Archive
from computer fast to thanksgiving feast
its been a little minute since i’ve posted anything. i was without a computer. i broke my power cord in the same place that i broke the last one so i decided i needed to change my computer usage and it took me a few weeks to get my desk moved and set up in the spare room so i could try to move most of my computing and all of my plugged in computer time in the office. but what i found was i kind of enjoyed not playing on the computer. freed up some time which i promptly wasted reading novels, re-read snowcrash and the diamond age both just as good a second thoughtful time through. floated the lemine river the last 12 miles before the the 2 miles before the mouth of the missouri. loverly it was. saw a beautiful bald eagle, piliated woodpecker and great hawk and great blue heron sitings. floating is a misnomer though as if we would have allowed for current we would probably still be there. there were places were the leaves had fallen and they just stayed there, very beautiful. patches of color but mostly bare so you could see through the woods like you can in winter. some pretty bluffs. nice big easy river. not a lot of motor boats on a cool fall day. dad finished the new compost bin. its a lot bigger a square plywood box framed with two by fours and a plywood bin. today at lunch i raked leaves and layered them in with the house coffee and scraps and started shoveling in the top layers of my compost that’s been going. i think there’s probably a fair bit finished down below and i’m gonna mix it in to make the leaves go faster. should have enough capacity to hold all of my fall plant material at once. i want to use the compost to turn up a couple of beds hopefully of spinach, lettuce, and kale. still need to harvest the horseradish but its still green so i’m letting it grow. i bought alcohol to process the witch hazel tincture, european style not distilled like i’ve always used. i’m waiting for it to lose the rest of its leaves and i’m going to prune off suckers. also have a pretty darn local thanksgiving feast in the works. brenda and heather are driving down bless their hearts. i ordered a pasture raised bobtail white, next year i’m going to heritage, but i’m excited nonetheless, littler than a factory bird but realer and there’s only going to be four or so. plus i’m gonna do mashed taters, red if there’s some left. i’m going to hit the market first thing. i’m also doing sweet potatoes cubed and cooked in a little water in the cast iron skillet with spinach, fresh chopped ginger, freshly ground star anise & nutmeg (my bastardization of a recipe i had at Jack’s Steakhouse on HT3’s b-day dinner [a very cool affair with live piano, a beef mushroom wine soup, a wine soaked local streak, the sweet potatoes, and a baked alaska for two{suitable for four}]). and butternut squash with brown sugar, butter and roasted nuts (not pecans this year’s don’t come out for two more weeks.) cornbread dressing with fresh roasted chestnuts and the nasty bits of the turkey (neck and organs [i love my family]). some type of cranberry dish, maybe just the canned kind (not the tube though). also will have the homemade bread & butter pickles that get better and better as they sit. got a bottle of a nice italian red. taking the day before to cook. sightseeing and an AA meeting on black friday, the first day of winter market with brenda and heather (those pecans i mentioned and a breakfast burrito) and then see them off with two days of weekend to clean up and deal with leftovers and relax before the grind. life is sweet. i am blessed and looking forward to a full holiday season at my own home for the first time in my life. greetings to the national christmas tree which is winding around wyoming enroute to columbia to spend the night at the holiday inn. sorry i won’t get across town to get you a commemorative ornament. know that i love you just the same.
fall gardening
I’ve gotten to do a bit of gardening after work yesterday and some this morning, nice fall stuff. Back by Myrtle’s greek myrtle grave blanket I extended the bed to the west to put in some tulips and daffodils with crocus on the front. Its by the bird feeder so i thought dad would enjoy the crocuses when he feeds the birds this spring. I had first extended that bed to the south and put in a row of daylilies i had gotten from the market. So I pulled out one that needed to be split out of the bed i inherited that’s no shaded by the neighbor’s privacy fence. I figured they’d do better in the sunnier locale and the hill of crab grass could someday be a hill of daylilies. I also figure in three years or so the myrtle will have spread and I can move them when they need to split again.
That left me with two myrtles left from the too big clump i dug up. I threw them in containers, through the grass in the compost and gave everything a drink. I guess that was friday. Saturday i did three groups all of which were cool but somewhat intense and i was cashed after six hard days. It was dark before I got any gumption back and that got spent watching football with dad and eric. go mizzou. could hear the cheers from the stadium. It also allowed me to definitively id the source of the snatches of marching band music i wonder if i hear and that weird metronome that kind of vibrates through you. nice to know the ominous thump has an external source.
