The garden and what's growing up.

The storm was rolling in and this was our sunset.  

The yellow yarrow driveway transplant to one of our new front beds.  

The one and only lonely dianthus that came back this year.

The front path that I'm putting in.  Once the grass takes root in the in-betweens and locks the stones down (and the mud washes from the face), it'll be jammin'.  For now, my path is cut in a little over half way.  It's a lot of work, but in the end, it will be delightful.

The lime green nicotiana that reseeds itself in the very same spot at the corner of the house every single year.  

My very first pepper this year!  I tell you, using Epsom Salts with the peppers really did make all the difference this year.

Lavender.

The topsy turvy tomato seems to be happy enough.

For the first part of "Keepin' it Real" we present the trash cart that I broke with far too much lawn debris.  Hubs thinks it weighed at least 800 pounds (with no exaggeration) and the trip down the limestone drive did the wheel in.

See?  The good news is that the city has a "mobile repair unit" that will come and replace my wheels for no charge.  Good thing.  I was going to fashion my own since a city cart costs $50.

I tucked the hanging baskets in for the night.  We were having the big and bad storms arrive and I didn't want the baskets to launch.  Besides, I'm foster planting that million bells there and nearly killed it when it went dry.  I'm glad to report that it rehydrated nicely and my MIL won't have a dried carcass returned to her.

The top planting depression in my water barrel is working out nicely.  K gave the snaps to me for Mother's Day and Hubs gave me the marigolds for the same thing.  I grew the cilantro from seed and put that in as fluff and seeded the alyssum around it.  That should bloom shortly.  The portulaca?  That was a volunteer find!  I love volunteers!

One of the two perennial geraniums I purchased last year.  One didn't come back, but this one is doing very well.

The field yarrow I snitched from a friend's property years and years ago.  I have since split it and have another spot of the same lovely stuff.

The potentilla that the neighbor gave me.

Yellow squash coming up and I've had to place guards on them to keep the bunny rabbit gentle person or the chipmunkerson from eating them.

Part 2 of "Keepin' it Real" is the critter fence Hubs and I installed around the garden.  The pile of dirt there is from where I've been cutting the stones in up front.  I dumped it there where I planted organic soy beans that didn't come up.  I have green beans that were being beheaded and collards that are on their third planting since the tender shoots seem to be the preferred meal of some bunny in the backyard. 

Lambs ear that my sister gave me last year.  She gave me a few sprouts and in last year's heat, they didn't look so good.  Turns out, they came around and have done just fine.  I didn't know that they bloomed!

Part 3 of "Keepin' it Real" is that Earthbound Farms makes wonderful guard containers for sunflowers.  

The clematis that after a few years has decided to be HAPPY!

Milkweed thinking about blooming.

I mean, look at that.  Yum!

Last up, these are lilies that Hubs didn't take out while mulching.  His mulch job is wonderful.  Too bad 3 of my lilies met their death as a result.  

So, how's your garden growing?

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: A PSA for everyone who drives.

We had gone to the Home Depot and were on our way to soccer.  We were in a rather congested shopping district and were stopped at a light.  Suddenly, I thought that water was being thrown on me.  I looked over and saw the wiper blades going on the very large SUV next to me.  (I was in my RAV which isn't tiny.  At least we weren't in the Yaris.  It would have given the entire car a bath!)

I had just been washed by windshield washer fluid.

The woman in the passenger seat looked horrified as I was wiping blue fluid from my arm and across the top of my door.

She did not open her window.

She did not apologize.

They drove away in traffic as fast as they could.

I know that they didn't do it on purpose, but I would have rolled the window down and apologized profusely for spraying someone down with blue chemicals.

Please make sure that if you have a hankerin' to wash the windshield at a stop light, please make certain that the cars next to you have their windows up first.  I have gotten over spray through the moon roof, but people don't see that open and certainly don't expect the fluid to fly over their car and 1/2 way over mine.

My daughter would like me to kindly remind everyone that if you go to a drive-in restaurant, please remember that those who are sitting in the cars next to you aren't enjoying the cigarette smoke.  She's smoke sensitive (Instant bronchitis anyone?), so she is very tuned into whether people are smoking or not.  The last two times we stopped by our local (YUM!) drive-in, we've had to roll the windows up because of smokers.  YUCK!

The yearly dilemma.

My yearly dilemma is this-- are the cherries ready yet?  I've given it a few good weeks since I first started seeing them in the stores.  The price has dropped, so I'm thinking that is probably when the larger influx of cherries are coming in.

