March 2013 Marching into Spring while flying a kite!

Eeek, yes lots of new snow there, juhur! Ours is melting, the next 2 days will probably finish most of it off, tomorrow is a high of 51°, then Fri. a high of 62°. In the fifties this weekend they say but that could change. - http://www.kshb.com/subindex/weather/forecast/7_day_forecast The rain this weekend, (and the fifties) should finish it off, then we'll get more snow!

Has anyone grown Wheatgrass? I'm also wondering about how it grows outdoors, I'm thinking about doing this one strip about 2' wide x 6 or 7 feet long. Anybody grown it outdoors either?
I found this one site that sells the seed for $2.02 for a half lb. - http://www.wheatgrasskits.com/sprouting/wheat_berries_sprouting_seed.htm

I put a whole bunch of striped Wondering Jew cuttings in a bowl of water tonite, I mean a bunch! - There's still a lot left, it's a big Wondering Jew Plant. I put one long one by itself in a mason jar full of water to see how it does by itself. -

The birds and squirrels have quite an audience of cats! -

Will

Let's make old fashioned snow cream! We've actually had dry ground here all week.

Will, your kitty cats are precious. You also have the greenest thumb. You should be a professional gardener.

Yes, I remember that old fashioned ice cream made with dry ice, it was good! Thanks, I wish my thumb was green! I'm probably about .500 I think! It's maybe half and half, half dead plants and half alive plants .. lol I suppose to get half right is okay! I made my peace with brown, dead and dying plants a long time ago, they go right in the trash so as not to sully my reputation!

Will, you should make a compost pile for your dead stuff. Get some chicken wire or some pallets and get a pile going. Plant some grass or something around it so neighbors don't complain and you are good to go. lol

I might do that, this isn't my house, I'll ask my friend and see if she wants one. Good idea, a friend of mine has ornamental grass around some big, utility, green plastic boxes and stuff in his front yard like that.

I do no not even remember what dry ground looks like.
. I have to read two or three times to get caught up ,

Where are you going to put you with all those plants ? he he I missed kitty earlier ,


Here's my seedlings again , was moving them last night trying to make more room , not real organized about this ...

OOPS wrong pics .. today .. Does not look much better but there is more room

Juhur, I'll just make a couple big potted striped Wondering Jews for all to see, actually, I might give them to somebody if they turn out good. Those Poison Ivy seedlings are starting to look like Tomato plants!

The plants are no where near as spectacular as some of the folks have on these threads only as me they are not bad As there is still awhile before time to set them out .
Their healthy and doing all right (even if a hair small) and that is okay to great with me .

The Burgess lemon and Farmstead huge are really old varieties , I know one was created in the 1950;s The other is difficult to find info about at all.. Still it is fun and relaxing , when the plants do well, anyway(lol

Yours all are looking good , !! I always the project and plants and cannot say so enough to be satisfied , the great stuff!!!!

Your seedlings look great, juhur! Your growing a Lemon tree, ju?

The is the name of the Tomato , I should of added that to have been clear ..oops... The little dwarf lemon trees are cute . one day ..lol

Oh, I see, I bet it'll make some good tomatoes.
Oh, green, thanks, they're good cats usually. Those 3 are all related, the white one or cream/ivory color cat is the mother (Grubworm) and the other 2 cats (Stuart, the black one and Rudy the brown one on the floor) there are her daughters, the mother was only 6 mos. old or so when they were born in 2004. They are all around 8 or 9 years old I think, they're my friend's cats.

Your friend must have a soft spot for cats; like my oldest daughter Carla. She left behind the 2 cats at my house because they've lived here so long. She now has a beautiful stray from my neighborhood that she named Mau Mau, & another one at her new home (blk & wh "cow" cat) named Phantom. Now, there's a female kitten that she believes could be Phantom's daughter that hangs out on her porch. She's struggling with whether or not to take her in. This kitten has a black heart shaped spot on her back. Here's a photo of Mau Mau. I'll have to get photos of Phantom & the kitten.

