Blog Traffic Secrets

If you are a blogger, you already know what I am gonna talk about, so you can go back to knoshing on potato chips and drinking beer now.  Enjoy.

If you are not a blogger, you don't realize that we have a page on our blog that you, the reader, can't see.  Once we click there, we can see how many folks have read yesterday's post or last week's post, for that matter. We can see what topics are the most popular. We can also see where you came from and how you got here. 

Most bloggers want lots of traffic because, well, just because that's how we are.  We want you to read what we write.  And lots of bloggers have ads on their blogs or write product reviews for money.  There are bloggers who have built their blogs into $150,000.00 a year businesses.  I am not one of them.  

So when we are writing our posts, we try to include words that we know people look for. Sex is a great word to entice people to come over for a read.  Drugs, especially cocaine is another one.  I get lots of traffic these days from sex toy companies.  Why? Damned if I know, but I do.  Uncut cocaine is probably the best set of words to use.  Again, why?  Is the population of the world so interested in uncut cocaine that they enter those words in Google so often, they end up at this tiny blog written by a little old gray haired lady. What gives with the uncut cocaine, people?  Does it go well with sex toys?  I guess you would have to ask an in-the-news celebrity with more money than sense about that.  Or the US Secret Service.  Wait, they are in trouble for hiring prostitutes, not using drugs or sex toys.

Wonder what kind of traffic this post will garner?  I do know that whoever comes here because of an Google search for sex toys or cocaine is going to be extremely disappointed. I will keep you posted.  

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Cleaning your Pond

I know, I know, pond cleaning is disgusting. The clothes you wear to clean it out have to be treated as hazardous waste when you are finished.  However, it's spring and if you didn't clean your pond last fall, you gotta do it now.  It's full of rotting debris from leaves, the fish poop is at least an inch deep and the weather is getting warm so the pond doesn't smell all that great either.  So take a deep breath, put your boots and gloves on and clean that pond.  Here's an article I wrote that tells you what to do and how to do it to make it a little easier.

How to Clean your Pond

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Gay Groceries

I just put a check in the mail to pay my yearly income taxes. Most folks get money back, but self employed folks have to pay. A lot.  I also went grocery shopping yesterday and both of us had a look at our veggie garden to check for critters that perhaps should not be there.  All is well.

Why do I mention these things?  Everybody does them, right? They sure do.  Do I do them differently? Nope. But I put the words here, didn't I?

I paid for my government to continue passing laws keeping me from enjoying the same civil rights that the most of the rest of the country already takes for granted. The rest of the country seems to think that those civil rights belong to them and they can choose to keep them from us. That us is my partner and me.  Two women who have enjoyed a partnership for years and years.  We cannot marry, we do cannot get any social security payments that are attached to the other as most married partners do. We are denied those same rights that you have and never even think about not having them. Think about that next time you, in or out of your church are shouting gay slurs or demanding that the 'perverts' should be jailed or worse. That we destroy your families or marriages and corrupt your children.  You seem to be doing a good job of that without any help from us.

I find it strange that although denied basic civil rights, I must still send a check to the IRS.  It's not a gay check, just a check. I didn't shop for gay groceries,  just groceries.  I don't have a gay vegetable garden, just a garden. I don't drive a gay car or own a gay house. I don't have a gay dog or mow gay grass.  

Does anyone else wonder about these same things?  Probably not. You enjoy your privileged status….and just keep hating.  Does it make you feel better?

You say you learned to hate us from your parents when you were a child.  Have you learned anything since then?

I wrote a book about building and caring for your pond. It's not a gay book.

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping. 

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Almost Water Lily Season

Those of us who live in subtropical climes and New Orleans certainly counts as one, are now looking forward to our first tropical water lily blooms.  Usually in May the first leaves reach the surface and we can start fertilizing.  I use Aquatabs, one per gallon of pot size. Yeah, I know there are special water lily pots that look something like dish drainers, but I'm lazy and still use the 3 gallon pots I transplanted them into years ago.  I put them on the bottom of my 18" deep pond and leave them there year round.

