Gardening by Mistake

I’m not sure how it got to be so long since my last post. I’ve been busy, but I can’t point to any particular thing that’s taken up a lot of time. However, there isn’t a lot going on to post about, so I guess it works out.

While out in the garden a week back, this came floating overhead:

Hot air balloons aren’t real common in our area, so this was a surprise.

August has been a very dry month for us. It’s no drought, of course, so I’m not complaining but Thursday’s rain was a welcome one. Between waves of storms that rolled in that evening, I saw this:

This morning (Saturday), I have awoken with my allergies gone wild. I’m on a prescription antihistamine year-round anyway. And this time of year I have to use Patanol on my eyes and Flonase for my nose. My allergies can really get going. I’d been getting by okay until this morning. I’m wondering if the rain has anything to do with the allergy flare-up this morning. I’m certain it’s the ragweed that’s the problem right now; I’m just wondering if the rain prompted a big release of pollen. Ugh.

The monarch caterpillars have been a hit and a miss. One class reported that none of her eggs hatched. She also reported that the original leaves were in a state that I suspect led to the caterpillars demise, if there were any originally. Those monarch caterpillars are incredibly tiny for the first couple days. Usually the only way to know they’ve hatched is that you start seeing holes about the circumference of a pencil. The other 3 classes all have little caterpillars which are quickly becoming big caterpillars and are enjoying them. My daughter’s teacher sent a note to me telling me that she’d like a couple to take home to her boys (5 & 7 years old). Interestingly, when I finally got around to looking for eggs, about a week after I first took them up to school, I was able to find only one. I think somehow the monarch butterflies knew that eggs laid much later might not have time to make the whole metamophosis. Anyway, that’s my theory because a week ago the eggs were plentiful. What I found, instead of eggs, were little monarch caterpillars everywhere, munching away on milkweed. So I took the one egg and two tiny caterpillars to the teacher, who reported that her boys are just thrilled. Wait until they get to release the butterflies. That’s the thrilling part. I do feel badly for the class where it didn’t work out.

Perhaps this weekend I can get around to getting up more of the Powell Garden pictures. Yes, I have still more of them. An entire garden’s worth and then a few miscellaneous yet. I’ll have others from today, as well. We’re headed to Topeka to visit the in-laws (mine, that is) and have lunch with them. Also on the agenda are visits to Gage Park and Lake Shawnee. Topeka Kansas might not jump into your mind as a gardening hot spot, but it has some jewels and those are two of them. My MIL told me that the large rose garden there is in full bloom right now. All right!

And, finally, I’m a political junkie. I’ve managed to keep my remarks out of this blog but I could stand it no longer yesterday. With the whirlwind of news and commentary surrounding the announcement of Palin as McCain’s running mate, I just had to do something or burst. So, DH kindly and patiently set up a new blog for me. There’s not much there yet, since it was 9:30 p.m. when I got started on it, but I’ll be adding to it. There’s just too much material not to. That will be something I can keep up once the growing season ends, too. On the off chance you are interested, the new blog is Jabberwocky.