Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Let's Talk About Those Cucumbers

Daphne, you're right on the money. You're right, you're right, you're right. I've always grown straight eight cucumbers and they're great for the first month or so and get so bitter. I planted some pickling cucumbers in July and even though it's September now we've never gotten out of the 90's during the day and I haven't changed my watering schedule at all, the cucumbers that the pickling plants have produced are amazing. They're sweet and have that undeniable cucumber flavor that the cucumbers in the market are sorely lacking. They're crazy awesome and nothing compares. I picked some last week and I got two more today and ate them for dinner...and they didn't last on the counter long enough for a picture.

I don't know what it is. Could it be the cooler nights, or could it be that they're smaller and don't spend so much time on the vine in the heat, but I'm telling you, pickling cucumbers aren't just for pickling. They're undeniably wonderful.

The ones I bought were tauted to be a bush variety, and although they don't produce tendrils to climb, I'm wondering if I couldn't weave them through the trellis to free up square footage. It would take dedication, but seriously, these puppies are worth it. I'm now wondering how many more I can get in before the first frost which seems a long way away...although now that I've said that..... Eh, I'm thrilled regardless.

Three more sports designs for the keychains went up today. We HEART sports!

The morning comes early. Sweet cucumber dreams.

About the Eggplant.....

Weeks ago now, I posted that the eggplants had gotten so infested with flea beetles that I cut them down a bit. I didn't want to pull them out because I was afraid to bother the roots of the plants next to them, so again, I cut them back pretty severely and they have regenerated themselves and are putting out new fruit again. Amazing! It wasn't something I was expecting at all, but surely welcome.

I also found this little sucker hanging around. Actually there are a ton of them from light snowy white to this brown. I'm assuming the difference in color has to do with the age of the caterpillar, but I might just be making that up. Sounds good, though, doesn't it. ;)Have I mentioned how awesome that ribbon clearance was? I've wanted some cheerleading ribbon to add to the sports key chains and sure enough I found it. What's great about this satin ribbon is that if you let me know, I can make the webbing any color to coordinate with your school or rec team colors and you can have keychains for team gifts or for the team moms.
I also found a better woven baseball ribbon that I like so much better. I'm not thinking this will go well on a fob, but a wristlet would be perfect.
The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Peas, Please!

Fall had yet to arrive to Georgia as of last week. I took this picture of my pea plants this Saturday. They are the tallest, healthiest looking pea plants I've ever grown and none of the other attempts had yielded peas, so I was hopeful. They were planted in August some time and have done fantastically, but because of the constant 90 day weather (or so I'm assuming) they haven't yielded a single flower.
Until today, that is!!! Woohoo!!!
The rain from yesterday finally brought with it cooler temperatures. Now we're rocking and rolling with lots of little flowers everywhere. It even looks like I'll be harvesting some beans before too long. This just makes me giggle. I'm just thrilled.
I'm still going through the stash of ribbon I hoarded from the clearance isle this weekend. Today I'm putting up on the Keychains for a Cause page all of the polka dotted ribbon.
The first is red and white polka dots for someone who requested another University of Georgia themed key chain. I'm telling you, us Dawg fans are pretty darn loyal. We have to be after this year and last year, I'll tell you that, but the day we loose to Vanderbilt is the day I hang my head.
The next two are a purple on purple and a green on green polka dot. The ribbon's a bit shimmery which is very interesting, but difficult to photograph as the light wants to bounce off of it at odd angles.
The morning comes early. Sweet pea lovin' dreams.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Jalapeno Harvest Monday

It's another Jalapeno Harvest Monday! These little suckers are so prolific, even in partial shade and have done so much better than last year. This week I found a little red one out there.The man had it for dinner yesterday and was impressed by the immediate intensity of the heat. A lot of them out there are on the smallish side, but are getting that dark hue of just about to turn red, so I picked what was at least a decent size and brought them in.

It was yet another harvest I should have filmed because for three individual times I put my hand it to grab a pepper and came away with a tomato horn worm! YUCK!! Those things are so squishy and just nasty and you never get used to seeing them no matter if you know you're looking for one or not. AAHHH...my skin's crawling just thinking about how squishy they were. Blech.


