Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

The willow is too close to the house.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Giving up is unforgivable.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Midwestern Oasis, Pt. II

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Midwestern Oasis, Pt. II

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Figured we could all use a nice sunny picture to start the day. From intrepid commentor Watergirl:

These black-eyed susans were a happy surprise. They are just on the cusp of being in our zone, so I mulched and mulched them some more, and they came back this spring! Not sure if you can tell from the photo, but the flowers are huge! They looked super sturdy so I didn’t think to surround them with anything, but they were knocked flat after a big rain. If I’m lucky enough that they come up next year, I will definitely provide them with some support.

Several people were kind enough to comment on my porch last week but the photos didn’t show much of it.

Totally unrelated to anything… Peppers! This is just the part of my pepper crop that I harvested this week. I got about the same amount earlier in the summer, plus the ones I harvest in ones and twos as I cook supper in the summer.

I had planted my gerbera daisy in the ground along the side of my porch in the back yard, but it fried in the sun within a couple of weeks, so I found an empty pot and planted it and moved it to the side area. It’s such a happy plant and people are always asking if it’s fake. It is not!

I couldn’t resist a close-up of my black-eyed susan vine – so much happy flower from a $7 plant every spring.

I think I shared a photo of my pink hair grass last year, but it’s one of my favorites so I am including it again. Had three of the pink hair, but the voles ate one of them over the winter. Does anyone know of a good way to get rid of voles? The traps did not work.

***********

Here north of Boston, I picked the last brave batch of tomatoes yesterday. Next year, Ramapo goes on my must-have list. Along with Paul Robeson, Black Prince, Bear Claw, Cherokee Purple, Japanese Trifele, Vintage Wine, Opalka, Tasmanian Chocolate, Sun Gold, White Currant… Also new (to us) and now on the must-find list: Chocolate Sprinkles (a cherry variety) and Tati’s Wedding (early, productive & delicious).

I’m glad I broke down & decided against taking this year off, but reducing the number of plants was a good idea, and next year I’m planning to cut back even further. I keep buying more “just in case”, and then by Labor Day I’m sick of struggling to keep up with the day-by-day maintenance — even if it’s nice to have extras in the freezer for sauce over the long dark months. There’s a couple of varieties I really like that just don’t want to produce for me (Kellogg’s Breakfast, Blondkopfchen) and some others that I keep buying just because they’re “reliable” (Carmello, Marianna’s Peace). We’ll see if I can hold my resolve come February, and the luscious pictures in the (online) catalogs!

What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

Reader Interactions

195Comments

  2. 2.

    satby

    Beautiful Watergirl! I love the black eyed Susan vines and grew them a couple of times in hanging baskets. Next year I’m already planning a raised planter with those cascading down the side. And regular black eyed Susans are perennials, so they should not only come back, but spread.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Fall flowers are always nice, but all but nonexistent around here this year. Too too dry. I’ve got a few zinnias and cosmos still hanging on but all the wildflowers are gone.

  5. 5.

    satby

    On tap for me in my garden today and the rest of the week, planting daffodil and tulip bulbs. I’m going to keep the tulips close to the house in the hopes of discouraging squirrels from beheading them. I mostly get daffodils because nothing ever eats them. But I couldn’t resist a couple of tulip selections in the Colorblends catalog this year.

  11. 11.

    satby

    @evodevo: I had a lot of luck with castor oil granules like this. It a repellant, so it works best if there’s somewhere for the pests to flee to. And you do have to keep applying for the season. I can’t find the hose end sprayer version, and Amazon won’t ship it to me here, but that was the easiest to use on the flower beds.

  12. 12.

    Currants

    Gorgeous pictures, Watergirl! And AL–glad to hear about non-producers. I had some this year for the first time ever–and Blondkopfchen was one of them, Hartman’s yellow gooseberry produced like crazy but it was not the kind of cherry tomato I like. On the other hand, Amy’s sugar gem –“golf ball sized fruit”–produced super-softballl sized tomatoes, and my Abraham Lincoln just wouldn’t stop (though I like the 1884 fruit better).

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven:

    A vole is a small rodent; a relative of the mouse, the vole has a stouter body, a shorter, hairy tail, a slightly rounder head, smaller ears and eyes, and differently formed molars (high-crowned and with angular cusps instead of low-crowned and with rounded cusps). There are approximately 155 species of voles. They are sometimes known as meadow mice or field mice in North America and Australia. Vole species form the subfamily Arvicolinae with the lemmings and the muskrats.

    ….

    Many predators eat voles, including martens, raccoons, owls, hawks, falcons, coyotes, foxes, snakes, weasels, cats, and dogs. Vole bones are often found in the pellets of the short-eared owl, the northern spotted owl, the saw-whet owl, the barn owl, the great gray owl, and the northern pygmy owl.[citation needed]

  17. 17.

    JPL

    The pictures are beautiful.

    @ BillinGlendaleCA Amazing! It’s also amazing that Anne is picking tomatoes in October in Massachusetts.

  19. 19.

    satby

    @JPL: I keep cutting back my tomato vines to try to force the plants to finish off the green tomatoes on them. I’m still picking a couple of tomatoes every other day though it’s slowed a lot. We may get a frost later this week or early next which should finally put an end to them, but I don’t remember having tomatoes this late in the year ever before.