Those of you who have hardy water lilies don't have to worry about them surviving the winter, but most of use love the tropical ones, so we sink them to the bottom of the pond and hope they survive the cold. Most of the time they do, especially this past winter which really wasn't winter at all.  And for those of us who are water lily addicts, the new ones will be on sale in a week or so. Be still my heart!

So I wait for the opportunity to take these sorts of photos again this summer. And maybe get a  better photo.

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Incipients

Is incipients a word? Well, it is now because I have just used it.  My recently planted veggies are budding and flowering. And that means we have incipient food coming from the plants.

We always know that spring is really here when our veggies are up, green and budding.  We know that there will be fresh tomatoes, green beans, squash, okra, cucumbers and eggplants soon.  And when the beans are finished, I yank them out and put them in the compost heap.  The empty spot gets filled with more eggplants cuz they are a staple in a vegan's diet. At least this vegan.

I love the flowers on veggies. Most are yellow because that is the most common flower color, but the eggplant flowers are light purple just like the veggie itself. I am growing green ones, white ones, fingerlings, but the flowers are still that light purple.

Our New Orleans weather has been absolutely glorious. It's been a long spring, warmer than usual, but we take what we can get in this subtropical climate.

Green Beans

Tomatoes

Eggplants

You can buy my Pond how-to book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Feeding your Goldfish

Occasionally, feeding of pond goldfish becomes a topic of extreme concern to the keepers of ponds.  Do not feed goldfish. This does not apply to koi. If you have koi, you have an outdoor aquarium and must deal with it accordingly. But not goldfish.


Here's why:


If you have a balanced pond, with underwater vegetation, your fish will be happy without unnecessary and artificial food introduced into the pond. 


If you feed them, they will grow bigger than the pond can handle, they will eat all the vegetation, so you will feed them more and more...and soon the bioload will be too big for the pond and all the fish will die.

If you have sufficient filtration, you can feed fish, but not without it. And overfeeding leads to foul and green water.


You must have enough submerged vegetation for the goldfish to eat and the submerged vegetation grows faster than the fish can eat it. 


Do not introduce more fish to your pond than 1 linear foot of fish per 25 square feet of pond surface.  


If you feed fish, they will be easily attacked by predators because they do not know the difference between you and a raccoon or a heron, so will come to the surface thinking they are going to get dinner and end up being dinner.


If you have grandchildren and they MUST feed the fish when they visit, make some chopped, cooked carrots and feed them sparingly, perhaps once weekly, no more.


And for all the science behind a balanced pond and to make your eyes glaze over:

Plants and fish benefit each other in two ways. First, fish and plants contribute to the successful functioning of the nitrogen cycle. As the waste products excreted by fish are released into the water, they are converted to ammonia and then to nitrites and nitrates by 

nitrifying bacteria. Nitrates are a food or fertilizer for plants and algae. As they are absorbed, plants and algae become a valuable food resource for fish, thus completing the nitrogen cycle. 

This ongoing biological cycle ensures healthy pond life. It is important to realize that if plants are not thriving, algae will take over and the water will become murky. 

A second important way fish and plants complement one other is through the process of photosynthesis. Fish require oxygen for their existence and they release carbon dioxide. Plants in turn require carbon dioxide for their successful existence and emit oxygen. 

During sunlight, plants will consume the carbon dioxide released by fish and in turn emit oxygen required by fish. 

A constantly functioning nitrogen cycle and photosynthesis are the key components to a successful and beautiful garden pond. 

Plants to use for best results:

The most beautiful type of pond plants are lilies. Water lettuce and water hyacinths are also excellent additions to the pond and submerged plants such as Hornwort, Vallisneria, Sagitarria, Cabomba and Anacharis are also excellent. 

The ideal pond fish are common or hardy goldfish. 

Now you can refocus your eyes.  Do not feed your goldfish. It's only common sense. 

In my book, I advocate not feeding fish, just as I do here.

You can buy my book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

And no, I don't know why the font keeps changing in this blog lately. Gremlins, maybe?

