Accessible Gardening: Practical Matters for Physically Challenged Gardeers #16, 1 by Amargia

Amargia wrote:
Hey, Vickie! Sorry to hear the Depression has got its claws in so deep. Contact us if you want to chat or blow off some steam. I know it is hard for you to actually talk when it gets so bad. I'll leave our Email address in your Dmail. Writing is sometimes easier than talking. Don't hesitate to contact us. Hugs and prayers.
Actually, I would like a kitten, but I don't think the post office would let us send one through the mail like chicks and once again I have to cancel my trip out that way. Anyway, I wouldn't want to be the one to take a cat out of a box after such a trip even if the post office allowed it. . A hive of bees will forgive a trip via post after being sprayed with sugar water and their queen has been released from her separate shipping cage. Cats, on the other hand, hold grudges! If you make it down this way, by all means bring us a couple kittens. I've given up selling MK on getting a ferret. She doesn't like the way ferrets smell.

I've been making myself get outside and work with MK at least an hour every day to cope with the Depression and deal with the frustrations. MK is right. Weeding is a good anger management technique. I don't know if I can keep that up once real summer temps arrive, but I'm enjoying it outside in the unusually cool temps. (It got down in the 40's a few nights ago. Very strange weather for us.
I saw some ripe dewberries while I was out so Nadine has started scouting out our stands of dewberries, an early ripening, vining cousin of blackberries. (By some trick of topography, Amargia is about two weeks behind the surrounding area in blooming and ripening times.) Our attempts to domesticate the dewberries and blackberries did not work out. They were simply too rampant. I will try some of the thornless nursery variety, but Nadi will no doubt continue to forage on the edge of the woods. She is convinced the wild ones taste better.
I just put up a tall, woven wire fence across the front of the property. MK is already busy covering it with plants. Muscat grapes and dragon fruit are already there along with tomatoes to give her a season to think about what she wants there long term. Heaven forbid our fence should go naked.
I'm spending a lot of time with field guides getting myself up to speed on the native plants of the tristate area. MK can tell me the growing habits and traditional uses, but can rarely provide more than a common name. I'm shooting for as many plants as I can manage from the
Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center's "Recommended" list for this region with an emphasis on goodies for the bees. I was surprised to discover how many things on the list we already have because MK considers them good "land rehab" plants or Nadi considers them tasty. lol.
MK's computer reading program is giving her grief so I guess I'll be around a little longer. (Jim)