I'm off to work, but not before starting our August thread. See you all back here tonight.
August 2013 - Last Full Month of Summer
Hello! Where did everybody go? I'm going outside to pick the garden. Then making chicken & dumplings for dinner. I'll check in later. : )
I have been out doing different things ,, working around the house , starting fall seedlings .. planning next year ,, as this year I goofed bunches ,, but lots of flowers and no drought so far ... here ...
Apologies Happ ... droughts are depressing ,,, but they end !!!
Droughts are disappointing and hard to endure! Then you get an over abundance of rain that you think will never end. Seems that it's always too much or not enough.
We had blackberry cobbler for dinner and now our teeth and lips are stained blue. LOL! It was very tasty despite the strange after effect.
My youngest daughter's former college roommate visited yesterday while I was at work and got a complete guided tour of my gardens. Her friend said that if she ever gets her own home that she wants some of my bamboo and loves my "The Fairy" rose. I'm glad that I trimmed and cleaned up the other day because it was a mess earlier in the week! Forget about the house dust & clutter, the garden must be neat and weedless. Ha!
I've got to slice up some cucumbers now for pickling. I love this time of year! : )
Droughts are depressing, nice plants die, crops die, hose time, water-bills and restrictions go up and there's more I'm sure! You mentioned that you have some friends that have or still do work at Lake City, happ? Lake City is a neat place.
I've never really cared much about my jobs' work-places but Lake City is so cool.
It's like an institution for this area, a working museum of sorts. It is easily the largest employer around here.
My deceased paternal grandfather worked there, a brother of his and 2 stepdads work or maybe still work there I don't know. I grew up about 1 mile from Lake City, it always fascinated me, even as a kid, (there is always booms or tracers in the sky..lol) It goes back to 1940 when it was built, Harry S. Truman broke the ground on it, it started production in 1941.
http://info.atk.com/lakecity/
http://www.jmc.army.mil/Installations.aspx?id=LakeCityOverview
It's no wonder that the United States military is number one in the world, the quality and attention to detail on the military's ammunition is excellent and has been for many years, they spare no expense on anything. About 2,000 people know it's a great place to work and be associated with. Even the smell of the place and the sounds like testing machine gun ammo (in bunkers) all day is a bonus.
This message was edited Aug 1, 2013 11:06 PM
Will the garden is really coming together, you should be proud, I love the pics. Had to laugh at the plant in the fountain, I do that also but usually it is in the bird bath or watergarden waterfall. The birds have gotten use to it and just jump in bird bath anyway.
I got rain again today, so nice, and apparently alot from what I heard. Maybe a few things will come out of it and not die. I have lost so many plants.
Ok I took pictures of the house with the zinnias out front but at 55 it is a little hard to see. The other problem she is like me and can't water, but you can see how many she planted from seed!
The next two pics are from a friends house. First you will notice all the zinnias that are fertilized I am guessing with chickens because she has a bunch of chickens. In the second picture just inside the zinnias I have never seen a butterfly bush that looks more like tree in my life, it is huge!
A couple days late here!! lol. It's Puddle Jumper's weekend in Odessa so was at that last night watching lip syncing. Plus working yesterday morning. lol.
Great pics as usual. I would take new pics but the gardens are smushed in places or not blooming in others. We are working on the front of the house so we have stuff everywhere!! lol.
Hehe.. "Puddle Jumper's"! I always kidded my friend when him and his family lived in Odessa about that festival's name! Maybe it's just me but it sounds SO funny!
Actually, those festivals can have some talent in them before the artists get big and famous. I remember seeing The Dixie Chicks at Santa-Cali-Gon in 1993 before they got big. I remember seeing the rock group "Puddle of Mud" at a bar called Nieners in 1994 also, before THEY got big.
Nice Zinnias there happ, and a BUNCH of them! 55 mph! You speeder!
That is some Butterfly Bush, it's VERY nice!
Yes, it has rained pretty considerably lately and it couldn't have come at a better time. Although, unfortunately, some of us got much less than others in this area. : (
In northern MN, people living in the Jack Pine woods were referred to as "Stump Jumpers".
We have some strange celebrations, too.
Bullhead days in Elysian.
Fasching in New Ulm.
Motofest in Winnebago, to name few.
Stump Jumpers! I wanted to know what a stump jumper was so I searched it, it is some kind of attachment or something so a brush hog will go over stumps! Jack Pines are neat though, the Missouri Conservation Dep't sells them, or sold them. I helped a friend plant a few hundred of the approximately 6,000 tree seedlings we planted on his farm, in his farm to forest project he had then, it was an impressive undertaking.
Bullhead Days!? Maybe they have some nice Bullhead Catfish, I used to fish for them as a kid.
Fasching? Hehe.. no idea!
Motofest?! Maybe they're named after the RV's of Winnebago?!
This message was edited Aug 4, 2013 7:18 PM
Sorry Winnebago has no RV factory. That is in Iowa.
Motofest is a festival with 50's car show.
Fasching is the German equivalent of Fat Tuesday. It is held Saturday before Ash Wednesday. The mayor is kidnapped & held for ransom among other things.
