For bicoastal parity, more harbingers of spring from dedicated garden correspondent Marvel:
All’s well over here on the Pacific Northwestern front. We’ve had fairly warm (for us) weather these last few weeks (low-40s/high 50s) with typical intervals of rain. The few fair and bright days we have are a welcome punctuation to our moist mid-Winter calendar.
Today’s one of the shiny ones and the crocus are positively croaking — if they could muster a sound for the joy they bring to our sunny mornngs, it’d be a glorious chorus indeed!
***********
Here north of Boston, looks like (cross fingers) we’re going into the pre-Spring Ugly Season, when there’s no snow cover to hide last year’s battered leavings. Not that I can do much about it, since my asphalt ‘tomato patch’ is currently housing a 12ft industrial dumpster, into which fifty years’ worth of ill-thought-out basement remodeling projects are being tossed. I’m just glad that my only task is to stay the hell out of the way… although it’ll be nice if the salvage can be moved out of the flower beds back into the garage before the irises attempt to bloom…
What’s going on in your garden(s) planning, this week?
Mobil RoonieRoo
Starting to put in tomatoes in central Texas. I put my in a couple of weeks early as I’ve never had a freeze I couldn’t protect them from. This summer is going to be brutal if the “winter” we didn’t have is any indication.
JPL
Weeds, weeds everywhere. It’s suppose to be in the mid sixties, so it’s a good day to work outside. The daffodils are in full bloom and the Cherry trees are blooming. Someone forgot to tell mother nature that it’s still February.
Marvel’s pictures always brighten my day.
Elizabelle
Love crocuses. Their season is so short, and their appearance appreciated. Most wouldn’t call them a “favorite flower”, but they are hardworking little harbingers.
Good morning all.
greennotGreen
One of the great things about gardening is the way it can shorten winter (which, since I don’t ski, I think should be shortened.) Nothing like dozens or hundreds of crocus popping up through the grass or snow to remind you that spring is just around the corner.
OzarkHillbilly
I lurves me some crocuses. Thank you Marvel : D Mine continue to pop up one or two at a time, now that last weeks drive by snows have melted again. Unfortunately my chickens seem to find them a tasty little delicacy so if I don’t see them in the morning, I’m not likely to see them at all. Oh well, the bad with the good and all that.
I started my tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, eggplants, cabbages, Brussels sprouts, Broccoli, and probably something else 2 weeks ago. Had about a 40% germination failure rate with the tomatoes. Not sure why, I usually have a app 95% success with the tomatoes. My peppers and eggplants are my usual problem children but this year I am close to 100% germination. If at first I don’t succeed…
Also going to start all my herbs which have always been troublesome for me. Going to pay extra close attention to all that I do and write it all down so that when I have a failure, I can tweak it on a 2nd attempt.
Gindy51
Cutting new walking trails a full two months before we usually get to do it. Wild. No gardening per se, jut spring clean up and being outside in the warm, very breezy fresh air. Opening the whole house up to air it out for the third time this winter, a record since we might get one day to do this if we are lucky.
SiubhanDuinne
I love the top crocus. Flowers that go extravagantly stripey like that always make me laugh — they are so over the top :-)
And Marvel’s written description is as warming as his/her photographs. Thanks for the lovely start to the day.
Me? Driving back to Atlanta, which will effectively consume the day.
Butch
I live about a 3-hour drive north (or “nort,” if you’re from around here) of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and we are already seeing killdeer, which is about 3 months early. I don’t know what’s going on and hope they survive.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
We are still a little way away from crocus here on the frozen tundra – I THINK! It has been unseasonably warm, set a new high temp record on Friday & the snow is gone. I am packing as I have to spend the week in DC on some interesting project the new management dreamed up; I am so not looking forward to it.
I have not looked at old threads, has anyone posted this gem here yet? It is video of tRump telling Krusty to get on the plane & go home, “Its over”. You get the sense tRump acts exactly like that with the hookers he hires, “Yer money is on the dresser honey, take it & get out!”
zzyzx
I’m in Boston now on a business trip but the crocuses have had their day and Seattle is becoming about cherry blossoms and daffodils! My favorite time of year!
SFAW
Only peripherally related to gardening, in that a once-great newspaper has become more valuable to use as compost, than as a source of useful news:
In my e-mail this AM, I had the latest “Headlines from Today’s Boston Glob.” As it turns out, the polls in SC must have closed well after 10 PM last night, because there was not a single fucking word on the Dem primary.