  22. 22.

    Suburban Mom

    Great pictures. And I’m surprised Blondkopfchen is a non-producer for some of you. Here in central NJ I have high-producing plants that self-sowed from one plant purchased three seasons ago. Now I’m wondering if the plant was mislabeled. The fruit is sweet, golden, and on the small side for a cherry tomato. The vines are indeterminate and grow like weeds.

  25. 25.

    The Golux

    @satby:

    I had a lot of luck with castor oil granules…

    We’ve tried MoleMax here in central Connecticut, but the voles persist. Perhaps we weren’t diligent enough in the application.

    On the other hand, we’ve had virtually no problem with armadillos.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers combined on a three-hitter, Jose Altuve and Evan Gattis homered and the Houston Astros reached the World Series, blanking the New York Yankees 4-0 on Saturday night in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.

    Just four years removed from their third straight 100-loss season in 2013, the Astros shut down the Yankees for two straight games after dropping three in a row in the Bronx.

  29. 29.

    Kay

    Black-eyed susans have gotten better. The leaves used to get all yellow-y and scraggly and now they’re consistently dark green. They must have bred for better foliage. I bought three this year to replace daylilies next to a cellar door. I’ve turned against daylilies – I’m just sick of them :)

  32. 32.

    satby

    @The Golux: in my experience, it took several months of consistent application to chase them out, coupled with grub killer. I’m going into battle again here, because the groundhogs are getting the upper hand in my yard in spite of all the feral cats around. The ultrasonic stakes are useless, IMO.

  37. 37.

    ThresherK

    @OzarkHillbilly: I didn’t see the game. But I woke up in the middle of the night, ran across someone’s FTFNYY comment, and thought that the Yankees won.

    Spousal Ms ThresherK will like that. She’s a Worcester girl, and doesn’t know hardly anything about baseball, but she knows she hates the Yankees.

    —

    We have reached The Singularity: The classic rock station in my metropolis, and the next-nearest metropolis, were both, independently, playing Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. It’s the end times, people.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Groundhogs? Otherwise known as woodchucks? Or my favorite, ‘whistle pigs’. I think you mean moles?

    The Woofmeister has recently taken to digging them up and killing them. At least I think it is he who is leaving their bedraggled uneaten carcasses about the lawn.

  40. 40.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: could be moles, but I saw a family of groundhogs hanging around their den under a tree stump at the abandoned house on the corner earlier this last spring. And the tunnels seem pretty big for moles.

  41. 41.

    JMG

    There are too many trees in my wooded neighborhood for much gardening except flowering shrubs. but this weekend has been the payoff. The maples, at least two weeks late here outside Boston, have turned and as the sun rises the orange and gold is breathtaking. Fall in New England is like nature’s encore. Thank you, drive home safely. Alas, the drive home is winter.

  42. 42.

    satby

    Ok, this serves me right for FB stalking… I just discovered the granddaughter of a former friend was a Senate intern for (spit) Ted Cruz.

    I guess I don’t miss them after all.

  44. 44.

    Suburban Mom

    @satby: Thanks for letting me know! They spread like something out of a horror movie. And I can’t bring myself to pull them all up because they are delicious. Also I respect persistence.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: OK, I was cornfused because you said the ‘ultrasonic stakes’ which I’ve only seen advertised as anti-mole devices, and the feral cat statement, as our whistle pigs are generally about twice the size of a cat. I can’t envision anything smaller than a bobcat taking on a groundhog.

  46. 46.

    oldgold

    Last week I inspected the damage rendered to my sandy seaside shack on the southwest corner of the Sunshine State by Hurricane Irma.

    Sadly, my Weed Test Plot can no longer be considered outstanding, as all the gardens and landscaping in the area are a damn mess.

    After some deep thinking, I am talking Platte River deep, I decided to rip the Weed Test Plot out and replant the area to Kale.

    My neighbor, master gardener Noah Tall, was not amused and screamed, “Why?”

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: He chases after the racoons, possums, and whistle pigs, but he never catches them. I dread the day he goes after a skunk and the skunk catches him.

  51. 51.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: All you have to do is move into the White House. satby and I can fight it out from there. And Water Girl.

  54. 54.

    frosty

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I can’t envision anything smaller than a bobcat taking on a groundhog.

    My neighbor’s cocker spaniel when I was growing up was hell on groundhogs.

  57. 57.

    middlelee

    Are voles an above ground critter or tunneler? I have gophers, gophers, gophers. Ordered 300 early spring daffodils for the lawn and one very long narrow flowerbed that has lost half its marigolds and zinnias to the vicious pests. They pull the plants down into the tunnel. Daffodils are supposed to make them go away so it’s worth a try and daffs will make a gorgeous display in spring after the rains.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @frosty: Yep, that’s about right. Cocker Spaniel: The weight of the breed is on average between 24–30 pounds
    Bobcat: Adult males can range in weight from 6.4 to 18.3 kg (14 to 40 lb), with an average of 9.6 kg (21 lb); females at 4 to 15.3 kg (8.8 to 33.7 lb), with an average of 6.8 kg (15 lb)

    But I need to step back a little from my earlier statement as I can easily see any of the terrier breeds taking on a groundhog, even a JRT.