Questions.....

Do you ever think about people you have known during your life, maybe even known well, but now they are no longer in your life?  Do you wonder where they are or what they are doing?  Do you think about why they are not around anymore and what happened?  Do you ever wonder if they think of you? And if they think of you at all, do they do it with fondness, with good memories or with disgust and glee that you are gone, no longer bothering them?  

I wonder about many folks I have known throughout my 70 years on this planet. I may have known some in school or at a job. Some may have been neighbors, friends, even good ones, traveling companions or co-workers.  But now they are absent from my life and I wonder why?  Did they get angry and leave on purpose?  Did they move away? Did they just drift away and move on to other people and things?  Did they want to move on or did it just happen?   

With all the ways to find people these days, one would think that rekindling a friendship would be easy.  But it is not necessarily so. My generation is not as comfortable with the electronic miracles we have, so often are not in online data bases. And if they are, do we get back in touch? Or do we not?  Is our fear of rejection so great that we dare not reach out again after, often years, of not being in touch?  Do you wonder if that person ever looks for you and thinks the same thing?

Lots of question marks in these sentences and not one question answered…….

Bits and Pieces

There is a website devoted to President Obama haters.  And they visit this blog. I have no idea why and to you haters who visit me, stop now!  If I knew how block you, I would.  Anybody out know how?  Hating my president is not allowed around here. I didn't hate the bumbling idiots you put into power.  So go away. And don't come back.

Changing the subject to a more pleasant one.


We drove to a farmers' market yesterday put on by 9 and 10 year old kids. As part of a school activity, they had grown an organic garden and were selling their winter harvest.  I know they meant well, but a yellow squash was $3.00 and a head of purple cabbage was $5.00.  They had two of each.  We just donated some money and left.  I wanted to volunteer to teach those kids gardening AND marketing and sales.  Oh dear.

And even more pleasant.  Our front garden is loving the full flush of spring.  The irises are in bloom, the knock out roses are flourishing and OMG, the daylilies are starting to put on a show.  Wow.

Red daylily

Irises

Roses and irises

Don't forget to buy my book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you for stopping by this morning.

Pelican Bark Park

We often visit Pelican Bark Park in Mandeville, LA so our year old pup can run, roll and play with her doggy friends. 

Bella, far left, meeting a new Dane friend at the pool

I have noticed that all of America, perhaps the world, could learn much from dog parks.  All the dogs share all the space. Aside from a space set aside for tiny dogs, all the dogs, no matter their size, ethnicity, color, sex or country of origin play together freely. They soon sort out who is who and how things work.  With no human intervention at all. They run, they wrestle, they tussle, roll in the mud, then run some more. They jostle for space in the pool, jump out and run some more.  They stop occasionally and lie in the shade, but are soon up and running again. 

Oh and they come over to their human companions just to check on them and make sure they are safe. Then the tearing around starts again.

Humans are different in the dog park.  They talk about their dogs. They compliment other humans on how pretty their dogs are, asking doggy names, petting others' dogs for the pleasure of it.    Conversation is centered around dogs, but often strays to other things equally fun and pleasing. You never hear religion or politics discussed in a dog park. There are too many more important things to talk about.

I often bitch about taxes, especially  this time of year, but I gladly pay taxes if it results in more dog parks.   They are great places in so many, often unrealized ways.  

St Tammany Parish, LA has lots of problems, it's share of crooked, racist, bigoted politicians, but they have done one thing that works for everyone: Pelican Bark Park in Mandeville, LA

Don't forget to buy my book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Milk!

I am a vegan. That means I eat no flesh, nor do I eat/drink any dairy products. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it?  Well, it isn't.  The no flesh part is easy.  If it had parents, I don't eat it. Yes, that includes fish.  So many people think that fish are not flesh.  Oh well.  Meat is not sneaked into other products that much either, so avoiding flesh is easy. Meat can be used in hundreds of ways, so using it as a filler in other foods is too expensive.