Nice to know that John Henry has turned it into a piece of shit. Makes me want to hate the Sox. (I didn’t before, even if I’ve been a Mets fan for 60 years.)
In completely unrelated stuff: CRASH-Bs today.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Cleaning the basement and repositioning some outdoor deadfall prior to a hike – no gardening save for the eventual filling of window boxes and a tiny bit of planting in two beds.
We’re having a realtor come out in a couple of weeks to assess the “absolute musts” vs “suck it up and let the price go down a bit” ahead of a planned listing in May. The goal is to get a contract before we begin looking, and to move inside the borders of the People’s Democratic Soc!alist Kenyan Shariah Republic of Louisville by mid-summer. I hate the commute, I hate the local politics, I hate being on septic, and frankly hate the high maintenance aspects of this house, which is two large and too expensive to run. I could easily dump 50K in it tomorrow in upgrades and get maybe 10 of it back. I want out…
I’d do it earlier, but we’re headed to NOLA and Mexico in April and Tuscany in May.
Elizabelle
Hearing that Texas Bluebonnets appear March to May. This might be the year to see them.
Texans: what’s the on the ground report re Bluebonnets.
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Such is the life. You’re right about not overimproving the house.
And NOLA and Mexico sound great. Where in Mexico?
Raven
The boss is in charge of buying and distributing bulbs for the garden club and the fruits of her labor are showing up all over town. I started a brick walkway yesterday and, in the first 4 feet, hit a huge root. This pathway is right where they dug a 10 ft deep sewer line ditch so I have no idea HOW they missed it! I dug, got a log chain under it, hooked it to a tree with my come-along and nothing. Finally I dug around it enough to get a sawzall in the hole and cut it out. I. Dug the path out but had to got back in and go deeper so I have another huge load of dirt to wheelbarrow down the hill, through the new basement and into her patio project!
Raven
@Elizabelle: @Elizabelle: @Elizabelle: gulf coast highway
Raven
@Elizabelle: bluebonnets
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: tee hee hee…. Glad to see your fun is multiplying.
MomSense
Right now my yard is ice and mud ice. We have had so much rain that the grass seems to be more mud than grass right now. My neighbor added an ill conceived white stone border to her front walk. It is now in the road and on both of our lawns. Thanks snowplow guy.
Elmo
All my projects are on hold until the concrete cap over my driveway culvert is fixed. The creek is at the bottom of a steep hill, so I have to park on the other side of the creek and then hike up to the house. Even carrying groceries is a chore – the hill is about 250′ long and a 6 or 7% grade.
I can’t get anything delivered to the house or buy any big loads or get any rubbish hauled away or… But in the bright side, I am definitely getting in my steps!
Rosalita
This week in CT was stunned to see my daffodils surfacing! Would be very happy to see an early spring since last year’s didn’t seem to start until June. They are predicting 55 today so I intend to go out and tidy up the front patch a little, because I can.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Elizabelle:
Staying at the W in NOLA, then going on to finish the week in Puerto Morelos – there’s a nice little posada I stayed in there in October. The food in the town is top notch and inexpensive, there’s a great dive shop on the ocean with reefs about 10 minutes off by boat (and a great cenote dive guide that I’ve dived with about a dozen times now), and I made a bunch of friends there – both locals and some expat Canucks, Brits and Americans.
Elizabelle
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Have fun! Have never heard of Puerto Morales. Looking it up now.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Raven:
What was the root connected to anything, or is it a leftover.
OzarkHillbilly
Lindsey Vonn sets fastest time in super-G event a day after fracturing knee
I am such a pvssy.
Applejinx
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): That’s amazing. He’s going to be like that with the whole Republican establishment :D
Time to assume a Dem blowout as spiteful Rs throw the election away from Trump, and to go for broke redefining what LIBERAL means. This is the perfect opportunity.
debbie
I’ve sighted a couple clumps of snowdrops while walking around the neighborhood. My favorite part of the year is this first sign of spring. Crocuses shouldn’t be far behind.
satby
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: It could be worse, my house is on the market for $11k less than I bought it for, and I put in a new furnace and well, roofed a deck, and put in a dog run and catio. Back when I had a job that paid well.