So flowers in lieu of float. I dug up a small bed north of the myrtle bed and put in the two daylilies. Considered breaking up another goodly sized clump in the shade and make a matching row but i also wanted to get some other things done, like relax. I put in tulip clumps between them, thought they might come up through the expanding myrtle some day, we’ll see.
brought in mom’s ficus. which involves a lot of moving stuff and sweeping. it really grew this summer, just getting heavy. i’ll need to work out before next year. rearranged, cooked and ate. now dad and i are going to watch timecrimes.
Sunday i had planned to float the Lemine with several friends but one canceled do too back injury and i pulled the plug on the remainder of the 3.
weeding and wild onion pottage
It was a beautiful sunday here in como. What I love most about fall here is how spring like it becomes with little delicate shoots coming up that this yankee always associates with spring. its a bit of hope as the days get shorter and the nights get colder. My lettuce is doing surprisingly well considering how dog trampled it is. One of Fido’s set piece runs goes right through the middle of all three rows. One of the two surviving chards looks like its going to do something protected by the okra, which continues to produce. I wish I would have thrown plastic over the main bed its gonna be cold tonight. Mom’s ficus is outside too, Dad talked me down from rearranging the living room and bringing it in today. Its gonna warm up tomorrow night he says. I had other things to do and didn’t get in the garden until late. the sunny part was in the beds along the privacy fence. my best find was about 10 little coreopsis coming up in a place i’ve never gotten anything to grow. the daylillies i planted are doing well, the ones that came with a place have boomed back and i think i am going to split a clump maybe two and move into a sunnier spot, maybe by myrtle’s myrtle. a hillside of lillies seems lovely. the ragwort continues to spread and i dead headed the rose tulips the only thing blooming in the backyard besides the rose of sharon flanking the hidden gate. I had seriously turned the compost yesterday so it cleaned it up to get a nice tier of plant stuff and had a bit of a mix of green and brown. considered raking but will wait until the redbud completely loses it. Outfront a couple of asters are booming the periwinkle blue ones and a vibrant purple one. I’m gonna move the purple one in the spring it was crowded got weedy and fell over. Its a crazy purple clump hanging over the corner of my driveway. quirky but not what i was going for. while i was weeding i noted the wild onions which i thought (correctly) would be excellent for pottage. I took most of a cup of lentils, 1/3 cup white rice, 2/3 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup of olive oil, 1/3 tsp salt, and almost 3 cups water, plus a couple of bay leaves from the mom’s tree of the guy at MO Wildflowers Nursery and maybe 3 tbsp wild onion greens. did it in the rice cooker, very good but a bit el dente for dad i think. He was mute on the meal but ate it. Next time 3 1/2 cups water and i think it will be it.
garden production
Its a rainy Sunday so a good chance to update my readers on how the garden has done so far in 2010. I knew the rain was coming so I got my grass mowed and cleaned up the flower bed around the mail box. The little blue asters are looking lovely. I also pulled out the grass around the original lilacs and some other this & that’s. The “low car challenge” (only using my truck for one weekend trip this month) is forcing me out of my usual pattern. I couldn’t pick up a mum or or other fall plant and am largely stuck with what i have at home to work with which is plenty.
Looking back it hasn’t been a great year for the garden. We got a lot of rain and it came down in buckets turning my clay like soil into cement. Nonetheless I eat out of it a couple times a week most of the year. The big hitter was my strawberry patch where I pulled out a good 10 quarts. I added 4 new plants for some genetic diversity and it continues to spread so next year promises to be that much better. My other berries, well maybe next year. Both the blackberries and the black raspberries flowered and then it seems I missed a critical watering and they produced nothing. I ate some nice blackberries on some hikes and they were plentiful in the market so next year I will try to be more on it.
I did OK on lettuce, arugula, and such. I did a green leaf, arugula, and a mescalin mix and got a lot of salads or at least salad supplements. At $12 per pound at the market its worthwhile to grow your own organic mixed greens.The kale struggled but nonetheless I’ve served kale at least 5 times and will have it again this year. The rabbits had their share but it bounced back. Fido is on varmint patrol and the plants i got from Malavika did better than seed so if I get Dad to build my cold frame I should do well next year.