It's finally raining outside and the kids are having a blast running around in the rain. I caught the girl here in mid twirl right when she heard the first clap of thunder. Game over. Time to go inside.

Yesterday we added the beaded and chenille ribbon to the available designs for Keychains for a Cause. Honestly, I wasn't too interested in the beaded ribbon at first, but it has rapidly grown into my favorite! Today we're adding animal print ribbon!


The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Carrots!

Yesterday I found myself musing over the fact that certain things grow better at certain times of the year even though the temperatures may be very similar. I'm seeing that carrots are working the same way.

The carrots I planted in the early spring did eventually bulk up, but not to much wider than finger's width. I actually still have some in the ground that have been there since March and they're still not larger than my pinkie finger.

These carrots, on the other hand, were planted in late August or early September, I can't remember which. Here's how they looked a few weeks ago.

Here's how they look now. These are most likely the best looking carrot tops I've had. Now I'm hopeful to test my theory. I'm thinking they need the warm weather to grow the nice tops and hopefully....HOPEFULLY, the cooler weather they keep teasing us with will help them to grow nice, fat roots.

Hey, it's only a theory, but hopefully it will work. If this is the case, I just need to retrain my mind. There's no sense in planting broccoli and cabbage over and over in the fall if it's not going to grow well and get destroyed by cabbage worms when they're less prevalent in the spring. There's no sense in planting chard and lettuce in the fall when the squirrels leave it alone in the spring. At the same time, if carrots do better in the fall, I shouldn't try to force them to grow in the spring. Yes. I just need to retrain my mind to see that you can't force things to grow that don't want to, and I'd be opening up valuable real estate to grow what will.

I've also been thinking of adding a "reviews" page to the Keychains for a Cause page. I got an email yesterday from someone asking about my credibility and realized that the average joe from the Internet wouldn't realize that when they place their order, their purchase REALLY will show up in the mail in a few days. If you've purchased a key chain, and you wouldn't mind me using your words that you've left here or in other places, please either leave a comment here or email me. I'd appreciate it.

Then.....On to some bling! My mother's been asking me to make a "flashy" key chain to send to my grandmother. She loves things with some pizazz, so here it is!
Now that's fancy pants! I took it outside to photograph so you could see the beading on it a bit better. I love the way it looks on my wrist also, although I made it a bit wider so she wouldn't have to struggle to get her fist inside it.
This key chain and the chenille one below will be up on the website shortly!
The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

To All the Beans I've Loved Before

I'm still learning when it comes to what grows best when in the garden. We have such a mild winter that we can actually get almost two full rounds of summer crops in and we'd do a better job of it if the SVB wouldn't also thrive down here and get in two life cycles itself.

Seems like I'm learning carrots do best when planted in late summer and broccoli and lettuce do better planted in the winter and early spring. The beans and cucumbers are both doing well in their second planting, and although I haven't picked any yet, the beans seem to actually be growing straighter now than they did during the summer.
There are no more bees in the garden, and haven't been for some time, but these moths seem to be doing the job of pollinating the pickling cucumbers....however they could very well be the ones that lay the worms that bore into the cucumbers, thus negating their benefits, but we'll see.
We've had the request to add a keychain for Colon Cancer Awareness. I've added it to the Keychains for a Cause page today.
While I was buying the blue ribbon, I ran across the clearance rack of the ribbon store. Bad idea....Bad, bad idea.. :)
I picked up so many new and awesome ribbon from polkadots to more sports themed ones including cheer leading, two ribbons with sparkles, animal prints and even velvet!
My favorite, I think, are these two below. The one on the left is like a chenille and has such great texture, while the one on the right has neat beading.
I'll be getting these up a few at a time during the next week. I'm very excited about the response to the free shipping offer for breast cancer awareness month! If you've ordered one and come back to see this, I hope you're enjoying your key chains!
The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

It's All Good

Well, my friends, I came home today to find the remaining lettuce seedlings eaten down to their stems. Seems like I'm going to just need to remember which veggies I can grow in the fall and which I need to keep for the spring. It's just odd to me that the squirrels don't bother the lettuce overly much in the spring so much as they do in the fall.