But I also thought this was my last house. Plans change.
satby
@debbie: I was at my old house in Chicago yesterday and the snowdrops are about to bloom in the front. The daffodils I planted 25 years ago have naturalized all over, my daughter-in-law loves all the flowers when they bloom. I planted a variety daffodils: early, mid, and late season, so the bloom lasts for a while if the weather cooperates.
My daffodils here are just peeping up about two inches.
MattF
@SFAW: Similarly, dead-tree WaPo has a one-line squib on the bottom of the front page about Clinton’s win. It’s the NYT lead story, so I’m not just imagining things.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Applejinx:
A week or two ago some GOP hotshot commented that if Trump gets the nom the GOP loses the White House but if Cruz gets it he will ruin the GOP brand for a generation. I am hoping we can have both, a Trump dumpster fire failure of a run and animosity for the GOP from the who luvs them some Trump thereby wrecking the whole party.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@satby:
I feel your pain. Given prices on this street lately, we’ll be selling probably for 10-20K less than what we paid for it in 1999. That was a crazy high time, and this area just never lived up to the buying hype that year. There was some notion of expansion of sewers to this area, but then political control of the county passed to ideologue Republicans due to a large demographic lump of special snowflake, exceedingly well serviced teabagging bootstrappers (previous Democrats saw to good roads and service there). As a result, any government service, economy of scale and any tax is bad, so we’re stuck with septic systems. Mine is a packet plant with spray dispersal that runs me $1500 – $2000 a year, and is a huge, ugly pain in my ass – and really pushes down value.
MattF
@Applejinx: In that vein, George Will attacks Trump as being “to Hillary Clinton’s left.” I think… the man’s lost his bearings.
ETA: And no link. Ever.
planetjanet
I have a peace lily that I am very sentimental about. It has been drooping for several weeks, but not due to watering issues as it usually does. Nothing has changed about routine or exposure, no drafts. It sits on a staircase landing with a skylight. I repotted it with fresh dirt in the same pot three weeks ago and it perked up for a couple of weeks, but it is drooping badly again. I did not see any signs of fungus or bugs when I repotted and I used an indoor soil with Miracle Grow mixed it. Any suggestions on how to save my plant? Could this be a seasonal thing it might outlast?
Mobil RoonieRoo
@Elizabelle: We saw bluebonnets yesterday in Austin. This is way too early but everything is too early now. We had a very dry and warm winter so I don’t expect a great wildflower season. It will depend on how dry our spring is.
MattF
@planetjanet: Tried planting a cutting?
planetjanet
@MattF: I can try that.
satby
Off topic a bit, but Elizabelle wrote something really insightful about the kind of frustration that might drive a desperate person to a Trump yesterday, not sure which thread. I wrote this to Watergirl last night in an email:
“A lowes near me is looking for an asst. store manager, for which I am way overqualified. To apply, I had to submit an app, agree to credit and criminal background checks as well as a drug test, and take a 25 minute personality test. A job I could do in a coma, they’d be lucky to have me, and I probably won’t even get a call either because of my trashed credit or because my personality isn’t “right” in some bizarre way.
I have to go make all my FB posts private now, someone suggested that in this
red area my hippie leftist FB posts are what’s stopping me from being hired”
Lousy retail jobs are screening for poor credit and “personality traits” as well as drugs and criminal background, before they even do a single interview. If I was less educated and aware of the world outside my immediate circle, I might look around for the wrong people to blame too. The conquest by division is complete in this pathetic rural area.
Butch
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: We ended up selling for about $40,000 under the assessment (was a few years ago) but it was worth it in the long run. You’re making me sad, though; haven’t been under water in a year and all this year’s vacation money is going for an oblication (obligation+vacation) to celebrate a major anniversary for the in-laws.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Find anything of use in the wreckage?
debbie
@planetjanet:
You can divide peace lilies, like you can with irises. You take a knife to the rootball to divide, which was kind of scary, but it gave the plants more room to spread their roots.
Doug R
http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2016/02/3555-west-1st-avenue-kitsilano/
We didn’t buy when prices were last resonable around here back in 1997. Now it looks like we’ll never buy. Link is for local news story of 3000 sq ft house on standard lot nice neighborhood but no view.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@satby:
I was brought in as a consultant to save Target after they failed an OCC audit. Over 3 years I built a program from scratch and trained people how to implement it. They decided to hire that position as a permanent job and all my co-workers knew I was a shoe in because I had done a great job and had made a lot of friends. I failed the personality test. They hired a guy who lied on his resume claiming a Masters & PhD he got from a phony school that never existed. Targets Lexis/Nexis search pointed it out but he was hired anyway. They don’t have a clue how to hire, modern corporations rely on bullshit science because they have no common sense & do not trust people to do the best.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: the stuff that might be salvageable is toward the front, where the walls and roof are too unstable to risk going near. My stuff looks like a total loss, it was shoved into the back of the garage where the tree fell. Including a beautiful vintage oak table in toothpicks and a Victorian single stand alone closet salvaged from an office building downtown that was razed for a new building. I had a bunch of panes of the original float glass from my house too. All demolished.