While I was searching for pics of Mau Mau, I found hips from my now deceased Dart's Dash rugosa. ; (
Also, a monarch butterfly on my burgundy okra. (Rosehips, cat, & butterfly.)

Pepper, my compost pile is in cognito or camo too! Shhhhh! (I'm not giving it away.)

She does have a soft spot for cats, she has always had cats. There is about 6 former cat's cremains here in boxes because she has them all cremated. That daughter of yours is quite the cat lover. That cat you have in the middle photo looks like the one we call Bob, we took him in for the Winter, he's in the garage, I'll go get a photo of him, green. - He's a big cat, he weighs 14 lbs., here he is trying to get up my legs! He comes up to my waist when he's stretched out! Here's a better photo of his face, he has that patch on his face like your cat does. -
I made some videos without me talking if anyone wishes to see the pesky squirrels, sorry about The King Of The Hill (not smutty) playing in the background on tv, I forgot to pause it. -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwM8aRQ-Uds&list=UUncIC3pLv0W-KhBjmMVkG6Q&index=3
I made 2 other short ones without the tv this time, the squirrels are funny, I do this all day or they'd empty out the feeders on the porch in one day. -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF0DMXpttnY&list=UUncIC3pLv0W-KhBjmMVkG6Q&index=2 One last one, it's short, only 35 seconds! -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiGIMDqyBvc&list=UUncIC3pLv0W-KhBjmMVkG6Q&index=1
Here are Rudy and Stuart when they were kittens. -
Who doesn't love rosehips and a Monarch butterfly!?
Yesterday, I saw the stray black and white cat here chase a squirrel out of sight, I hope it didn't catch it. When Bob was outside, he'd get squirrels, we found squirrel remains in our shed where Bob was staying then.


This message was edited Mar 7, 2013 12:13 PM

Here is Rudy now, stretched out, she is quite a large kitty! - That stapler is just for scale, I wasn't stapling on her or anything! lol

I got a few more photos for you poor people, you are compelled to look at the thumbnail photos at least! - I tell you, I have time to take photos, maybe I should be a photographer! I have become a bit of a photog lately!
Here they are, hope you guys like squirrels! - Those blue plastic pieces are where the squirrels tore a hole in the lid to one of the birdseed buckets, it's just a kitty litter bucket! -
They are quite the chewers, and that bucket was already empty! lol


This message was edited Mar 7, 2013 4:08 PM

More photos for all I say! Photos of wily squirrels! They spent a lot of time looking around to see if the coast was clear! I was standing right there, I just wasn't moving until they jump on the feeders! lol There it is in a desert terrarium in the warmer months, I hope they don't get in it then! -
Will

I need to take care of my little Emerald Arborvitaes so they don't get all bent up in snow and ice too! - Here's that empty bucket the squirrels chewed up! They can be very determined, they are going to have birdseed! - That is a LONG Asparagas Fern! -

Have you ever seen five Mourning Doves in one picture?! - They're hard to see, they're probably like specks, they aren't easy to spot in photos. - There's 2 by the feeder in the yard, 1 by the base of the tree, 1 by a solar light and 1 in the walkway to the gate. That's only five but there was another one over to the right out of the photo. Here is a close-up of the pair by the feeder in the yard. - This is a close-up of the one by the tree. - This is a close-up of the closest pair of Mourning Doves. - This is a photo of that sixth Dove that was out of the first photo. -

This message was edited Mar 7, 2013 4:53 PM

Here is a pesky squirrel! -
Will

I love watching squirrels but my dad has quit loving them. They got into our shed last year when he stored our black walnuts down there. He was gonna dole them out over the winter so they would have food but a grey squirrel led our red ones on a revolt and they ate holes in our shed in several different spots and ate every walnut we had stored. There were probably 10 of them running around the shed at a time when that happened. Needless to say he now cusses at them while I laugh at him. If there is food nearby they will find a way to get to it.