  61. 61.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby: I may have to try this product. The pocket gophers have returned and I’m afraid they’ll devour the roots of my just-established perennials and fruit trees. We’re also going to plant masses of daffodil bulbs, since apparently the gophers don’t like them.

  62. 62.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @middlelee: I’ve been fighting the gopher beasts all summer – poison, traps, repellents – and they keep on coming back. I’m going for the daffodil trick next. Plus traps. I hates those little beasties, yes I do.

  64. 64.

    satby

    I’ve planted daffodils for years mostly because the squirrels leave them alone. I’m my raised bed in Michigan I noticed chipmunks didn’t eat them but also were perfectly fine with tunneling around them. I can do-exist with things as long as they mostly leave my plants alone.

  65. 65.

    satby

    Time to get ready to leave for work. Got about 20 bulbs planted. It’s going to be a beautiful day, one of the last. I hate going to work on days like this.

  66. 66.

    Kathleen

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yes, I know. The Cubs without the cultish devotion. No disrespect, but at least Not The Cardinals are in the World Series, though I have a lifelong aversion to the Dodgers because I lived in Northern California and loved the Giants plus Twins World Series 1965.

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    @The Golux: @satby: I tried the castor oil the year before I tried the traps – the voles just mocked me!

    @satby: Did the grub killer last year, the same year I tried the traps for the voles. Helped with the grubs, at least!

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    I love WaterGirl’s porch. Not hard to imagine curling up with good hot coffee out there. Beautiful garden pics.

    How are the fall leaves looking in your areas?

    Central Virginia: kind of meh.

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Peppers. I do the same thing with peppers that AL does with her tomatoes. But I am vowing not to plant quite so many next year. I am planning to write a letter to myself. Dear Me, is all I’ve got so far.

    In the meantime, I cook with the peppers, freeze them, and give them away to friends who are thrilled to have them.

  74. 74.

    tybee

    castor oil/capsules didn’t phase the moles.
    castor plants didn’t either.
    had a doberman some years back that would put her nose in a mole tunnel and run as far down the tunnel as she could.
    looked like a mine plow had visited.
    not sure she ever caught a mole.
    had to stomp the yard flat so a mower would go over it.
    next dog at least dug a smaller hole and would kill a few each year, not enough to dent the population.
    tried traps and got a few.
    refuse to poison the lawn due to all the critters that pupate underground: moths, cicadas, wasps, etc.
    finally gave up.

  75. 75.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kathleen:

    No disrespect, but at least Not The Cardinals are in the World Series,

    Heh. I wish it wasn’t the Dodgers, happy it’s the Astros.

  76. 76.

    Spanky

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    But I need to step back a little from my earlier statement as I can easily see any of the terrier breeds taking on a groundhog, even a JRT.

    Precisely what happened some years ago when our neighbors’ JRT trapped a groundhog under our shed, then went in after him. There was much screaming and barking. She was not going to come out without him, because JRT. I finally got in there enough to get hold of her hind legs and drag her out. She was not happy, and had bites on her muzzle, so the gh wasn’t a pushover.

    Neighbor took the squirmy little bitch inside and we left the gh alone to come out on his own volition, which he did sometime during the night, so his condition is unknown.

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    I appreciate all the porch love! I kept having to pinch myself last year, I almost couldn’t believe that this lovely porch was mine! It’s a bright spot in the sometimes very bleak world that we are living in right now.

    If it wasn’t for the huge tree that crashed on my house, taking away all the shade and leaving only brutal, relentless sun all day long, I wouldn’t have my beautiful porch.

    Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere? Maybe, just maybe, there will be some good in the wake of the destruction that is Donald Trump.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: @Elizabelle: We have almost no color this year. The leaves are falling, but no orange, no yellow, no red. Not enough rain this fall, or the earth in mourning because of Donald Trump? You decide.

  85. 85.

    germy

    grew spaghetti squash for the first time this year.

    Cut it in half, bake in oven 350º for one hour, scrape out and serve with sauce from our garden tomatoes.

  86. 86.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: Yeah, these black-eyed susan are rudbeckia hirta, not the standard perennial black-eyed susan. The flowers are much, much bigger and are they are mostly annuals around here. I think they are zone 6, or maybe they say zone 5 but they don’t really mean it. :-)

    Still, it was a thrill to finally have them winter over.

    @Kay: My regular black-eyed susans must be the older variety. They look great and then the leaves get mildew or something and turn yellow and black. :-(

  90. 90.

    Kathleen

    @WaterGirl: Please don’t snitch on me. To quote my father: “Irish Alzheimer’s. Where you forget everything but the grudge.” This is how we are.

  92. 92.

    StringOnAStick

    I gave up on growing tomatoes this year since my local organic grocer always has various heirloom varieties. I can only grow veggies in large self watering pots in the front yard because anything in the back yard gets eaten by elk and deer (suburban in the front, open space and wildlife corridor valley with a creek in the back). I concentrated on just growing my favorite veggies that just aren’t as good from the store: Piccolino greenhouse type cucumbers and Jade bush green beans. It was a great success but the early frost took them out 2 weeks ago.

