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Weekly Roundup from ‘Abandon All Hope’ Farm:

Let’s see. It’s been raining. And storming. And raining. And storming! 4” of rain in the past two days, and more to come tomorrow. Bad winds earlier in the week. We’re OK, but a lot of trees and out buildings down with straight-line winds. Good friends had their horse barn collapse and not one of the horses was hurt, which is a miracle in itself! We had three trees fall on fence lines surrounding pasture and crop land, but Beau made quick work of those with the chain saw.

Puppies have their eyes open, now. Taylor is still doing an excellent job of being Mama Dog...grateful for that!

I am going to attempt getting my tomatoes in today - it’s not gonna be fun, but it’s GOT to be done. Mud. Ugh. At least I’m Wash & Wear, LOL!

Graduation Party tomorrow for a neighbor girl - Thunderstorms predicted; poor Paige! But, we’ll go for her sake as will everyone else invited. What’s NOT fun about a soggy day with others spent in the garage? ;)

Beau is finding tons of Golden Oyster mushrooms on dead and dying Elm trees. Today we need to clean and seal them and into the freezer. They are not my favorite, but Beau loves them - he loves ANY form of Free Food. ;)

Anyhow, hitting it early today so I can get SOMETHING accomplished in the garden beds.

Raining for days on end is no fun! It’s hard to get the work outside done without being muddy and awful.

We only had pieces of days rain here this week, but it starts again tomorrow and will go on through Memorial Day. We were looking forward to a pool party on Monday at a neighbor’s house. Not sure if that event is still on, so I’ll reach out. It may be a little chilly for a bathing suit, by my standards anyway. Expected temps are 65-70, and if we hadn’t already been getting into the 80’s like we have been, that might have seemed warm, but doesn’t now.

Little by little I’m getting my flowers in to the various containers out on the front walkway, on the deck, and then by the fire pit. I have an old semi large garden cart that I fill with impatiens every year that’s down there, near a magnolia and the “hammock” trees. It’s a great place to sit out in the evenings, and watch the woods. Pretty soon the fireflies should be showing up, too. One of my favorite times of the year.

I trailered the new mower to the mountain house Thursday. The mower did shift an inch so thank goodness I lined the trailer sides with cardboard - no metal on metal rubbing occurred. The trip was uneventful except for a big T-storm that hit just as I started to cross the mountains. Wipers were on as fast as they would go, I had to put the defrost on because the windshield was fogging up, I was crawling at 30 mph and still having trouble seeing the “S” curves. Coming down the other side was marginally better.

My cousin thought he spotted me coming through town at the bottom of the mountain, but decided it wasn’t me because of the red mower in the trailer ... LOL! He was surprised to find out it WAS me with a new mower.

Yesterday, I spent going through the mower manual, trying to figure out how to adjust the seat and control ‘arms’. It is obvious a relatively tall man put the mower together - seat is all the way back & backing up was barely possible because the control arms were hitting me in the chest (boobs!) when I pulled them back to reverse. The arms were on the highest setting & I have taken them off & reattached as low as they will go - big improvement :-)

MWH:
I parked the utility trailer in the pole shed after unloading the mower & discovered a #@$%& groundhog is digging in 2 places. I do not have my trap or a snare with me so dealing with GH will have to wait a week or so.

On the front porch currently ... shaded, nice breeze, great view. Lots of campers & vehicles with canoes, kayaks & fishing boats going by - the river (about half a mile away) is a happening place.

Once the sun is at a lower angle, I’ll do some mowing - too intense right now if not in the shade.

Warm and for the most part dry here in Central Missouri over the past week. There were a couple sprinkles that came down as squall lines blew through, but mostly we got wind. Luckily no damage. Got half an inch of rain last night. It's clearing now and it is extremely muggy outside - like walking into a wet blanket.

I got the rest of the rhubarb plants set Friday afternoon. The one that was dug from the old garden and over-wintered in a pot wasn't too happy at first, but was looking quite a bit happier by the end of the day yesterday.

Cucumber fence went up yesterday and has been planted with Chicago Pickler seeds. I'm debating putting up another one to plant with Straight Eight. I'd intended to sow sweet corn seed today but it's a sloppy mess out there from last night's rain so that will wait for another day.

Mrs. Augie and #1 Marine Daughter bailed off to Ft. Riley to visit the grandkids this weekend. Before she left Mrs. Augie tasked me with mowing the spots that aren't part of the house yard but that we want to keep from getting overgrown. I accomplished that yesterday before I started in the garden. I also used the golf cart to ferry all of my tools from the potting shed to the hay stall. The walk-behind tiller wasn't running properly when I went to move it - doggone thing stalled halfway from the potting shed to the barn. It would restart but wouldn't stay running so I humped it the rest of the way. After letting it set for awhile it would restart and run for a bit then stall again. I put a splash of SeaFoam in the gas tank. I'll tinker with it tomorrow and hopefully be able to get it sorted.

The catalpa trees are putting on a spectacular display this spring.