You know you are a gardener when:

Hello everyone I have been working hard and now have an evening off. I left Petersburg and now am in Wrangell. The elf costumes are people layered with Christmas sweaters, wool pants, and boots up to their knees. Everyone up here has the same combo's on so the wolf fur collars and other fur collars are how you tell everyone apart. They have scarves, cute hats and all look like Santa's helpers. Tonight I was at the airport flying over to Wrangell and 50 or so people were waiting for the plane that was 1 hour late and it was a joy watching everyone talking to everyone about where they were going. Nobody complained and expected time to pass just fine. Everybody knew everybody and laughter was everywhere. Kids were talking to adults and playing with each other. It is so nice up here.

I have some idea where Wrangell is because my son did a report on Snow Geese when he was in third grade. I like your description of the elfish people! It sounds like a great community.

Thank you Sofer, still sounds like a fun place to be. I love your descriptions....they paint a picture for me.

It sounds like something from a movie! And like Soferdig was sitting back enjoying the show as well as being in the show!

Exactly!!

Hey I just got a phone number from my main clinic that someone wants to write about my travels. I have mixed feelings because that was my retirement project. I guess I wll give him a call to see just what he is going to do with it.

That's exciting!

Might be kinda fun, Steve. Keep us posted!

I knew you were living a book, Steve! I remember you telling me 'it's been done' because of the popularity of the James Herriot series. Now I feel extremely smug and vindicated! (Pardon me while I do my 'love it when I'm right' dance)

All kidding aside, that's way cool! I hope the person wants to do something you will like, and that he's a good writer! Who will you get to play your role in the movie version?

Steve, I can't imagine anyone being able to tell your story more eloquently than you could. Should be fun to explore the possibility, however.

The popularity of James Herriot just proves that people love stories about animals and veterinarian exploits to save their lives and bring them into happy and healthy homes. While his stories are based in the English countryside and culture (which I love reading about), Steve's stories would be based in the rugged American countryside and culture. Both have value, interest, and poignancy.

Yep, that's what I think, too.

The Alaska portion would be especially interesting. But I agree, no one could do it like Sofer. There was a man who contacted our family because he was writing a book about people who home built cars. My dad did this many years ago. We provided the information he wanted and are waiting for the publication. Hope they get it done while mom is still alive.

Keep us posted, Sofer. You are the man!!!

Steve, I agree that it is a fascinating prospect having someone document your adventures, but I also agree that noone could tell it quite like you could. Maybe a compromise and have the majority of the text written by the person who has been inquiring, with pictures inserted with your wonderful captions. I second your letting us know how it progresses.

I feel like having him write about it will make my book a must reed, (sbqwwbqsssbnbm) this is my granddaughter trying to tell my story. LOL Anyway I will tell him a few of the goodies of my travels and hopefully his story in article or book form will open a vast interest in my book. I have so many fun, joyous, thrilling, scary, and adventurous

Oh, I love that plan!! Sounds like there's plenty to share with a hint of more to come.

>> The 10-year plan ... I've been here about six years and I wish I could say that I was in year six, but things ($$ and time) and dreams keep changing. So I just figure that I'd better feel pretty good about whatever it is that I end up with in year 10!!

I agree. I was too ambitious when i first moved here, and decided what I would do "first", thinking "this year".

Each attempt to take a step revealed that there were several things (sometimes major things) that needed to be done before that "first" step could be taken and succeed.

Three years later, I finished taking the "first step" ... and many other things. The garden tells me what needs to be done next - I only know what I want to do next.

Maybe my ten-year-plan is now a thirty-year-plan ... but at least I know I'll never run out of things to do!

Corey

What I didn't account for was the growing in of the things I DON'T want in my gardens . . .

This message was edited Sep 28, 2010 3:54 PM

Hey isn't a garden job security after all! LOl

Corey are you going back and reading all our old posts? If so I think that is great.

Fall color on the greenshed.

>> Corey are you going back and reading all our old posts?

Sure! Maybe there is one back there on how to train squirrels to eat slugs until they're too sluggish to evade the cats.

Thinking about "squirrels eat bulbs", I'm about to shop for chicken wire and red pepper. maybe hardware cloth so they will have to work harder to gnaw through it.

I've had running battle with tree rats since college, when one climbed 5 stories of ivy and snuck into my room to take ONE bite out of EACH slice of bread in a loaf.