I did decide to leave the stems in the ground. I've found lettuce has almost magical regeneration properties and I'm hopeful some will still sprout some leaves. It may even be better this way since it's still in the stinkin' 90's during the day here. It's all good.

Things are good also because I picked the first two pickling cucumbers from the garden yesterday! I decided not to grow these in the summer since I wanted the space for the zucchini, but they're vining so much I may just grow them on trellises next year in the summer. They were the perfect size for snacking and even though there was little to no rain and I watered pretty infrequently, they were as sweet as could be.
I'll certainly try them again next year. I don't know what's pollinating them since there aren't any bees around and haven't been for some time, but I'm sure not complaining!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Post II for Tonight - October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

In reverence, consciousness and alertness to October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, if you place a Keychains for a Cause order which includes at least one Breast Cancer Awareness item from now until the end of October your shipping will be refunded once the order is filled.
Remember, any time you place an order for 4 or more items, yoAdd Imageu already get one free so this is a double deal. Christmas is coming up and there are teacher's gifts, day care sitter's gifts, bus driver gifts and general stocking stuffers to buy and any of our Keychains for a Cause wristlets or key fobs make a wonderful gift with a purpose for you know the proceeds go to support The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

Click here to purchase your key chains. Again, order at least one Breast Cancer Awareness Item and your shipping will be refunded.

Your suggestions are invaluable. Because of you we now offer Infant Loss Awareness, Autism Awareness, Support our Troops and The Thin Blue Line awareness of officers lost in the line of duty. Please let us know if there is a cause you'd like to see recognized.

Curses, Blesses and Introspective Blogging

Once upon a time in the blogosphere, I cursed the name of my "friend" Lynn-Lady and her basil cutting. She's a rooter and nurturer by birth and I'm so proud of her for going back to school and tackling a profession in medical assistance. When I first met Lynn-Lady eight or nine years ago, in her first conversation with me, she said she always wanted to be a medical assistant, but she was in human relations. Now she's taken the steps to fulfil her dream and I couldn't be more proud of her. Yea School! Go Team!

Ok, so back to the previous post in which I understand lauded her more than chastised her, but I did call her tonight to let her know I wasn't talking to her anymore. She's turned me into a basil monster; hence the basis for this post.

This is a long and convoluted track (could you guess?), full of introspection, so please humor me.

Yesterday, I harvested a ton of basil, largely comprised of cuttings from Lynn-Lady's transplant.
I put the basil along with the jalapenos I picked yesterday and the sweet potato "fingers" that I wouldn't cook regardless in individual containers in our mail room at school and sent out a memo to the faculty that they were available. By the end of first period I got this:
Now, remember, last week I out a basket of jalapenos out in the mail room and all got taken as well and I was just as giddy, but it wasn't until this week that I remembered the transplant emotions that I had when putting the tomato transplants in the mail room last spring. This experience wasn't much different except for that I felt what was much akin to pride in having everything gone and getting the "when will there be more" e-mails than I did the last time. The end result is the same, but why do I have such different emotions? Could it be that I was so thrilled with myself for growing the tomato transplants to begin with that I had additional emotions steeped within it? Who knows, but I did manage to barter a trade for more basil in return for fantastic pesto, something I've never managed to make, myself.


I don't know if I've processed it enough to understand it, but I'm just thrilled that I found empty baskets. I'm so excited that the harvests I won't use will come to someone else's table. Maybe that's it. I would have eventually found uses for the transplants and they wouldn't have been wasted, but this time around, the food most certainly would have been, so I'm more grateful which I understand I should have been all along with the transplants.


