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Clearing up for Winter

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 Every spring I try to grow something new and unusual.  This past season I tried luffa gourds.   I learned that they are pretty persnickety.  For one thing they require a looooong growing season; 150-200 days.  This means, unless you live in the tropics or sub-tropics, you need to get them started super early.  But, here's the catch, they don't like being transplanted.  So you have to start the seeds in peat pots.  I did this, but I found that it's better to have the large peat pots.  I planted a total of 12 seeds in two different sizes of peat pots; small and medium.  I had 9 seeds sprout.  But after setting them out, only the 3 plants in the large peat pots lived. They took FOREVER to start setting on fruit.  But finally they did.  Then the gourds took another FOREVER to grow to maturity and be ready to harvest luffas from.   I think I got maybe 5 or 6 luffas harvested from them this summer/fall before cooler weather set in.   They are talking about a frost this coming we
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Motel Adventures

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 This past weekend we went to the zoo in St Louis.  Since for us, it is about a 3 hour drive, we decided to get up to the zoo early, spend the whole day, then drive about 50 miles back toward home to a motel and get a good night's sleep before we drove the rest of the way home. This was a great adventure because in the past 30+ years Gary has not been able to get away from home overnight because of having to milk cows.  So, with the cows gone, we thought we were going to see history in the making.  I managed to get this quick picture of him as we were sitting in the motel room debating our next move.     Why should we have been debating our next move? Great question. We were exhausted from tramping all over the 90 some acres of the zoo and we wanted a bit of a rest before we went to the adjacent McDonald's for what would pass as supper. When we checked in and made our way down the hallway to the room our noses were assailed by a not-welcome stench.  Gail kept saying; "Now
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Welcome to the House of Howard

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This will be the sequel to Dairy Daze, as it were, where we will keep up with all of our happenings and fun. Gary has a few new projects in the works.  Here is one of them: This is a strictly for-show windmill, but it desperately needed work; so he laid it over and is getting it fixed up. He still hauls gravel, works on water wells and does digging and dozing...bulldozing that is. 
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