Sunday, June 1, 2008

Sunday Roping and Gardening

This afternoon we had our second roping practice and lessons. There were 10 horses this time, all in one arena; ropes swirling, horses galloping, the mechanical steer being pulled around by a quad; pure chaotic bedlam. On top of all of the commotion, I wore spurs on my mare for the first time ever. She was in a snit about the spurs and fretting about the constant action. I suffered through several of her bucking tantrums and then we got down to business. It was fun but painful, I twisted my back yesterday carrying boxes and am paying for it today. I am a wimp.

Did I mention that Jerry was worried about not being able to rope when his shoulder dislocated last week? Well he roped. Needing a bit of a break, I reined into the center of the arena to join Jerry chatting with the arena owner. Jerry laughingly says to me, "hey I just had one of those hot flashes like you always have." Huh??? I'm thinking I heard wrong, but then I noticed his cowboy shirt is drenched with sweat. And he LAUGHS as he tells me that while roping, his shoulder just popped out of it's socket and then back again. He says he got really queasy and almost passed out, but just got sweaty instead. I married a freak folks. Because later he takes his turn at chasing and trying to rope wild roping live steers.

Not me, I roped only a tame mechanical steer. We made it home safely. Rinsed off the tired sweaty horses. Jerry cooked dinner. And now we are settling down for the night. The weekend went by way too fast.

I took garden pictures to share. Our vegetable garden is truly pathetic. Very little of the seed we sowed has germinated. I was hoping to avoid pesticides but we have bugs. I hate poisons but we have gophers. Lots of gophers and they have now discovered the garden.
No carrots came up, no beets came up.

We have plenty of cucumber plants now. I'm supposed to thin them to one per spot, but I cannot.


There are three tomato plants and they look better than anything else. I planted romas, better boys, and cherry tomatoes.


This is a very lonely little lettuce. I planted two rows with two types of lettuce. This is it, one...


We have bean plants coming up beautifully, they are feeding the bugs. I can't see any bugs, I don't see any grasshoppers, but those leaves sure looked snacked on to me.

In the past week I have visited friends with marvelous green thriving gardens. I am envious.

One recommended spraying the plants with a mixture of water, dish soap and vinegar. I'll try it tomorrow, if that doesn't work, I am declaring war and will use insecticides.

It sure doesn't look like I'll have to learn how to can excess vegetables this year.

6 comments:

The Maid said...

Kudos for trying to grow stuff. I am only good at growing bitter and ungrateful children.
LOL

The Maid

Jenn said...

Roping sure sounds fun! I hope Rock finally got over herself and over the spurs and settled down enough to enjoy the fun, too.

Poor, sad little lettuce plant. Carrots and lettuce are cool season veggies, heat and dry weather they don't like, at all. Try planting a couple of months earlier next year and you'll have TONS!

A good "natural garden" website is here: www.eartheasy.com/grow_nat_pest_cntrl.htm

I second the soap/vinegar mixture, and here's another one that I've had some luck with:

All Purpose Bug Spray

Two tablespoons of liquid hot pepper or cayenne
Few drops of liquid soap
Water
One spray bottle

Add pepper and soap to water bottle. Fill with water. Let stand 24 hours. Shake and spray.
Instead of hot pepper or cayenne, you can try chopped garlic. When adding chopped garlic, the spray will need to be strained before use to remove the garlic. A baking soda formula is sprayed to tend to plants with fungal disease and a milk solution for powdery mildew.

If that doesn't work, I've also had some success with getting rid of certain bugs by picking them off the plants and popping them into the blender. Mix 'em up with water, add a touch of dish soap after its all blended (the soap makes it stick to the plant), and spray the heck out of the plants they were eating. Sounds gross, I know, but the bio-chemicals the dead bugs give off warn the other bugs away "Danger! Danger! We DIED! Get away!" Obviously, this only works with the bugs you can see!

Good luck!

Karen Deborah said...

You probably have beetles at night. or snails. diatomacious earth can be sprinkled around the plants to get the crawly types. I am a quitter. when I figured out how much work it was to wage war on bugs etc,..I took my sorry little self to the veggie stand. i hate spray. i don't want to eat what has been sprayed. Tomatoes always work. Don't worry be happy. Throw some basil seed out there herbs are easy to grow. Jerry is starting to worry me.

Courtney said...

The garden looks good. If I didn't kill everything I planted I would plant a garden, but as luck would have it...

Anonymous said...

I want a garden! Well, a bugless garden.

I did grow a bunch of pumpkins in our backyard one year but our growing season is way too short. I only got two pumpkins out of the 20 or so that didn't make it because it started freezing regularly at night. I was able to make one pie from my harvest. And it was a lot of work.

Anonymous said...

Vegetable garden,To much work for me. I will stick with my flowers. Just from what Marilynn and Wally say about their problems with garden all these years, for-get-IT. Marilynn says this is her last year, no more. All their work and they still have to go and buy most things because, didn't come up, or something ate them or buggy, etc.
My flowers are pretty, just water if no rain and enjoy them. Well, some weeding.

Take care Jerry, don't hurt yourself.