REPLANT PART 10?

Remember when I told you that it didn't do any good to listen to the weather report? Well, I was right! Saturday night after the hellicious winds it was supposed to get down to 40 degrees. Everything looked fine Saturday night. I got up Sunday morning to water the garden and basically there was no garden!!!!! It got down to 31 degrees during the night. Even the plants I had covered with milk crates got frozen. Every single leaf on the grape vine was black! All those plants I nurtured for two months in the guest bedroom were history. A few plants survived but not much. I ran down to Tom's to see how his garden was doing and his was kinda hit and miss. There would be a couple of plants frozen and the next few would be fine and then a couple of frozen ones. He keeps hoops over his rows with shade cloth so his damage wasn't as extensive as mine. Sooooo today, I pretty much planted the entire garden over. The potatoes will make a comeback on their own. The jury is still out on the peas altho I planted new seeds right next to the ones that looked kind of sick. My onions and spinach are ok tho. I even had a small bowl of spinach for dinner last night. I'm going to have to buy more lettuce because I can't find any in my stash. The flowers in pots next to the house made it just fine. Well back to the drawing board! I've got to start my plans for next year.

65

 First of all, I had to share these two pictures of Maggie eating her dinner. I had to laugh when I saw what she was sitting on.

 I'm not even sure if she realized she was sitting on something. It just happened to be there when she sat down to have dinner.

 Here is the eclipse we had last week I took it thru two welding lenses. Pa was worried I would look at it thru my camera lens and go blind. He dug the lenses out of the shed for me.

 Hey, it's not easy holding the camera with two lenses in front of it. I was sure I was taking pictures of my thumb or something.

 On Sunday, Steve's brother and sister in law came for a visit. We gave them a tour of the ranch. Here we are on a mesa and just beyond brother H is a ledge you could fall off.

 W had a good time looking for rocks. We found some arrowhead chippings but no arrowheads. I had planned to go pottery shard hunting later in the week.

 Isn't this beautiful in a stark sort of way?

 One day we took them on  a drive going thru Springerville and ending up in Show Low. About halfway thru the ride we went past the turn off to the ski lift. The landscape is so much like Oregon minus the rain. It was so beautiful.

You don't realize how much you miss the green until you see a bunch of it. We ended up having lunch at a Chinese buffet in Show Low.
  On Wednesday, we planned to go pottery shard hunting but the day dawned bright and windy so we ended up staying inside and visiting.
 Company left Thursday morning and we've had wind ever since, hence the title of this post. All day today we've had winds of 40 MPH with gusts of 65. My poor garden will be blown away. I haven't even been able to go out and water. It looks to me that the winds were closer to 65 than 45. The windows had to stay closed all day but we still got sand in the window wells and the kitchen floor is grainy. Yesterday I forgot to close the window in our bedroom so my side of the bed was sandy. You can sleep and get dermabrasion all at the same time! No matter how much you sweep the sand out of the bed, you can still feel it, darn it I just changed the sheets right before that. I need to do some laundry but everything would be blown into New Mexico. I wish I could record the wind and put the sound on here so you could here it. Whooooooooooooo!

Snake in Bird Bath

 The other day I glanced out the kitchen window and saw something hanging down from the bird bath. I thought "hmmmmm" so backed up and had another look. This snake had decided to get a drink! There wasn't much water but he did have enough to get a drink.

 This is a different one, not the one slithering around in my last post. This guy is about a foot shorter in length.

 He was in the bird bath for 20 minutes or so.

 Time to head out and go hunting!

 These birds were all lined up waiting for him to leave so they could get a drink. I know the snake was hoping one of them would fly down and make a nice dinner.

 The dogs didn't know what to think. This is their first encounter with a snake.

 The snake didn't know what to think of them either. He did let out a nasty stink bomb to warn them off. The smell was still on the fence after he left. The dogs kept digging at the fence, thinking he was still there somewhere.

Mr or Mrs Snake slithered off and went under the water tank. Later that same day, a snake crawled up and into the under carriage of my truck. I tried to get a picture but it didn't turn out.

Yesterday we had a fierce wind storm. It was all across the state. I feel so sorry for the fire fighters fighting the fires across Arizona and for the people who are losing their homes. The federal government needs to step down and let the states do what is necessary in our forests to keep these fires from happening. We need to thin our forests and get rid of the under brush. The northern part of Arizona is a tinder box, just waiting for a flame. Its hard to believe that part of Arizona is beautiful forest land. It looks like Oregon minus the rain. We have all sorts of pines, aspens, etc in the northern part of our state.

I decided it was time to color my hair since my roots were showing. Darn it, I was born a strawberry blond and I'm gona die a strawberry blond. I bought some color on sale. I don't stick to any one brand. Just what's on sale. Sooooo, I colored my hair and it turned out a brilliant copper red. It was shocking and way to red. I couldn't stand it so I washed my hair again and it was still bright red so I rewashed it with lemon juice and peroxide, then I washed it with dish detergent....still glowing copper red with light streaks thru it. The next day I went to town to get water and stopped by the store and bought golden blond and redid my hair. Now it is all sorts of colors and I give up!!! It will wash out eventually. Lesson learned? Stay with one brand and one color. Pa's brother and sis in law will be arriving tomorrow from Oregon. Wonder what they will think of my hair!!!!

