Corky

[i posted this elsewhere, but this is a much better place and I can't figure out how to delete the original. Hopefully its location is so inappropriate no one will see the other.] This is an old thread; but then, I am an old gardener - and an old member. I want to express my thanks and kudos to Janet, and especially to Steve, for their clever behind-the-scenes cyber-manipulations getting me back into my account. They accomplished this feat in spite of: - A forgotten password (I never forget passwords and I have a password keeper! I must have known (or thought I knew) this one so thoroughly that I never wrote it down!) - And a new email address! (So I couldn't use the "I forgot my password." feature.) THAT is amazing! As a result, I didn't have to re-register as "Corky2.0"! Thank you Steve and Janet for service to members above and beyond the call of duty! I am looking forward to catching up with old friends and gardening "by proxy" as we now live in a condo in Big Sky and Montana presents serious wildlife as well as climate challenges.

This is an old thread; but then, I am an old gardener - and an old member. I want to express my thanks and kudos to Janet, and especially to Steve, for their clever behind-the-scenes cyber-manipulations getting me back into my account. They accomplished this feat in spite of: - A forgotten password (I never forget passwords and I have a password keeper! I must have known (or thought I knew) this one so thoroughly that I never wrote it down!) - And a new email address! (So I couldn't use the "I forgot my password." feature.) THAT is amazing! As a result, I didn't have to re-register as "Corky2.0"! Thank you Steve and Janet for service to members above and beyond the call of duty!

Since there's not much else I can do, post rotator cuff surgery, I took photographs of my peonies and roses on a particlarly beautiful day this week. I also got an updated photo of the camouphlaged well head, dripper and all. Unfortunately, I missed the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak who had chased mother Robin away from her bath to enjoy a drink. ETA: Also unfortunately, my photographs are huge and/or my uploading skills are gone in a fog of anaesthesia, so it's back to the drawing board for photo uploading!

We got back into town long after my roses had left dormancy behind. My habit of pruning them to 6" had to be abandoned. It was nearly the end of April and had been a warm spring; things had gone wild! Suddenly I remembered dormant oil and lime suffer and those spring things it was already too late to do. Now what? Can I dormant spray with half strength oil like one can a pine during the growing season (for pine bark adgelid) for example? With or without the lime suffer? If not that, what should I spray roses with, and when? At this point they look healthy and have no infestations.

Does it have a fragrance when the leaves are crushed? It looks a lot like agastache to me.

Now that we have safely escaped Northern Michigan and are back in Montana, I have had time to go through the nearly 400 photos I took when we were stranded by the "storm of the decade" that struck the Traverse Bay area of N. Michigan while we were there early this month. We drove in to make some upgrades to our home (for sale) on Torch Lake, arriving just in time for 22 inches of wet, heavy snow that began at noon and had the power out by dusk. No power meant no lights, heat or water. We cook with gas, and could light the stove with matches, but we hadn't used the fireplace in years! We were running out of cell phone battery reserve and it was cold, so we turned the phones off and crawled into bed at 7PM. We awoke the next morning to a disaster of the tallest trees bending to touch the ground, a fifteen foot spruce, 14 years planted, uprooted ("It wants to come to Montana, honey!" I crowed - He just grunted, having already toted a 5' one there.), and the only road out blocked, in the first mile, by thirty or more fallen trees! Just to add a little stress, when we turned on our phones, each had three frantic voicemails: Larry's brother, healthy last we knew (on Wed), was in an Idaho hospital awaiting open heart surgery! Well and truly stuck, and unable to get even to the nearest neighbor's woodpile, we scrounged from our old wood stash and made a fire, boiled snow and cooked the corned beef I had (fortunately) bought, sticking foil wrapped potatoes in the fire. On the third day we made it to the only hotel open in TC (which looked like a ghost town): no TV, Internet ot elevators as they were on emergency power themselves. The next morning the parking lot outside our room held 57 power trucks, from as far away as Joplin, MO (where they have had their own problems). Seven days later our power came back on: just long enough for me to get a load of wash in the dryer and one in the washer - then it went back off for another day and a half. Stuck again: you cannot leave all your jeans soaking in a washer for six weeks! (and front loaders lock.) Below are a few photos of the most amazing, and most beautiful, sights of the week. The one of the 50' birch whose branches swept the ground unfortunately didn't upload well: it was quite a sight!

How about some "weight" to the left of the house (assuming their isn't a drive/ garage entrance there) to counterbalance the greater bulk of the house on the right? Maybe something of greater height and breadth behind the house if there is a garage entrance or drive there? I couldn't tell from the extreme close up of the plan view exactly where the drive was. Also, it would seem to me that "a grey (ugh) front door" is an easy fix and could be whatever color you choose in fairly short order!

Nine . . . but that was without much effort. What a wonderful burl!

Okay, here's my chance to sound really dumb and prove that I never really understood pruning anyway: (Harumph: clearing of throat in a "getting up nerve" sort of way, which might also be a "I could still back out of this" sort of way.) I guess a Black Gum Tupelo isn't one of that sort of tree where one might just open the interior, like one would do with a fruit tree for example, letting the light penetrate, foregoing a "leader", and letting the surrounding branches grow taller around a central void? (Told you I wasn't the sharpest pruner in the bin!)

:lol: Why just in the winter? I have this down to a science! DH now does all the dishes (He says I do all the cooking so it's only fair: his idea!) Btw, it goes without saying that, if you were going to superglue a wound closed, you would assure yourself that you had removed all dirt and S/S of infection first and not just glue the edges closed, filth and all!

HoHoHO and HeeHeeHEE!! Thank you, Steven!! And a special Thank You since I seem to be a double Flickr wash out! By the way, don't EVER take this down! I had to open the Forum in two tabs and refer back and forth while posting my first photo! Hopefully it won't be necessary forever, but . . . . . . .

Okay, let's try this again . . . WooHoo! That looks pretty good if it's what's above! You can see the wooded base, tho we have a larger top now (this was taken in 2006) and the dripper is a more recent addition as well. Hope it really shows up or I will have to retire from the Forum in shame!

Steve, Since I can't find anywhere else to put this, can't seem to operate the Help Search bar, and certainly can't upload a photo, how about helping a gal out here!! You know my email address in the event it takes far more space than one could possible use in a post!

I looked and looked and there's only one photo I can find that shows what we did. My husband used wooden panels to build a six (?) sided casing around the well head and then we added a bird bath basin to the top. Presto! A bird bath! Then I (finally!) got him to put a dripper in and the birds love it! Help... URL? You mean I have to upload the image to Flipper... or Flicker or Whatever before I can get it here? But Flickr is refusing to admit I exist!! Okay, this will take a day or two because it snowed all day and there's a foot of powder out there . . . so, tomorrow, late, okay?

Hi, Margaret! Well, it works on dogs' noses, so why not? Though I can't imagine how much that would hurt!