Okra has done well, except for the half the deer ate obviously. I’ve had it four times with at least two more to come. Tomatoes struggled but I’ve had fresh sliced tomatoes more days then not since they came on and have made a few dishes with the uglier ones. The yellow teardrop tomatoes which came up volunteer in the rhubarb bed where my biggest producer and the black plumb did well. Everything else not so much. Just too much rain is word on the street. Next year I’m re-tooling as I put a lot of time into them for not so much tomatoes. I am going early with plastic around the cages with some and some I am waiting and putting in after it warms. I am also going to lime the soil I had a lot of tomato rot (especially the green zebras, a total loss). My hybrids sucked so i will try another variety.
The herb garden is another high point. I pull all the thyme, oregano, basil, tarragon, and sage I can use fresh. Sage was huge and I had more than I need for the whole year by March. I gave away a lot of plants and have 27 smudge sticks going and still have some fresh. Marjoram washed out and I let my big beautiful rosemary die, my most tragic loss of the year. Trying to motivate to deal with and dry herbs.
cucumbers I got in late and let them get overgrown with grass but I’ve had 3 meals out of them with one more coming. Garlic struggled and I came out with 2 survivors. Very tangy and tasty one was. the other I planted. My peppers were almost a complete loss with only coming up with 2 banana peppers. I have a hot pepper on the way. Again just two much rain. I continue to try to build up my beds adding 3-6 inches of organic matter every time I turn it over.
Which brings me to soil development. It just looks better and better. I am not hitting the totally red clay anymore its all black and the topsoil is deeper. Lots more earthworms and moles have moved in so I can assume I have more grubs. I only added outside compost twice so I have almost closed the loop. My compost produces well and is odor free and not drawing bugs.
What else. Second try at rhubarb was an utter failure. First little plants and then roots. Third time is the charm right??? Horseradish looks good though I am curious to see how that is going. My witch hazel looks good and am looking forward to making my own this fall (european style). I had a delicious volunteer pumpkin and I have a butternut coming as well as two acorns.
I also even planted squash this year. I did just a few yellow summer squash and two made the cut and were doing great with some decent production and then they were dog trampled and quickly died. This is going to be a bigger problem as Fido and friends get bigger and not yet calmed down. Yesterday he and his friend trampled my new garlic and tore up my new bed of lettuce. It hasn’t come up yet so i’m hoping its still OK. My fall chard bed was almost a total loss. Heavy rain blasted all the little seedlings except some under the shelter of the mighty Okra. but the dogs trampled the couple of survivors and I am not optimistic. I plan to put in a lettuce bed in the front yard. Ha, take that dogs.
Onions were almost a total loss. they need to be earlier to be bigger when the big summer rains hit. I don’t have the soil for root crops but I still got a handful of little tasty onions with one survivor holding on trying to get bigger in the clay while the dogs jump on him. I am not optimistic.
Lets see what am i forgetting. The persimmon got bigger and i put in a new paw paw tree as well. Behind the fence, take that deer. Sunflowers were a wash. some bugs ate them all. Well that’s all I remember there may have been more. Best innovation was moving the bird bath into the garden. Get a drink eat some bugs while you’re in the neighborhood.
sublime detroit part 2 –
Woke up Saturday morning at the Burns-Pavlik demesne specifically in the princess room. I had slept hard and needed it going on a few hours of light sleep the night before. The heavy curtains were nice as sleeping well into the morning was a nice change of pace. Trevor was out for a run so i curled up with Doris Lessings “The Golden Notebook” which is just a heavy and brilliant novel. Dense with meaning she has literary talent, a piercing political consciousness, and rare insight into the human condition. its sweet.
After Trevor returned I made coffee and had some of Jeff’s most excellent cinnamon roll I explored the backyard. I remembered what it was like when they first moved in, typical suburban fenced in grass box, the green rectangle endlessly repeated. Now there’s a nice patch of prairie wildflowers looking very Autumnal to my Missouri eyes, looking very sharp in its benign neglect. I was envious that i couldn’t let my plot be and have it still work.