I've added a new feature to the blog. You can subscribe to my blog and get notified by email when I post so you don't have to keep checking to see if I've updated. You'll get a notification in your email from Feed Burner and you click on the link and from then on, you will get an email. Make sense? I hope so cause it took me forever to figure out how to add that email thingy.
Take care!

Mother's Day and Flagstaff

I had such a great time in Flagstaff with my friend, Katie. I arrived at her house around 9 in the morning and we were in Flagstaff about an hour later. She showed me where the mall is on east side of Flag. We went to Marshall's first and found some good buys on cardstock, then to Saver's where I found a nice pair of denim shorts for $4.99 with 25% off for Mother's day. Then on to the Goodwill Weigh and Pay where I found a new rolled pillow for the couch for $1.00. Let's see, where else did we go? Joann's craft store for some goodies on sale and right next door to that is Michaels craft store for more goodies on sale. We found some Tim Holtz Distress Crackle paint marked down from $12.99 to $2.49. You can actually make your greeting cards looked cracked! When we got up to the check stand it rang up at $12.99 so we told the cashier that the sign said $2.49. She went to the aisle to check the price and then informed us that it was marked wrong but gave it to us at the lower price anyway. Boy I was glad I picked up two of them! That was quite a savings! We had lunch at Sizzler, love the senior salad buffet! Then it was on to Dollar General, the regular Goodwill where we snatched another deal of the century. That deal was on a set of 5 embossing folders by Sizzix which would normally retail for 12 or 15 dollars for the huge price of 99 cents!!!!! Don't ya just love thrift stores? Then a quick stop to Sam's Club and then onward to Winslow where we dashed into Walmart and then to Holbrook to drop Katie off and then on to Saint Johns where I made it home in time to watch the Survivor Finale. I was exhausted!!!! Katie was darned lucky that I didn't have to knock her to the ground to grab something out of her hands that I wanted. There were plenty of goodies to go around.
Now it's back to real life, gardening, house cleaning and such. Thank you to my family who texted to wish me Happy Mother's day! I love you all!

Snakes and other things

 Pa decided to go to the community well here on the ranch to see about the water situation. On the way we spotted many Hedgehog cactus blooming. What a beautiful spot of color!

 We spotted this snake in the road. He took offense at me nudging his tail with my foot. I just wanted to get a better picture. It is only a bull snake. They are so pretty.

 At the well. You have to have your own generator and hose. After pumping less than 180 gallons, the well went dry. Now it says in our sales contract that we are allowed to get 4000 gallons a month from the community well. How the @#%&* are we supposed to get that many gallons of water when it runs dry before we even get to 180 gallons? and then it took 45 minutes to even get that much. The guy who drilled the well told us he suggested they put a solar pump on it and a 10 thousand gallon holding tank so we wouldn't have these issues. The real estate office didn't want to spend the money. The POA doesn't want to spend the money either. I really feel we could have one heck of a law suit if we had the money to sue! The water did taste good and made the best coffee! 

 Safeway was having a sale on London Broil for $2.29 a pound which is cheaper than hamburger so we got 5 of these big packages. I cut them into meal size and froze them. When I want hamburger for something, I will get out my Kitchen Aid mixer and my meat grinder and grind away. It tastes so much better than store bought hamburger. The meat doesn't have enough fat in it for hamburger patties so I just use it for meat loaf, tacos, and stuff like that. I'm going to try to mix it with olive oil to see if it will make moister meat patties.

 Pa ran in the house yesterday, shouting "get your camera and come here" . One of our snakes emerged from under the shed. What a beauty! He went under the water truck and motor home looking for mice.

 He's about 4 feet long.

 Hello! Anyone home?

These snakes are great for keeping the mouse population under control. They eat small rabbits also and best of all, they eat rattle snakes. I haven't seen any rattlers out here but I did see a badger on our road. Of course I didn't have my camera. I was afraid he would bolt across the road so made Pa drive slow.
Pa had to take Lil Abner to the emergency room Thursday night. He had a high fever and was  loaded with infection. The hospital wanted to fly him to Flagstaff but couldn't because the Springerville airport was closed due to resurfacing. Isn't that amazing? You could die because they were resurfacing the airport. They could have put a helicopter in the parking lot of the hospital. Poor Pa didn't get home till 1:30 in the morning. Lil Abner is still in the hospital. We haven't heard exactly what the problem is but they have him in isolation and the Dr and staff wear space suits to treat him.
Well I hope you didn't die of shock seeing I've written two posts for this month. I always feel I should include pictures so wait till I have something to show. Oh,,,,I had to replant my greenbeans which I did today and will replant my lima beans on Monday, lettuce too. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it to garden. My poor strawberries are dying at an alarming rate.
Until next time!

Missing in Action

 Hello! I know it's been awhile since my last post but darn it all! I haven't had a thing to say! I'm sure you don't want me to prattle along about nothing, right? But we are alive and well. I had to show you this picture of Tilly watching TV. Most of the time she is draped over the arm of Pa's chair, sitting in his lap, watching TV with him.