Mau Mau is a bobtail. Here's pic of Chloe holding him.

We haven't been seeing as many mourning doves the past few years & wonder if it's because of all the hawks. They've been released in this area to thin out the pidgeons. Here's a few doves in my garden.

Missouri Botanical Garden Chinese Festival May 2012. Coming again soon!

Or maybe this was the Lantern Festival. I'm confused. I'll have to ask Nicole. She's my extended memory. lol We did attend the Chinese Festival, but those were mostly pics of the acrobats and dragon parade. I didn't plan to post these photos, but I ran across them while searching for pics of Mau Mau. I have 100s more. That's a lot of words! I may never need to say anything again. Just post pics. lol

Some great pic's gb I would imagine the memories that go with them are wonderful!!!

He he. SL pet kitties and pet squirrels ,, there's a combination Those are some great fun pic's too !!!

Someday I'd like to go to Mobot, I bet that place is incredible! That place is so close yet so far!

We saw Oz, the Great and Powerful today in 3d. I'm no Ebert and Roper but it's worth seeing! There's a big difference between it and Hansel and Gretel tho, Hansel and Gretel was way more gruesome! It's a nice family movie, I don't recall one curse word or anything embarrassingly obscene for kids and parents in "Oz". In my opinion, they kinda went TOO big on the movie screen that we saw it on and it affected the 3d in a bad way. I think it would be better on a regular-sized movie screen. It was kinda cool that it's geographically based on pretty-close-to-here, and I love the old Big-Top circuses and carnival events of around early 1900's like the "strongman, magicians and the world's smallest donkey" and all that!
We saw it on Union Station's huge screen, it's 74' x 50', bigger than an Imax screen even, there was seating for 450 people here. It starts out black and white like the original movie did in 1936 or whenever but it soon went to color and the colors are unbelievable.

Green, you can post any photos you want, everybody likes photos! Your Mourning Doves are more white than the ones here, they're pretty there too. That Mau does have some fur on him/her, Bob is short-haired. Yes, at a thousand words per pic you are all worded out, but you still have to post you know!

Squirrels do like a Walnut! That's too bad though, when they're income and I'm sure it's a bunch of work picking them all up.
I have to wonder, if we'd have around half as many Walnut trees if it wasn't for squirrels burying them and forgetting about them? I don't think that's what pepper wants to hear! Pepper is like, "why did they have to bury our walnuts!"! lol Back in the early 2000's and even around 1998 and 99' I was buying (6) 50-
lbs. at a time of Black-Oil Sunflower-only birdseed and I didn't realize it at the time but my friend's Mom was feeding squirrels! I used to tease my friend that her yard didn't have soil, it just had sunflower shells! It felt like walking on a sponge!
Then, the price per bag went up from $9.99 to around $15 a bag and they said forget it. But, I can see why she did it, the wildlife just loves Black-Oil sunflower seed only, not the mix.
Eventually, the little mixed seed gets ate by birds, but it is like Spinach and Black-Oil Sunflower is like T-Bone steak I think!

Yeah ju, kitties are good company usually. It's just when they do hairballs on your clothes or spray urine on your drapes (or bedding), or scratch up your furniture! But, my friend says, "oh, but they have a little beating heart!". I just don't say anything, my friend thinks more of the cats than she does me! lol But, my friend does agree that male cats spray urine out of habit and instinct, she prefers female cats, I now know why, it's not a gender thing really! I don't really like that male cat trait myself, I don't feel the need to spray my urine! The good things about cats way outweighs the bad things though.
Will



This message was edited Mar 8, 2013 6:23 PM

We don't sell our walnuts. Normally we pile them up around the yard. But last year my dad wanted them to last longer. It backfired. lol.