It was a just beautiful morning and I was glad to have lingered. We drove back to Farmington and went to the farmer’s market. Very cool, very lively lots of great stuff. We got cucumbers and a couple of melons a cantaloupe and something similar and some apples. Besides stuff we could eat in detroit i also looked for stuff to take home. I was delighted to see some Michigan maple syrup and I excitedly picked up a big bottle then remembered that i only had a carry on bag to get home and there’s a 3 oz rule for michigan maple syrup (can’t get it at home). I put it down and said “i’m flying and i can’t take it back. the terrorists have won. i conceded, i admit defeat, please now can i fly with michigan maple syrup?”
so i bought nothing, my innocent glee in the beautiful day of seeing all these folks marketing tempered.
but only for a moment. then it was lunch with rosie, jeff was baking and becky was slinging bread but rosie was up for some chicken chili. tre’ and i had the reubens, good but the french dressing kind which i like a bit less, but really good. i can’t remember the name of the place but rosie thought highly of it.
after lunch we said goodbye to becky and rosie and after stopping to look at discount books and by a map we were off. we decided to drive up 8 mile to most appreciate the transition into the city. for some reason we took grand river instead, a cool street that runs across the state. i’d ridden my bike on probably the first 100 miles coming out of grand rapids getting in shape for my trip to Mexico.
This stretch got shoddier and vacant buildings started to increase until we were in full on city. we stopped at a ghetto mart and stocked up on food: bread, mega sized jar of peanut butter, chips, salsa, cheese, plastic ware, perhaps other things. We were in line behind an older african american guy buying a nice stock pot at $5.95 and a mess of greens. I commented quietly to trevor that that was a good buy on the pot and was pleased to see the guy straighten up. everybody likes to get a good deal.
Its just been a beautiful week and today was really a perfect day. I got up and out early and deadheaded the roses and cleaned up the flower beds in the front yard. I saw the weed that looks like clover but has yellow blossoms (yellow woodsorel) in the front bed so i was going to sprinkle the left over pickling lime instead i went to the internet and am going to wait until i turn the soil there. I’ve never tested the soil but just try to figure it out by how stuff is growing.
I went to the market which seems to just get more and more crowded. I noticed most people don’t buy much, just checking out the scene. The crowd was weirding me out and it was the same at Gerbes but I still bought a lot of stuff. Came back to the smell of bacon and Dad had breakfast ready by the time i got stuff put away. I didn’t get there in time to get local eggs so they’ll be the last wet yolks i eat until next week. corporate eggs are poison now, apparently (the price was good though).
After breakfast Dad and I took Fido to the dog park. He has really grown up and played nice with all the other dogs. Properly submissive but not intimidated by the big dogs. He initiated a play a lot didn’t jump on people to bad. There was a brown dog a bit bigger than him that kept trying to get over on him (ie hump him) but she got corralled by her owner relatively quickly. He ran and ran and ran. Lot of people knew Dad, kind of wish i was still relaxed enough to just chill out there for a while but got restless thinking of crap i could be doing. I think its a phase i’m going through.
Came home and farted around and then did some solid work on the first garden bed. I turned up about 12 square feet (where i had lettuce and arugula in the spring) and planted garlic. Shoveled in a bushel of compost. It was looking real good. I’ve turned that ground now 5 or 6 times and its more and more loamy and less and less a big clay pit. I tried the garlic close, my two survivors were not far from each other and did fine. Chard is next. While I was in the bed I weeded and cultivated the cucumbers (got some nice ones coming and lots more blossoms though when i let the grass get away from me i had heavy losses) and the kale i planted from seed is soldiering on.
Tomorrow Belen and Sarah are coming over from breakfast. I am going to make garden omelets (kale, yellow squash, basil, oregano, time, and tomato) with little smokies. Tonight it was cool enough to bake supper. I took the cast iron skillet greased from mornings bacon and added a 1/4 ham which i rubbed with organic mustard and pushed some cloves in. Covered that with Springfield Honey (undescribably different than Columbia honey) and threw in some purple potatoes, carrots, and celery. Covered with foil added some water and baked that for an hour and fifteen at 375. Yummm. I saved the drippings for my black eyed peas i’m making for the work potluck on Wednesday.