Milk is another story.  Milk is everywhere.  If you see the letters lac in an ingredient, it means there is milk in it.  Casein is another milk word. Means milk protein.  You will find some form of milk in most commercially made bread, most all prepared, frozen foods, even the ones that say vegetarian on the label.  Our government subsidizes milk farmers, so companies use it as much as they can as a filler. 

The worst offenders are pharmaceutical manufacturers.  Lactose or milk sugar, is in 99% of all pills or tablets.   It's a cheap filler. If you can't have milk, then  you must have your medication made by a special pharmacist called a compounder.  Wanna talk about how much that costs?  And of course,  insurance does not cover it.  If you do ever find a medication without lactose in it, it will invariably be in a gelatin capsule.  What's gelatin?  Well, a meat product, of course.

Vegans just can't win. Good thing we are healthier in most ways because we are vegans and don't need to wade through the morass of modern medicine.

The Easter Bunny Visits Today

How do you explain Easter to a youngster? I mean a young youngster, like maybe 6 years old.  

Well, Easter is when the Easter bunny brings you candy, usually candy eggs, but they can be real eggs that are boiled and then painted different colors.  Yes, this particular bunny can lay eggs. How?  Well, I don't know just how he does it, but he does. No, we never see him. It's sorta like Santa Claus, but no sliding down a chimney is required.  The Easter bunny hides eggs around the house and in the yard. Sometimes he hides eggs in public places like the White House lawn and children find them under the watchful eye of the First Lady of the United States.  Yes, the Easter Bunny is male, but yes, he lays eggs.  I know, I know, only female animals can lay eggs and bunnies give birth to live young, but you see, this is different because it's Easter.  Maybe an Easter chicken would be better, but a bunny is what we got.

And another thing.  We have Easter Bunnies made of chocolate and we eat them.  Usually we eat the ears first - at least 76% of us do.  The rest of us start eating somewhere else.  But he returns yearly with more eggs. 

Confused?  Me too.

And Easter means something else to much of the population, but certainly not all of it.  Those same folks who eat chocolate, male bunnies who lay eggs also think that some guy who was executed 2000 years ago, came back to life one day three days after he died.  So they celebrate that and call it Easter. I guess I would celebrate too if I came back to life after being dead for three days.   What does that have to do with male bunnies who lay eggs?  Not a damn thing that I can come up with.

More confused now?  Yup, me too.

And which story is more confusing?  Damned if I know.  You choose.

Pond Design Ideas

No, this is not a profound design post.  Books, in fact, volumes of books have been written about design.  From gardens to houses to cities, we can find books about design.  This is a post of photos of ponds I have built, so you can see my ideas about design. Mostly, it's about what people want and what fits in their gardens and their lifestyles.

Two separate ponds make to look like one after the client decided his original pond needed to be bigger. Done without having to redo the entire first pond.

This is on the second floor courtyard of a huge condo-plex. 13 tons of rocks hauled to the second floor. By hand. One shopping cart at a time.

Client wanted to see pond from out the window. So the pond was built up instead of dug down. Those light spots are misters I installed to give it a mysterious and romantic look.

This waterfall is powered by an artesian well flowing into a 7 acre bayou.  I had to climb up the bottom of the waterfall to build the top.  That's like packing your own parachute.

This is a rather formal pond in the courtyard of Broussard's Restaurant in the French Quarter. Great place to eat, by the way.

This pond is 22 feet long with two waterfalls. The client wanted to hear water and even installed a baby monitor outside so he could hear it in the bedroom.

This pond was built at City Park in New Orleans for the Spring Garden Show back in 1990.  It won a design award.  See how to use hard materials in the design. Without the pot, the design fails.

Want to learn more about design:

Don't forget to buy my book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

It's on sale now for a buck.  Get it before the price goes back up.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Thanks for visiting today.  Have a great holiday weekend.

Nope, no rant today. Flower photos instead

From customer service to gardens in less than 24 hours.  My life is like that. Consistency is not my middle name.  

It's Friday. The weather is in the 70's and sunny.  Today could not possibly be a rant day. Well, at least not yet. It's only 9:00am.  The day is young.

