Updates.

Well here I am on Lunch at work again.

Fire update: Day 11-58k acres 50% contained 189 homes destroyed 1 dead.  However, it had the lowest 1 day growth in it’s history yesterday.

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Weather: very hot and dry.  Supposedly broke a record yesterday – that is according to the news it hit 100 in Denver.  However I didn’t see temps past high nineties locally.     It’s also going to be very hot today.

I’ve totally saturated my lettuce area so what happens is the top soil “crusts” over – but you can tell it’s still moist in the “trench”   But it may be too hot for the lettuce to progress past seedling stage. 

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A postscript to losing and finding my check.   Last night I heard Missy Meowing from the basement.  As she tends to grab random items and walk around with them meowing – I wasn’t unduly concerned.  It DID, however cross my mind that I should go down there.   But then I got into watering and forgot. 

This morning when I was feeding the cats I realized Missy wasn’t hanging around waiting for her food like she normally does.   At first I thought I shut her in the garage.  I had been out there earlier to grab an item.   I checked she wasn’t there.   So I started to wonder – did I even see her last night?   I realized I must have shut her in one of the downstairs room.   So I went down there.   No response.  I checked the snake room, she wasn’t in there.   Then I opened the door to the downstairs bathroom.   MEOW!  There she was!    Now I still have stuff in there from when I got my carpets cleaned so I guess she must have hid last night and I shut the door, not realizing she was in there.   Hope she didn’t leave a surprise….

New Pets

Well the birds ate about 4 cups of seed yesterday.  I mostly saw activity on the ground.  I'm going out this morning after putting some in and just quietly sit at the table with my kindle to see if any will show up while I'm there.   When I went out earler this morning, the whole yard erupted in birds.  So they come to my yard anyway.  Most likly to eat the insects in the grass and garden area after a night of dew.  It did rain a bit yesterday.

*PF folks this next section is almost identical to what I posted on the board *


My parents (well my dad) adapted a dog yesterday. They lost their dog "bear" a few months back to cancer (again. They lost their last dog to cancer as well.) And recently one of their cats passed away as well. So my dad saw an adaption event in the paper and checked it out. And adaupted an 11 month old lab (mix they think). All black. My mom said she just looked up and there was a dog in the yard!

So my dad said he was getting a name tag - and mom asked what he was going to name her and he kinda shrugged... then brought back a name tag with "Bear" on it! Hello - that was the last dog's name. Mom said "no way" and gave him a list of names. They settled on Samantha - or Sammi girl.  (and yeah mom spelled it out for me.)

I admit I too got some new pets - wasn't expecting it. I had a few of my spiders die the last few months. One right before vacation. I had a feeling I was going to lose him - he had been acting strange sense his last molt. Sometimes they can have hidden injuries.

Anyway I was at the pet store last night to pick up fish (for the garter snakes) and decided to check out what they had... and they had a ton of "choco" golden knee babies. I have one already but I think it's male - and I like to have two if possible of everything as a back up. then they had a good size (2") spider called "rio grand gold" (I had the pet shop guy look up the Latin name - I have it written on the deli cup but I don't have it in front of me) This little guy is an all over dustly tan/yellow. The price for the choco was 25 and they are pretty common so I wondered if I could get a discount. So I said - if I wait will these guys be on sale? And one of the pet store guys said - well how much would you pay - I said 20... especially in light of the fact I was thinking of getting the other spider as well (the other spider was priced at 64.99) so he said he'd do both for 80.

And when I got home Missy darted into the garage again. Brat. She was on top of the car again but this time came in the first time I opened to door for her.

* End*

Ok so I'm headed out with the seed and camera now.  I can hear lots of birds in and around my place already.   Several of my kitties are right at the screen door, listening and watching.  :)  I'll be back later.

Bird Feeder, Gardening, Kitty story.

So... I bought a small bird feeder (I think it said it holds 2.5 quarts - I don't recall now) and about 10 lbs of bird feed.   I put it up on Memorial day...  nothing.  Tuesday morning, there are birds at the feeder - yea!.  Tuesday evening - half the seed is gone.    By Wednesday all the seed I had put in the feeder was gone.   I filled it up again - and when I got home from work tonight - all gone!   I did stop at a feed store on my way home.  So now I have a 25lb bag of bird food for the same cost I got the 10lb bag at Walmart.   I'm not going to fill up though I'm going to put like a scoop in a day.   I'm really doing this to a) attract pretty birds not just sparrows - though they are cute and b) for my cats' entertainment.

I also have been frantically trying to catch up with my gardening.   Because of vacation I didn't get a chance to do my shopping until this past weekend.  I started planting on memorial day and have been doing a little each day.   First I planted my squash and onion seeds, followed by lettuce, spinach, collards and potatoes.  Oh and I'm trying something with the wild flowers this year.   Last year I seeded a whole bunch on the side of my house - and just got weeds.   This year I designated an area in my newly built veggie bed for wild flowers.  I'm hoping to transplant the plants when they come up.     I also planted marigolds right away this time.  Marigolds are SUPPOSED to help keep bugs away (we shall see)  but every time I've bought them I've forgotten to plant them until they are too far gone in their pots TOO plant.   So THIS time I did it right away.

I also bought extra violas to augment the ones that came up on their own in my back yard.  See I have a raised patio and there is a small (about 2' wide) dirt slope to the grass.  On one end where there are little stairs I put strawberries last year and they are going to town this year.   Then after that I had squash and flowers.  The squash I moved.  Some of the flowers came back and I wanted to put more.   Aside from the violas I bought moss rose - I love this stuff but it doesn't last the winter and doesn't reseed.   Lastly I through a bunch of snapdragon seeds out there - just did this tonight - and some fine pine mulch so it doesn't look like... well dirt.

I planted a bunch of seeds indoors as well with the idea of transplanting young plants.   These included the snapdragon seeds I mentioned above - and these seeds have sprouted about 4 days after I planted!   So I hope they do well.   I also seeded columbines, lobelia, catnip and a couple of seeds of the stuff I already planted, ie spinach, onions etc.  The reason for this is to get an idea of how long to expect them.

Though I checked - and I already have lettuce coming up.  :)

Tomorrow I'm going to plant some of the perennials I bought.   I replaced a plant that my mom and I killed last year by trying to transplant it. I don't recall the name at the moment but it's a xeroscape plant, spindly and has white flowers.  I also bought a couple of plants that supposedly like their feet to be wet.  I'm going to plant them in the "pond" area created by my sump pump (I don't think I told that story here - maybe sometime)  - the area is very very wet, and I wanted to plant some wet loving flowers there - we will see if they work.  Then I had a few extra plants I wanted to add to the xeroscape - just some little flowers nothing big.

On a different subject - my feral born cat, Missy decided tonight that she HAD to be in the garage.   When I first came home she tried, but I diverted her.  Later though, when I went out to get something, she darted out with me me.   Normally I will leave her there for 5 or 10 minutes and then open the door.  At that point she tends to come right back in.   This time I heard a "thump"   and went "oh yeah, Missy's in the garage"  and I went to let her in --- she was on the roof of my car.   Upon seeing me she just plunked her little self down in the middle of the roof and laid there.   She didn't even budge when I called her.  (I took a picture.)   I decided to wait some more and gave her another 10 or 15 minutes.   When I checked again she was still on the car!   So I decided to go get her.   I reached over and petted her a bit, but when I tried to coller her, she scooted away and then lay down on her side and gave me her "I'm the cutest thing ever" look - and of course she started purring!   She thought it was a great game.   Eventually I was able to scoop her up and get her back inside.  :)

Night.