Montana Gardener's Lets Thread - Part Deux

Ahhhhh for the chance to swim in the river in Kentucky! Or even to eat the fish floating on a big barbeque on the banks of the Chattahoochie river. LOL

I don't know if rocks can get upset and but I think they can get disoriented. The purpley rocks I brought home from the Clark Fork this summer kept spilling around all over until I put them in the bird bath. They have obviously been river rocks for eons and were very confused without water. Some of my local rocks sloooooly migrate too. Always west. I think they are trying to return to the big rocks from whence they came.

I don't believe it is possible truly to domesticate rocks, polish them as we may. We flicker and are gone; they remain long......

Some of us flicker more than others.
Flickers are really my favorite birds.

O good point dear picante! I luv when flickers having dust baths in my containers in the fall! It is such a gift in a citificated located garden. Rocks can never be domisticated its true. I just hope they don't wander into the street and get hit by a car. It would be crushing.

Oh, I agree with you on flickers, picante. I love those crazy birds which are, I guess, just woodpeckers, but beautifully covered ones. I have a special love for those forbidden trees, Russian Olives, because the flickers love them so much. I had one in the yard of a the first house I ever owned. I so enjoyed watched them bouncing around the Russian olive tree every day that I have a hard time remembering that Russian Olives are bad, bad, bad trees.
Also once tried to make chicos -- a New Mexico dried corn for cooking with beans. The recipe is that you cook the corn as for corn on the cob, hang it up to dry on strings like strings of chiles -- under your eaves or on your porch, then bring it in and shuck the corn off the cob into mason jars or plastic bags. I cooked my corn, tied it in strings and hung it under my porch ( called a portal here) to dry. The next thing I knew, these huge birds -- flickers -- were trying to make like hummingbirds and flutter around and steal my corn. It was worth it for the show. The prettiest part of a flicker is the feathering on the underside of its wings. I really got a great view of their colors just outside my breakfast room window that way. I recommend it. Don't know if it would work for you, but it was great for me and my then DH. We laughed and laughed at their clumsy attempts to be hummingbirds.

My rocks, though small, are never ending. I don't worry too much about their being hit and crushed. I am bad.

Though I try not to worry, if push comes to shove, I worry more about the rocks suddenly feeling frisky and running down the mountains directly at my car as I drive... the rocks here can be feisty...

We have VERY feisty rocks in the passes dear Brenda. One must always be on the look out for feisty rocks. Wild rocks will smush you in a minute. Sometimes you here a rumblingbumbly warning but most oft you will just get beaned by a giant bolder. There is no recovery from beaning.

I have very strange rocks. They have come from all over the US and Canada. The must think that my house is Mecca. Their arrival from each pass in the Rocky Mountains, from deposited erratics in Washington, layered lava floes in Tonasket WA, Pudding stones from Michigan are especially prevalent here. Many sandstone pieces have arrived from Great Falls, and layer upon layer of fractured granite from the Purcell mountains find my home their final resting place. River rock is full of color and smoothed by the washing of Flathead river, many purple pudding stones from Eureka's point of rocks have started my mosaic that will have a variety of colors when finished. This migration is somewhat concerning due to the earths crust being weighted over our garden. I hope there is no faults below.

What Sofer is saying is that he is powerless over rocks.
This one is from the Line Creek Plateau, Beartooth Mts.

That is a gorgeous rock!

It's calcium carbonate (limestone) infused with copper. It's been altered a bit, but not really metamorphosed (it's still scratchable).

very beautiful!

there were three flickers in a treetop here early this morning......... I am not quite to the stage of having the camera ready for such shots but may be getting there.......

I know where you live Picante. beware.

Oh, Sofer, I have lots of beautiful rocks living with me. But that one belongs to a friend, and it's going to get returned to her!

Isn't it utterly hilarious that we can think a rock belongs to someone? It's going to outlast its people by how many generations??

And when that person passes on and the relatives clean out his or her home, they will be very puzzled by this rock. I can just hear them, "Boy he/she was such a packrat, why on earth did he/she have a rock in the house". or "Jane was such a tidy person, why does she have a rock in her house?"

I have a favorite rock in the living room and anyone who would clean my house out after I am gone will just think it was totally normal for me. As they give the rock a big heave ho.

Not everyone appreciates the finer things in life.

So true, mulch. I think of how someone will react when cleaning out my house after I am gone and, it is embarrassing to admit this, but all I can think of is how happy it won't be me! The pour soul who does it will earn any benefit he or she might get for it.

I am very aware of the extra stuff right now, and I'm slowly getting rid of it.
Rocks, however, are not "extra", and I think a large rock in the living room could be very good for its grounding effect.

I have very little accumulation in my life. I use a dumpster every year and salvation army to unload everything. I moved over a hundred times in my early life and learned to "shed" my possessions.

