Sally's GF3 thread

[cavemanrich]

I had to look up that tree. Very nice indeed.
BTW, I have 2 crabapple trees in my yard. Last year one bloomed more than the other. This year, they switched. Still plenty of nice flowers to beautify the scenery.
And of course I need to keep up with the Jones. Sally PB in this case.
Here is my HIVE. I have 2 up.

These are Mason Bees,,, so no honey but are good pollinators. And of course my neighbors bees do visit my flowers. I get the honey from him.
Only Devlz I chase out, are the WASPS. Meaning,, I remove their hives. I don't want my Grandchildren getting stung by them. I would not disrupt a wasp nest in the forest. All are a part of nature, with a purpose.

 

[Sally PB]

Oh, I don't put up with wasps. Or yellow jackets.

I grew bee balm last year. I thought the honeybees would LOVE it. Nope. Bumble bees did, fine. And the yellow jackets. NOT fine. It reseeded itself, so I'm pulling it up. I wouldn't bother it if it were out in the field, but I'm (slowly) making the east side of my downhill garden into flowers for the honeybees. Other bees are welcome too.

We have a lot of species of native bees here in Michigan. Some of them nest in the ground. That explains the insects I've see coming out of holes in the ground and flying away.

 

[aart]

And the yellow jackets.

Technically yellow jackets are wasps(nastybastards!!)

 

[Sally PB]

When I dug up the potatoes last fall, I marked where the rows had been. I'm very glad I did! You never dig "all" of the potatoes. So I knew where to look for the volunteers, and I found 6-7.

 

[Sally PB]

Rain coming in about 5 hours, and storms, possibly severe, coming about 3 hours after that. This should motivate me to get going.

It's not working, so far. I'll try more coffee.

 

[Sally PB]

Yesterday, I started digging out the perimeter around the heavy soil garden where the brome grass invades. I'm taking about 12-15" out on the outside of the fence, and plan to cover it with slices off hay bales. I have no illusions that this will stop the brome, but I hope to slow it down some.

I'm putting the sod in the low spots in the two-track through the field. One of those spots is uphill, one is downhill from where it's dug. I took 3 carts of sod to the uphill area first. Dang, that stuff is heavy! I took 4 carts to the downhill area. Those loads seemed a lot lighter.

 

[cavemanrich]

It's not working, so far. I'll try more coffee.

From me to you..

 

[Sally PB]

I went out to the green house to see how the four plants I split yesterday are doing. Fine! Goodie.

I came back by the 7 Sons bushes I planted. They are supposed to be in the mid-range for attractiveness to deer. I thought since the deer have so many other things to browse, they wouldn't bother these. WRONGO!

The bushes will be ok, but I hurried to put fencing around them to keep the deer off. Grrr. I should have just put fence around them to begin with. Lesson learned.

In other honey bee friendly plant news... I took this as a "hey, dummy, heads up!" warning and put fence around the little trees I bought. The one that looked dead is showing signs of life. YAY!

 

[Sally PB]

Some very severe storms came through southern lower Michigan last evening.

No damage or problems by me. But Portage, MI was hit twice. 14 tornados in Michigan, awaiting confirmation by the National Weather Service.

Some injuries, no fatalities reported. LOTS of buildings damaged or destroyed. Pictures of a house that was lifted off its foundation and turned upside down. A FedEx facility has some major damage.

Someday it'll be "our turn." If that was last August (70 mph winds, some trees down, and a 4 day power outage), we are Lady Luck's own child.

 

[Sally PB]

Kudos to the Channel 8 (Grand Rapids) weather team. I turned the TV on at 5:40, and it was all weather, and they never went to commercial before we turned it off at 7:15. Didn't even go to the national news.

The town of Portage, MI, was hit with TWO tornados. That's about 90 miles south of us.

The chief meteorologist, Ellen Bacca, has family in Portage. She was giving the street level wind report, and her voice was breaking, sounding like she was holding back a sob. Blake Harms was the other meteorologist reporting, and told her, it's ok, I'll take over.

Yeah, what might I be feeling if I had to report that there were winds in excess of 110 mph at or near the street of someone I loved? How would I sound? I wouldn't have been able to hold it together as well as she did.

The fact that they can even get that level of accuracy is astounding to me. Their expertise and equipment/resources are phenomenal.