Got into the canning pantry yesterday and found about eight jars of
goodies that were out of date. One jar was from 2011, I thought I kept
count better than I did, a few more from 2012 and some from early 2013.
All gone to the composter and the jars run through the dishwasher and
back into their boxes for awhile.

That generally doesn't happen around our house as we have so many grands
and great grands. I put out an "all call" to those folk that we have a
LOT of jellies, jams, pickles, etc. up for grabs. Who sends me an email,
our daughter! I think she had forgotten how much she likes our pear
jelly but she's coming over Saturday to get a few jars.

Sunday we will celebrate our youngest great grandson's sixth birthday.
He's always been "hell on wheels," busy, busy and pretty much runs
around a lot. Hopefully he will begin to slow down a bit now. He's the
closest of our great grands so we see him a lot more than the great
granddaughter's. It's hard to believe our eldest great granddaughter
will soon be seventeen.

We're hoping the dark skies and the high humidity here today will turn
into rain. We're getting tired of running the soaker hoses.

We do have some hopes of canning something before to many months. The
fig tree is full of baby figs, we put up eighteen pints of fig jam last
year and it looks like this will be a better year. Two of our young
blueberry plants are loaded with very small berries. Most of the
tomatoes, eggplant, sweet chilies, and tomatoes are blossoming well. One
tomato, come up from a compost dump, has lots of green tomatoes but none
are ripening yet. Our pear tree has about thirty young pears growing
bigger. We have hopes of actually getting a crop this year.

George

George Shirley wrote:
....
> We're hoping the dark skies and the high humidity here today will turn
> into rain. We're getting tired of running the soaker hoses.

looks like you may have got some rain today?


songbird

On 4/13/2016 1:58 PM, songbird wrote:
> George Shirley wrote:
> ...
>> We're hoping the dark skies and the high humidity here today will turn
>> into rain. We're getting tired of running the soaker hoses.
>
> looks like you may have got some rain today?
>
>
> songbird
>
Yup, hit us about 0215 CT this morning, I slept through the majority of
the rain but wife woke up to her heart song, rain on the garden theme.
Inch and a half in the rain gauge, we will take that any day or night
when it's dry around here. Of course Houston area is either drought or
drowning, literally. Lots of folks drowned in underpasses and creek
flooding last year.

I don't understand the drownings as "Whoa, the underpass is full of
water, maybe I shouldn't go through it!" Or maybe city folk just get
used to a road being there. Plus I would never drive over a flooded
bridge, nor live alongside a creek or river that floods when God
sneezes. Thank goodness we both grew up in the country not cities.

George

George Shirley wrote:
> songbird wrote:
>> George Shirley wrote:
>> ...
>>> We're hoping the dark skies and the high humidity here today will turn
>>> into rain. We're getting tired of running the soaker hoses.
>>
>> looks like you may have got some rain today?
>>
> Yup, hit us about 0215 CT this morning, I slept through the majority of
> the rain but wife woke up to her heart song, rain on the garden theme.
> Inch and a half in the rain gauge, we will take that any day or night
> when it's dry around here. Of course Houston area is either drought or
> drowning, literally. Lots of folks drowned in underpasses and creek
> flooding last year.

with better land use and improved designs they can
capture more of the rain and hold it back to soak in.
some flood prone streets/areas they can redo so that
there are storage areas around the road to soak in
the water. just takes some planning and $ to redo.


> I don't understand the drownings as "Whoa, the underpass is full of
> water, maybe I shouldn't go through it!" Or maybe city folk just get
> used to a road being there. Plus I would never drive over a flooded
> bridge, nor live alongside a creek or river that floods when God
> sneezes. Thank goodness we both grew up in the country not cities.

i heard secondhand about some guy following his wife in
a separate vehicle, who after seeing his wife drive into a
river went right in after her.

i don't get it either, i don't drive much these days
anyways. even less if the weather is bad.

i consider myself very lucky.


songbird

On 4/14/2016 9:54 AM, songbird wrote:
> George Shirley wrote:
>> songbird wrote:
>>> George Shirley wrote:
>>> ...
>>>> We're hoping the dark skies and the high humidity here today will turn
>>>> into rain. We're getting tired of running the soaker hoses.
>>>
>>> looks like you may have got some rain today?
>>>
>> Yup, hit us about 0215 CT this morning, I slept through the majority of
>> the rain but wife woke up to her heart song, rain on the garden theme.
>> Inch and a half in the rain gauge, we will take that any day or night
>> when it's dry around here. Of course Houston area is either drought or
>> drowning, literally. Lots of folks drowned in underpasses and creek
>> flooding last year.
>
> with better land use and improved designs they can
> capture more of the rain and hold it back to soak in.
> some flood prone streets/areas they can redo so that
> there are storage areas around the road to soak in
> the water. just takes some planning and $ to redo.
>
>
>> I don't understand the drownings as "Whoa, the underpass is full of
>> water, maybe I shouldn't go through it!" Or maybe city folk just get
>> used to a road being there. Plus I would never drive over a flooded
>> bridge, nor live alongside a creek or river that floods when God
>> sneezes. Thank goodness we both grew up in the country not cities.
>
> i heard secondhand about some guy following his wife in
> a separate vehicle, who after seeing his wife drive into a
> river went right in after her.
>
> i don't get it either, i don't drive much these days
> anyways. even less if the weather is bad.
>
> i consider myself very lucky.
>
>
> songbird
>
Land in Harris Cty, Texas is very dear. The state will eminent domain
land needed to get highways built. That happened to my aunt and other
folks nearby in the mid-fifties. State was going to take the land for
I10 and got sued by the folks using the eminent domain law. Seems the
state forgot to remember that even land that is eminent domained is
valuable. Aunt got the going price back then for five acres of her land
as did the nearby neighbors. A good shyster lawyer can get your deserved
price for agricultural land.

I had recently joined the Navy when all this happened so didn't find out
until many years later.

Harris Cty, particularly where Houston is, is very low land with lots of
creeks, bayou's, and rivers. Where I grew up we were straddled between
the Sabine River and the Neches River, used to get frequent floods until
the power dams went in years later. Most recently my home town of
Orange, TX got a helluva flood because the Toledo Bend reservoir dam had
to be opened to avoid a dam collapse. It's not unusual to get up to 20
inches of rain in a day around here and then there's those days that
turn into a week of rain at high rates.

That's why we bought this house which is not in a flood zone.

George