Yes indeed, moving will sure teach you to -- as a friend of mine calls it -- "weed out."

Paj I laughed about being glad it isn't you doing the cleaning up after you. I have the same feeling.

And no, rocks are never extra. Heck, some of us need lots and lots of rocks to keep us weighed down, you know? I mean, sometimes one is so close to wafting away into the unknown Blue, without sufficient rocks around........

Kyla, yesterday I wafted away on the dance floor and then had to go find a heavier, more solid partner.

*snicker*

Wafting is a fine skill for a dancer, methinks.

I also wanted to say to you, dear Picante, that I was delighted to read up above in this thread I think, that you honored Buy Nothing Day! I do that every year....... but feel it is a too little known occasion.

Ah well, different strokes.......

Sofer, moving is indeed a great way to prune down. It has been so long since we moved we started to pretend we were moving a little over a year ago and started hauling stuff out of here. It was great, but then DH got hurt, and by the time he was all right I was starting to go downhill. We intend to resume our pretend move this winter as we both want to finish it!

The worst clean out house I ever heard of was right here in town. The mother (grown children) passed away. One of her sons locked up the house and refused to let anyone in there for around thirty years. Dinner was on table when she died, and when the house finally was sold the cleanup of everything, on the table, in cupboards, etc., was apparently quite horrendous.

Dinner on the table for thirty YEARS? That's incredible, I can't imagine it!

Um... did anyone ever lock up the son who locked up the house?

I would guess the embarassment and the cleaning bill would be enough.

Well, the son who insisted on locking the house had been in a bad motorcycle accident and he was never quite normal again after that. He was very emotional about his mother's passing so the rest of the family let him have his way. The only way the house ever got cleaned out at all was it was part of the family business property. After thirty years they wanted to sell the business and he agreed to let the house go if someone would move it and not tear it down. It got moved and the deal went through. Just one of those odd situations.

The house had beautiful yellow roses in front of it and they were destroyed in the house moving operation.

Now that my MIL has passed and DH and I are trying to clear out her house, I have a new appreciation for not saving stuff. We have a big house with lots of room, but it is filling up. So today, as I searched for homeless shelters and such for her warm clothes, I realized I have quite a few that I can't use anymore and will be disposing of at the same time. I am not trying to save some future estate settler problems, I am just aware tonight, as the snow falls all over the area of how many homeless people could use those old warm clothes in the back of my and my MIL's closet. I plan to take a few truck loads to the place that collects warm clothes for the homeless in the next few days. It is so cold here and supposed to get colder tomorrow night.
Old saying I heard as far as disposal of belongings "3 moves equals one fire."

I used the value of goodwill etc, and mostly the french moving company "Les garage sale nes pas".

This message was edited Dec 7, 2009 7:24 PM

Moi aussi.
Right now I am cleaning out the closets. There are lots of dancey swishy things I haven't worn in over 5 years, and somebody else could swish & twirl in them.
I won't part with any of my rocks, though. Well, maybe one or two, Sofer.

Or the purple shoes. You simply MUST keep the purple shoes picante.

Not to worry dear Dahlia, they are my wedding shoes. Can't give those away. Nor the garnet ones. Nor any of the dance shoes, as they all have magic in them. They know they are mine, and someone else might sprain an ankle in them. Or worse.

Of course they are magical. They are endowed with the spirit of Picante. I don't think they would sprain another people but they would definitely be stumbly sans Picante methinks.

That is funny, Picante, my wedding shoes are purple as well! Purple suede, about 4 1/2" heal. The first thing I did after our very private wedding in Napa Valley was take those shoes off and make my way to a local shoe store (having a sale!) to buy some pretty flats... found them, so that I'd be able to make my way around the wineries!

Having said that (those shoes are not comfy or easy to walk in)... I love them anyway and expect that granddaughter or a great grandaughter will find them one day and think WOW! (Great) Grandma got married in these shoes, and they are soooo cool! They know they are mine as well.

Brenda, 4 1/2" ????
Golly, if your foot is 9" long, then that's a 50% slope or 45-degree angle. Is that right, Dave-who-is-Dave?

You go babe brenda! Luv those spikey heels. I have bow to your spikeyness. I have a healthy collection of 4"ers but alas methinks no 4 1/2" Picante very dancable. Weight is on the tippy toes and those luvly heels just follow you around the floor.

Yes, perhaps the highest heels I've ever had... though I used to live in high heels. I also used to joke that I could do anything in high heels. Many, many years ago I chased some guy who stole my purse (I in my high heels). He got caught (not by me but by the Police. There are many benefits to wearing high heels).

I think this may be an example of evolution:
I lived in Quebec City in 1981-83. Even in winter, the women wore spike heeled-boots. It's icy there, for cryin' out loud.
I returned in 1996-97. No more spike-heeled boots in winter. Somehows they got some sense in their heads.