right now

right now

Jun 28, 2011

The Daily Grind

It feels like Groundhog Day here...  every day starts the same, with hacking away at my tomato plants in the hot and humid morning.  Being the lazy blogger I feel like today, I just videotaped it instead of writing about it!




Heat index was already in the 90's doing chores this morning, steamy and mosquitoes are out in full force.  We have been having nightly thunderstorms the past several days, which is making the blight spread faster, and the storms wreak havoc with the plants and I'm having to re-tie them to supports on a constant basis, or they are completely laying on their sides, supports and all.


A few things are loving the heat, even if I'm not!

Sugar Baby Bush Watermelon in container


The Sugar Pie pumpkin/corn fence line bed


Pumpkin Blossom


My first squash, Butternut.


I finally got a photo of Mr. Mockers for you.  My constant companion for years out here, this time I was allowed a photograph!  Normally he hops around on top of the split rail fence following me menacingly, squawking and divebombing me, but today he decided to sit still and act nice for a moment.  I absolutely love this bird, his personality fits well with mine :), I know it's the same one every year since he has a mocking call that imitates me yelling out the back door "MAR-leeeeeee, SPROCK-etttttttt".  The nest is made in the very top of the Hops arbor every year, it's a fantastic perch from which to watch over the whole "territory" and watch for people and dogs coming from the house.

Mr. Mockers on his sentry post in the pepper bed!


I actually find his antics and middle of the night ruckus and singing pretty amusing!  One of his more endearing qualities is dive bombing Sprocket's head.  She looks at me like "aren't you going to stop this?" and I just laugh since she seems pretty deserving of a good peck on the head pretty frequently :)

16 comments:

  1. I feel for you in that heat/humidity. I would be lucky if I got out of bed. What a handsome bird! That is a great photograph, Erin.

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  2. It's getting hot and muggy here too. Because of all our rain it will take a few days to dry up all that moisture so we are having humid here too. It's 30-35C here today.
    That's the difficult thing about gardening. You can't control the weather or other things that get your plants like blight. Some years are just going to be bad years.
    I hope you get some really great tomatoes in spite of the blight.
    I agree, that bird picture is fantastic. He almost looks like part of the post he's on.

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  3. Oh, Erin, I feel for you so much fighting the tomato blight. You're doing everything you can; I know how much you want those tomatoes, but at the same time I wouldn't blame you if you just chucked them all. Such a struggle.

    The rest of the garden looks wonderful . . . your usual great job of growing things.

    Mr. Mockers certainly is a handsome bird who seems to think he's the owner of your property!

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  4. The tomatoes may be giving you a rough time of it, but the rest of your stuff looks fantastic. I don't know how you face that godawful heat and humidity every day. I remember that from my Illinois days and forget it---never again!
    (but my tomatoes have to wear sweaters here and I STILL where my fleece-y shirt every day!)

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  5. Momma pea called the bird Mr mockers ,is it a mocking bird ? i have never seen one-very nice shot of of him .Reminds me of that movie I love so much"To Kill A Mocking Bird" IT IS GONNA BE HOT AND HUMID HERE THIS WEEK TOO I WILL BE IN AIR-CON. HOSPITALS 3 DAYS IN A ROW-2 AT THE VA [ I'm sure you know about those visits] hurry up and wait and wait. on Friday to a urology appt. for my 17 year-old grand son-we don't know yet what is wrong we call 911 the other night when he got off work he practically fell on the floor saying he couldn't breath-talk about giving me a fright. what can a 17 year old possibly have wrong with his faucet system?

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  6. Check out this link from Cornell Univ. http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/drought_stress.htm. Your tomatoes look just like mine, but we live where it is hot and dry. Wondering if this is what is wrong with mine.

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  7. You are fighting a good fight there. I wish there was something - some kind of miracle cure for that. It's so disheartening.

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  8. I'm loving the bird, the tomatoes not so much. I hope Peggi is correct, and they really aren't suffering from late blight.

    It was 93 degrees here about an hour ago, and that was in the shade. Now the clouds are rolling in, and it looks like we might be in for a storm. I griped about the cold all spring, now I can gripe about the heat.

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  9. Hang in there, Lady. You can beat it.
    Ribbit.

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  10. Susan, thanks! I was just lucky with that photo!
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    Sparkless, that's the truth, some years are just going to be unpleasant :)
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    Mama Pea, I am getting very close to throwing in the towel. One thing is for sure, when this fungicide bottle runs out, I'm not buying any more. I just have to accept facts this year. You are proof that tomatoes do not "make" a garden, FOOD does! Just hard to accept, LOL
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    Sue, I swear if we weren't forced to live here.... LOL!!

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  11. Judy, yes, that's a Northern Mockingbird! Sounds like classic stones with your grandson - hope everything goes okay. Nothing age-wise surprises me anymore, my dr. said they used to use the symptoms "3-F's" to describe gallbladder disease, "Fat, Fertile & Forty", but that no longer applies - I'm not overweight at all, definitely wasn't fertile or 40 LOL but mine came out! I swear these things can be traced back to stuff in our food and water - how about the fact that lots of girls are now having their first period around age 8? I think it's all the estrogen from pharmaceuticals entering our water supply through BCP users' urine and bovine growth hormones... oh now look what you started LOL...

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  12. Peggi, I know it's definitely not Late Blight - it's a bit early here for that and this moves much more slowly - Late Blight will destroy everything within days, and the fruit is diseased along with it. I don't have too many of those brown necrotic spots, mine are classic bottom-up yellowing, at the extension service office we have already seen several cases of the Early Blight being reported here. I imagine that probably puts us at risk for the other as well, although not necessarily - but this year is a total bust I think!
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    APG, I think the miracle cure would be to be happy with grocery store produce, but we all know that would never do!
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    Ribbit, I'm a fighter LOL!

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  13. To all - if I disappear and don't reply to comments tomorrow, it's because I was swallowed into the vortex of terror with the cable company. My modem has been dying a slow death all day and the cable people are making me crazy with their "sending a signal to your unit" B.S..... I may have to bite the bullet and buy my own modem.... also my well pump is dying... doesn't it figure that this stuff happens AFTER I spend money on an "extra" like my canner? Hmmmph.

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  14. Ground hog day. He he. That movie has special meaning to us. My Husband did the ice sculpture in the movie and there is a split second where you can just barely see him in the back ground. So when someone refers to it, it always makes me laugh. The Garden looks good to me.

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  15. Erin, I hope your internet troubles get straightened out quickly.

    I have early blight on my tomatoes now as well, they were looking good one day (I went out to to take pictures which I never got around to posting), then we had rain for 2 or three days, then hubby said 'there is something wrong with your tomatoes, they are all yellow' - NO!!! Anyway, I pruned and sprayed Serenade. I think they will be fine even with a little blight, a little early blight is somewhat common around here.

    I sure hope those Brandywines ripen for you. It looks as though they have a good shot. Your melon and squash look great!

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  16. Jane, that's awesome! I'm in a crowd scene in the movie "Outbreak", after watching it umpteen times we still can't find me LOL! (I lived in Humboldt County, CA when I was in the Navy and they used a bunch of us in the movie :))
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    Kelly, I hope the spray does it for you, it hasn't stopped it here, but it has definitely slowed it way down to the point where I might be okay.

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