Sort of in this direction that is Custom van and RV's Elkhart In...
Hey I remember the pond and Bullhead days ,, "gone fishin , instead of just a wishin "
Hi and back in a while
Oh, I see, no rv's there.
A car show is Motofest!
The New Ulm one sounds a little crazy!
Nice red Hibiscus flower for your avatar, ju!
New Ulm is a German community, has a huge brewery & they love their beer & celebrations. About a dozen a year.
Will you have Santa-Calicon, I do believe it has completely lost it's purpose but I go every year...rofl.
San Antonio was the most partying place I have ever lived. They had something going all the time.
I haven't been to Santa-Cali-Gon in years. I've heard it called the "White Trash Festival", it is a free event. It has quite an attendance, I believe they say around 250,000 people go to it every year. Yeah, they say Independence is where some wagon people went West back in the day. Trails to Santa Fe, California and Oregon
all started here or some such. They say this one Parks and Rec ground has "wagon swales" in the ground from then. I've seen them, they just look like a bunch of ruts to me from where a car got stuck!
New Ulm is a German community eh? Speaking of SantaCaliGon, they have something there made to look German or Swiss, I still don't get where they get it. But, the beer drinking area is called the "bier gartens" or some odd spelling like that.
San Antonio'd be a neat place. I once traveled thru there and I was looking out the hotel window just killing time and I saw a car race thru downtown and crash! I remember another time, there, saying, "this is the riverwalk" and I don't think it was that riverwalk at all, I later said, I think it was some made river for tourists at the hotel, they were fooling people! lol We didn't stay there, our destination was Mexico. We just wanted to walk across the border so we could say we'd been there. When I was there a Mexican kid offered to shine my sneakers for $20.
I said "no way, I'm not giving you $20 to shine my tennis shoes! Anyway, he wanted bad to do it, so I gave him 3 dollars, and he went on to shine my sneakers like they were really something.
This message was edited Aug 5, 2013 11:32 AM
That is a real river flowing thru San Antonio it is the San Antonio River it use to flood and way back in time killed several people. I use to work in a building on the river walk and when the river would rise to the 3rd step to the office we could go home...LOL Most of the flooding is under control now I would imagine, because it has become a major tourist attraction. Course alot of hotels are built along the river walk.
I am guessing the reason Germans are mention in Santa Caligon is because of the large numbers of Germans who were brought here to fight. Here a little history. The Hessians were 18th-century German soldiers hired through their rulers by the British Empire. About 30,000 German soldiers served in the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolutionary War; nearly half were from the Hesse region of Germany; the others came from similar small German states. In the context of the British service, they were all referred to as "Hessians." The American colonists called them mercenaries.
They were hired in units, not as individuals. They received wages, but the prince of their respective states received most of the funds; Britain found it easier to borrow money to pay for their service than to recruit its own soldiers.
The British used the Hessians in several conflicts, including in Ireland, but they are most widely associated with combat operations in the American Revolutionary War. They provided extensive manpower to support the American Loyalist cause. The pro-independence side made propaganda use of the fact that the soldiers were non-British,and portrayed them as mercenaries. They also offered them land bounties to desert and join the Americans. Several more German units were placed on garrison duty in the British Isles to free up British regulars for service in North America. When the war was over alot of the Germans stayed in America, because of the land bounties the Americans offered hence the large number of German settlements.
Actually that is how we paid most of our bills, was by offering free land to people who served in the military.
Their also known to have to have supported the Calvary that defeated Napoleon
But that is another story too , isn't it ,
San Antonio river walk is as pretty a town site as any ever viewed !!!
If any of us tried to pay our bills that way ..... distortion factor ,, They usually just take it ... ouch , bad joke ...
This message was edited Aug 5, 2013 1:46 PM
I knew foreign peoples had a large part in earlier America, I never really understood the scope of them, they were quite important in our history. For instance, my last name is English, although I am 1/8th Indian from Alaska.
Thanks happ : )
Hi ju, you know some German don't you?! What is, "you're a friend" in German?!
This message was edited Aug 5, 2013 1:00 PM
What would that BE? Ich mir deine Fruende? I am your friend ? Something like that ..
Yes! That looks like some German!
Will
Hello everyone! I just returned from a day at the zoo. The landscaping was amazing and so many plants that I wanted to take home with me. There was a yellow pin cushion type flowered bushy looking vine that I've got to find. I should have taken a pic, but it was near the entrance and a very congested area.
Green, call the zoo and ask for the person in charge of landscaping. That person should be able to find out what it is for you.
Well, my truck is back in the shop tonight. It's been acting up alot lately so I took it back in. Gotta get it fixed good and proper so I can quit going back and get other stuff done. lol. I need new tailpipes and tires still. lol
Pepper, Sorry about your truck's continuing repair/maintenance issues. The added expense as well as the inconvenience can be a huge frustration. I hope that you can get it all fixed "good and proper" before winter sets in. That's when it's a real headache! Also, thanks for the advice about the zoo plant.
