Journal of a perennial optimist (part 2)

[Yvonne Smith]

Today was a really nice day, and i worked outside in the yard and garden for a while, and did some weedeating. Then I went out and laid in the ZG recliner and did my suntanning, but by then it was actually getting pretty hot outside.
I have a lot of weedeating to do, so I need to keep at it every day that it is nice outside and before it gets too hot.

I found some new starts from the black raspberries, and i want to dig them up and transplant them in a different area because they are creeping out of their designated place and heading for the back yard where we do not want them to be.
Bobby put up a new trellis out front, and I think that if we move the raspberry starts there, I can maybe train them along the trellis and they will be in a place where it is easy to pick them.

The ones growing under the kitchen window have really spread out and have lots of little raspberries, and some of them are already turning pink. It should not be too much longer before they turn purple and we can eat them ! The blueberry bushes are loaded with berries, and i just got some netting to put over the tops to keep the birds from eating all of the berries, so that is another thing on my to-do list.

Here is a picture of the raspberries from today, and one showing how they looked earlier this spring. They are really spreading out.

 

[Sheryl]

Yvonne, what are those pretty little purple flowers at the bottom?

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Yvonne, what are those pretty little purple flowers at the bottom?

Those are the little wild violets, @Sheryl . They grow wild all over out here; I am surprised you do not have them where you live also. They spread and are pretty, and both the leaves and the flowers are edible, although I do not eat them very much.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Gurneys was having a clearance sale on some plants, and some of the roses were half price, so I ordered a few of the bare root roses to plant in the front yard. They had seeds for a plant called Savannah hybrid spinach mustard, and it said it was similar to regular spinach but can take the heat better and has a lot of flavor, either cooked or in salads. I have never heard of this before, but the seeds were on sale, so I got a package and will try growing some.

Today, I pruned back the wild rose and then grafted a cutting from a yellow rose to see if it will grow like the red cutting did that I grafted onto the wild rose last year. I can’t find the grafting tape, so I just used regular clear packing tape, and then ordered another roll of grafting tape from Amazon.
It is now starting to be hot outside, so it should be swimming pool weather before long ! I am looking forward to that, and so is Bobby.

 

[Sheryl]

Yvonne, we do have wild violets here. There is a shady spot behind my house that I used to let them grow in. Our yard man (aka,,, gardener @Smithy ) keeps everything mowed down now.

"Forgiveness is the fragrance of a violet on the heel of the shoe that stepped on it."

 

[Mary Stetler]

We have white, purple and yellow violets here. The yellows are poisonous. One year we sugared the purple ones as they did for a confection about a hundred years ago. It was fun although time consuming. Yvonne, do you have trouble with your comfrey spreading too?

 

[Yvonne Smith]

My comfrey is the sterile variety, @Mary Stetler . It produces bloooms, but does not go to seed. I can divide the clumps when I want more starts, but otherwise it stays in one clump, but the clumps do get larger as it grows more roots.
I cut the tops and add them around the roses and berries as a green fertilizer, and just enjoy them as beautiful green plants that also attract pollinators to the flowers.
I sometimes add a few leaves to my smoothies, or cook them in a stir fry. I know we are told not to eat comfrey anymore (just like some other foods that have been used for centuries), but my mother grew it, and I have used it all my life. It is extremely nutritious !
I usually dry and powder some, and use it to add to soy in the winter time.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I looked outside on the back steps, and the birds were fluttering around in my black raspberries and eating them before they even turn red, let alone turn purple/black and get ripe.
I cut some of the netting that I bought last week and Bobby and I put it over most of the top berries, which is where the birds find them. Since the dog food for Bobby’s dog, Rusty, is usually on the back porch, the birds always come there looking for dog food, and now have discovered the raspberries.
With the netting they can’t get to them , so hopefully, it will save the berries until they get ripe enough for us to eat this year.