I bought K a little bag.  Then I kindly told her that I paid almost $4.00 for them and to please eat them.

:with tears:

Aunt Donna would always call and say that they were ready and once again, I'm left to guessing.  :(

I hit another milestone today.  I had to buy my child sidewalk chalk.  Because Aunt Donna bought her multiple containers each year and the last one being some giant Crayola bucket that lasted YEARS, I haven't bought chalk in more years than I can think to say.  I had to run up to the local discount store this evening and they had some buckets 2 for 99 cents.  I bought two and brought them home.  K has been working with the dregs lately and I've known that there was a need.  She was thrilled to see the new chalk come in the door.  I made her promise to use one bucket at a time and not to grind all of it up at once to make chalk "paint."  Still, another Aunt Donna thing.  :(

I saw someone on a red scooter the other day.  Since it was toodling around here, it could have been hers.  Right before she passed away, LeAnne and I received several calls of scooter break downs.  The last big call was when my sister was on her way to a function and could not come to Aunt Donna's rescue.  She asked that I go.  Hubs happened to be home and came with me.  We hunted her down, found the old girl and the broken scooter and Hubs told me to check on the back for some switch to flip.  We did and magically it was alive!  Aunt Donna made me give her tactile instructions (she was legally blind) and she was off.

We miss her and not just because she provided sidewalk chalk and "the cherries are ready" calls.  She was a pain in the patoot and certainly as hard headed as I am.  (Geeze, where did I get it?)  However, she would give anything to anyone and had the habit of being taken advantage of.  She knew that I was one of the few in her life that would not take advantage of her and truly watched out for her.  Sometimes, the old girl was a lot of work.  Her heart was in the right place.

We miss her a lot.

We passed the third grade!

Thursday was the last day of third grade.  Can I tell you that Hubs and I have been counting down to that day for a while? 

I should add that we never actually questioned our daughter passing 3rd grade.  The year was just so danged long!  She held her grades pretty well, being on merit or honor roll all year.  We had the D+ in math on the first report card.  We praised K for her D+ because she really did do her very best.  (It was a grade that I never thought I would praise, much less on a report card.)  I admit, it was hard for me to swallow that my daughter, despite doing her absolute best, ran into an otherwise unacceptable grade.  She didn't get in trouble for it.  We did slog with her through the entire year of math.  Sweet love.

Then came grading period 2 where her social studies dropped from an A to a C because she was being pulled out of SS for math tutoring and as such, the teacher was giving a "quick review" to the children who missed it, but obviously the "quick review" wasn't working for K.  No bother.  I told her that I would home school her in social studies and we pulled that C back up to an A.  

We've had some difficulty with K's teacher this past year.  At one point at the beginning of May, K came to me and said, "Mom, I think that Mrs. H hates me."  My only response was, "You know, we can't wait for 3rd grade to end, either."  While I'm sure that Mrs. H didn't hate K, she knew that she had several papers that were misgraded or mislogged onto the online grade system, she knew that despite how hard she was working, the teacher wasn't always willing to work with her.  It is a growing-up thing.  Just the jump from 2nd grade to 3rd grade in the area of teacher helping students was a bit sink-or-swim and K wasn't a big fan of the sinking feeling.  

They started pulling K (without consulting me or Hubs) for literacy intervention where they were pulling her out of science.  They were pulling her because her OAA score was 7 points shy of the end of year points goal (they took the reading OAA in October) and I declined.  They were shocked.  If K truly needed the help, we would sign up.  Science was hands on with a lot of experiments.  How exactly am I supposed to home school that at home with a fairly non-communicative teacher?  The tutor called and apologized for telling the children that quite frankly, they had failed the OAA reading portion when we specifically told K that she had passed the 3rd grade guarantee (the reading score required to move on to 4th grade) but that she was a few points shy of the end of year goal.  K was an absolute pile and I told the tutor that she had undone 2 1/2 months worth of self-esteem work we did in one fell swoop.  She felt horrible. 

Because of the OAA fall score, K was invited to reading pre-fall and she wanted to do it.  They are doing a bit of reading intervention and while K reads several books a week, I think that help with slowing down (they were so much about speed that I think that they had her skimming things), comprehension, and prefix and suffix concentration would be great for her.  K is a good average reader.  Kiddo does read herself to death.  Her comprehension is generally pretty good.  If they want to teach her more tricks, have at it.  