My garden is incredibly beautiful today. Well, if you don't count the empty raised bed where I carefully planted patty pan squash a week ago.  No squash coming up.  But weeds are. Now who can't grow squash?  Evidently I can't.  

The flowers in the front garden are gorgeous. The knock out rose will knock you out.  The irises in front of the roses are stunning with their almost black hats and lighter rosy red ones.  They could be part of a holiday procession or ritual with the participants putting on their best clothes for the parade.  We have Easter Parades here in New Orleans with everyone from the finest families of the city to the finest drag queens participating.  I'm not sure who is prettier, but I would stack my irises against them both. Who wouldn't?

See, you would spend the day on the front porch too if you had this to look at.

Don't forget to buy my book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions.

Customer Service? Hello, Peggy?

Customer service?  Has anyone gotten any decent customer service lately or do we all have to try to talk with "Peggy?"  I know I do.

If you are a gadget freak or even a cell phone owner, and I am, you will need customer service, a misnomer if I ever heard one.  There is no service in customer service.

In my cellphone lifetime I have had most every brand of cellphone there is.  As far back as when they came in two pieces and you had to carry a huge battery on your back and almost needed a shopping cart for the phone part. You would think that customer service back then would have been a piece of cake, but no, it wasn't. Peggy's first incarnation was then and she survives today and her numbers are legion. 

I  recently had occasion to try to straighten out a bill with Sprint.  That it was their error was obvious. It took a year and some of my spiciest vocabulary to finally get it fixed.  Month after month I had to take at least one hour out of the day to try to find a person at Sprint who then promised me the problem was over, only too have it resurface the following month.

I thought AT&T would be better. Hah! Not a chance. They have a difficult time even staying connected to the customer assuming you even get through to a person at all after punching your way through the phone tree for at least 15 minutes, talking to a human is a crapshoot. And finding one who understands what you calling about even more so.

My partner owns a PC.  Customer service is non existent. And because she is old and has gray hair, Best Buy says  things like, "It will cost you $299.00 for us to see what is wrong with your computer."  When her computer goes awry and it often does because it is not a Mac, it's easier just to give it to a grandchild and get a new one. Phone customer service is non existent.  In person techs are hustlers.

Need to talk to the cable company, electric company or water company?  Be ready to hear heavily accented English spoken by someone named Jack or Alice. Who do they think they are kidding?

Ah, Apple. I have owned Mac computers since 1984 and love them. If I have a question or problem, I get a pleasant youngster who takes all the time I need and doesn't not leave me until the problem is totally solved. One problem:  The first tech you speak with tells you what you already know and have done to solve your problem.  Ask for a senior tech immediately or you will be telling your story several times.  I love Apple.  They know customer service. They could teach the world customer service.  

Is profit so important that customers with questions can routinely be ignored?  Or are we just used to settling for bad treatment? 

Don't forget to buy my book here

It is consistently in the top ten best sellers in Landscaping.  Yippee.

And for pond info visit us at pondlady.com  You will find knowledgeable folks there who are glad to answer your questions and not one of them is named Peggy.

Evolution and Other Divisive Observations

Evolution:  Hundreds of thousands of misguided folks do not believe that evolution is how we got here.  And I know this will not convince them because they choose not to believe facts.  Here's the only fact you really need to prove evolution:

Post WWII, antibiotics worked on bacterial diseases.  Now so many diseases are antibiotic resistant.  What happened?  The bacteria evolved! Duh!


On a different, but kinda related note, in a Catholic church in New Orleans, if you turn the chandelier light on,  you can see a shadow of what the believers are calling Jesus.  (I know that sentence is convoluted and probably not grammatically correct, so don't start with me.)  A friend thinks it looks like Che Guevara.  Or more likely just a shadow.  So turn the light off and stop with the kneeling in front of that column, OK?
And who knows what Jesus looks like?  Were you there back then?
Guess that church will have to leave the lights on and put a bigger collection box next to the apparition.  After all, the church needs more money to defend all those pedophile priests.  It could find an origami expert and have lots of shadows that would correspond to whomever they wish. Wonder who would bring in more money? The Pope or Brad Pitt?