    Today is the last warm day I’ll have to finish up the repairs I can do from the roof-killing hail storm last spring. So many roofs were trashed that there is still a shortage of roofers. Its looking like our roof and paint repairs won’t happen until next spring,but I should be able to get the gutters and downspouts replaced soon.

  94. 94.

    StringOnAStick

    @Laura: Thanks for the Wiley link. We are officially in the market for two rescue kitties starting this Tuesday after the remodeling mess is officially gone and the house is quiet again.

  99. 99.

    NotMax

    @germy

    Spaghetti squash cooks up nifty in the microwave in 15 minutes or less, either halved (cut side down in a shallow container with some lightly salted water in it) or whole.

  100. 100.

    WaterGirl

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: You can probably tell that the ceiling is beadboard, and I am sure it is pine but I can’t recall if it’s a particular kind of pine. My friend who built the porch for me hand-picked all the boards.

    The finish is this awesome stuff called General Finishes Exterior 450 FLAT.

  102. 102.

    germy

    @StringOnAStick:

    We are officially in the market for two rescue kitties starting this Tuesday

    Just think… there are two kittehs currently sitting in a shelter who have no idea their lives will soon change for the better.

    I saw an article (I don’t remember where I read it) about some “unadoptable” cats who were rescued and given jobs as rodent hunters. They didn’t even have to kill rodents, the mice and rats stayed away after smelling CAT. After a few weeks, these formerly “antisocial” cats were beloved by everyone who knew them.

  104. 104.

    Gelfling 545

    Lovely garden. The black eyed Susans are kind of a pest in my garden as they spread madly but this time of year I’m always happy that I have them. This month’s Fine Gardening magazine has an article on vole eradication. I haven’t read it yet so can’t tell you their recommendations yet.
    I’m going out to plant daffodil & allium bulbs. I may go out and get a few more grape hyacinth bulbs as well. They’re one of my favorites.

  105. 105.

    stinger

    @satby: You seem to have bought up the last of the Moris Gudanov! Luckily, I already have Angelique! Bookmarking that site, though.

  106. 106.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: It is pine, couldn’t say which for sure because the finish changes the color, I suspect white but could be yellow. Regardless, it is all the same type as different types will take up the finish differently leading to variations in color.

  107. 107.

    normal liberal

    @raven:
    Late to the thread as usual. My favorite part of the academic year at UIUC was mid-October, when they would harvest the Morrow plots, which involved hauling out the tiniest, most adorable harvester there ever was. They spent way more time setting up the harvester than it took to run it through the field. I’ve always imagined that every single piece of those plants was retrieved and obsessively studied by the guys (mostly) in the College of Agriculture. They manifestly had no time for Fine & Applied Arts twits like me.

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    @Gelfling 545: I got a subscription to Fine Gardening last year for Christmas, but I don’t seem to have the most recent issue so maybe the subscription already ran out. I googled to see what issue this might be and up came “Garden & Gun” magazine.

    Wow, would not have predicted that there would be an intersection of those two interests!

  111. 111.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Thanks! A few minutes ago I texted my friend who built the porch and asked him – he said it’s just pine. One of the things I love about the product I mentioned above is that it hardly changes the color of the wood at all. Yay for that!

  112. 112.

    NotMax

    @normal liberal

    Pleasant part of one of the alma maters was that it includes a fully operational arboretum and pinetum which also cultivates and landscapes all the trees and plants on campus, including meticulously labeling each and every one.

  113. 113.

    Mike in NC

    Moles are a periodic problem in our development. Nobody seems to have found a solution to them. When we first encountered their tunneling, I went out and bought several “mole movers” powered by three C batteries. They seemed to work the first year or so, but eventually I concluded they didn’t make much difference and pulled them all up.

  115. 115.

    normal liberal

    @Elizabelle:
    I’ve always thought cornfields were an undervalued body drop location. Modern farm equipment is so massive and the operators so cocooned that you could irrigate, apply fertilizer, herbicide and pesticides to the corpse in question and be non the wiser.
    Wouldn’t work with soybeans-plants are too low.

  116. 116.

    normal liberal

    @raven:
    I can attest that the undergrads in the urban planning department were de facto
    Leisure Studies majors. (And I was the worst TA in the history of higher education. I did get a chance to trot out the “this is a university, not a trade school” line when the kids bitched about the exams. Those kids hated me, with some justification.) I still can’t decide if they really drank as much as they claimed.

  119. 119.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl:

    “Garden & Gun” magazine.

    The weirdest pairing since our now-renamed annual “Gun and Doll Show.”

    Either a magazine aimed (heh) at both manly men and their li’l kitchen fillies or editorially split between gardens and garden pest control.

    “Is the NATO round or the .223 best for gophers? See what our expert panel decided in this lively debate.”

    also

    “In Memoriam: staff writer Jeb Lee dies in unfortunate editorial meeting accident.”

  120. 120.

    maya

    Have always had a big meadow vole problem here -NorCal. The only thing that works is a cat. Repeat, cat.
    A few years back the voles were so bad the whole front yard was laced with pop-ups. My two dogs started digging after them after moles were long gone. Front yard looked like the WWI Verdun battlefield. Got a 9 month old white tiger cat, male, and within one month those voles disappeared. Don’t know if he actually caught and ate them or they got his scent and mosied out of town. Whatever. Never had that problem again. Till now. Last cat died two years ago and the voles have returned with a vengeance. Have to get a new cat.