JPL
@Doug R: wow.. Prices have been rising in the Atlanta area also but for that price, you could get a mansion.
geg6
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
I feel the same way about our house. Hate living in the quintessential ‘burb, hate having to drive everywhere, hate the utility bills, hate cleaning this giant place, hate how much maintenance 2 acres require. I want to sell this place, downsize in a big way (to half the current sq. ft.) and I want to live in a town (if not the city) where I can walk places.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Butch:
Taking a beating now will be worth it. I lose 10-12 hours a week just commuting to work and putting miles, gas and maintenance requirements on my car. Wife is about at 8. That doesn’t count what gets spent just going to recreational stuff, either. Add on the obligatory hotel/restaurant/music weekend downtown about once a month (no Uber or Lyft out here, and a cab trip is about $100 a direction), and you’re coming up with some big numbers.
I have figured out how to parlay Delta SkyMiles into 3-4 dive trips a year. I’ll do quarry dives and have a dry suit card, but cold water isn’t really my thing. I’m purely a warm water reefs, wrecks and cenote kind of guy. Have some bucket list things in mind – there’s the Bikini Atoll fleet that requires a fuckton of money to get there, and that glacial lake in Iceland between the continental plates. I did draw the line on a friend’s suggestion of doing the Andrea Doria – that sounds like the opposite of fun, as in “high likelihood of murky, cold death”.
caroln
I’m so glad to see that Sunday morning garden chat is back. It’s too early to do outside work in SE Michigan, but I ordered 6 rose bushes this week to replace the ones I dug out last fall. After 2 back to back hard winters, they never really recovered their full glory. So I am replacing some old favorites and trying some new ones.
Baud
Might be worthy of a post today (BBC)
I blame Obama.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@geg6:
Your complaints are exactly mine. I keep hoping for a tornado bullseye or all-consuming wildfire or lightning strike.
That way, I’d get a manageable inventory of all new stuff, no sorting or packing.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Sorry to hear that, I was hoping you might find something.
MattF
@Baud: But they’re muuusim and they’re colored. End of discussion.
Baud
@satby: That sucks. I’m sorry.
geg6
In good news, the daffodils are peeping out and, if the weather continues as is, will be in their full-bloom glory in a matter of days.
As for our house, prices are stable here, so we should have no trouble getting what we need to get for t. One of the better features of the Pittsburgh region, that stability in housing.
Baud
@MattF: So is Obama!
satby
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I hear you. I’ve watched stuff I successfully set up get unwound as soon as the suits decided to move the focus and the money elsewhere so often.
have gotten 3 jobs and attempted to run 3 businesses to stay afloat for the past two years. The two Etsy businesses bring in occasional money, the franchise failed when the parent corp did and the jobs have all been p/t. I have apparently great interviews and then radio silence on a next step. This is a brave new world that I am starting to feel like I’m never going to be gainfully employed in again. It IS frustrating.
geg6
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
That would be great but unlikely for us. The local fire department is right next door. We need a tornado or something.
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
I’ve suggested “Shadow Divers” before as a great and well written true story of Atlantic wreck diving in general and the discovery of a WW II German U-Boat off the coast of New Jersey in particular. In the book Kurson spends a considerable amount of time discussing diving on the Andrea Doria and it’s dangers. Your friend should read it. It might very well disabuse him of any further notions of such adventures.
ETA: or conversely it might just reinforce such desires.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Proof positive that carpet bombing works.
Elizabelle
@satby: I think you are going to be happier out of Michigan.
Sorry to hear so many belongings were destroyed. Very sad, but it makes you even lighter to traveling to sunnier and luckier climes.
Now: pack for Puerto Rico! You earned it, and some sunshine and time above the clouds is worth it.
Iowa Old Lady
It was 60 degrees here yesterday so we have snow piled only by the bushes at the back of the yard.