Our birds will eat whatever we put out there. lol. Sunflower seeds most popular of course but they like other stuff too. I need to get sunflower seeds to plant. I can use them to shade my shade garden some and feed the birds. lol

Will, you do know that.the doves are fake, right? My gr-d gifted them to me. Carla gave me the owl for Mom's Day. The goose was Carla's night light about 29 years ago. All my plastic fake birds.
Betty or gb

Amanda visited with us some years back at Mobot with her grandmother. Show them your photos Pepper! I bet you took quite a few. Since that visit, many changes have been made which keeps things interesting.

My family visited Powell Gardens some years ago and I liked everything; except for the snakes. Pepper was a gracious hostess.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=4843764

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=4843754

Ack, sorry pepper, I was thinking of acorns, I know people collect acorns to sell them around here.

You got me, I didn't know they were fake! I was wondering about how cool that was to get such a close-up pic of a Dove! The only one I thought was fake was the owl, I thought it was like a scarecrow! I feel so stupid! lol Seriously tho green, sorry to hear about the Chain of Rocks bridge, I heard on tv that the little section broke off and fell into the water. I'll post this photo, I found this aerial shot of it. - I know it was a neat place for you as a youngster, sorry.

That's a neat way to get Sunflowers in the yard, pepper, maybe I'll do it too! Yes, let's see those photos, pepper!

I have no idea where my photos are buried on here. lol.

Birds love eating sunflowers off the plants. I just never planted them because they get so big. I have some smaller native ones coming this year though. But I still need to plant the big ones. In fact I think I need to hurry up and get some seeds because it's almost time to plant!!

I have sunflower seeds to sow also. Did you know that sunflower seed hulls strongly inhibit and prevent the growth of other plants? Once we quit filling the bird feeder, grass grew back under the crab apple tree.

Interesting that the photo has green trees & exactly matches another photo on the net with bridge intact. Ok?

Yeah, after I did that I realized the trees were green! I got that from bing images I think..lol - It was bad I know! I shoulda also put the fallen bridge on the other side with the current!
After I did that I was thinking, "what a lame thing to do, that's not going to fool anybody!"! I just can't get over the pic of your white plastic Dove looking right in the camera with it's eyeballs and everything and I thought it was real! I don't understand though, why is the bridge crooked? Was it designed to go with that other lone pillar out there and then they discovered the rocks or something like that? I wonder why the bridge doesn't go straight across the Mississippi River like other bridges?

Boy, it is warming up here, slowly but surely! Right now it is 58° - http://www.kshb.com/subindex/weather/forecast/7_day_forecast The snow on the ground is probably over half disappeared, in some places probably more than others. I saw an interesting bit on the news about the urban heat island effect here. It showed the snow on the ground by satellite all around the region with big circles around metro areas like Kansas City and St. Louis where a lot of the snow had melted.

Here is the before and after of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, it is indeed still there! - Hehe greenbrain.. did you notice the green trees right away or did you have to check the news or anything!?
It only took about an hour but as soon as I posted it I noticed the trees were green, I was thinking, "dangit"!

Will, it's ok. I know that you like to kid around. My husband agrees with you that the closeup does look real in the pic. (He also liked your little joke.) I guess because I know the birds are fake, I can't see it. I was anxious to tell you that we saw a couple of mourning doves in the back yard about an hour ago. We often have a couple nest here in the crab apple or pear tree, so they must winter over somewhere else.

Will, I had already checked the news (I do that before I look @ anything else online.) & figured that it would have been immediate headlines here. I noticed that the water level was way too high before realizing that the trees were green. We've got sand bars all up & down the river right now. I'm actually more concerned about the bridges I cross everyday going to work falling down. I either ride the train that crosses the Eads Bridge or the bus that crosses the McKinley Bridge. These are both very old bridges. Did you see the movie "Mothman"? That movie really creep-ed me out. A truss bridge did collapse in Minneapolis a few years ago. That's where my employer's corporate headquarters is located. Commuters were actually on the bridge when it collapsed. This reminds me of a song, "London Bridge is falling down...." lol

What you have in KC that I'd like to visit is the Arabia Steamboat Museum. Has anyone been on that tour?