  121. 121.

    Kathleen

    @HeleninEire: GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Sorry, Helen. I plead old age. I can barely remember if I took my morning medication much less remember all of us Baudettes in Waiting. My apologies.

  122. 122.

    normal liberal

    @NotMax:
    I would think so, but I’ve never seen an industrial-scale sunflower field. They must exist, all those little packets of salted sunflower seeds had to start somewhere. I guess it depends on how they’re cultivated-if it’s scientific benign neglect once planting is done, sunflowers would be a great concealment location.
    Now all I need is a title…

  123. 123.

    Cowgirl in the Sandi

    @WaterGirl:
    Garden and Gun – yeah…my 93 year old father lives in Sarasota and has a subscription to G&G. I always give him a hard time about it when we visit, but they actually have some interesting articles and lovely pictures. I just ignore the gun stuff.

  127. 127.

    zhena gogolia

    Is this a politics-free zone? I was so happy that Karen Tumulty in WaPo today asks the question, if Weinstein has been destroyed by women accusing him of sexual predation, why not Trump? It’s so infuriating.

  128. 128.

    normal liberal

    @Elizabelle:
    You should see my back yard, or at least the portion of it that actually belongs to someone else. After giving up on maintaining it, I’ve concluded that the absolute best concealment is provided by honeysuckle. Even the cloying scent is suited to the purpose.
    I may have given this general idea too much thought.

  129. 129.

    Elizabelle

    @zhena gogolia: It is time for a new thread.

    And yeah, I hope that is coming. LA Times today: Director James Toback has also been a serial assaulter of aspiring actresses. About 30 accusers, and his behavior is horrible. Again, clearly people knew — one actress warned her agent to never send another female client Toback’s way.

    I think Donald Trump is probably an entitled pig around women, and has forced kisses, embraces and other unsought attention on women, and maybe girls. I doubt he’s as much as a kitty cat grabber as he claims; suspect that was locker room talk, but do not rule out he might have attempted it, thought about it, or even behaved that way on a few occasions.

    Some enterprising reporter is no doubt searching for whether there’s a trail of signed agreements with women. There were with Weinstein, and with Fox News’ multiple serial sexual predators. Donald is famous for nondisclosure agreements. What other kinds of legal agreements has he been party to? And with whom?

  131. 131.

    WaterGirl

    @maya: My neighbor across the street got two outdoor kitties from the Amish last year, for that very reason! I think all his voles came over to my house! Their names are Mathilda and Arthur, and Mathilda is the sweetest and most affection kitty. I adore her, and she strolls through all our yards.

    I could never have an outdoor cat – I would be terrified all the time that they would be hurt. As it is, I still worry about Mathilda! We’ll see if she helps with the vole issue this year.

  134. 134.

    Mary G

    Thanks for the beautiful pictures of your porch, peppers, rudbeckia, etc. I see a brown doggie under the table and a possible white doggie head at the bottom of the photo. Are they yours or visitors?

  135. 135.

    rikyrah

    This is why Rev. Al needs to be on tv. He gave a report this morning, about the manipulations of the GOP in North Carolina, and how, now that they aren’t getting rulings in their favor, are trying to change the rules of how judges are elected.

    NOBODY else is covering this.

    PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton 10/22/17
    Partisan Justice?

    Join Rev. Al Sharpton as he talks with Kristen Clarke and Rep. Marcia Morey,to discuss the importance of the 2018 midterm elections being rocked by discrimination.

    From the NYTimes:

    In North Carolina, Republicans Stung by Court Rulings Aim to Change the Judges
    By TRIP GABRIEL

    OCT. 18, 2017

    RALEIGH,N.C. — Republicans with a firm grip on the North Carolina legislature —and, until January, the governor’s seat — enacted a conservative agenda in recent years, only to have a steady stream of laws affecting voting and legislative power rejected by the courts.

    Now lawmakers have seized on a solution: change the makeup of the courts.

    Judges in state courts as of this year must identify their party affiliation on ballots, making North Carolina the first state in nearly a century to adopt partisan court elections. The General Assembly in Raleigh reduced the size of the state Court of Appeals, depriving Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, of naming replacements for retiring Republicans.

    And this month, lawmakers drew new boundaries for judicial districts
    statewide, which critics say are meant to increase the number of
    Republican judges on district and superior courts and would force many African-Americans on the bench into runoffs against other incumbents.

    “Instead of changing the way they write their laws, they want to change the judges,” Mr. Cooper said as he sat in a 19th-century, high-ceiling library at the Executive Mansion, which he has occupied uneasily since succeeding Pat McCrory, a Republican. The legislature has overridden nearly a dozen of his vetoes. The latest was on Monday, when lawmakers sustained a bill to eliminate judicial primary elections, which Mr. Cooper called part of an effort to “rig the system.”