Wanting a fan and open window it wasn't easy to screen it squirrel-proof. So in the future, when I cam back to my room, I took to very quietly putting my books down in the hall before quiiiiietly turning the key, then BURSTING through the door, leaping into my room shouting and waving my arms. Each time I caught a squirrel in the act, it would panic and LEAP out the window from wherever it was in the room.

My neighbors already knew I was quite mad, so no harm done.

They seemed able to catch the ivy while in a ballistic trajectory. At least I never saw a smear on the sidewalk - and I always checked.

Corey

Corey- you need to train some crows. When Tracy and I lived in North Tacoma, our house was across from a gradeschool, so there was quite a bit of traffic. There were chestnut trees all along the street. Now, when the chestnuts were ripe, we would see the crows picking them up and dropping them in the road for cars to smash open. We thought that was awfully clever, until we realized the crows showed no interest in the nuts once they were smashed.

Then we realized that the crows were just watching and waiting for squirrels to go out in the road to eat the nut paste, which they did with such enthusiasm that they failed to notice oncoming vehicles... see where this is going? The squirrels got squished, and the crows dined merrily on roadkill squirrels with chestnut stuffing. Pure genius.

Wow! I knew crows were smart. Some farmers said crows can count to seven. They set up a blind in a corn field they were trying to drive crows out of, since the crows would all fly away if a person with a shotgun approached the field.

They expected to be able to go inside, wait until the crows returned after forgetting they were there, so they could jump out and blast them with shotguns. Crows were too smart to forget, and plenty patient.

So the farmers figured "four of us will go in, three come out and go away. The crows won't be able to tell the difference, and then the fourth guy can come out and blast at least a few!"

Hah! They had to get up to "eight go in, seven come out" before the crows were confused enough to lose count.

Want to bet that even that only worked a few times?

For some reason all the birds where I live now are very polite and diffident. Not like New Jersey! Or maybe it is all the cats in the neighborhood have taught them to be aloof.

Corey

Crows are very smart. A study at U of W a couple years ago had some pretty interesting results: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html and I've seen a video of a crow making a tool to reach food inside a tube.

Well, they can only be SOMEWHAT smart if researchers could convince them that a Dick Cheny face is not threatening. He scares me!

Corey

You know you're a gardener when you get in the shower and spiders fall out of your hair.

You know you're a gardener when on your birthday all you want is for someone to help you move some big plants!

You know you're a gardener when you're ecstatic at the thought of free bio-solids, and consider lining your trunk with plastic so you can haul them home.

(I figure I can't be a REAL gardener since I decided against. It was the statement that they weren't fully dried that slowed me down.)

Corey

You know you're a gardener when you never use your dishwasher (except as storage space) because hand washing dishes is the best way to get your hands and nails clean.

That's a good one patti. ^_^

Well I gave my hedge a major cutting back in Feb 2011, cut it back about 2/3. so instead of 5 - 7 feet wide, it is 1.5 - 2 feet wide. So much easier to deal with, and on the outside it looks the same. And it has grown well in the inside of the garden, I just keep it trimmed often, only takes a few minutes.

You know you are a real gardener when you find yourself pushing your elderly Mom in a wheelchair through deep gravel paths at a nursery so you won't miss the fall sale. I just did this Got two cool shrubs from New Zealand for $7.

mlmlakestevens-Ha and I thought I was the only one to do this!!

I know this doesn't belong here, but Xmas is coming FAST! All the mentions of laurel hedges reminded me that the branches of shiny, healthy leaves work really well to disguise the extension cords for your outdoor displays---esp. if you have the fat orange kind!!!!

...Ace Hardware sends a 50% off coupon in the weekly flyer, and you go through the recycling bins to get as many of them as you can to get supplies for the gardening season coming up.
I got Sluggo, irrigation tubing, deer netting, an indoor/outdoor thermometer for the greenhouse, and a rain barrel. SCORE!

Good for you! Love a bargain!
When you spend New Years day looking at all the seed sites and palace your orders!

You know you're a gardener when ...

You work for days with pruners, mattock and pick to root out "boring" no-maintenance shrubs,
so you can create beds for more difficult to grow "interesting" plants.

Ha Ha, good one. I know that routine.

And you know your neighbor is NOT a gardener when he hires someone to chop down flowers in beds and cover everything with heavy black plastic and then bark mulch.

However, he hired an idiot who bought very FINE bark mulch, which I think will provide a nearly perfect medium for weeds to sprout in. So he's going to have to re-hire the idiot to rake up all the fine mulch and lay down coarse mulch.

Or maybe he'll pour concrete over everything.

:-(