I just turned my compost pile and found 5-6 night crawlers in one shovel load. I've got fishing fever anyway, so I know where to dig for worms. We haven't had snow on the ground all week. That last snow storm gave us more rain & any recent snowfall has been a light dusting.

I also forget to say that my daffodils and the snowdrops started blooming earlier in the week. Does anyone have any crocus blooming right now? I planted some a few years back. The squirrels must have dug them up & buried them in the library yard because that's where they ended up blooming.

I've been busy all day with chores and now my back is aching, so I'm going to rest for a bit. I hope that everyone had a nice Saturday. Giving up that hour tonight is tough, but it'll be nice to have the extra daylight in the evening. Time to spring forward!

Will, one last thing. I sincerely hope & pray that you get a job real soon. You've got way too much time on your hands garden buddy. : )

Well it seems Spring wanted to roar in today. We are dealing with thunderstorms with occasional gullywashers. I was at work when the heavy stuff first hit and it was so loud and unexpected everyone just stopped and looked outside.

Will, how far is Bannister from you? They have some positions there at the HD they are looking to fill if you can't get on near your place.

Mothman Prophecies? My friend has that in her dvd collection. It's worth seeing? I'll watch it if it has significance on something. Actually, I'm not into Sci-fi movies myself, my friend is, we've seen a lot of sci-fi movies but she is the one that wants to see them. I prefer more "real" or I don't know "reasonable" movies that make sense and are easier to understand, I get confused easy!
Did you know a bridge over the Missouri River here is in the World Almanac for being the recordholder for it's style of construction, I think it's called Continuous Plate.
It's the I-435 bridge over the Mo. River, it's about 6 miles from here. Steamboat Arabia? I heard good things about it. It's kinda like the Truman home in Independence, Mo., it's right here but I've never been to it. Actually, I have been to Steamboat Arabia, but I didn't take the tour. It's very close to the Kansas City farmer's market (I mean like in the same lot close) anyway one time many years ago I just walked in, it was impressive, I remember that, but, I saw very little. I saw something like the paddle-wheel and walked back out, (you couldn't see much without taking the tour), I remember thinking, "someday, I'm going to see that". If you guys ever come to Kansas City I'd be glad to go with you or show you around town a bit.

I'd never do anything malicious like take one of you guy's photos and put your head on somebody shoplifting at Walmart or something! lol My photoshopping skills and such aren't THAT crazy!

Yes, a lot of hand time, thanks, I usually find houseworkto do in my spare-time too. I have a few irons in the fire on jobs, so we'll see. I'm safe where I'm at, what I'm trying to say is I'll never be sleeping in the woods, my friend is like a Sister and she wouldn't do that to me. I don't want anyone to worry about me! She gets mad on occasion but she'd never throw me out for not having a job, we've also known each other for nearly 20 years. She knows I should be able to get a job eventually. We don't go hungry and all the bills are paid.

Oh, the gullywashers are here now I'm sure you know! Curb-side yardwaste pickup begins again in less than a month so I hope it stays dry soon so I can rake!

Bannister Road is about 20 to 25 minutes from here. Thanks, I might be looking into it. When and if I apply there again after the 60 day apply period elapses, (which is ironically enuff only 30 days from today). Actually, the last application to the one in Independence, Mo. is still up in the air sorta. I believe I'm still some sort of a candidate there, I've called up there 3 times and even once when I was shopping there I asked for the guy that interviewed me, (he wasn't there). They've never said no, and they've been nice on the phone, so I'm a little optimistic there still. According to them, the people haven't made their decision on that position yet, they've been on vacation. I'd love to work there, it's in the same city and everything. They have taken my name and they know I'm still interested so I can just wait and see, in the meantime I'm looking elsewhere!
Will

Hope something works out!! The Independence store is a nice store. The one thing I hate about mine is smelling the food from all the restuarants. I'm always hungry and even more so when I smell good food cooking!! LOL