I also covered the blueberries in the front yard, although we have not had as many birds and squirrels out there this year, since the cats started chasing them and trying to catch them. I might even be able to plant sunflowers this year ? Every time i try, the pesky squirrels dig up the seeds and eat them all.
When I covered up the blueberries, I took a few cuttings and am going to see if I can get them to root and we can have a few more blueberry bushes.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Our new roses arrived today ! Bobby got the shovel and he dug the holes and we planted all four of the new roses out along the front lawn near the road. It slants down to the road near the very front of the lawn and is always difficult to mow because of that.
What we are going to do is plant shrubs and roses there and maybe some lilies and more irises that will spread, and then Bobby won’t have to mow it once the shrubs are all growing and spreading out, and we will have more pretty flowers along the front of the yard.
These are the roses I ordered, they are floribunda roses and should grow into a larger rose bush .

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Yesterday, I had the appointment with the pulmonary specialist, and he went over the test results for the breathing tests they gave me before, and said that everything looked good to him.
So, my cardiologist says the breathing problem is not from the CHF, and the pulmonologist says it is not my lungs. I think that just leaves my nose/sinuses that are causing the problem.

As long as I can remember (even as a young child), I have had a runny nose and always carried a Kleenex along with me everywhere. As a senior, it has gotten worse, and i have assumed that it was from congestion from the heart failure, and I just have to keep blowing my nose to clear it out, especially first thing in the morning.
I can breathe with my nose as long as i am just sitting still, but still have to keep blowing my nose, however, even walking through the house, or outside, I can’t get enough air that way, and start puffing in air through my mouth in order to get enough oxygen.

The doctor tried me on an inhaler, but it makes very little difference. Now he gave me a prescription for something that is supposed to treat asthma (which I do not have asthma), and I was just reading about it this morning.
The side effects are SCARY !
It says things like confusion, depression, suicidal, hallucinations, and more stuff to that effect. One of the “usual” side effects is runny nose and sneezing, which is why they are giving me this medication in the first place.

I told Bobby that I was going to at least try it and see; but thinking further, I do not think that I want to take anything that is going to affect my mind and my life in any of those possible ways; so after reading all the side effects, having to blow my nose a lot does not seem like such a bad thing compared to suicide and hallucinations.
So, not going to take it.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I have been checking the new roses each day, and today I discovered that two of them have teeny-tiny buds on them, so in another week or two, we should be having the first blossoms from those rises.
I think that this weather has really been helping all of the plants. It is not getting much over 85, and we have had rain in the forecast every day for over a month now. We do not always get the rain, but we are definitely getting a lot of it, and just the right amount of warmth and sunshine to keep everything growing really well.

The black raspberries are almost done, and i have really enjoyed those. Not a lot of them this year yet, but enough for me to pick a few for Bobby and I to nibble each day. We moved a couple new starts out in the front yard and they are growing, so by next year, we should have even more berries.
The blueberries are huge this year ! Some of the large ones are almost the size of small cherries, and the bushes are loaded with berries. I picked a bowlful yesterday and made Bobby a blueberry muffin cake with those.

My spinach mustard has already started sprouting, and i just planted it a few days ago. I am thinking of starting some in one of the aero gardens and see if it will grow there, too.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

Hey @Yvonne Smith I haven't been ignoring this thread, I just never realized it was here!

I hope you are doing ok and feeling ok right now. A lot of medications have long lists of wild and scary symptoms. You have to do what you feel is best.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

The black raspberries are almost done, and i have really enjoyed those.

I wish I had them again, but eventually they died out. Mine were volunteers that gradually "marched" along my back lot line until eventually they disappeared. Probably got too shady as the large trees around me got too tall and thick. I never got more than maybe 3 small bowls each season, but I looked forward to them every year.

Your berries all sound wonderful. I'm jealous.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Hey @Yvonne Smith I haven't been ignoring this thread, I just never realized it was here!

I hope you are doing ok and feeling ok right now. A lot of medications have long lists of wild and scary symptoms. You have to do what you feel is best.