  139. 139.

    raven

    Garden & Gun is based in Charleston, South Carolina and covers “an adventure-bound, art-loving, skeet-shooting lifestyle”, as well as gardens, “Southern tradition” and land conservation.[1] The name Garden & Gun is an “inside reference to a popular 1970s Charleston disco called the Garden and Gun Club.”[1] According to Rebecca Darwin, President and CEO of Garden & Gun, the title “is a metaphor for the South—its land, the people, their lifestyle, and their heritage

  142. 142.

    normal liberal

    @Corner Stone:
    I agree and offer my most humble (which is to say, not very) apology.
    And I envy you your thunderstorm. A gargantuan, Texas-to-Canada storm system promised some serious thunder activity last night, but it pretty much dissolved by the time it reached us. Now it’s just scattered showers.

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: I’m usually in the GYOFB camp, but since I would like to keep politics out of the dedicated gardening and writing and cooking threads, it drives me nuts that we almost never get open threads on Sunday mornings

  144. 144.

    A Ghost to Most

    @J R in WV: I was presented with a vole in the living room this very AM by “Big Red One”.
    My wife once researched voles, so I’ve learned the difference .

  145. 145.

    Mike in NC

    @zhena gogolia: Most people were hardly aware of who Harvey Weinstein is/was, but the media has been fluffing Donald Trump since the 1970s as some kind of genius real estate mogul who must be doing something right, and he’s been always willing to bask in the media glory.

  147. 147.

    TerryC

    This time of year we are relocating trees, bunches of day lilys, and clumps of elephant grass. Yesterday I moved two catalpa saplings about three feet tall to a different spot about 700 feet away. I have SO many day lily clumps to move that I keep pushing thoughts of them into the back of my head. Next up, as in right now, are two clumps of elephant grass to be moved – each of which will weigh about fifty pounds. Sigh.

  149. 149.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I’m sick of them, too. For the past few years I’ve been digging them up and putting them in a bucket by the road with a free sign.

    Gorgeous flowers and porch, Watergirl!

  150. 150.

    rikyrah

    Kyle Griffin‏Verified account @kylegriffin1

    Head of US Africa Command told Congress in March he needed more resources for Niger, other sites. He never got them.

  151. 151.

    Corner Stone

    @normal liberal: I would just say, from a theoretical standpoint, that it is near impossible to *hide* a dead body in Mother Nature. She has built in redundant systems to detect and dispose of the dead. Unfortunately for some people, these systems may bring unwarranted attention to the, ahem, disposables.

  152. 152.

    Gelfling 545

    @WaterGirl: I ran into that magazine in our local Wegmans a while ago. I can’t believe there’s a lot of demand for it in a store that sits on the edge of the city in a first ring suburb. Wierd.

  153. 153.

    normal liberal

    @Corner Stone:
    Goodness, can’t let it fade into the woodwork?
    Without direct experience of the mechanisms to which you allude, at least on the scale of an adult (thanking God for small imaginary mercies), I can’t speak precisely to the efficacy of the combination of dense and odiferous foliage and minimum or non-existent trespassing on the site, except by the person doing the victim-stashing. And it’s not like I plan to go out back and check, after this discussion. It would not surprise me to discover wildlife (suburban varieties, groundhogs, possums, squirrels, etc) that has crawled into the underbrush to expire quietly. I would rather not know.
    So, how about that sportsball game with the substandard QB?
    ETA-note, IN Mother Nature, not FROM her. Which would be the point of the stashing, no?

  154. 154.

    rikyrah

    Trump’s Military Family Scandal Reveals the Profound Ugliness of His Character

    Michelle Obama said the presidency “reveals who you are.” Trump’s handling of the deaths of four U.S. soldiers proves her right.

    By Jeet Heer

    October 19, 2017

    Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention was a love letter to her husband, for his accomplishments both as a president and a
    family man. “Today, after so many struggles and triumphs and moments that have tested my husband in ways I never could have imagined, I have seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are—it reveals who you are,” she said.

    Four years later, as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump battled for the
    presidency, the first lady reprised those lines in a speech in Northern Virginia—but this was no love letter. “At the end of the day, as I’ve said before, the presidency doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are,” she said. “And the same thing is true of a presidential campaign.” One did not have to squint to read between those lines, especially after she put a finer point on it:

    If a candidate is erratic and threatening, if a candidate traffics in
    prejudice, fears, and lies on the trail, if a candidate has no clear
    plans to implement their goals, if they disrespect their fellow
    citizens, including folks who make extraordinary sacrifices for our
    country—let me tell you, that is who they are. That is the kind of
    president they will be. Trust me.

    Trump right now is under the harshest, white-hot light of his presidency, and we’re seeing more clearly than ever who he truly is. His handling of the deaths of four Green Berets is a case study in everything that is wrong with the president—all of his pathologies and deficiencies. The scandal has revealed his character in full, and it’s even uglier than Michelle Obama imagined.

  155. 155.

    Elizabelle

    @Corner Stone: I dunno. I’d think a grave in a little traveled forest, or in the desert, could easily go undiscovered. Problem is getting the body there. Body disposal would seem to be much easier for men, or larger people, than for your average female murderer.

    Yes, I watch a lot of Forensic Files.

  156. 156.

    normal liberal

    @Elizabelle:
    There’s even a facility to study the process under a variety of out-in-the-elements conditions.
    I’ve read way to many mystery novels and watched way too much Law & Order. And have never personally attempted a stashing or had occasion to I’m working from highly speculative sources.
    And now I can never venture into the back of the yard again. Someone else is going to have to hack down all the honeysuckle. Or perhaps burn it with the proverbial fire.
    I’m going to go wash dishes before the creepiness gets any deeper.

