1 Trip Three Blog Posts

Anybody know what kind of bird this is? It doesn't look like a cardinal.

Today was a very interesting day. We have a library patron who is a Texas Historian. He entertained us with a very interesting story about a cowgirl stunt woman and the Nation Cowgirl Hall of Fame. I will get to that tomorrow. After we closed the library we took a trip to Canton Texas and stopped at a natural spring, a pea farm, a nice vegetable stand and an awesome blackberry farm. I will get to those on Monday.

Because of the things I was able to buy on our trip we were able to have lady cream peas, fried okra and hot water cornbread for dinner. Lady cream peas are awesome. I don't think I will grow black eyed or purple hulls again until I have a bigger garden. For this garden it will be lady creams from here on out.

Have any good veggies for dinner lately?

The Urge to Kill Has Returned.

Do your plants need a bath? Are you sure? We have had a major invasion of spider mites and squash bugs. I don't like to use anything that could poison us or harm fish and such. Very few insecticides are used here at all. The exception is soap. Soap will smother insects. In order for insecticidal soaps to work, you must get them on the bug. To avoid killing your good bugs, you must keep the soap off those bugs. I make my own soap mixture. It is pink and smells like roses.

Ingredients

Zote soap (laundry isle of grocery story)

Water.

Mix 2 to 3 tablespoons of chopped or shredded soap in 3 cups of water and nuke for one minute. Stir the mixture with a whisk and let cool. Poor through a fine strainer into a spray bottle.

Spray the mixture onto infested plants getting it on the bug. Do this in the evening in order to avoid burning your plants. After about five minutes rinse off the plants, again, to avoid burning the leaves. Squash bugs will die in less than a minute. It is fun to watch them fall over dead. As I cannot actually see a spider mite, killing them is not quite as much fun. A couple of days after treating a tomato plant for spider mites, it looks much better, so spider mites are obviously controlled.

Zote soap is really cheap at less than a dollar a bar. It last forever and really helps get stains out of clothes. Trust me, the monkeys can make some stains.

Got any organic bug control tips?

Where I Ask the Internet to Help My Sister

This is a brief message from one of my sisters. This is butterfly gardening sister(BGS) and she has a fennel problem.

BGS asks "Hey, I have a question for you and all your gardening buddies. My bronze fennel is croaking. Why? It's wilting and dying within a day, one after another. They aren't trying to go to seed or anything. In the past they have been fine with being wet or dry and never wilted. Is there something in my soil?"

Aunt Debbi here, I know that regular fennel sets seed and dies back in hot weather. I've not grown bronze fennel, but thought it was a perennial in zone 8a. Any ideas what could be going on?

Hey, I think I can just nickname my sister BUGS. Now that's fun. Bet she thinks twice about visiting this blog again, teeheee.

The hardy hibiscus have begun to bloom. This first picture is of Texas Star. Earlier this year, I discovered that these plants can grow in wet or dry conditions. In my yard they only get rain water. At the Outdoor Education Center in Kaufman, they are planted in the bog and are wet all of the time. Both sets of plants are doing just fine, but mine bloomed earlier. In defense of the Education Center plants, they were just planted last fall.


This is Moy Grande. I wish there was a kid handy to show you the size of that flower. When they say as big as a dinner plate, they are not kidding.

Finally, these are my volunteer zinnias. They come up on their own every year. I do save seeds from the yellow blooms because they don't seem to reseed as well as the others. The rest just get tossed in the compost pile and come up where ever they want.

Another Great Cook Joins In

Silence Dogood over at Poor Richards Almanac responded to my little interview, answering my questions and giving us a lovely summer recipe. Go on over and check it out.

There is still time to join in. Here are the questions one last time.

At what age did you begin cooking?
Who taught you?
What type of food is your favorite?
Where to you get your best ingredients?
Do you know any cooking tricks?
Will you share a recipe?

Now I have to figure out what I want to ask Our Friend Ben. Do you think we should finally get to the bottom of his sock aversion?

An Interview or Two

Remember the manicotti. Remember the questions at the bottom of that post. Well, the lovely Linda of Meadowview Thymes responded with a post for us. She has answered the questions and shared some recipes that sound really good. Go on over and check it out.

Just after I hit the publish post on this, I discovered that Miss Nola of Alamo North also responded to my interview questions with her own post. Thanks Nola.

Now here is what we had for lunch

French bread topped with butter, garlic, chopped heirloom tomatoes (Avivvvi again) and mozzarella cheese toasted.

This was Teenage Monkey approved.

If you like to cook and would like to play along with my interview game, here are the questions.

At what age did you begin cooking?
Who taught you?
What type of food is your favorite?
Where to you get your best ingredients?
Do you know any cooking tricks?
Will you share a recipe?

Got to go now, Teenage Monkey is begging for more french bread lunch toast.

Pain in the Neck

I have kept this pretty much to myself, on the Internet anyway. Those of you who twitter might know that I went to seen an acupuncturist yesterday.

I have had severe neck pain for the past five or six weeks. There was no accident. It just started out as uncomfortable, like I had slept wrong. Over time, it progressively became worse. It finally got so bad that I couldn't sleep, do laundry, or garden. For several days the monkeys had to water the garden for me.

I didn't not go to our M.D. because all they want to do is throw narcotics at it. I hate taking those types of medications. They don't really do me any good and seriously make me feel stupid.

My coworkers at the library suggested their acupuncture lady. They raved about their results of this treatment for hip pain, neck pain, even big toe issues. When we returned from vacation I made an appointment. This is the same group of ladies that fixed my eye twitch with aroma therapy and a head rub. I sort of trust them.

Little Jan, the acupuncture lady was a joy. She was sweet and gentle and really took her time finding out what was going on with my neck and shoulder. She thinks it has something to do with a fall I took about three years ago. Gardening, library lady duties and monkey wrangling probably exacerbated this old injury.

The treatment took about 90 minutes and about a million needles. She even hooked me up to an electric stimulation thingy. I did feel better immediately after the treatment, but the difference today is spectacular. I slept last night. I woke up feeling good and was able to get some housework, including laundry done. I can move my neck. It still has a sore spot, so I don't claim that this was a miracle or anything, but it certainly helped and I am not drugged.

She left four acupuncture staples in my neck and says that I should continue to improve over time. As for accupuncture, I approve it.