Thank you , @Jacob Petersheim . The medication, Montelucast, has some really bad side effects, and it even suggested that you need a caretaker or other person to watch you so that you do not commit suicide.
And it said that all of the side effects can continue on, even after you stop taking it; so if I tried it and found it did cause problems, just stopping might not stop the bad side effects.
It seems like a really serious medication to take for a not-so-serious problem.

I have had sinus problems and a runny nose for my whole life for whatever reason, and I would rather deal with needing a handkerchief all the time than having hallucinations, aggression, depression, and having both Bobby and myself have to be concerned that I
was going to kill myself.
That is no kind of life to live ! I am not going back to that doctor anymore.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

I don't blame you one bit.

 

[Sheryl]

Yvonne, I have had allergies all my life, too. I am never out of reach of a Kleenex. My nose stayed stopped up. I couldn't even smell anything. I started taking allergy pills quite a few years ago. That opened my nostrils up so that I could breathe normally. After a while my sense of smell came back. Now I can even smell my roses again.

Do you take allergy pills?

 

[Yvonne Smith]

The new roses are all doing fine and growing, and two of them have small flower buds, so before too much longer they should start to have a few blooms.
All of the berries are about done for the summer except for the blueberries. I have several different varieties, so they have berries at different times, enough to snack on.
I have been out in the back yard working on the area where I want to move the red raspberries to, and it is starting to look like i am making progress with it. The little fencing that i had put up for when it was a garden area was completely overgrown with vines, so I have been pulling those down and cutting them off as close to the ground as possible.

Next, I will prune back the raspberry vines and get them ready to transplant, and Bobby is going to rototill an area near the fence where i can transplant the berry bushes to once everything is ready.
I haven’t even looked at the strawberries for the last month, and the weeds have completely overtaken the strawberries, so that is another project that I have to get busy on, and get the weeds out so that the strawberries can put out more runners for new plants for next year.

The fig tree has lots of little figs , so if we can keep the squirrels away from the tree, we can have figs before too long. We have two peach trees, and every year they have peaches and the squirrels eat them before they get large enough to even think abut picking them.
This is the back yard, and the largest peach tree behind the cannas, and blackberries along the back fence.

 

[Nancy Hart]

You have a nice yard, Yvonne. Good luck with the figs. I love black raspberries. Used to eat them off the vine as a kid. Someone planted them on the property I grew up on in Ohio before we bought it. Likely a city person who had the property just for a garden of perennials. We didn't have time to tend to everything and it all grew up in weeds eventually.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Change of plans.
I went out to start working on getting the weeds out of the strawberry bed, and it turns out that the strawberries had decided to just go ahead and make their runners, weeds and all. So, what i assumed were weeds, was really a bazillion strawberry runners and new plants.
I am thinnng them out, and planting the baby runners in some of the large planter pots that i was using before when i had the backyard garden area. That way, we will have more strawberries next year, hopefully LOTS more berries !
The strawberry bed is pretty much full of new plants, and have crowded out the weeds that were in there before, plus we will have the new ones that grow from the runners this year, and that should make picking them easier as well, if they are growing in the planter pots and not on the ground.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

Gurneys was having a clearance sale on some plants, and some of the roses were half price, so I ordered a few of the bare root roses to plant in the front yard.

I may have told you his before, and if so I apologize for being repetitive.

When I was a kid, my room was on the 2nd floor of our house. It had these two big windows that were side by side. Because of ease of access, my Dad put a giant TV / Ham Radio antenna tower were he could just sit on one of the window sills and bolt it to the side of the house between my windows.

The antenna tower had bars on it so you could climb up to maintain your antenna. When I saw him doing that it gave me an idea. My friend Roger could get out of his house by climbing out his bedroom window. So I started climbing out of mine, climbing down the antenna tower and we would take off on our bikes for a late night ride.

One night we did that and my Mom heard me climbing back up to my room. She didn't say anything to me about it. But she went to the local nursery and bought several partially grown Rose bushes and planted them at the base of the antenna tower.

When I climbed out the window that night I didn't get very far...

Edit: The usual... Typos