The Growth Of A Great And Special Pumpkin

Hi there!

Sis Lori here, long time no see! I had to move again, not far, but lots of work and all that goes along with that!

Anyway, I wanted to share something that I was so proud of about my son Steve recently before Halloween is gone!

He and his beautiful wife Nicole recently bought the home he was raised in from his Dad in Placerville which is in the Mosquito Area, a lovely place!

There has been a Pumpkin contest for a few years his friends started. This year he had a nice place to have a garden spot. That's Layla checking it all out!

The seeds were actually started when he lived in Folsom and before they moved to their new home.

               Here it is after some time during the growth process:

Dad also lives on the property in a "granny flat",  and it is a competition pumpkin contest so the other smaller planting you see in this photo is his:

Here are a number of photos, at various stages of the growth, in progress.......

We really had a pretty darned hot summertime here for quite a while this year!!!!

Layla was a great protector of the Great Pumpkin!!!!!!


Here we are in the final stages!!!!!!



Below, you see the loading of the pumpkin.
Thankfully the party was not far away from their home!!
In the photo are Ryan, Nicole, and Steve.
Ryan and his wife Chelsea are the organizers of the Pumpkin Party and the Contest.

Loading on to the truck, with Dad Steve helping out.
 Our son Steve's pumpkin is near the cab window of the truck and Dad has the strap around his own nice pumpkin towards the gate of the truck:

The next photo shows the unloading of the two pumpkins with a forklift at the party site:
The Goat Mountain Giant Pumpkin Contest in Mosquito, California.
Careful, now, we could have a winner here!!!

Here is a video of the weighing of my son Steve's Great Pumpkin.

The weight is a little unclear and hard to hear.

You can see the results in the following entry chart photo below.

#1 Jr -  My Son

#6 Sr - His Dad

And the final results, as listed on the board:

 Yes, that's it:
His pumpkin weighed in at a whopping 510 pounds!
There was a lot of hard work and prep put into this and I was super proud of him. It was pretty exciting!
He will continue again and attempt an even larger pumpkin next time!!!!
Happy Halloween, everybody!
And may The Great Pumpkin  find YOUR pumpkin patch to be the most sincere of them all!

Roses in Winter

Good morning. Tina here. Lately here in the gold country we have had a lot of rain. The rain was so heavy it even had a special name, an atmospheric river. So we have been inside a lot.

However, out in the yard, a California phenomenon was taking place. Here in the midst of changeable days, wet and windy (up to 50 mile-an-hour winds), can't see past the hood of the car foggy, crispy frosty frozen fields, sudden flurries of snow, and "are we in a house or on the deck of a ship?" pounding sideways rain, some of our roses are determinedly blooming away

The bush of golden yellow climbers has two blooms.

My Joseph's Dream Coat rose below the front porch sparkles in the early dawn.



Another lovely climber is preparing to join its friends, a red rose in time for Valentine's Day?

As I sit in the living room this morning, looking out at the dreary weather, noting the rain has started up again, I think of the mid-winter roses and they bring a smile.



California Looks Good to Me - Roses in Midwinter

Good morning, Tina here.

Years ago, I gave Heidi a present. It was a beautiful postcard that had been framed.

It showed some gorgeous Victorian homes with a rose hedge.

I loved that postcard, and ever after looked for one to keep for my own.

I looked in antique stores, at postcard shows, on the internet at postcard dealer sites, on ebay.

I found roses and old homes abounding on postcards, just not "the one". But I never gave up.

Two days ago I looked at my email and there it was, for sale on ebay with a Buy It Now tag, for a whopping $2.49!

My very own "California looks good to me. Roses in Midwinter." postcard. It was mailed in Pasadena to New York in 1910. And it's mine, all mine. I am going to frame it and no longer will I need to envy Heidi her lovely postcard.

Plants I Know and Love No. 14: The Acacia Tree (known as Wattle Tree in Australia)

Good morning. Tina here. I am sharing some pictures found on the internet of one of my favorite trees, the acacia tree.

I am not sure when I fell in love with this tree. How lovely it looks covered with bloom!

I was just a little girl so my memories are vague. It could have been at a Southern California relative's home, or perhaps one of my primary school teachers brought in a bouquet?

It does not grow easily in El Dorado County, as it is a tropical or subtropical plant, which hails from Australia, or some species from Africa and the warm portions of the Americas.

There are acacia trees growing here in our county. I see them here and there, perhaps they are protected by other trees or a hillside to keep the cold wind off. We had one I planted in Diamond Springs, it did well until we had an Alaskan freeze one year with about 18 inches snow and that killed it off.

I've always thought about trying again here in Kelsey. We seem to live in a banana belt, and maybe an acacia tree would like that.

My most wonderful memories are of the lovely little powder puff blossoms and the fresh, sweet scent to inhale.

The flowers are loved by bees and butterflies, of course.

The acacia tree is a member of the pea family! Isn't that a surprise. The mimosa tree, and the sensitive plant (once sold in the 70s as a houseplant - I had one, if you touched it, it would close up and act like it was wilting) are members of the pea family also.

The little blossoms are a ball formed of stamens radiating out from the center. They are each only about 1/4 inch in size but there are thousands, so they form their own bouquet.

I can never get enough of them.

The photo below shows some of the blossoms as they are opening up. This type of acacia has the fern-like leaves that I associate with the tree. Since there are hundreds of types, only some have these type leaves.

The leaves below are different than the photo above, but the flowers are the same.

Lovely to look at, delightful to smell, this wonderful tree I know so well...

Excuse me while I bury my face in these soft little puffs, and soak up the scent of spring.

Poor Pitiful Pansies

Tina here. Late but it's still Wednesday. 

It's the end of July and it's very hot here in Kelsey.

I think it's about 106 degrees outside, at almost 5:00 p.m.

I planted pansies on my front porch and I showed you in a post on March 11th. It wasn't even officially spring yet.

Ishi showed you them again on May 13th. They had filled in and were lush and flower filled.

Now, in the midst of a drought, with a summer that has been now hot, now thundery, now humid, now windy, now cooler...

My pansies are plodding along pitifully praying for fall.

I knew it would be hard to get them through the summer when I planted them. Now I guess I should pull them out and plant something sturdy that would last into fall.

But then along come a few days that are only in the high 80s and the clouds scuttle by and it seems like the pansies don't look QUITE as bedraggled.  Maybe there are less of them wilting every day?

A couple of lone beautiful buds catch my eye.

A happy pansy face watches the rafters in the river go by.

Those bright flower faces deserve a chance to try to push into our upcoming fall.

I find myself pinching back the increasing flowers that are trying to form seedpods, admiring the floral display that is left, and stepping back through the screen into the cool air.

The flowers are left out there in the heat... poor pitiful pansies.