The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[Wneighbor]

The package arrived in "mint condition."

Wonderful! I can't help but ask.... did it smell good?

[Wneighbor]

So you survived? I got mint too!

Oops. would've only funkled once if I'd read ahead. How was yours?

[RMDupree]

Morning everyone.

I caught up on most of the posts so my apologies if I fail to catch everything I missed. All I can say is - I CAN'T WAIT FOR ENTMOOT!! WHAT A BLAST! Let me get breakfast out real quick.

Scrambled eggs with ham and cheddar cheese, sausage patties and crispy bacon, home fries and buttered toast with jelly. Let me know if you want fried eggs instead and which kind of fruit preserves you prefer on your toast, if any. Coffee's brewed and juices chilled. ENJOY!!

g'nad & Corin - Dwarfmoot looked like fun! I'm glad our top Dwarves have had a chance to get together at last! Have you both recovered from the drinking yet? LOL! OH! And did ksen get his pic? Tee hee!

Lucius - Happy Belated Birthday! Also, you should probably get Frodo in mid to late December since he's scheduled to get to Miami around New Year's, just before Entmoot when I will be driving him up to ksen's in Melbourne. :)

JenB - Happy Belated Birthday to you too, sis! The youngest of Hole Dwellers besides ksen's All-Star, I believe!

ecurbh - Very cool graphic link for Flat Frodo. His adventures are going to be so much fun to watch.

Hair - I like that larger than life Frodo look actually. He looks like he's about to turn around and chop down the bridge. It's that gosh-durned Ring, I tell ya!

[2Jedismom]

One time I got about $5 back from the Fed and had to pay $4 to the state! Ha!

[Overtaxed]

How was yours?

Just minty!

[Corin Stormhands]

Yes, it smelled wonderful. I set it out yesterday. Please keep it in your prayers! ;-)

[RosieCotton]

I got more dumb gardening questions for ya...sick of me yet?

When I was out and about this weekend, I bought some packets of herb seeds. Pretty common ones, like dill, parsley, sage, oregano, chives...like that. (No mint, though!) I have a small area I plan to put them - going to dig a rectangular plot about four by six feet or so, maybe a bit smaller than that. My question is...am I nuts to think they'll all grow well in the same conditions? Should I be putting them together like this, or is it a bad idea? And how do you usually divide things up? I was thinking maybe just small sticks with twine, and pull out any naughty plants that venture outside their area.

[Corin Stormhands]

Have you both recovered from the drinking yet?

Yup. Not much recovery time needed at all. I'm only suffering today because I forgot to pick up my allergy prescription yesterday...sniff, sniff....achoooooooo!

Stinky probably won't be around much this week. The network nazis blocked his access from work. And the movers are coming to pack things up on Wednesday. They head home on Saturday.

[Wneighbor]

Okay, I can talk about how all those grow in Texas girl and we can hope it translates to New England. Since we're sort of starting from scratch and I'm guessing that you aren't wanting to start any seed indoors in pots then just divide out your area into even squares and sew seed as instructed on your packets. If you want to divide with twine that will be okay. But, you don't really have too.

I don't know where your area is located but remember you might want taller plants to the back, shorter to the front, if you have a back and front. Dill will get tall. Chives will be short. Parsley is a biennial so it has a 2 year growing cycle. It tastes so good fresh in salads though, nothing like that store stuff or that decorator stuff in restaurants. Sage, oregano and chives are perenials, they'll come back every year. Well, they do in Texas. That oregano might not where you are. Dill reseeds itself well so even though it's an annual, if you let some go to seed it'll come right back up next year.

Sounds like to me you're fixed up.

[RosieCotton]

One time I got about $5 back from the Fed and had to pay $4 to the state! Ha!

Well...I shouldn't be complaining! Year before last, the place where I was working messed something up and didn't take enough out - I ended up owing close to $300 to the feds and $25 (not quite so painful!) to the state. That's quite a bit when you're used to getting a good sized refund, as I always did in the military.

[Overtaxed]

They should do okay in the same conditions. Are you direct seeding? I usually start my herbs indoors and then transplant them so I go the "naturalized" route and don't divide them with string or anything.

[RosieCotton]

Excellent! This helps. It's supposed to be in the seventies tomorrow, so maybe I'll do some planting when I get off work!

I'm really looking forward to having these...I love fresh herbs, but I rarely get them as the ones in the store are usually pretty sad, and I don't know too many people who grow them. This will be fun!

[RMDupree]

Grab some over the counter Claritin to have in a pinch! It's great stuff! I haven't tried Alavert yet (the one that melts in your mouth so you don't need water), but I hear it's good too.

G'nad will have his hands full this week it looks like. It'll be great once he's settled into his new place.

I've been crying off and on all morning because I had to put my Dino to sleep today. He's been with me for 11 years (since he was 4 months old), but his heart was giving out and he stopped eating and lost all control of his bathroom manners. I dropped him off this morning and the Doc called me 10 minutes ago to tell me that his heart is in really bad shape. Dino's body is working so hard just to keep breathing. I couldn't see putting my old friend through anything else, so I had to make the decision to let him go.

There are no dogs left in my home now. Pudgy, Dino's son, was hit by a car last year and Spencer was given back to his original owner. Scruffy, my big ol mutt, lives with my mother-in-law, but even he is fast approaching the end (he's a big dog and 9 years old already). How sad my yard will be now. :(

Thanks for letting me dump all of that out on this post. I needed to share it.

[RosieCotton]

I think I'm going to do direct seeding. It's kind of late to start indoors, isn't it? I suppose I could, but I didn't get the stuff for it...just grabbed a bunch of seed packets! I assume I'll need to thin and all that later if I just plant them directly, right? I'll have to read the backs of the packets...

[Overtaxed]

Yes, you'll have to thin. OTOH you could look at local garden centers and such for herbs to transplant.

[2Jedismom]

You know that's what we're here for.

May I suggest you take your own advice and get another puppy soon? A nice solid black poodle would be good! They are loads of fun!

Pippin is doing really well, he prances every where he goes and uses his front like hands.

Pepper is still very young and about half his size, but is calmer and you can cradle her like a baby and carry her all over the house!

[RMDupree]

Thanks 2J.

I do plan on getting another pup soon. Not another Pekingnese though. They're a lot of maintenance and with 2 babies to care for, I can't give them the quality of care they require.

I plan on getting another Basset or basset mix. I love them to pieces! But, as anyone who has had to let a furry kid go knows, you can never replace the one you lost. It's tough to say goodbye to such an old friend.

[Corin Stormhands]

I'm sorry to hear about Dino. Saying goodbye to a pet is never easy.

As much as he annoys me, I know it will be hard, years from now hopefully, when we have to say goodbye to Sam (Samuel Adams "Stormhands", the Lab) and Abby (Abigail Maria "Stormhands" or "Abby Maria" for short, the cat).

But I never really grieved too much over the goldfish and the hermit crabs...

[Wneighbor]

I can't type enough sympathy. I'm teary in my classroom while my students work away. I wish I could hug you real big right now and be with you today because this is aweful.

I putzed out after my last dog was killed by an unruly pickup. It was so hard I decided I had to not go through that again. NO MORE DOGS! But, alas, Myranda wouldn't stand for it so now we have Smeagol. But Smeagol is hers. And I keep telling myself that so I won't get attached. Yeah, right.

I am praying somebody to come into your office and hug you now.

[Wneighbor]

I assume I'll need to thin and all that later if I just plant them directly, right? I'll have to read the backs of the packets...

Those packets say thin. I never thin. I just check out the survival of the fittest.