I’d love to downsize and live in a walkable place, but we hesitate because once Mr IOL retires, we should probably move near our son and DIL. When my parents aged, I found it hard to deal with things at a distance. I don’t want to put my son in that position.
satby
On a positive note, it is a glorious day today: sunny, breezy, getting warmer. I’m outside on my deck in the 50 degree day having coffee. Everyone have a great day!
satby
@Elizabelle: well the stuff was in the garage because it was too big for this smaller house anyway, so that’s true. Thanks for the good thoughts.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
I once worked for Target corp, in sales at a Marshall Field’s. Part of the process was a risible personality test to find out if you were a liar or a sociopath. It was child’s play to game the test.
But Target was a very good employer to me. My sister has worked for them for 7 years through being widowed and moving across the country.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@satby:
Yeah, the interview bullshit. I have had great interviews & then nothing. I have been run through a wringer with bad interviews. These fuckers just have no sense of what they are doing to job candidates. “Human Resources” is the perfect name – we are just a resources to be used up & discarded with no more thought than a coal patch of virgin forest. Strip the assets from the resource & move on.
satby
@Iowa Old Lady: My own mother has been telling me to move closer to my son’s and back to the city for a couple of years. I do think it’s her reaction to aging far away from her own children. She’s really not enthusiastic about me moving to be closer to her though, she likes her independence and she might think I’ll end up stuck in Florida too.
Glidwrith
@satby: Did I miss something down thread? Did a tree fall on your house?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Marshalls was under Daytons I thought, Daytons sold off Target 25-30 years ago. Daytons was a wonderful employer when the family ran it from what I heard. Target was a great employer also but they are more than a decade removed from that time & are now WalMart with a pleasant face.
satby
@Ultraviolet Thunder: While I was job coaching I helped a few of my candidates who needed accommodation through the tests, the ones for retail clerk were simpler than the one I took. I’m fairly sure I won’t show up as a thief or sociopath, but this seemed to also try to figure out a management philosophy I might hold. Who knows?
Ultraviolet Thunder
For my current job I had a ‘pressure’ interview: they assign one person to be a dick to you and give you tests to solve (technical tasks) to see if you get flustered. They dick guy ended up as my boss’ boss, and he really does hate me. He saw an Obama bumper sticker on my car and he’s a hard core right winger. Harassed and bullied me for a year until I busted him to HIS boss for it. Now we have an uneasy stalemate.
Keith P.
Poppies are another beautiful flower. I’d never really known much about them other than poppy seeds and opium, but it’s a damn shame they are illegal to grow, as they are absolutely gorgeous.
O. Felix Culpa
I’ve signed up for a course on local plants at the community college since the New Mexico flora is (are?) new to me, having lived mainly on the east and mid-coasts. My garden was untended for several years, so it requires major TLC. We had so much rain last summer that it turned into a jungle. However, I’ll be planning and planting for the probable reversion to high desert conditions.
satby
@Glidwrith: on the garage at my old house, which my son has now. Pretty much totaled the garage and the stuff in it. Was being used for storage mostly, so no serious car damage. My son’s car was parked in front of the garage and got a few dents from debris.
Doug R
@JPL: I know. That place at the link is two blocks from the water, but no view. Locals are scratching their heads.
satby
@Keith P.: there are several kinds that aren’t illegal to grow because they can’t be made into opium.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So clicking around, I gather Cruz is accusing Trump of being mobbed up, and Trump refused (on camera) to denounce the KKK
Is Reince Priebus being kept away from open windows and sharp objects?
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
The horror!!!
satby
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Sigh… stuff like that almost makes me not miss it. Well, except for that whole “solvency” thing.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: too hot for me
Edited to add: as proof, I submit that I am this minute sitting outside, not wearing a jacket, having coffee in 54 degree weather. Floridians would be inside, or wearing parkas.
raven
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Leftover
Butch
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (the part between Wisconsin and Lake Superior); the local rescue dive operation has been trying to get me to join for years and for some reason the thought of diving in 38-degree water to fish out a drowned snowmobiler just lacks appeal. There are some interesting wreck dives in this area and during the summer you’ll be OK with 7-mil but I really, really prefer warm water.
MomSense
@satby:
Oh no. I’m so sorry.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@satby:
Its a toilet with palm trees stuck in a steam bath.
I met a lot of nice individuals but as a community they are everything that is wrong with America.
satby
@Baud: thanks. It’s ok.
