Kitty

I am majorly tired tonight, so the kitty picture is all you get for now! This is the most affectionate, playful, and sweetest kitten I think we've ever had! She still doesn't have an official name!
I worked in the garden today, mowed, did laundry (by hand in the wash tubs, hand-cranked wringer, and hung on the line), chopped rhubarb to dry plus made a rhubarb cake, and started another batch of 28 eggs in the dehydrator (making powdered eggs), made dinner, and did a bunch of other stuff around here. Details tomorrow!

Wild grapes and wild kitties

The first picture is wild grapes in blossom in the woods on our property. Those bright yellow flowers will be deep purple grapes in about August. They make exellent jelly, being too tart to eat fresh. They'll turn your face inside out from the tartness!

Next is a sad picture, Steven salvaging parts off our old Cherokee. It's in Barbara's driveway in Kalispell, having died there with right around 295,000 miles on it. It's so rusted out underneath that there's not much metal left for the springs to hold onto. And when Steven took off the back bumper the mounts were so rusted they were about to fall off! The usable parts will be for the black Cherokee we're driving now, the one that belonged to my Dad when he died last year.

The yellow cat is one of Barbara and Victor's cats. Remind anyone of "Figaro"? Figaro belonged to my Mom and Dad. Now my sister belongs to her. (Yes, I meant to write it that way! I think those cats have her wrapped around their finger, er, I mean, paws!)

Don't want our kitten to feel left out. There she is stretched out on the recliner in the living room. HER chair, of course!

And in the last picture she's laying next to my leg on the couch playing with my hand and chewing on my thumb.

More gardening pictures

These pictures are off of Steven's camera. The first one shows me filling one of the wall-o-waters. It's tedious but not hard. The next picture shows the "hot caps" I put on the garden to warm the soil where I'm going to plant some of the squash plants, mainly the zucchini. The actual squash (straightneck summer squash and Acorn winter squash) will go inside the squash PVC and plastic hut (see pictures in post below this one). In the background you can see the tomato house, still not covered with the plastic, but with happy tomatoes in their warm little blankets of water!

Last picture is related to gardening. We have lots of baling twine from feeding bales of hay to the buffalo all winter, so I'm sorting it out to knot it together to make long ropes. I'll use them for horizontal framing on the squash house to keep the plastic up off the plants. I'll post of picture of that when I get it done! Meanwhile, the kitten is helping me with the ropes in the picture.

Cold Weather Gardening

In order to grow things like tomatoes, peppers, squash, and other frost-sensitive things we have to shelter them. Sometimes I just cover things with old blankets or sheets at night. We also have some of the floating row cover stuff, which is a light gauzy-type cloth that insulates the plants but lets in water and light.

We also use these PVC pipe shelters covered with 6-mill plastic sheeting, which we bought at Home Depot. The smaller but longer one is for squash. The taller one is for tomatoes. I now have 9 tomato plants in it and 3 more to plant. I have the squash started in the house, 30 plants. We love squash and use a lot of it. The peppers are in large pots up by the house, and I've been covering them at night.

The last pictures show the tomato plants, first planted and with a metal cage-like tomato tower around them. Then I put the Wall-o-waters around them, fill the tubes with water, and they keep the tomatoes from getting too cold or freezing, and also from excessive heat in really hot, dry weather (yeah, not here this time of year!)

That top picture was supposed to be on the bottom.

Birthday party

The kids all got together for my birthday yesterday, which wasn't my birthday but that's the day they could all be there. They even invited ME! All 7 kids were there, plus their significant others/spouses, and grandkids. Becky made delicious fried chicken! There was also mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, biscuits, jello salad, zucchini cake, and later there was cake and ice cream. I don't know who all made what (Barbara made the zucchini cake) but I think Becky did most of it. It was fun, sitting outside on the grass visiting with everyone!
And of course I have to post another picture of our new baby cat! It curled up on my lap and that's where it is right now! Sometimes she reaches up to try and help me type.

Flowers

I bought flowers and started planting them. First picture is all of them in a box. The ones in the tire have to be protected from the free-range chickens and the deer. I broke the ear on the Lamb planter, have to find my super glue. That's a Celosia in that planter. The last picture is my tulips, which right now are parked in the garden until I figure out a permanant place for them.

Kitten

Never stop to see a friend's kittens, especially when they're old enough that she's starting to give them away.

We brought this one home and now we're trying to name her. We asked the kitten what her name is, and she said "Meow"...

In some lights her eyes look blue, in others they look green or tan/brown.