You never get too old to learn lessons, I suppose...no matter if you can thread a needle without the use of pliers, a spotlight and a magnifying glass.
The morning comes early. Sweet garden-sharing dreams.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

I'm a Slave to Peer Pressure

This last weekend, I bit the bullet and quit moping around about my eaten lettuce and chard plants and bought some more transplants to give it the ole second try. These lasted a whole 24 hours longer than the last batch. They were there last night....and all gone by the time I came home from school today. The dog was inside all day, so it's got to be a squirrel. I wonder what it is about that chard?

I decided to drown my sorrows in uprooting my sweet potato plants that I had growing in containers in the front walk. EG pulled his up this last weekend, so I figured mine would be pretty good to go. I decided to do two things different this year and plant some in very large containers and then trim the vines as they got too large.

The pots certainly were large, but since the sweet potatoes grow towards the surface, having that much depth really wasn't necessary. I'm thinking I may use the pots for bell peppers next year instead. A lot of this will depend on how the sweet potatoes look in the main garden and if I'll grow them there next year, instead.

Anyway, I looked at the first pot which looked pretty sad since it hadn't been watered this week.
I started digging and found one or two good sized sweet potatoes which made me very happy. I then said, "Ah, why not?" and pulled up the second pot. All in all, this was the take:
I don't know how many pounds it is, but it all looked pretty good to me. We had some for dinner and they were yummy. Still don't know quite what to do with those little fingerling ones.

I also pulled some more jalapenos and basil to put out in the faculty workroom tomorrow for the taking. The jalapenos are hiding under the basil.
Hopefully the basil will keep overnight in the fridge. We'll see if I wind up taking it to school or not. It was already looking a bit droopy by this evening.

So, all in all, it wasn't too bad of a day. Yes, the chard was a disappointment, but the sweet potatoes worked out well and I still have a whole other plot to dig up in the corner yard, so I'll be rocking in sweet potatoes for some time to come. I may actually put some of those out at school as well because we'll never go through all of them before they sprout.

The morning comes early. Sweet basil, and sweet potato dreams. Separately of course.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Follow the Bouncing Ball

No, you can't always get what you want...
You can't always get what you want.
You can't always get what you want.
And if you try some time you find....
You get what you need!!!!


Woohoo for the bean flowers. Grow beans, grow.
** The afore mentioned song was inspred by the boy waking up at 2:30 AM and upon realizing it was not yet time to go to the Chess Club meeting at school, sulked back to his room singing it. I figured it could be relative to many situations.**


The morning comes early. Especially if your kid's geeked up about chess club. Sweet gardening dreams.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I've Been Robbed!

Chard, for me, is a fall crop. I love the taste of it in soups, but I didn't start any from seed this year. This last weekend I labored over the chard selection in the big box store, fretting over which was the best transplant to get. I picked three of what I thought the best and brightest and planted them in the other corner yard....the one I had so much trouble with last fall.

I went out this afternoon to water and what do I find?
Nothing! Whatever nefarious beast got them took them completely and didn't even leave a stalk as a how-do-you-do. They even had me second guessing if I even planted them at all, so I walked around and saw that the lettuce in both the corner yard and the other corner yard showed signs of a struggle.
However, to have a plant completely missing, hook line and sinker and all....something had to be going on. I blame the dog. I honestly do. He's the only one capable of pulling up the entire plant and then devouring it and the dirt whole AND he's known to have decapitated a few tomato plants in his history. He was outside yesterday while the boy and girl had friends over for dinner, and I bed he got irritated.
Guess I'm off to find new transplants, for now, of course, I'm more determined than ever to have that stupid chard.
Stupid, stupid chard.


However, I do have one thing going for me now that makes me happier than a dead hog in the sunshine....
These peas are looking better and brighter than any I've ever tried to grow and we're still holding steady at 60's at night and 90's in the day. I doubt they'll flower until it gets a bit cooler during the days, but they're good and strong now...maybe I'll get two or three pods and I'll certainly count that as a success based on my track record.


The morning comes early....and the boy just took ten years off of my life by coming up behind me silently while I was typing this and going "CCHHCCHHCCHH" (you really can't reproduce the sound, but it's like an rabid animal)and scaring the fool out of me. Tears were my knee jerk reaction which made him terrified as well, poor kid. Sweet chard eating dog-free dreams.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Axing the Square Foot Garden?

