Jeremy Herndon

I didn’t believe the weatherman yesterday when he said that we were going to get a snowstorm today. He has been wrong about our weather so much over the past couple of years! There have been so many times that school has been cancelled because the weatherman said it might snow (and it didn’t) that I just laughed when I heard yesterday that we were going to get at least an inch of snow today. Well, the joke is on me because we really are getting the first snow of the season today! And it is a beautiful storm; the flakes are very large and fluffy. It has been snowing for at least the last four or five hours now, which is very unusual for around here. We usually only a dusting. And yes, we have over an inch of snow. It is very pretty, and it IS making me think about Christmas being right around the corner!

On the way home I noticed a wagon and young boy sitting under an umbrella at the side of the road. In the wagon were piles of fresh corn on the cob, cantalopes, and tomatoes. I pulled over and took a look. they seemed fresh and plump and reasonably priced, so I bought a few of each. I like supporting a local farmer and I like fresh vegetables, so it was a good thing all around.

My wife is always fretting about paying our bills.  She keeps reminding me that we need to cut costs because the cost of living is going up but our income is NOT going up.  She is still upset about the price of gas having gone up so much in the recent past, and she is NOT happy about that at all!

So, she is constantly moving about the house, turning off lights and televisions and radios when there aren’t any people in the room.  I can’t even leave the living room for ten minutes to use the “facilities” without coming back to a darkened silent family room!  It drives me nuts!  When I complain to her about it, she says “well I didn’t know how long you were going to be gone, and lots of times you just go to bed or off to work or off running errands and don’t even tell me and don’t turn anything off, and I’m trying to save money and make ends meet.”

I hate that.

Today I was driving around and noticing that spring really seems to have arrived. The grass is greening up; the daffodils, forsythias, tulip trees are in full bloom. It won’t be long before everyone I see is sneezing and blowing their noses and complaining about their spring allergies! It really is a shame that so many people suffer from the pollen floating in the air from the trees and flowers. This would be a good time, though to own stock in allergy products and facial tissue!

Last summer I was disheartened to find Japanese beetles on our crape myrtle shrubs that we had just planted the year before.  I knew Japanese beetles were problematic with roses, but I did not know that they liked crape myrtles too!  There were only a few beetles on the shrubs, so I left them alone but I am thinking that might have been a mistake.  Leave a few alone now, and you are likely to have hundreds the next year!

I really don’t like those Japanese beetle traps that you see in people’s yards.  To be honest I have used them in the past and they work okay, but I think they are a pain in the neck to use.  I’d rather use an organic pest spray.  I went on the Internet this morning to look for some organic pest control info and found a website that sells organic pest spray that is supposed to kill on contact, and it kills a variety of garden pests, including aphids, cinch bugs and beetles.

I think that this year I am going to give it a try this year.  If it works well, I might even buy a couple of rose bushes for the next year!