You win! I have never had to deal with anything worse than rabbits and gophers. Roos are a whole nother level of beast management!

This is the best kind of gardening. It is the, "Ha ha 😈, betcha can't survive that!" style of plant management. You throw down the gauntlet, and they either accepted the challenge or die! 😁 Unfortunately, plants have a tendency to arrive, like newbies at bootcamp, discover I am the drill sergeant, and promptly begin looking for the escape clause in their contract, wilt in the hopes of a dishonorable discharge, or run towards the friendly fire in the hopes of just getting the inevitable over with already. My sister call some the Black Death of Botany. So the fact that I harvested tomatoes, broccoli, basil, and eggplant last year is a testament not to my own abilities but to the apocalyptic survival determination of some plants. 😂

I had to go to raised beds here because of gophers. Gophers are very cute. Their personalities are adorable. But, if one wants to actually harvest a garden planted into the ground, one has to murder the gophers because there is NO deterring them, and they will destroy the garden. They are the viking raiders of the vegetable world.

I forgot to also state three other things. Our two apple trees are now producing (honey crisp and something I can't remember) so I will make applesauce to freeze, and dehydrate apple chips. Our green seedless grapes were gang busters last year so I suspect we will have about 8 lbs of grapes to eat on after they ripen. Thankfully, it seems like they ripen about one cluster at a time. If I get 8 lbs at once, the neighbors are going to be gifted grapes! The last thing is I allowed my back step autumn pumpkins to fall of the steps in 2020, and I kicked them to the side and allowed nature to take its course instead of compost them or what not. Last summer, I and a volunteer pumpkin plant. It grew big and beautiful, but no pumpkins simply because no other plants for cross pollination. So this year, I again kicked my back step pumpkins off, all three, into one pile next to the back step and am hoping for two or more volunteers. If actually get pumpkins, I will harvest the seeds and toast them. The whole family loves snacking on them or on salads for crunch.

Go Maryland!

Yes, some insurance companies that had been offering to pay for covid treatment in full without copays and deductibles have ceased that program.

I love zinnias! I really do need to plant some this year.

Your plum trees might need pruning and then some fruit tree fertilizer stakes. Depends on their age though. Some trees just get old and stop producing.

I agree that this can be an issue. We have a huge deductible on our insurance policy so that is a major consideration, and exactly zero coverage if we use the E.R. but are not hospitalized for the event. I can only imagine how much worse these decisions are for others who are uninsured, or insured but lower income and simply cannot afford the out of pocket expenses.

I agree. We need rentals, not vacation rentals, and not wealthy, gated community rentals, but reasonably priced rentals. GenZ probably won't be homeowners. Between student loans debt and the fact that the job market is no longer "get a job, stay in one place" because the only way to move up or get pay raises most of the time is to change employers, they can't stay in homes long enough to make back the cost of buying it plus the costs of selling it. This market will cool and settle down soon, and then if everything has been bought up for vacation rentals, it is going to be VERY problematic. We need well thought out, lol my term solution regulations, not knee jerk reactionary responses. However, long-term is not something the powers that be do well in this country to state it mildly.

Oh and adding to the plan, dh is bringing a nice size container garden thing from his mom's since she can no longer bend down to tend plants. He is putting it by the back door and growing butter lettuce (my favorite green) and spinach (his favorite) in it. So that will be nice. I will "put up the harvest" again by buying bulk of certain items from my favorite Mennonite farm stand. I will can salsa, pasta sauce, and plain tomatoes, freeze broccoli, green beans, carrots, and some corn on the cob, and dehydrate leeks, red and orange peppers, parsley, and celery. I like to make up a few bags of cubed potatoes, carrots, and some peas frozen together for soup mix, and then a dehydrated mix of peppers,.celery, and leeks as well. The combo makes it so easy to just dump and go for soup/stew and not have a lot of pprep work to do.

I will be putting in Roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, basil, garlic, eggplant, broccoli, and bell peppers. My raised beds aren't big enough to do more than that. Dd will be growing five kinds of herbs, plus strawberries, carrots, salad greens, brussel sprouts, green beans, a few sunflowers, and a couple of pumpkin plants for the kids. She may try her hand a sweet potatoes. Neither of us have ever grown them. I doubt if she will put in tomatoes since her husband is allergic to night shades.

I watched, if memory serves, the London Games on Tunnel Bear. It was sooooo nice compared to US broadcasting.

We need this in Michigan. The number of homes along the lakes being snapped up for vacation rental only is staggering. I want to see state and local authorities get wickedly strict with zoning, and tax the freaking crap out of it to the point it is a losing proposition to invest in short term rentals. I also want to see a Coast Guard, First Responder fee of tens of thousands of dollars added to every one of those non-primary residence purchases so that we recoup the cost of all of the search and rescue, body recovery we do in this state for every dingaling who thinks swimming in the Lakes is no different from their backyard pool at home, kayaking on them having never kayaked before is cool, and other such nonsense that costs those of us living and working here an ungodly amount of money from Memorial Day to Labor Day to provide. There is a $1500 fee for dune climbing at Sleeping Bear if someone has to be rescued off the hill. It should be about $10,000. The current fee is a drop in the bucket to the actual cost of the rescue.

