This Ain't Welding Anymore.....

15 years ago I took a night time class in welding.....it was scary at first but changed my life.....

13 years ago I took a night time auto body repair class for 4 semesters...... it scary at first but changed my life more....

2 days from now (Friday) I am taking a 3-day-long bread baking class.....(24 total hours in the kitchen)....it is a little scary but will change my waistline....that is the only scary part here since little Mindescape (a.k.a. "Kid" ) will be with me in the class....and that is the best part.....she will take good care of me.....our relationship will rise like the yeast....

I love making bread since learning the art during my travels in graduate school.....I don't do it too often because we cannot stop eating all that goodness....well this should be a fun adventure....gee I have never been around real chefs before....how can this not be good.....

So there you go.........Flower, Yeast, Sugar, Salt and Water + Knowledge = Happiness....so you see I really knead to do this.....

So the gardening, adeniums and other plant stuff will be on hold the rest of this week........

Back to the Rose Garden....

Wondered out to the rose garden this morning and things looked pretty good....so a few photos got made...
The red ones below stand out due to the mass of open flowers.......

I like the singles below with the eyes....

Of coure the weeds are making a strong comeback in the warm spring weather....I pity the poor crew that has to fight them...

Onion Memories.........

Our fall onion crop is now ready for harvest.....they are really nice this year...... these are yellow granex.......we also have the red granex.....(Sweet, sweet) ....We also just planted the spring crop.......new seedlings taken from out starter pot........see yesterday's read....

As a kid I had to help weed a 2 acre onion field in the summer.......they were strong onions that stored for months....weeding that field was not my favorite afternoon activity.....Howevr, I now enjoy caring for our modest 200 bulb crop.....That is 200 bulbs full of that awesome sweet onion flavor thing.........

Instant Corn.........

We planted 5 rows of corn yesterday.......and already we have a 100% stand.......and the plants are 6 inchs tall.....nothing beats an instant garden....that is how we do it.......plant the seed in cavity trays and transplant when they are ready....have been doing this for 53 years.......and some people still do not think it works......The corn sure tastes good though.....as do the green beans, onions, peppers......you get the drift.........

Monday Morning View.....

While in my own Monday morning FOG I noticed another FOG type.....
It had settled in on the southern side of our property....so a photo was made....here it is.....
This is the view from the southern fence........the FOG bank's intensity had dwindled by the time I got camera......
But this has to be the best view in the county.........

We call it OPEN SPACE.......ahhhhhhhhhhh.........and thanks to our neighbor for that.........

Flowers are nice but............

Food crops are even better........here is our favorite grape tomato growing in the adenium greenhouse........we harvest pound after pound of these little guys.......the flavor is outstanding.......not sure why all the complaints about the lack of tomato flavor these days.....these things bear at least 8 months out of the year......
We are lucky to have them for sure.....we just keep replanting seed or making cuttings of the best ones.......the new plants are going out into the garden this week......

Rose Garden Transformation......

OMG....weeding really works.......!!!!!!!
It must have been a tough job to get rid of the weeds (see earlier blog photos) but they did it yesterday....
What a difference.........now I know why we weed things.........
It really looks good......They added many many bags of fresh mulch....and the pocket gopher seems to have moved away......

Now for some cut flowers........

Found this today..........

Found this new baby in flower hiding behind a tomato tree and in front of the strawberries.........
Kinda cute...
Really, really, cute that is to say.............

Our Friend FOXY.....

FOXY is a fox squirrel that comes by regularly to eat acorns, mushrooms and get a drink of water. He is a big boy (sometimes he has a friend with him) and must scare the heck out of the gray squirrels...these photos were made thru a window so they are a little blurry......
Here is FOXY (behind the small palm) with our other 2 regulars....the sand hill cranes....

The cranes moved on so FOXY got back to work eating acorns....

Rose Gardening has Thorns and more.....

This is our 'new' rose trial garden at work....Florida can be a great place to garden if you want to fight a few battles...battle 1 involves weeds...this fight can be won by keeping constant vigilence.... and pulling a lot of stuff....usng mulch, etc...(photo below)...did I mention vigilence....?The there are the little creatures that like to make little mounds.....LOTs of little mounds.....this is a real problem to control....more than my interest level at least....there are 3 fresh mounds in the photo below...

Of course with a little work (lotta work actually) and sweat we can recover from the weeds anyway (below)...but note the little mounds in the photo below....

Of course since it is still early in the season the bugs and diseases are still resting.....NOTHING IS EASY.......