This year will mark my third season with a fall Square Foot Garden and I'm seriously contemplating scrapping the method...or at least semi scrapping the method. Do I believe certain things can grow well in less space than advocated by traditional row methods? Yes. Do I buy into all of the SFG planting spacing? No, and as a matter of fact, I think most of us who would say we practice SFGardening would say we use a modified spacing at best.

I generally find my yield is either lower as with beans or the size of the plants shades out others as with broccoli or regular sized cabbage, whereas peppers, eggplant, zucchini and okra seem to do relatively well with the SFG spacings allotted to them.

Take lettuce for instance. SFG says it can go four plants per square. It can, and it does grow relatively well if you want to harvest the leaves individually, but they don't make decent heads in that spacing. I've taken my lettuce for the fall and planted it one per sqft in this picture below, but this is obviously too much space.
The answer lies somewhere in the middle, but this was all I had to plant at the moment, so one per sqft worked out well. I'll be interested to see the difference in the yield from the spring where I planted two per sqft in alternating corners. That spacing seemed to work out very well.

So, am I abandoning SFG? No, not necessarily. I like neat rows and the grid lines fuel my neurosis, but will I space things out a bit more? Certainly. It's going to eventually turn out to be a bit more of a modified SFG, but the concept is still the same.

I'm wondering if the SFG as depicted is for the "perfect" garden with the perfect soil, sun, and temperatures, which in reality, not many of us have.

I do, however, love, love, love my raised beds. Never will I give those up or go to a different method ever, ever again. They're incredibly easy to maintain and so free of weeds and critters and mess, it's wonderful. The fall is only just starting and already I'm getting anxious for next spring!

Now, my question is how do I amend my beds to make sure to get that calcium back in the tomato beds so they don't get BER again. Towards the end of the season, there was no saving a single one and they HAVE to go back in the same bed. Compost alone doesn't seem like it will do the trick. Is there anything else I can add to make sure I give them what they need before the plants exhibit the signs of BER next year? I've never seemed to be able to stop it once it starts.

The morning comes early....except for Erin whose kids catch the bus in full daylight. Our school starts at 7:10. Sunrise here tomorrow, not full daylight mind you, isn't for another 10 minutes. Sweet gardening dreams.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Harvest Monday and a Local News Article

For about the fifth Harvest Monday in a row, I've pulled off a ton (not by Erin's perspective) of jalapenos. I only have two plants and their in partial shade which makes me even more shocked that they produce like they are. They're the lone plants that survived the heat of July and have come back now in late August and September with a vengeance. These, most likely, will find a home tomorrow in the teacher work room for anyone who wants them as I don't eat them at all. The ones this late in the year are just way, way too hot for me, but I'm excited to bring something into the house to harvest!
On a side note, there was an article in the local papers and in the news about a man in the Atlanta area who is getting sued by his county for producing more crops than he is zoned for.
The morning comes early. Sweet jalapeno harvesting dreams.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

The Old Gray Mare

We're all aware we're aging. It's not a secret that even all of the facial cremes and excuses for poor memory can hide. We see the wrinkles and the gray hair, we hear the emptiness of our own minds when they fail us; however, there are certain signs of aging that come at you like a rat terrier evading a three year old. There was the last month I realized I couldn't see to thread a needle anymore. That's aging. I can't get off of the ground anymore without grunting. That's aging. Now I find myself saying, "They don't make things like they used to" and that certainly states I'm turning into the crotchety old woman down the road with a million cats.

I took some pictures of the garden before this sentiment back handed me.

The sweet potatoes were hurting, but at least it rained today and they've already perked up. The picture was fuzzy, but I got over it.

I stood on the deck and took a picture of the summer part II cucumbers and the onions I planted last week. Not too shabby for a picture taken from the deck.