I agree. I am very well aware that not watching the games has zero effect on China's human rights abuses nor a positive effect on behalf of climate change. It won't stop the depravity of the IOC. But, I don't decide what is ethical for me based on the impact. I choose my ethics for much deeper reasons than that. It should be noted that there is NO pass for the IOC for choosing Beijing for the winter games. None. If no one else wanted it, don't have it. Artificial snow is WAY more dangerous! It creates much icier surfaces and packs down like pure ice causing a grievous number of serious and life threatening injuries in comparison to mother nature's natural powder. A mix of natural and some man made is doable, and certainly ski lodges at lower elevations or experiencing drought conditions do it though those are nearly always for leisure winter sports where folks are going pretty slow and easy. If no country that has wanted it that had the natural climate to host the winter games, then the IOC should have canceled. Period. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/06/mounting-concern-over-environmental-cost-of-fake-snow-for-olympics There are many other articles on this as well. I picked that one for being a quick, easy read. I find it interesting that the answer to, "Hey, you are building ski runs on the nature preserve" was, "Let's just re-draw the boundary lines and shrink the reserve." 😡 For the record, we love winter sports. My boys and husband ski and snowboard. If it were not for the ankle disability, I would be right out there with them. But, I do hike the easy winter trails at the lodge. We limit our alpine activities to late enough in the season that we are on natural snow, not man made. None of us want to support the diversion of water from the Great Lakes to ice cannons, and the likelihood of major injury increases when skiing on artifical.

One of the things, apart from the regime, that really sets me off about Beijing having the winter games is that it is NOT a location that can naturally produce the environment for the winter games. All of the snow is man-made. All of it. Not only is it less than optimal snow, it requires and unholy amount of energy to produce. The IOC is disgusting, and their choices sometimes are just insane. Well, they would be if it weren't for the fact that following the money trail explains their decisions. So same.old same old. Sick and twisted devotion to greed.

According to our real estate agent, the house we closed on at the end of July is worth $40,000 more than we paid already, and she expects it appreciate another $60,000 in the next six months. I don't think Dd and hubby will ever be able to buy without our assistance at this rate of speed. I am thankful that we invested in a home that can comfortably house us, them, the grandmas, and our adult sons if needed. We do want to add a 3/4 bath in the basement, and the refrigerator from this house will eventually go there as well. One more shower and an extra fridge will be very handy if the whole group lives together for a time. The place we are in now though in Michigan will never be worth a dime. This area is depopulating rapidly.

I am so tired of my Kindle autocorrect!!! 😡 I will leave it so everyone can have a laugh! 😀

You are not alone. We have been very upset that China was awarded the games yet again.

Dh has taken up bread making, and makes bread bowls for my stews and chilli. Super duper filling for the three twenty something boys who need to keep their calorie counts up, and hollow legs filled. They can be done with any whole wheat bread recipe, and ones that call for sesame or poppy seeds are nice, sometimes he adds dehydrated onion.

If you enjoy bean sprouts and alpaca sprouts, you can grow those in jars indoors. They make nice additions to salads and sandwiches.

And sometimes the 4H master gardener programs have free seeds and seedlings. Some master gardeners help start community garden plots, so it is definitely worth a trip to the extension office to find out what options they have.

I read that, and it breaks my heart! Anyone who says the USA is civilized or "developed" needs to remember that a lot of tech is just putting glitter on cow pies. Sigh.

Our daughter is determined to plant more fruit trees/bushes this year as well as have raised bed gardens. She has growing boys to feed and a husband with a LOT of food allergies so it is already so expensive to feed them. Groceries in our area of Michigan are still way cheaper than what she is paying in the Rocket City so I am hoping at some point to take cooler of meats plus some dry foods like the specialty flour she makes her husband's bread from down to them. The flour is half price what it is there, and it is NOT reasonably priced at all so yikes! I actually got a box of organic produce from Misfits cheaper than I could have bought those same items not organic in the supermarket. 😯 I worry about grocery prices for my medically underweight boy who simply cannot.cut back on the amount he buys without a serious health crisis. We are sending him some extra money, and I am going to visit him next week, and take some groceries with me. I also worry about the quality to food our college senior will be getting. I know the college will reduce quality and quantity over this, and we have paid PRIMO for his meal plan. 😡 I thinks by the time I get him home on spring break, he is going to be ravenous and eat me out of house and home! Thankfully, our half beef from the fall is holding out, I have two turkey breasts and one whole turkey in the freezer, and lots of frozen veggies from the garden this past summer as well as home canned tomatoes, and some dehydrated vegetables. I can keep everyone fed for a while. I am very concerned about low income folks in our area because the winter's heating bills have been monster awful. I think there may be people going hungry in my community. There is one food pantry for the whole county. Not good. We are donating to them.

I have one in the oven right now. I parbroiled carrots since they take so much longer to roast. I have some green beans, carrots, fingerling potatoes (cubed), and large diced leeks plus one chicken breast cut into sixths on the tray and drizzled with olive oil that I mixed with a little lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, basil, and some red pepper flakes. I roast mine covered at 425 until tender, and then take the cover off and allow the potatoes to crisp just a little...only a little because very long and the chicken and carrots dry out.