  161. 161.

    rikyrah

    Michael Del Moro‏Verified account @MikeDelMoro

    ABC News Exclusive: Sgt. La David Johnson’s wife speaks out about the husband, father & brave American soldier she loved—only on @GMA Monday
    10:00 AM – 22 Oct 2017

  162. 162.

    trollhattan

    Pretty much what I suspected (although Kraft’s not chiming in is a surprise).

    Jones was the only owner to rail against the handful of players who are still regularly kneeling, standing or staying in the locker room during the playing of the anthem, the sources said, pronouncing his disagreement with how the NFL is policing the matter before all 32 teams. On Tuesday, when a select group of owners and league officials met with players and NFLPA leadership, there were no dissenting voices or debate about how the ongoing protests were being handled. But that changed on the second day of the meetings, with Jones expressing his feelings several times in what sources describe as a “firm and forceful” manner, but restrained and not over the top.

    More specifically, Jones expressed a desire to have the NFL’s game-day manual changed to outline potential punishments for players who do not stand during “The Star-Spangled Banner.” There were reportedly no other owners who supported his stance.

  163. 163.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: Cos Kelly on why we are in Africa:

    So why were they there? They’re there working with partners, local — all across Africa — in this case, Niger — working with partners, teaching them how to be better soldiers; teaching them how to respect human rights; teaching them how to fight ISIS so that we don’t have to send our soldiers and Marines there in their thousands. That’s what they were doing there.

  166. 166.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    I’m sorry to see that they’re the Sackler of the Sackler wing of the Met. The Temple of Dendur is really pretty awesome.

  167. 167.

    raven

    While his comments about his North Korea plan were brief, the former Democratic commander in chief addressed several topics, including the Trump-Putin relationship and his disappointment of Obama’s work in the Middle East.
    Here are the 5 most remarkable lines from Carter’s interview.
    1. ‘I would go, yes’
    Carter told the Times he’s willing to go to North Korea amid the ongoing tensions over nuclear weapons.
    “I would go, yes,” he said.
    He said he has talked with Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, about his intentions but was given “a negative response.”
    “I told him that I was available if they ever need me,” he said.
    US preparing for North Korea's 'final step'
    US preparing for North Korea’s ‘final step’
    It would not be the first time Carter collaborates with a president or travels to North Korea in a diplomatic mission. In 2010, he negotiated the release of an imprisoned US citizen.
    Carter also helped defuse the first North Korean nuclear crisis, paving the way for a 1994 deal in which North Korea pledged to give up its nuclear weapons in return for aid.
    The deal fell apart a few years later when the George W. Bush administration accused Pyongyang of a secret atomic arms program.
    The 93-year-old former leader said Kim Jong Un makes him more nervous than his father, the late Kim Jong-il. Why?
    “I think he’s now got advanced nuclear weaponry,” he said.
    North Korea's missile tests
    North Korea’s missile tests
    2. Players should ‘stand during the American anthem’
    When it comes to sports players and the national anthem, Carter was adamant.
    “I think they ought to find a different way to object, to demonstrate,” he said. ” I would rather see all the players stand during the American anthem.”
    Colin Kaepernick started protesting racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem. After Trump attacked players who kneel, some NFL players responded by continuing to kneel
    3. Obama didn’t live up to his ‘wonderful statements’
    Carter criticized several of President Barack Obama’s actions on foreign policy.
    The former president said Obama “refused to talk to North Korea more” and lamented the US drone attacks in Yemen, according to Dowd.
    “He made some very wonderful statements, in my opinion, when he first got in office, and then he reneged on that,” he said about Obama’s action on the Middle East.
    4. ‘I think the media have been harder on Trump’
    It appears that Carter defended Trump a few times during the interview.
    Carter said Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t bother him.
    “At the Carter Center,” he told the Times, “we deal with Putin and the Russians quite frequently concerning Syria.”
    He praised Trump for taking the initiative to reach out to Saudi Arabia and said the President has been under a stricter spotlight than his predecessors.
    “I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter replied. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”
    But he said that Trump was deepening racial divisions in the US.
    “Yes, I think he is exacerbating it,” he said. “But maybe not deliberately.”
    5. ‘We voted for Sanders’
    Carter also told the newspaper that he and his wife, Rosalynn, did not vote for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic primary elections.
    “We voted for Sanders,” he said.
    His revelation that both Carters voted for Sanders came after he was asked whether Russians stole the election from Hillary Clinton. Carter said he and his wife disagreed.
    “I don’t think there’s any evidence that what the Russians did changed enough votes, or any votes,” he told the Times.
    Carter said in May that Sanders was his 2016 Democratic primary choice, telling an audience at the Carter Center during a discussion with Sanders, “Can y’all see why I voted for him?”

  168. 168.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @raven: Carter, Sanders, Schumer, Ed Rendell, Cornel West, Bill Clinton… A long list of people who will never forgive Obama for not being the president they fantasize they themselves could have been.
    ETA: and that’s just left of center

  173. 173.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: post-’08 election, yes, you’re right. But I’ve always suspected he approved of acolytes like Rendell and Carville when they trolled Obama.

