March 4, 2010: Home Again!

I'm back, and very happy to be home again! I think I'm getting a bit like my old rabbit, content to just stay in my "cage".

There's a lot to be said about home. I have a fast cable internet that is always on. It's so frustrating to have such an unreliable connection as I have all winter in AZ. If I need a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk (or a package of seeds or a bag of potting mix), I can jump in my car and be at the store in a matter of a few minutes. In AZ, it's a 50 mile round trip drive. We get a morning newspaper delivered to our door! If we want a paper in AZ, we have to drive to the store to buy one, and the store adds an extra 25-cents to the regular price.

There is oh-so-much to do, unpacking and putting things away. I forget where things go here, after spending the winter in a different house. I've been unpacking and putting things away for three days now, and I still haven't found everything. Guess what's missing......my Crockett's Victory Garden book (my gardening bible) and the monthly planner that I drove all the way to California to buy, and had completely filled with my planting dates! And my cinnamon. Those were three of the very last items I packed, and I can't find them!

Oh, well....on to the important stuff.

I left you with my Arizona garden destruction to be continued, but on our final day there the internet was down again, so I couldn't post about it.

I began the second day of destruction by pulling all the lettuce plants, most by the roots, but some clipped off for Cookie's journey home.

The plants with roots were rinsed off and put into the cotton pillowcase with the carrots and beet greens from the day before. I then soaked the pillowcase and flung it around and around, like a giant salad spinner. This was placed into the picnic cooler. It is now in my refrigerator, as I have not had a spare moment to try transplanting any of it. I did check it last night, and pulled out a couple of plants to feed to the rabbit, and it's lovely and crisp....as are the carrots, spinach and beet greens!

We found room in the back of the pickup to bring the rosemary and cilantro home, but this pot of lettuce and one other ended up at the neighbors' house. We also had to leave all my empty pots behind, as there wasn't an inch of space left in the back of that little Ranger. That's a half dozen pots I'm missing for my home garden.

With everything pulled and the pots dumped into the bare garden, it began raining....torrential rains. This is how I left the little garden.

The trip home........

We left at 5:00 a.m Sunday morning. It was still dark, and our little Ford Ranger was so loaded down that our headlights seemed bright, although we had them dimmed. Of course, every car and truck we met had to blink their headlights at us. It got rather annoying, although I understand why they were doing it. It was a good time of the day for us to drive, though. It put us through Las Vegas by 8:30, and there was no traffic to fight. I drove most of the way through greater Las Vegas at the 70 mph speed limit, and only had to slow down near the LV Speedway where heavy traffic was entering for the big race they had that day.

Weather was lovely the entire trip. We did hit light snow flurries twice, but only for a few miles and no ice or snow on the highway.

We had reserved a "pet room" in Jackpot, NV for two nights. We checked in around 4:00 p.m., got Cookie and the dogs settled in the room, then headed for the casino to play a bit and have dinner. We were there maybe an hour, when we were paged to the hotel phone. We were told our dogs were barking and annoying the guests, so we went back to check and found they had delivered wine and a cheese tray to the room while we were out....can you imagine how that must have frightened two little dogs to have a stranger walk in on them like that? Of course they are going to bark! Well, we put the dogs in the pickup and left them there while we had dinner, then went back to the hotel and went to bed instead of going to the casino. In the morning, we checked out, even though we'd reserved two nights, because we weren't going to sit in the room with the dogs, and leaving them in the pickup all day wasn't even an option. So we headed home a day early, another beautiful sunny day of driving.

Home again......

Of course the kids came over right away, the youngest daughter, Amy, brought pizzas for all. Her one-year-old, Alicyn, didn't remember Grandma and grandpa, but it didn't take long to become reacquainted!

Alicyn had big smiles for her Grandma and Grandpa, and big wet baby kisses, too.

The home garden........

YUCK! My strawberry patch has been taken over by the neighbor's invasive grass! This calls for drastic measures, probably most of the plants will have to be temporarily removed so I can dig the grass out. When I left last fall, all I saw were two blades of this stuff!

My "good" neighbor, Pat, saved her leaves for my compost. These will soon be shredded with the lawn mower. Pat was so happy to see us return home, I thought she was going to cry.

Some of the spinach overwintered well. I must make a note of when this was planted, and make sure I start it a week or two earlier next fall.


Look closely, the shallots are all growing! I forgot I'd planted them in this spot, and wish I hadn't. This small bed needs to have a lot more soil added, as I had trench composted leaves in it last year so there was a lot of settling. I'm going to take a chance and dig the shallots, and move them to another location.


The big old thyme survived yet another winter. It has to be close to 15-20 years old by now.


The rhodies in full bud....spring must be on its way! I see tulips emerging, and daffodils in full bloom. All of my chives are tall and green and just waiting for a baked potato and some sour cream.