The landscaping at the St. Louis Zoo is so AWESOME! It's nothing like the zoo of my youth. I can't imagine all the human effort that goes into making this place look so great for the huge number of visitors; including caring for all the animals. I was just amazed at how efficiently this place is run and open 7 days a week year round; including the free admission. There were a lot of senior volunteers who you could tell genuinely enjoyed answering the children's questions about particular animals and teaching them how to pet and handle everything from a screech owl to a guinea pig. Possibly such volunteers help keep the grounds looking so neat. I'd love to have a behind the scenes tour of how this amazing place is run and all the hard workers responsible for the upkeep. Even all the restrooms were clean, working properly, and well supplied. I rode an ostrich on the carousel and petted a stingray! LOL
Off to work. The weather was a pleasant 72 F yesterday, but I believe the rain is going to reach us today.
Oh Greenie I bet the St Louis zoo is a great place to go. I have never been there or the botanical gardens either. I did get to go with the master gardeners inside Silver Dollar city one morning before they opened to the public and the horticulturist guy took us around and that was amazing!
Oh pepper I hate car problems... ;( I can think of so many things I could always use that money on, course I don't want to walk to work either.... ;) Evil necessity especially if you live out like I do.
Will gonna try another bird bath soon? Mine that I did this spring is really holding up well, I had never done that type of stain so I was afraid to sell it, afraid if would fall apart. DH said he didn't know why I was worried about I think I will donate it to our flower sale in the spring and maybe someone will buy it.
I want to get my potting bench done and over. Did I tell you I got the faucet and everything is great EXCEPT one minor miscalculation.....the neck of the faucet is too long....but think I figured out a resolution, buy one of those old fashioned sprayers to stick on the end. That would work great anyway for spraying flowers.
Hi happ, if I need to buy materials, probably not. Although, I may try it again, only this time make the cement thinner and mixed better. Eww, the faucet neck is the wrong size? Walmart sells that little one for a bathroom for around $10.
Juh, how come you know German? My husband’s family has been in Kansas since 1860's but they were from Germany and they were brew masters at two brewers in Kansas before prohibition. Doing genealogy they have been so hard to track altho they have lived in the same community for 100+ years, but finally figured out in the beginning they lived on the brewery grounds so there are little records to find.
I took Spanish in the 3rd grade and Russian in junior high, I would of kept taking it in high school but he told us we would diagram sentence the next year.....I thought why in the world would I want to do it in Russian...rofl. You all from Missouri will love this, I took Russian, and computers in school, from a very progressive school district called Kansas City Schools. I graduated one day and the very next day had a career with ATT downtown in Kansas City in their computer department and have worked computers ever since. When I moved back to KC in the 80's I couldn't believe how the schools had fallen to pieces. So very sad.
Happ My mothers family from great grand parentage and I was there as a very young ...
Today's visitor
That is a beautiful pic Ju....wow.
We went to Germany on a visit one year. It was beautiful. Long story but we ended up in Germany with an English to Spanish dictionary. Once we left the airport it really got exciting...rofl. People are so nice and helpful tho.
Truck problems will be easy to fix it seems like. Mechanic called a bit ago and said I was losing 10 pounds of pressure in my front gas tank and had a spark plug/wire acting up. Easy and cheap compared to computers!! lol
Oh pepper that shouldn't be horrible....so that has to be a relief.
Glad for you.
I studied Spanish from 7th thru 11th grades & for the 12th grade it was Spanish Lit'. Well, I didn't care for English Lit', so like "happ" I said too, "Why would I want to study it in Spanish?" My sisters all studied Spanish too, so we had fun conversing in Spanish at home since our parents couldn't understand us. It drove them nuts!
That is too funny gb about talking in front of your parents. We use to speak pig latin does anyone remember that? Course that might of been something from my generation.
That like , ig , vey , ohey vey , uno vee uner vanna vey ...
Good grief a vey ...lol
rofl....don't know that I have ever tried to read it THANK GOODNESS...rofl...
Too funny ju...
Yeah, we did that too. eah yay, e way id day at thay oo tay. LOL
You have to wonder how this stuff gets started and then to see it gets all over the country...too funny.
Probably the most well known is : icks nay - oyn in a fo ey a.
That was popular about keeping secrets for a while .
It's raining today here , was coming down in buckets a while ago
Monarchs visited yesterday . and cucumbers are setting,, saw three white ones and picked a green one yesterday ,
Flowers are all doing what they do .
Was working last evening on ideas for the cement poles
Life is still generally crazy .
I'm mostly enjoying the rain here. Only bad thing is it hurts business so hours got cut pretty good today.
We got a shower here today. The weather is still pleasant for this time of year. I've been busy making pickles and trying to keep up with the supply of cucumbers from the garden. The blackberries are almost finished now. For the past few weeks, I've been picking a qt. per day, so the freezer is full. I did make a double batch of blackberry cobbler last week & it didn't last long. The next big project will be the pears. The branches are weighed down from the pears, so it's going to be a bumper crop. I "OVE LAY" this time of year!