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith P.: Not true: Poppy seeds for sale at Baker Creek
(tho I suppose it depends on the type of poppy)
satby
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): See, I knew we were natural friends! Great minds…
Edited to add: sorry Floridians. Some of us get really cranky in the heat.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I made one brief appearance in the panhandle just so I could say “I’ve been to Florida.” We ate seafood and left. That was enough for me.
satby
@MomSense: it is what it is. Less now for me to worry about anyway, but to me antiques are a little bit of history, and I hate when they get destroyed. So that’s kinda sad.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’m in MI and retiring in 10 years. I hate the winter now and when I’m 67 I’ll despise it. Fla is the default retirement destination for unimaginative Michiganders. I could deal with the climate because I don’t mind heat but Mrs. Thunder hates heat and humidity. Even August in Detroit is too much for her. I dunno where we’ll end up. Maybe two houses: one for winter (Carolinas?) and northern MI in the summer.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@geg6:
I sold my big 4 BR 3B house that was largely empty and isolated from the neighbors, and moved to a duplex with a landlord who takes care of everything. I traded utility and snow removal/landscaping bills for a lease on my dream car, which I rarely drive since I live on a main street. There isn’t one thing I miss about my house, and I lived in it for 17 years.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: At least Florida gave us Betty Cracker to (partially, but with wit, intelligence, and humanity) offset the gifts of young Marco, the hapless Jeb???, and W (aided and abetted by the aforementioned brighter brother and SC).
Keith P.
@OzarkHillbilly: AFAIK, any somniferum is illegal to grow, but not illegal to buy because the seeds are legal to possess. I think that’s the loophole they’re using, like how it once (or still is) legal to buy magic mushroom spores since they won’t necessarily be cultivated.
But damn, those on that link you gave are beautiful. I love the variety.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@O. Felix Culpa:
If I may paraphrase Agent K:
A Floridian is smart and nice but Floridians are re dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
JPL
@satby: It sounds like you lost irreplaceable pieces, and that’s sad.
It’s a sunny day here also.
O. Felix Culpa
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): True dat. Which is why I moved to New Mexico, preferring the occasional rattlesnake to the horrors Florida produces.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ultraviolet Thunder: May I suggest New Mexico?
Ultraviolet Thunder
@OzarkHillbilly:
I love Santa Fe and Taos. I should take Mrs. Thunder there and see what she thinks. In the summer. Humidity is the deal killer for her but ‘It’s a dry heat’*
*punchline on a t-shirt showing a skeleton.
I’d live there.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I gotta check out of this Toronto hotel (work) and drive up to Georgian Bay to another hotel (work tomorrow).
Cheers, all. Have a good Sunday.
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
I concur. Great book and a really good description of diving in general and deep wreck diving in particular.
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith P.: I would suspect it is not true in the case of these poppies because any heroin that resulted from these seeds (if it were possible) would open them up to a RICO charge for aiding and abetting an ongoing criminal enterprise. Don’t see how one can legally circumvent that angle.
SuperHrefna
Satby, I’m so sorry to hear everything has been so difficult for you, big hugs!
Our big garden news is that the witch hazel isn’t dead, and has a few blooms, not lots, but enough to show it still has some fight in it. It had a rough year.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ultraviolet Thunder: My little sis moved to Sanders AZ to teach, it is just across the NM border on I-40. I went for a visit in July. We went to Canyon de Chelly, Petrified Forest/Painted Desert and more. Coming from the high humidity Ozarks I never once felt hot in that high desert.
geg6
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Yeah, we have 4000 (actually slightly less) sq ft and 5 br. It’s insane.
I’d hate a condo and don’t mind yard and garden work, but two acres is also nuts at our age. I want, maybe, 15-1800 sq ft, 2-3 br and 2 baths. I would prefer a ranch but love the look of craftsman, which is much more common in the small towns around here. I just can’t take the work this place requires, but John is emotionally attached, having owned it long before I came along. I’m working on him, though. He just figured out that we paid almost 8K for utilities last year. That’s for this house and our mountain cabin, but the cabin utility cost is minimal since we aren’t there very often. He’s realizing that is just crazy.
Keith P.
@OzarkHillbilly: Suspect all you want…or just look it up to know for sure.