 Poor Maggie. Her bladder problems are getting worse. She is wearing the latest fashion, doggy Depends. Unfortunately, they were so tight she couldn't walk so I opened the tail hole bigger and loosened the elastic in the legs a little bit. A lot of the time she just walks out of them. I never put my carpet shampooer away anymore. We bought some baby diapers to see if they would work better. It said up to 28 pounds but wouldn't ya know, they are too small. The dog ones are so expensive, I thought I could cut a hole in baby ones and get by with them. They absorb more. Since Pa doesn't have clean up duty, he doesn't think it is time to have Mags put to sleep. With her jaw muscle gone on one side, it is getting harder for her to eat. She has a great attitude and huge appetite and her tongue is still pink so we don't think she is loosing as much blood as it looks like. She runs around when we let her go out in the front yard and enjoys that so I just don't know what to do about her. Her hips are going south so she falls over once in awhile.

 The Hedgehog cactus is blooming. We are getting little wild flowers on the property. If we'd get some rain, we would get lots of them.

 Did you see the super moon last night? It was so pretty but my lousy photography doesn't do it justice.

 Where's the cow jumping over the moon?

 It was sooooo beautiful!

 I thought I'd get artistic and film thru some branches.

 The branch is actually in front of the moon

 Ha! It looks like the branch is cradling the moon. How did I get that shot?

 A Christmas tree decoration?

My mom has one of those Jitterbug phones that doesn't have enough power to call across the street so I told her I would put her on my plan and send her my old phone. When we went in last week to see how much it would cost and to buy out my contract on Verizon internet, we were told it would cost $95.00 to buy out the contract and another $35.00 to activate my old phone. We went to Show Low Friday and talked to another girl and she said she could just switch the internet phone number to my old phone. When that was done, I asked how much we owed and she said NOTHING! I'll mail my mom the phone on Tuesday and she will be all set up and ready to go. I put in everyone's number she might want to call and wrote down instructions. We will feel much better knowing she has a better phone to use in an emergency.
My spinach is coming up and is producing it's second set of leaves. Peas are up and doing well, about an inch and a half tall. The asparagus is growing like gang busters but we can't eat it this year. It needs to build up it's strength. I planted brocolli, cauliflower, okra, lima beans, green beans, two blueberry bushes, sweet potatoes, yellow squash, carrots, radishes,lettuce, cabbage and grape tomatoes, green bell and yellow bell peppers and potatoes. I still have butternut squash, pumpkins, 3 kinds of tomatoes, watermelon, cantelope, zuchinni, pepperocini, red bell peppers, and cukes to plant. I'm running out of room. I may have to put up fences so things can grow up instead of vine all over the ground. I started a bunch of marigolds and zinna's in the house and transplanted a bunch of them outside. Some in the garden to repel bugs and some in pots in front of the house. All of my transplants in the garden are covered with milk cartons to protect them from the wind. Hey, did you know that you can cut off the bottom inch or so of a bunch of celery, plant it outside and it will grow more celery? You just put the bottom of the bunch (where the roots would be), not individual celery sticks, in a bowl of water over night and then plant the next day.
Our poor friend, Lil Abner! He's had a rough year. We got up at 4:30 on Friday to take him to the hospital for surgery. This is his third surgery in 3 months! It was just a day surgery ( but serious)and we picked  him up at noon and brought him home. He hasn't had the time to recoup from his previous surgeries so you know it knocked the snot out of him. Keep him in your prayers!
We are having our usual spring weather. Beautiful if you don't mind the wind. It isn't as windy as it was last year tho...Thank God! Three solid months of wind about drove me crazy and ruined the garden.
Good news, we are now using Wild Blue satellite for our internet provider. We can watch videos now and not worry about running out of megabytes. It is three times as many megabytes for about $20.00 more a month. Verizon worked great but don't go over a silly second on your MB's or you will get charged double.
My friend Katie came over last Thursday to play in my craft room.  I took her for a ride in the Granny Mobile. We both got sunburned without realizing it till the next day. On Mother's Day we are going to Flagstaff to go shopping!!!! I can hardly wait. She is so much fun to shop with because we both like the same type stores. We also like the same kinds of stuff so I just might have to hold her down and tear something I want right out of her hands.
Pa spends most of the day putzing around in his work shop ( one of the storage containers) He actually spent some time organizing it so he can find things. We need to go thru the 48 ft semi trailer and really evaluate what we have and what we need to get rid of. When I mention something like that, Pa says maybe we should start in my craft room. EXCUSE ME!!! I do go thru it from time to time and usually give what I don't want to my friend Katie. So I do evaluate what's in there!!!!! Pa is such a pack rat and has the attitude that he might use something one day before he dies. That is, if he can find it! Oh well, as long as it is out in the shed and not in the house. We all have our Achilles heel. I'm not any closer to getting chickens! I'm just going to have to buy some material next time I'm in Show Low with out Pa. Maybe if it is staring him in the face, he'll get inspired to build me a chicken coop.
Ok, then, are we all caught up? Any questions? I'll try to blog more often but don't read this as a promise or anything.