the Big Kahuna is one of the unfortunate people that develops a rash with too much contact.  We thought he had stayed clear of them enough when using the chainsaw the other night, but apparently not.  I'm doing what I can - goodness knows there's plenty to cut and we'll probably still be working on this endeavor months from now - but in a lot of places I really need big stuff cut with the chainsaw. 

This is an example of what the overgrown 'jungle' looks like...

And here is a small area that we have mostly cleared...

It may not look like much of a difference, but trust me - it is!  Almost all the wooded area you see in the 'after' photo above is on an adjoining property (a few things are ours and still need to meet the chainsaw).  In this particular area, we cut over to our property line which is just about 6 feet past our outer fence (we also have barbed wire fencing that runs down the property line in the woods).  In some areas of this particular line of fencing our property line falls just over a foot beyond our outer fence and it works its way up to about 30 feet in some spots.  (No, I don't know why the original owners laid all this out in such an odd way.)  We won't cut all the way over to the property line on all of it.  It'll be a pick and choose process as we go along, largely based on trying to maintain the privacy the wooded area offers us (I have caught neighbors on both sides standing and spying on us a couple of times over the almost 4 years we've lived here).

I was also overjoyed yesterday to find a blossom on our valencia orange tree!  It hasn't had any blooms in about 3 1/2 years.  We have assumed it was badly damaged by the 2 hurricanes in 2004 since the tree was badly flooded both times (I'm sure the salt water from the lagoon and ocean did not help matters).  The flooding killed our myers lemon tree, but this orange tree has been attempting to cling to life ever since.  It has a good bit of new foliage and now this lovely new blossom.  It may still never fully recover, but at least it is showing signs of vibrance again.

And here is the latest photo of our garden (from yesterday)...

We moved the containers over the weekend to mow and I have been too lazy to move them back to right in front of the garden patch.  Everything in the garden seems to be coming along okay.  I am concerned that we don't have enough bees and other insects around to pollinate things right now so I tried to hand pollinate some yellow squash and cucumber this morning.  That's a first for me so we'll see what happens.  (Side note: we do have an insanely crazy bumblebee that hangs out on the side of our house from about 9am until sometime in the late afternoon each day.  It has claimed the territory and is not afraid to chase and dive bomb us.  I always forget it's there and have had way too many close encounters this week when going out to toss things in the compost tumbler throughout the day.)   Our container tomatoes aren't doing well.  Most of the flowers died without producing any fruits and others that did have small fruits growing died as well.  I've been trying to research what the problem could be, but all I've found thusfar is this usually happens when the temps stay between 90* and 100*.  We've been in the 80's, which is typical, so I am really stumped.  I've never done tomatoes in containers before so maybe that factors in.  I do have some going in the garden patch as well so maybe they will fare well for us as they did 3 years ago.  If not, it's not a huge loss, but a disappointment nonetheless.  None of us enjoy raw tomatoes, but I did have high hopes for juice and sauce (and the Big Kahuna likes the occasional fried green tomato).

I have been trying to convince the Big Kahuna that we need a second garden patch by this fall.  He doesn't agree.  He is leary to sink money into getting one ready with the start of hurricane season rapidly approaching June 1 (it goes through Nov. 30).  I think he also doesn't want to go to the effort (or the expense) since we don't want this to be our forever home.  He still thinks things will turn around in a few years and we'll be able to relocate to our acreage in Georgia.  I am tired of waiting for 'someday'.  Maybe I can convince him yet.  I am even more fired up about it after watching this...

Mama Cat