In October, there was a bit of a shake-up with the art department.  The public schools that we are in reserves the right to do a bit of a teacher shuffle after 3 weeks of school.  The population settles a bit more and occasionally teachers need to be moved.  Mr. B was moved and the kids were crushed.  All of our 531 children had their schedules shuffled in order to accommodate the replacement staff of 3 part time art teachers.  As it turns out, Mrs. J was a superb replacement.  K loved her and came home having learned things in art.  Mrs. J doesn't expect the kids to be Matisse, but as long as they take in the information that she teaches and tries to apply what they've learned, she'll rock it out with them.  Mr. B was almost like a glorified craft teacher.  K never really did anything of worth with him, so it is okay that he moved on.  Later in the year, K agreed that Mrs. J was a better choice for her.  

Mrs. C was the math tutor that helped pull K out of the math depths.  She is a wonderful Christian woman who takes her job as seriously as these children are HER children.  She e-mailed me on weekends and met with me in hallways.  She was as excited by K's progress as we were.  Yes, I gave her teacher goodies as well as Mrs. H (K's teacher) and Mrs. D, the speech intervention specialist. 

Speaking of Mrs. D, though K's IEP expired last year, she kept her on twice a month for some continued help.  K has been seeing Mrs. D since her 3rd week in Kindergarten.  When K started, she was going to see Mrs. D 3 times a week.  She has worked wonders with K's speech.  We're still battling the "r," but that is pretty common and the LAST correctable sound.  K and I were talking about it today.  We talked about the neighbor girl and I told K that I noticed E's "r" a bit more lately.  "You know, Mom, I've noticed that B (another girl at school) really needs help with her 'r', too."  I continue to compliment her on her hard work and stop her occasionally to get her to work her "r" a bit more.  K's sister was an "r" kiddo, so we weren't surprised.  J has since ditched her "r" and I'm certain that K will, too.  Mrs. D has worked so hard with her.

Mrs. H, the librarian, I credit for helping K a lot this last year.  She knows us from years of 100 Book Challenge Book Pass that K used to help me with.  It was when K was in 1st grade that Mrs. H put her reservations on K for 3rd grade library helper.  Mrs. H also attends church with us.  She helped me through those tough math moments and was there to give K an extra hug in the AM when she had her doing her library duties.  Mrs. H made sure to tell me that K will be the only library helper that she is keeping.  The rest of the girls seriously did not want to do their jobs and she is not continuing with them in the library.  In fact, she allowed K to make her choice on what she will be re-shelving this next year. Apparently, that's a pretty big deal in the library volunteer world.  K is thrilled to be a library volunteer. 

Kiddo loves books so much that to be surrounded by them is a dream for her!

As I said, 3rd grade is a huge jump.  K moved from 2nd grade (as a honor roll student) to 3rd grade having to be happy with a D+ at one point and a few C's on her report card at different times (merit roll and honor roll once) and had to be happy with that.  We had hours long study sessions where we went running (despite having a mama that does not run) down to the end of the block and back.  We drilled spelling words.  We reviewed reading stories.  I don't think that she'll ever forget the social studies test that we studied a week for that she got a 100% on.  Just ask my kiddo who invented the first sky scraper.  She'll tell you!  ;)

Grades had been pretty easy for K up to this point.  She found this year that she is a kiddo that requires studying in order to get the good grades that she gets.  At the beginning of the year, I had to ask for the teacher to allow her to bring her books home.  None of the other kids ever do.  In fact, they even asked her at the bus stop why she brings home so many books.  God bless the kiddo.

We're looking forward to 4th grade.  We're hoping for a better year.  Until then, we will enjoy our summer.  We have bridge work to do, but that isn't every moment of every day.  I bought K a beautiful diary (on clearance at Target for way cheap) and she is excited to write in it.  Every other day, she'll write in cursive.  We worked on diary writing rules the other day.  We'd like to improve her writing skills (she gets tangential and misses some connective words) and frankly, her handwriting can get pretty awful when she is rushing.  (It can be delightful otherwise.)  She's blessed with the opportunity to go to some camps with Hubs at work.  K and her dad get on very well, so it's good for her to hang with him and to be a big help.  

We're enjoying the start of our summer.  Our first day of summer?  We had a Brady Bunch Marathon!  I love that K loves a show that I loved when I was her age!  :)

The City Arborist was right! Who knew?

Our tree lawn tree was suffering a bit.  It had some dried branches that I just couldn't get off.  Standing at the top ladder, I was still too short.  The neighbor suggested that I phone the city to have them come out to trim it.  After all, it is their tree anyhow.  

The City Arborist came out and gave it a look.  He phoned me with some rather sad news.  

She had to go.