daylilies
It has been incredibly gorgeous all week, pre-Fall seems to really be here. I mowed the lawn earlier in the week so got to advance the cause and plant the 3 daylilies I bought at the Farmers Market from the local daylilie society. I just went with some cheap ones not knowing much about them. Dad suggested I plant them at the head of Myrtle’s grave where we have the Greek Myrtle patch going well (though it didn’t flower much). Its pretty sunny, but gets really dry and is a red clay patch. I shoveled about 30 #s of cow manure I had bought between compost batches and turned it up good. I was glad I did a little research although I probably would have put them in the same way. I learned that you are supposed to remove the seed pods after they flower so they flower more the next year. I inherited some orange ones from previous leslie laners and they don’t produce the 200 to 400 flowers the interweb said i could get. Besides the seed pod thing they also are in what I call the shade bed (I suspect they were planted before the neighbors built their privacy fence). These are much sunnier and when I divide them in the spring i might move them to a sunnier spot. The interweb suggested covering a hillside like ground cover and that might be something to start working towards. The coolest thing about daylilies is there is a whole culture on making new varieties. A local guy is prominent in that and has them in his front yard down on Broadway. I put in “Bold One” (Lenington ’64 Dip” M 7″ Gold with purple halo), “Radar Love” (30″ M 5″ Fra Noc Ext Rose raspberry self), and “Camden Gold Dollar” (Yancey 1982 19″ EMRe 3″ dip Deep Yellow Self). I don’t know what all the info means but I might need to know some day. And to put a nice end to an awesome day Dad is grilling steaks and potatoes and I put what may be summer’s last sweet corn on to boil. yumm.
gardening neglect
I finally got out and got to put in some time into the yard. It has been so hot and I was sick I just stopped going outside. Friday was the party, and Saturday I helped Harry move and cooked. I cooked down a few pounds of Betty’s tomatoes that needed to be used and added a half dozen black plum tomatoes in the cast iron skillet where i’d browned a big onion, 2 hot banana peppers from the garden, and three cloves local garlic (tart & tangy this year). I cooked that down added 1/4 tsp cayenne and 3/4 cup peanut butter, and let that simmer for a bit. I served it with squash with butter and brown sugar over rice. yummy, but that and a nap and not a lot of garden puttering.
So today I hit the grass as soon as the morning dew dried up. I mowed the front and weed whacked the tall & stubborn fellows. I pulled off my laundry before I did the back and put out my second after i finished. i also found the rosemary and the title of the post. It is dried out and likely dead. I’ll either collect it and use it or if it springs back now that i’m watering it again. Its sad because i’ve had it for a couple of years and it was looking great and i just killed it by not being aware, hiding from the real world in the ac.
I also lost my 2nd fennel which i didn’t get in the ground and then noticed the one i did get in the ground is gone too. Disappeared. Beaten down by heavy rains and the soil turning into cement and massive high temperatures. everything’s struggling. Its widespread and common and the weather sucks it said in the trib gardening column. I’m starting to get more tomatoes. the yellow tear drop ones have done well as a volunteer. Theres a beef steak looking volunteer about ready and the other hybrids are starting to turn orange. As are the green zebras? struggling plants, low production. I need to cultivate.
Crab grass is tall and am weeding. When i get done weeding i’ll cultivate. when i’m done cultivating i’ll turn over the fall bed. theres some space in the 2 beds and I hope to add 4′ to bed 2. theres some squash so i won’t hit it all and then may get into bed 3. Gotta get Dad on the coldframe project.
4th of July Memories
I am a lover of Summer and have many fond memories of the fourth of July. My dad drove truck and I started going with him since as long as I could remember. A lot of Fourths we would be out in the country somewhere and we would climb up on top of the truck and watch fireworks out in the distance. Sometimes we would see them in several different towns. I remember the anticipation of waiting for true dark when they would begin. I can only think of one time when we just came up empty.
My most memorable Fourth we were in St Petersburg. I was maybe eight and John would have been eleven. I don’t remember what Dad was doing but we were out on our own playing. They shot the fireworks out over the water and we were swimming in the warm Gulf pretending we were storming the beaches of Normandy or whatever.
As an adult the Detroit fireworks would sometimes draw me out. Impressive display. I would also catch Toledo’s over the river or in a pinch Monroe’s could be seen from our house on Roeder Street. Mom always kept the dog in, concerned about malicious children and explosive devices.
In 1994 I was with Sarah and Christa at our abandoned house (headquarters for Ozark Summer) in Black Missouri. It was nice to be away from crowds of people and we spent a leisurely day hanging out in the hammock. We drove down to a small town and watched their display. We took our kitten we had found and later lost again. That was such a bustling time of frenetic high jinks it just stands out as peaceful.