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith P.: IANAL, looking it up wouldn’t do me much good. AYAL?
beltane
There are plenty of papaver, “poppy”. species other than papaver somniferum. They are highly decorative and the seeds are available at any Agway or other mainstream garden supply store.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: New Mexico, especially the high desert, is grand: four seasons, low to no humidity, manageable summer heat, incredible natural beauty, plus flavorful local cuisine. It’s also a purplish, very poor state. Santa Fe is bright blue, while Albuquerque trends red. State government is corrupt as all get-out, but that seems universal (coming from Illinois, where there’s a prison cell reserved for former governors. Bruce Rauner, be my guest.)
ETA: The politics in AZ are terrible. New Mexico, for all its flaws, is nirvana in comparison.
Steeplejack
@Ultraviolet Thunder, @OzarkHillbilly:
It doesn’t really get that hot in many parts of New Mexico. In Santa Fe the average high in July is only 86°, and, as has been noted, it’s a dry heat. At night it still gets down to 55°.
One thing about that area—and the desert in general—is that winter lows are low. In Santa Fe the average high in January is 44°, which is pretty nice, but the average low is 18°. Cold nights! But that shouldn’t be a problem for hardy Michiganders.
I have spent a little time in Santa Fe and really like it. (But I like the high desert in general and even like Las Vegas.) There are a lot of good restaurants and things to do. But it is a little hip/trendy and thus expensive. I’ve never been to Taos. Weather Channel says the July temp range there is 87°-52°.
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith P.: So out of curiosity I googled it and while that is hardly legally admissible in a court of law, I found this which says basically you are right,
except for the parts where I am right:
So again, IANAL.
O. Felix Culpa
@Steeplejack: True that SF is a little expensive. Which is why I live about 20 miles outside of town. But I’m happy to trade off the extra driving for the beauty and greater affordability.
As for winter, it does get cold and there’s even snow at times. BUT, the sun!!! Almost every day, which makes an immeasurable difference compared to the gloom and drear of Midwestern winters. Big sky glory. I ain’t complainin’.
Keith P.
@OzarkHillbilly: Not only have I looked it up (several times), but I have also asked a local constable about. Yes, if you grow somniferum in your yard, you will be subject to prosecution. Texas A&M web site says the same thing.
As for this RICO theory…considering they are openly selling the seeds, I would say it is highly unlikely they would get hit for selling poppy seeds (same for any grocery store that sells non-irradiated – organic – poppy seeds, which are usually Hens-of-the-Valley.) The main reason is that they have a legitimate, legal purpose to sell – edible seeds. It’s not some novel legal theory, either. I can buy bongs that are labeled “for tobacco use only”, I can buy “body toxin removers” because I am not asking for “THC cleansers”. I can buy mushroom spores delivered on slides (for microscopes!), etc. etc. etc.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: I’ve been around NM here and there and liked it everywhere. Most of my time was spent in the Guadalupe Mts tho and politically that area is like Texas west. Even in the height of summer day time highs were quite reasonable. Las Cruces on the other hand is unbearably hot in July, a fricking oven.
satby
@SuperHrefna: hooray for the witch hazel!!
You know (knocking on wood) in spite of it all I’m actually lucky, because I and my kids are healthy and relatively happy. So many people don’t even have that. I get down occasionally until I remember that and count the irreplaceable blessings I do have.
satby
@geg6: all the work that 1 acre in a rural area is tempering my sadness at leaving here, especially since I have only my own self to do it all!
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith P.: read what I said here: @OzarkHillbilly:
satby
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I liked Sante Fe too. I have the same dilemma as you as far as where to go when my mom nursing days are done. But I could be in my seventies by then, my maternal line is long lived.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Weather Channel says the average high in Las Cruces in June-July is 95°, so, yeah, that’s approaching Las Vegas hot (average high in July of 104°).
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: But seventies is the new fifty, or so I’ve heard. ;-) Good luck with your move!
Steeplejack
Speaking of the temp, it’s up to about 60° here in NoVA, and sunny, so my brother’s entourage dinner at Sighthound Hall has been moved up to a midafternoon cookout. I feel so lazy today that I left a halfhearted voice mail asking what to bring and will hope to avoid any return call. I think I’m slightly ahead in the bringing-stuff ledger, so not much guilt.
Linnaeus
Well, the 4-5 days we had of nice weather are definitely over now. Back to rain.
1stgengirl
@zzyzx: My crocuses are out, the Camilla is blooming, and there are even some violets peeping in the front bed. Just south of Seattle.