It seems that he found "a cavity" and that he put a stick into it that went about "3/4 of the way through."  He promised me that they would cut it down and replant in the fall.  Still, when they came, it was very, very sad.

The old girl.  If you enlarge, you'll see the dead branches.  You'll also see the path that we're putting in to go to the front step and the pile of lawn that I dealt with tonight.  (We allowed it to dry so that I could shake off excess dirt in order to dispose then plant new grass.)

The axe murderers came.

He wielded his long handled chain saw. 

And wielded.

Until she was a very tall stump.  They cleaned up all around her . . . 

. . . And they left her that way.  No kidding.  It was like the tree was continually giving me the ugly finger from the tree lawn.  It was not pretty.

The neighbor came to ask if he could have the wood.  I said to have at it.  He did and lookie what he found.  

The arborist was right.  

And with that, Mike left me a shorter stump that doesn't look as hideous as the tall one.  

The city will be out to cut the remaining portion of the tree and grind the stump.  They'll plant grass and in the fall, they'll come back, dig a big hole and give me a new tree.

So sad to see her go, but the arborist was right and I am very glad that she didn't come down on someone.

TWISTEX: A huge loss for severe storm research.

I was just checking the radar before I went to the soccer field and found a bit on the Weather Channel sidebar about tornado researchers having been killed.  As most know by now, Tim Samaras, his son Paul and Carl Young all died as a result of a multi-vortex tornado in El Reno.

I say nothing that no one else has said yet.  He was a pioneer in severe weather research.  He was with all other researchers who wanted to learn why some storms developed tornadoes and not others, as well as advancing early warning systems.  

Tim and his team did what they did for research.  They weren't out to take a pretty picture.  They weren't out just because they had nothing else to do.  It was not their quest to get inside of a tornado, yet that is what they did in the end. 

Our sympathy to the TWISTEX family.  I know that severe weather research is suffering the loss of this very talented individual and his team.

From TVN.  So very sad.

An update from Yahoo:

It's unclear exactly how the men were killed, but a fellow storm chaser told ABC that their equipment is missing. "The family and overall scientific community would like it recovered to see what happened and what went wrong," the storm chaser said.

Since I just watched a news report with Ginger Zee, it was stated that Tim was found strapped into the vehicle with his seat belt, but that one of the other two gentleman was found 1/2 mile away.  Perhaps the video equipment and other scientific equipment is dispersed out into the field and they haven't located it yet.  I hope that for the sake of the Samaras and Young families, as well as all of those who knew and loved all of the men involved, that the equipment is found and that they are able to see what happened and to put that into further research to help others.

From ABC Channel 7 in Denver:

The Samaras family released a statement Sunday afternoon asking for thoughts and prayers:

"We would like to express our deep appreciation and thanks for the out pouring of support to our family at this very difficult time.   We would like everyone to know what an amazing husband, father, and grandfather he was to us.  Tim had a passion for science and research of tornadoes. He loved being out in the field taking measurements and viewing mother nature. His priority was to warn people of these storms and save lives. Paul was a wonderful son and brother who loved being out with his Dad.  He had a true gift for photography and a love of storms like his Dad.  They made a special team. They will be deeply missed. We take comfort in knowing they died together doing what they loved. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers."

 -- Kathy Samaras, Amy Gregg, Jennifer Scott

A continued update on the missing equipment is that the camera equipment that [they] were using at the time of their death is still missing.  They are asking that if you come across the camera equipment in the tornado/storm debris to please let the authorities know.

From Channel 9 News in Colorado.

A phone interview with Tim on Friday. 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From The Weather Space- a post written by someone who knew Tim Samaras personally.  

Edited to add on 6/5/13-

I read a very interesting article in USA Today.  It stated that the El Reno tornado went from 1 mile to 2.6 miles wide in the matter of 30 seconds. It was because of DOW measurements that the El Reno tornado was upgraded from EF3 to EF5.  With as quickly as it developed width, people probably didn't even know that it was happening until it was there.   

               

Image found in the Washington Post article.               

A little bit 'o luck.

When we were on an evening walk a few weeks ago, K stopped and immediately said, "Oh look!  There's a four leaf clover!"  She immediately found another.  I stepped over and found one myself.

It is now that I say that I have looked and looked since early childhood and it wasn't until this moment that I found one ever.

She gave one to the neighbor as a birthday gift and we pressed the other two in her bible.  We forgot all about it until they fell out this morning.

We're thrilled to have them.  I know that it is a weird thing, but it is sort of a life long hunt fulfilled.  :)