    I forgot Walter Mondale, who liked to remind people he was still with us by leaking comments about golf and teleprompter

    ETA @Baud: no question his post-White House work alone earns him a place in our political pantheon, but you don’t run for president if you don’t have a high enough opinion of yourself to think you can actually do the job.

  174. 174.

    J R in WV

    @trollhattan:

    Actually, in the SE many women hunt birds over dogs, after their gardens are wrapped up in the fall. So that’s where their audience is. And the guys all over who garden and hunt.

  176. 176.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Believe me, I know. I just think we have enough bad actors to worry about than a 93-year old whose views are off base IMHO but mostly harmless. If Carter goes full Bro, then I’ll reconsider my stance.

  177. 177.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @raven:
    I have just lost a pile of respect for Carter. That all seethes with privilege style Southern bigotry. However, as others have noted, the man has such a great record, my respect for him can survive a few hits.

  178. 178.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I hope Bill keeps a low profile and sticks to charity work. I don’t hate him like others do, but I think he is understandably defensive about Hillary, and I worry that he won’t be able to watch what he says. And Hillary’s been on fire lately, so letting her have the spotlight (between the two of them) would be a good thing.

  179. 179.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: absolutely, did my heart good to see him standing up there, at 93 and with his recent medical history. None of the ambivalence I feel about Poppy Bush, who could have been all his life the man he was at 17, but chose not to be

  182. 182.

    Corner Stone

    If you look at any of the pics of the former Presidents get togethers, Carter is always 2 or 3 feet away from any other President. He is a known asshole, even given all the good things he has done in is post-P life.

  183. 183.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Corner Stone: He is a known asshole, even given all the good things he has done in is post-P life.

    Okay, since you went there, I’ll go here

    Richard M. Nixon‏ @ dick_nixon 19h19 hours ago
    Carter hates most of them, you know.
    He doesn’t think much of us. But he has an Old Testament anger, a righteous anger. I respect that, and I think it keeps him alive.
    You should hear what he says about Bill Clinton.

  184. 184.

    Corner Stone

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Eh, I think Carter thinks he was too good for the job. Too smart and got rooked out of his true legacy.
    He’s been a jerk in interviews long before this. And if you can’t rub shoulders with Obama at this point in your life then you’ve got other problems.

  185. 185.

    J R in WV

    @rikyrah:

    That’s exactly how Benghazi happened, only instead of asking for more resources, State had existing resources removed, by the Republican lege. Benghazi was directly the fault of Republican legislators. Niger was ALSO the fault of Republicans. Along with the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the mideast, and that total is still rising. Republicans should be used to killing by budget, they’ve been doing it for years.

    People suffering from ground critters eating their crops, whether of foodstuffs OR flowers, need more indoor/outdoor cats. They’re smart, they will come in when they need to. Storms or dogs or coyotes. Owls are pretty sneaky, but I think out of 20-odd cats we only lost one young tom cat to Owls, and one tom a little more mature to a coyote.

  186. 186.

    WaterGirl

    @Mary G: Those are my guys! Tucker is the brown dog and Henry is the little white guy that is only half in the picture. As JPL said, my porch is doggie approved.

  189. 189.

    Elizabelle

    WRT James Earl Carter: I would like him to go all in, monitoring US elections. Obviously, we have a problem.

    And he could be a great, great spokesman for restoring the voting rights act.

  190. 190.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @raven: Good lord, I didn’t realize that all came from MoDo, or a larger NYT, interview?

    When I compared the Clinton Foundation with the Carter Center, Carter noted: “Rosie and I put money in the Carter Center. We never take any out.”

    First time I’ve seen a direct, or I guess less indirect, charge that the Clintons take money out of the foundation. Even trump just kind of let the implication hang in the air.

  192. 192.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: He is willing to criticize Israel, too. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid – AFAIK, no US president has gone as far as him, there.

    Yeah, he’s got a chip on his shoulder about Clinton and Obama, and seems to be blind about several of the issues with Wilmer and Donnie. But the world would be a whole lot better place with more people like him and many fewer Trumpettes.

    I’ve not read MoDo’s piece carefully – and I wouldn’t trust her spin on anything anyone says, but him being willing to go to the DPRK to try to get some sort of peace agreement is a good thing – that’s what the Carter Center has always tried to do. It’s not some sort of endorsement of Donnie.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  193. 193.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    he said that Trump was deepening racial divisions in the US.
    “Yes, I think he is exacerbating it,” he said. “But maybe not deliberately.”

    Yes, 5 years of birtherism was an accident, not deliberate.

    Jimmy is 93 and a brain cancer survivor. It reminds me of how Michael Corleone felt about the declining Frank Pentangeli: “Let him go back home. The old man had too much wine.”

  195. 195.

    WaterGirl

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: We replaced the screen on the screen doors this year with pet screening – they say it’s 7x stronger and it’s more pliable. I’ll ask phillip what he used for the rest of the porch. I know we chose the color that is supposed to be the most invisible, seems like it was black, maybe charcoal.

    I’ll check with Phillip and catch up with you on another thread after I hear back from him.

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