     Photo from New Orleans Times Picayune, 2 April 2012

Whatcha think?

Selling a house

One of the most important things to do when selling your house is to have it spotless at all times in case a potential buyer wants to see it.  Do you have any idea what that means?  It means never leaving a glass on the counter or in the sink.  The stove has to shine. No fingerprints on the fridge.  I wonder if the washer can have clothes in it.  For sure the laundry basket can't have dirty clothes in it. The folks who live here would never ever get clothes dirty.  Nor would any potential buyer.   And they certainly would never leave a bed unmade, so we can't either.
Every light in the house is on. Every door is open. All the things that make the house comfortable instead of stark must be put away. Somewhere.

Bread is baking in the oven or cinnamon is simmering on the stove. House has to smell nice too.  Can't let the potential buy know that a dog lives here, leaves her hair everywhere, romps in every puddle and tracks that in the house.  Several times every day.

When we leave the house, we vacuum while walking backward to the car and take the vacuum with us.

In this real estate market, there is nothing the seller won't do to tell that buyer, "Buy me, buy me."


But after you have nosed your way through this house, visit us at
pondlady.com for any pond questions you have.

And don't forget, buy my book (number one in the landscape category on Amazon yesterday.)

A Practical Guide to Building and Maintaining your Pond.

Moving!

We have planned for several years to retire somewhere else except  where we are (New Orleans, LA and surrounds.) After we lost our house to Katrina, we redoubled our efforts to find somewhere else in the US to sleep at night without having to worry about storms 6 months of every year.
After a trip to Arkansas a couple of years ago, we found our dream retirement house in Mountain View AR. It looks a bit like a log cabin and sits on 6.5 wooded acres. We share the property with all sort of wildlife and love it.
So after deciding on the place we want to be, the next step is getting there.  We have no problem driving there, but we live in a huge 4 bedroom house and everything in this house has to go somewhere.  I am an advocate of Goodwill as a home for the extras and that's fine, but there is still an accumulation of 6 years to get rid of. Remember August 29th 2005 everything was blown away so we started over. So now that stuff has to be moved.
Hiring a moving company sounds great, but have you priced them lately?  Yikes.  There has to be a better way.  And we may have found it.  A friend in Mountain View has a trailer that we can probably rent. She can drive it here, we can hire strong young men to load it and between the two of us and our friend, we can caravan back to Arkansas.  We have set the time we both want to relocate as the end of this year.  Wonder if we will get it done.  I think so.  Follow along to fine out how this plays out.

Neighbors visiting

The road to the house

The house 

Thanks for visiting today. 

Don't forget my book is on sale at Amazon.


For pond information, join us at pondlady.com

Things I do when I am not here

Of course, I publicize my new book. On Twitter, mostly, but really anyplace somebody will give me some free electrons.
I play on Facebook -- also a free place to get book publicity.
Pinterest is another place to get recognized.

Do you see a pattern here?

I do have a social life. At least I think I remember one. As a vegan in New Orleans, the food capital of the world, I don't eat out much because restaurants don't cook much vegan food, but I do cook at home.  When you are cooking vegan, you are either very creative or very bored.  I am not fond of standing in the kitchen cutting, slicing, and dicing strange sounding foods that cost loads of money, so I am a boring cook more than a creative one.

And I visit friends occasionally, if that counts.  I do not make them cook tho.  They don't mind seeing me because I can usually solve their pond problems. And I don't bring them food.

We have a house in Mountain View, Arkansas, so frequent trips there coupled with long stays are always on the calendar. Food there is equally boring as here at home.  Same cook.

I write a bunch, but that's more of 'what I do here,' not what I do when I'm not here.  Does playing with our red headed hooligan dog count? Or trying to keep the swimming pool water clear?

The excitement never stops.

Thanks for your visit today. And while I am using my recycled electrons, here's another book plug:

Don't forget my book is on sale at Amazon.