On the Fourth of July 1996 I was living in Berkeley. Phil and I dropped some acid and walked down to the Marina to watch the show. We were seated near several different groups of folks and some were speaking Mandarin and some Spanish and other languages and it started to freak us out. We moved to a quieter place and enjoyed the display. Walking out someone began throwing fire crackers into the crowd. Out of nowhere a squad of storm troopers in full riot gear game trotting in and snatched up some brothers. Very freaky.
Seven years ago I was in Mesquite Nevada. Dad was in the hospital in St George Utah with a necrotic kidney. I didn’t even go outside to watch the fireworks. Just sat in the crappy casino hotel room watching their crappy cable. Nevada is the only state with universally poor hotel cable. They don’t want you in your room watching TV. Gotta get out there and lose some money.
The last several years I have gone with friends to downtown Columbia and watch the fireworks over Faurout Field from a parking garage. Pretty fun and usually run into people I know.
This year I agreed to have people over. Dad and I took a morning trip to Boonville and had their crappy brunch buffet. We stopped and got some fireworks at a tent outside of town. Mostly cones that shoot sparks since I live in town. When we got home I cleaned up the rose bed. They have been sickly and was concerned about disease so I raked out the mulch, broke up the clay a bit, and planted a new one i got at the grocery store for six bucks. It came with a packet of fertilizer and I sprinkled it around all the roses because I put in a lot of compost when I planted it. I sprinkled more compost about.
After getting cleaned up guests began arriving. Eric not only brought Dad a six pack of gluten free beer (pretty good actually) but did chicken wings in rice flower. I didn’t have the heart to tell him there is gluten in Worcestershire Sauce. We pitched some horse shoes and more people came, around a dozen. I kept winning and we had some good first time players which was fun. Other folks broke out the Boccie Ball. Dad did the grilling smoked a turkey breast and did some local hot dogs and ground pork patties. Other folks brought brats. We did up a dozen yellow and a dozen white sweet corn. Pretty much the first of the season.
We broke up the party and most of us caravaned to Faurot Field to watch them up close. It was very fun being close and firework technology gets better and better. We were so close flaming debris fell around us. We shot the shit and shared some Fourth of July memories.
magic beans
The staycation is coming to a close. The day after tomorrow I am back to the salt mines. I have enjoyed my time off but I am also missing making money. Harry and I got the living room painted. Its more yellow than mustard but really pretty and I did a wall and the paneling in a yellow orange and it looks really sharp. Brightened the place right up.
I have also gotten a lot of gardening in. I planted my Bush’s Poppy Mallow in the red bud stump. Ants had gotten in and hollowed it out and filled it with soil. I mixed in a little clay and some compost and so far so good. I planted my Paw paw tree on the East side of the house in a really shady area. It seems to be thriving so far and its inside of the fence which will keep out the casual deer. Speaking of the long legged rats ate not only my hosta blooms but also the rose blooms near them. They have come back and eaten the leaves as well. Next year I’m moving them behind the fence, that’s three years running they’ve eaten all the flowers.
I’ve done a lot of cultivating and cleaning up as well. I also have turned up more garden bed and the okra i’ve planted has turned into some nice little seedlings. I thinned them today and munched on the shoots, tangy but nice. I also finally got my yellow beans in, which generated a little family gardening lore. Dad says they used to do them two and then three seeds every 6 inches. The multiple seeds are supposed to support each other. Two and then three seems more like magic then based on reason, like planting your potatoes on good friday. Its such a varied date it can’t be based on physical laws but is captializing on the symbology of christ in the tomb. Its probably the same with the beans and there is so much symbology around 23, it just seemed magical. I did two rows and then dug up a partial row in my first bed where the peas were before the rabbits ate them all. I turned over the lettuce bed after harvesting it all. I made wilted lettuce twice to use it up when it was getting a little tough and tangy from the intense heat. I am going to plant cucumbers there tomorrow, but first i have to get some. I also have to pick up compost. My last batch didn’t finish because of the mass of dried leaves i put in last fall. When the container started to come apart i couldn’t turn the bottom and it never got mixed in and is still leaves. I turned it up good and wet it down and will add coffee grounds to get it finished. In the interim i will have to buy some. On the flower front the gladiolas i planted last fall are doing great. Have some cut on the table. Tomorrow my friend Julie visits from Colorado. I hope to get some gardening in before she arrives.
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