The shivering dog.

Good evening friends!

This morning started off chilly again but not so chilly as the day before when I had all the windows to the house open, I had closed them last night. Still though, it was cold enough this morning in the living room to make the dog, our "tough" hunting dog, bred to deal with difficult hunting environments and rugged territory, shiver. For such a "tough" breed, she sure gets cold easy. The poor thing doesn't like to be in temperatures lower then 60. I guess I will have to make her a dog sweater or something for winter time! But at least the dog and I finally have something in common besides our love of socks, watermelon, and balls of yarn.

I'm reading some good books right now. The first, which arrived on Monday is "Heirloom, Notes From An Accidental Tomato Farmer" by Tim Stark. I'm enjoying it thoroughly. And then there is a surprise book "Five Acres And Independence" by M.G. Kains. It wasn't a book I'd ordered or was even expecting in the mail Wednesday, but there it was, thanks to my friends in Michigan who'd sent it to me. These are the same friends who bred Buttons, my Dutch rabbit and whom with I occasionally go hiking with. They needed the room, they wrote, for their expected new baby so were getting rid of books and thought of me when they pulled Five Acres off the shelf. That was very kind and thoughtful and I will be sending them a thank you note. I'm sure I can take the information in the book and use it to my advantage, even in my tiny lot garden and someday on my own piece of land. In any case, it should be a good read for the long winter that is before us.

Looking forward to the weekend.....

Have a good night all.

Nickie

Howdy dear friends,

It is a beautiful morning here in northwest Indiana. It's the perfect morning to do a bunch of mulching. I hopped out of bed early today and made a bee-line for the free mulch pile and filled up my car twice, which was enough to mulch one bed nicely. The daylily bed along the road needed new mulch bad as what I had put there when I planted it was almost all gone now.

Yesterday i spent time in the garden doing other chores. The Latham raspberry twigs I planted in the spring are getting tall and floppy so I went to the hardware store and bought some metal stakes and wire to make the trellis I had been putting off for too long. After i trellised them, it looked a lot neater. The layer of half broken down compost I'd mulched with in early summer has kept the weeds at bay nicely. Then I used the old bricks from a neighbor to line the bed and finish it all off. It looks almost professional now. I'm pleased with myself.

I cut down the yellow scabiosa plants. these plants were considered 'weeds' by the evil association here, but I ignored thier dyer warning in the form of a ticket requesting that I "weed". Surprisingly, there were no consequences and the butterflies and insects got to keep loving the scabiosa flowers. Now though, I decided to go ahead and cut them down as they were starting to look very ragged and unkempt. Though as I was doing the deed all kinds of butterflies kept visiting the flowers as I worked, making me feel guilt ridden, even worse as they visited the growing pile on the ground of cut plants. If you want LOTS of butterflies, plant yellow scabiosa. Bees, hover flies and butterflies can't seem to resist them.

While I was out in the garden, I decided to share with you some of the very pretty leaves I have right now. (See the picture). Top: Blueberry, Hydrangeas. Middle: Coleus, Heuchera. Bottom: Ornamental sweet potato vine, native tulip tree.

In the veggie patch, I harvested a moon and stars watermelon. I read that you should harvest when the tendrils nearest the melon have dried. I'm hoping this is right. I'm too scared to cut into it yet to find out.

Well, have a wonderful Sunday!

Nickie

Things I do While On Call

Good evening dear friends,

There are lots of crafts I wish i could partake in but just can't tie them into my busy schedule. Things like quilting, soap making, painting, and the like but there are at least a couple things that are very portable for me to do during down time at the hospital or in the on-call room. One of those things is knitting--- which for whatever reason I prefer to do during winter, when warm fuzzy yarn doesn't over heat, and the other is cross-stitch embroidery which can make down time fly. I actually think I'm getting pretty good at it, so I'm tooting my own horn here. It's a relatively inexpensive hobby as hobbies go (much less expensive then my other great loves of travel, backpacking, and gardening) and like I said, Its pretty portable.

Hydrangea is my latest finished project--- though really it isn't "finished" yet as I need to wash and press it then decide what I want to do with the piece. I'm debating whether to make it into a pillow for the couch or a wall hanging. If I make it into a pillow I wouldn't be able to display it since Brandi dog loves to fling pillows around the house. It wouldn't stay nice for very long that way I'm afraid. I guess I could use it as a wall hanging for now then someday I can use it as a pillow once the dog grows out of that kind of behavior.