For pond information, join us at pondlady.com

Slamming the Screen Door

Remember when you were a kid. For me it was in the 40's.  I know that most of you don't even realize the 40's existed, let alone lived through them, so I consider it my duty to give you insights into being a kid during the 'good old days.'

First of all, TV arrived in our little town on Lake Michigan about 1948.  The first one was in an appliance/furniture store window downtown.  The crowds standing outside would have drawn the police today. Maybe then too, but all they would have wanted was to see that miracle of moving pictures on a tiny screen.  When my parents got one, we would turn on the TV, let it warm up for 5 or 10 minutes and then watch a test pattern for hours.  Soon we could watch real programs. Howdy Doody was a favorite of mine.

We played outside after school and on weekends. Didn't make any difference what season it was.  The difference was we wore shoes, socks and boots in the winter.  Probably a jacket too.  When our mothers got sick and tired of us, we were thrown outside and the door was locked behind us. We found neighborhood kids and played games that we made up. Or games that our grandparents taught us, games they probably learned from their grandparents in the Netherlands.

One thing remained constant through our growing up years and even beyond. In the summer the outside door had a screen on it. And that screen door had hinges on one side and a heavy spring on the other, so it would spring closed if you let go of the handle quickly.

For some reason, no child on earth, up to and including today's can close a door without just letting it slam.  So we all heard, "Don't. Slam. That. Door!" each and every time we used it.  To protect the screen doors from early demise, protectors were sold. The were usually metal and had some sort of decoration on them. I have no idea what they cost, but probably lots less than the ones in antique stores today where I found this one:

I look at it and can still hear my mother hollering at us to Stop Slamming the Door.

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Unemployed

No, not me. I'm retired, but still tap at the keyboard every day.  But, I hired a kid, maybe 25 or so, to do the heavy work in the garden. He did the bed prep and I wanted him to set up the soaker hoses and then mulch the veggies I had already planted.

He had never seen a tomato plant before. For that matter, he had never seen a veggie garden before.  I asked him to put the soaker hoses at the base of the tomato plants.  After he did not move, I realized he had no idea what I was talking about. Did not know what the plant was, what a stem was or why he was doing what he was doing.

Aha, sez me, a teaching moment. I explained what we were doing and why.  Showed him the baby bean plants because the seeds have come up.  Showed him how to plant bean seeds because I don't want all those beans at once, so plant them in stages. I explained that the tomatoes would grow and yield nice red tomatoes, the likes of which could never be found in a supermarket.  Not only did he not know what a veggie garden is, I found out he didn't care.  He had no curiosity whatsoever.  I asked him to bring me a bag of fertilizer.  He brought two bags to me, the only two nearby. One was ant killer, the other fertilizer.  The bag had FERTILIZER written on the side.  He either couldn't read or had no idea what fertilizer was.  None.  I finished the placing of the soakers, the mulching, the fertilizing while he watched and then I sent him home.

And we wonder why folks are unemployed.  I sure know the answer for this particular young man.

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Finishing the Spring Garden

I have been out in the mildly hot New Orleans spring getting the veggie garden mulched and the irrigation hoses installed.   It has not been done before today because I am a lazy gardener.  And on some days, a very old one.  So instead of laboring over a keyboard inside the house, I have been laboring over raised beds outside. Outside is much more fun and probably more profitable.
Some of the flower garden plants are starting to show off.  They are prone to do that this time of year. It's as if they say, "Hey, you liked the first flower.  Whaddya think of the next 6 or 15?"  Just driving down the streets of our little city of Slidell, La is interesting with all the wildflowers. Wild ageratum makes long blue swatches along the dry roadsides. The sides of the road that are wetter have pickerel rush, the sedges, cannas about to bloom and of course, Louisiana iris by the hundreds.  And it's only just begun. We do suffer a long spell of not much in the heat of summer, but by fall, we are back in full bloom with a whole new set of flowers and colors.  There is not a day in our part of the world when we cannot garden.
Just a taste of what's out there:

Guara

Iris Little Rock Skies

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