Here are some of my Gazanias. I like them a lot. My mom is a zinnia girl, I may be a gazania girl. It's too early in my life to be sure but...


I'm listening to Straight No Chaser. www.sncmusic.com They are an a capella group. This is the kind of music I like. Tight harmonies. It gives me goosebumps and makes me want to dance. :-)

Last night I finally got my corn, beans, squash, and okra in the ground. Plus some flowers. 130 plants total. On top of that Tuvok and I took a very long walk. I was so tired this morning that I turned off my alarm in my sleep and was late to work. We had to work today to do this book that the boss forgot about or something. I was a little irked because I'm protective of my weekend but then I remembered time and a half and I was more than happy to come in!

When I got home I took a nap and then made 3 batches of muffins. Banana, poppyseed, and blueberry.



Next Saturday at this time I'll be in Minnesota somewhere. Yay!! I look forward to Canada every year. This year I'm not aching for it though. I think it's because I'm so happy with myself and my life now. I don't need to escape like I noramlly do. Don't get me wrong, I am super excited! But it isn't the same. I've been looking for things to do if it rains all week. It rains all week about 25% of the years. I can only read and crochet and sleep so much before I need to do something else. I got a 1000 piece puzzle and I'll take my colored pencils and some coloring pages that I can print off the interweb. Did you know they make coloring pages for grownups? I don't even mean "adult" stuff. Just more complicated pictures to color.

Here are pictures from when I went to the Myriad Botanical Gardens.

Catching up on pictures

First I'll show my irises. These were here when we bought the house. I need to move them but I'm not sure where yet. I know the white ones are going in the front but the yellow and purple will probably stay in the back or possibly on the south side of the house.





This is a multi-tomato bloom. It should make a humongous bulgy ugly tomato! It is on my Cherokee Purple plant.


Here's a Gazania

This is my volunteer wild grape vine. It popped up on the fence last year and I was wondering if it was a male or female. I got my answer this year! There are lots of clusters. I'll probably have to fight the birds when the fruit start ripening.

Storms

Well, we sure made up for the quiet storm season so far! Everything went south and east of us fortunately. We got up to quarter sized hail for a few minutes. I covered the tomato plants that had baby tomatoes on them but none of my plants suffered damage. Better safe than sorry I suppose.

My cousin is the cameraman for the Bob Moore Chopper 4 and he got some amazing footage today. I'm so proud of him!!

I spent a long time at the mall yesterday. I don't like shopping all that much. Every 3 months or so I get the urge to go to the mall. About 2 hours later I'm done. I needed a MIL gift and Froggi needed clothes. New York and Company was having an awesome sale and I tried on a few things I liked but I managed to get out of there for only a pair of sunglasses. These ones stay on my head better.

Then we went and hung out with friends in Norman. Elizabeth and I took her daughter to the park. Lydia is very verbal. She isn't even 2 yet but she says things like, "That lady is helping the girl go down the big yellow slide." She is a really fun kid to be around. I don't necessarily want to bring her home and keep her but the few hours I spend with her when I visit are always fun. I gave her a wildflower that I picked and she thought that was the greatest thing ever. She asked me what kind it was and I told her. She said, "Clover?" and I said, "No, Morning Glory". She pondered that for quite a while. I'm sure a few days from now the morning glory will come up in conversation. She's so smart. Last time I was there we read a book about Noah's Ark. I was pointing out all the different animals (and there were tons) and she would ask about an animal from several pages ago. These weren't things like bear and cat. They were oryx and anteaters and lorikeets and spider monkeys.

Today after the obligatory celebration at the in-laws, I went to TLC Garden Center. I had never been there before. OMG!!! It is HUGE!!! And expensive. But they cater to the rich folk. But! I managed to get out of there for $22 and I bought 5 things! I had to pass up a lot of stuff I wanted but I got great deals on the stuff I bought.

This is Hippastream Wedding Dance It has a second scape coming, the bulb is huge and trying to divide, and it has a baby off to the side. I got it for $10 just because most of the flowers were done blooming!

This is a bromeliad. It has a name but I can't recall it right now. It recently finished blooming and is working on reproducing. It'll either give me 2 or 3 plants and I got it for $5

Here is a pothos. I normally hate pothos but this one is white and green so it's okay. $4 on this one.


I also got 2 little pots of H. Krimson Queen for $2 each. Each pot has 2 rooted cuttings. They are very healthy. If the KQ that I'm trying to save for the in-laws doesn't make it I have a replacement. DH was trying to understand what the sick KQ's problem was so finally I told him it was in a coma. It isn't doing anything but it might wake up or it might die. We just don't know yet. I have to wait for it to do something. Today it gave me a yellow leaf. That's a bad sign. So I took one of the cuttings and put it in the new rooting nursery I set up. It quickly and successfully rooted 3 cuttings that I recently got, so maybe it will be the right environment to root a KQ in a coma.

I spent all afternoon puttering around and messing with plants. I repotted things and took cuttings of things and divided things. There is soil all over the place!! Ha. I brought in everything from outside except a couple of plants because we're expecting severe weather tonight and tomorrow. It's about time!! Our tornado season has been unusually quiet. DH and I both love weather and we love the storms and the tornadoes. And yes, we know we're nuts. One of our favorite memories is huddling in the closet with Dave and Froggi and eating potato soup and listening to Gary England track the tornado that was going just south of the house. We started out eating the potato soup while standing on the front lawn but then we got baseball sized hail and we saw the funnel like 4 blocks away. We're crazy but not stupid, so we all ran inside real quick!

Now I want potato soup.

My obovata is in bloom right now. It is really pretty and it smells nice. Not super wonderful, but nice. So far H. carnosa has the best fragrance but H. lacunosa is supposed to be pretty special. Mine keeps putting out peduncles and then I forget to water or repot it or something which makes the peduncles drop. One of these days I'll get it right and I'll have flowers!



Ok, it's after 10 and tomorrow is Monday. Ugh. I have a lot of picture posting to catch up on too. Maybe I can get that done this week.

I got all my garden beds mulched. It has really helped with the weeding. Lots of my tomatoes have blooms and a few have little baby tomatoes on them!! We've been getting a strawberry or two for the last couple of days. Since I mulched, I decided to start the corn and beans in pots like the squash. The squash needs to go in the beds this weekend but the corn and beans haven't germinated yet.

I've been working on my list of plants to repot. Only 9 more to go!

This weekend looks pretty calm compared to the rest of life lately. Maybe I'll have time to write a real blog post!!