I just liked the piece, which I saw in a magazine. I thought it was very cheerful and colorful.

Speaking of colorful I've been pondering what I want to do with the garden next year. I'm thinking to have a bit of fun and experimentation. Why stick with just a yellow theme for the flowers next year when I could also have a yellow themed veggie garden too? I looked at my favorite seed source on line and chose out varieties that were yellow to order. Did you know they even have yellow radishes and yellow beets and a watermelon with a yellow rind but red inside? I didn't know that. I think it would be very fun to try these things. Incidentally, the yellow watermelon takes less then half as long to ripen as the stars and moon, which still hasn't ripened here and I'm guessing won't before frost. So I guess I'll never get to taste that famous old fashioned watermelon in this zone--what a waste!

Have pleasant dreams tonight,

Nickie

Turning of the Seasons

Good evening friends,

I know I haven't typed anything for a while but believe me, I've been thinking of all kinds of things I could be adding here. Working for surgery sometimes I may disappear into the dark abyss for a while. Surgery pretty much OWNS me. Such is the price of learning....They beep, I hop. It seems most of my waking hours are spent at the hospital these days, especially now that I'm picking up on call time. The couple days I've had off these past couple of very busy weeks, I've spent vegetating and resting up because by the end of my long shifts---on my feet the whole time, I am exhausted. My legs and feet are tired, and then I wake a million times at night wondering if the pager is going off. When it does, I have to leap out of bed, throw on scrubs, and get there fast. I had Saturday off, and it felt strange to wear street clothes. I felt almost naked without my scrubs. I have to constantly remind myself that I like my job when the halls of the hospital seem endless.

It's when I'm tired I begin to wonder how I even ended up working in this environment. It's strange really. I'm a Forestry Science major, with an art degree also. If I had known how much I would like working for surgery, I would of skipped all the rest and headed strait for Surgery. Truly strange how the seasons of one's life changes.

Speaking of changing seasons, Fall is blasting in. It's shoving summer aside very rudely. I'm not sure I'm ready for it at all. I thought perhaps it would ease into fall, but not this year. Seemingly over night the trees have started changing. Golden Rod and Snake Root are changing the nature of open fields. Weeds are yellowing in those same open spaces. Trees look tired. And rain. we've had lots of rain. First we had a day long rain that gave us 3.5 inches (according to my rain gauge in the garden) the other day, I think that was Friday. Today its gotten down right chilled, and lots more rain. It's been in the 50's since about 2 pm or so. When I get off work tonight, I'm likely going to freeze since I didn't bring a jacket.

The Buckwheat I planted is loving the rain. It's very green and healthy looking but with the dropping temperature, I'm wondering if I planted it too late. Its only a few inches tall. I also worry about other things in the garden--the watermelons still haven't ripened. They are just sitting there. Not growing, not ripening, not doing anything but existing. I'm sure the bulbs I planted on my day off in Sasha's memorial garden are also enjoying the rain. I planted yellow tulips, yellow and orange cupped daffodils, and mixed crocus (I wanted yellow ones as my theme will be Yellow next year in the garden but all the store had were mixed colors.) Planting bulbs is about the only gardening I've done since I last posted.

My busy schedule is showing with my poor neglected animals. The poor bunnies need a good grooming. Especially the dutch bunny, who is shedding like mad and looks dreadful. I combed gobs of loose fur from her this morning. It's Brandi though, who is showing the most signs of missing me. When Brandi gets lonely, she gets destructive. She likes to tear things up and drag things around the house. When she's missing me, she gets into the dirty hamper and drags out clothes with my scent on them. Usually that's dirty socks. The other day, she'd dragged out some scrubs from the hamper to lay on them in the living room. I found another dirty scrub top on the bed. Silly dog. Her latest 'trick' is to open the refrigerator. This is trouble. When she's learned something once and been rewarded (in this case she learned there are lots of yummies in the fridge) then she remembers it and keeps doing it. The other night I came home to disaster....food pieces and containers all over the floor--refrigerator door wide open. Uh oh. This one, is way too smart for her own good. This one, learned how to let herself out of the crate a while back. Now how many dogs do you know can figure that out? Perhaps I can teach her now to fetch a beer for me since she knows how to open the fridge?...There has to be a silver lining in this somewhere!

Anyway, that's it for now...I've lingered far too long on the computer. I have to get hopping.

Have a good night all!

Nickie