Then, disaster struck. The zoom on the camera stopped working. Wait for it.....They just don't make cameras like they used to. Seriously, I think I just bought this camera less than a year ago. I know I ordered it on-line, but I can't for the life of me remember where. I've searched my computer and can't find an order email or anything. My parents were over yesterday and we had a whole conversation about the zoom malfunctioning in their camera and how they had to return it. I blame them. Ok, I don't, but it would be nice to, but darn it, it's a new camera. You could drop an elephant riding a grand piano on 35 mm cameras and they'd laugh in your face. Sigh. Regardless, the picture of the main garden turned out well.
You can see the peas are getting taller and the cabbage below it looking nice. The sweet potatoes are rocking and rolling, and I'm eager to find out what they look like beneath that soil. I'm thinking to give them until October....if I can last that long.

Lastly, Barbie's Keychains she ordered are ready to ship out! They look great, I think. She ordered several, all in the key fob size. Barbie, they're coming at you on Monday!

Barbie was the one who suggested keychains for Infant Loss Awareness. The ribbon is a pink and blue combination, so I made the keychains to have the pink and blue split the chain so one half is pink and the other half is blue. Here's two of them with the opposite sides showing. I'm excited to send them to her and hope the people she intends to gift them to enjoy them as well. If you haven't seen our latest designs, check out our website. Proceeds go to the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month. The ribbon for this is gold, but very similar to our Support Our Troops:Until They Come Home keychain, which would be a wonderful support gift for families to show their support for their children who are fighting so hard.

As always, if you can think of other causes or illnesses you'd like to see represented like Barbie did, I'm all ears!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Basil: My New Addiction

Tell me why I always just assumed I didn't like basil? I remember getting hold of some terrible, terrible pesto while we were in Venice on our honeymoon, and I honestly don't think I've looked back since. Honestly, when it comes to food, bland has always been my flavor of choice. Any flavoring that needed to happen could be solved with a little salt or pepper. I couldn't have been more wrong.

We had a cook out last night and instead of lettuce, I decided to get a wild hair and use fresh basil leaves on my hamburger. How fantastic! I've never had anything so flavorful when it came to a hamburger.

Now I hear rumors that there's multiple varieties of basil that taste slightly different...oh educate me, ye masses! Tell me what basil to plant next year and what recipes I've got to try.

On a keychains for a cause note, Erin said she got her keychain in the mail today which is amazing since it only went out Saturday. And, because I had to do it, we've now got University of Georgia colors for our keychains! Go Dawgs! I could have wiped my finger prints off of the metal hardware before I took the picture, but where's the adventure in that? This is the key fob size shown.
October is breast cancer awareness month and one of our breast cancer awareness key chains is perfect for showing your support. Again, proceeds from the sales of any of our keychains go to support my school's American Cancer Society's Relay for Life team.


EG, while I was looking for red UGA ribbon, I tried to find your Auburn colors, although it might just have killed me to do it, but I couldn't find the right blue. All I could find was Gator blue and that just wouldn't have worked one bit. I'll keep looking.

The morning comes early. Sweet basil eating dreams.

Monday, September 6, 2010

The Princess and the Pea(s)

Yesterday we discussed how inept I was at growing carrots. I was encouraged by hearing I wasn't the only one that carrots gods have deemed unable to grow substantial carrots, and it seems like their crunchy goodness may evade me yet again, for my latest attempt has sprouted and the rain we had a few weeks ago apparently floated all of the seeds together in one pile in the center of the bed. Oh well.

The peas, another veggie that has left me fruitless in the past, seem to be loving these cooler mornings. Yes, we still get up to the 90's during the day, but the cool nights in the 60's seem to keep these guys happy. Hopefully we'll get some good peas this year.

On a pea note, we all know the story of the "Princess and the Pea" where the prince's mother put a single pea under the middle of a stack of mattresses in order to make sure the Princess was a real princess. Well, yesterday, our little "princess" got her toddler bed transformed into a big-girl bed.

Yeah. That was our thought, too. We had no idea the big-girl bed would be so, well....BIG!!!
The bed's taller than she is.

I seriously doubt she noticed the whole blasted can of peas under that mattress.
The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Carrots Evade me and Police Officer and Family Recognition

I love carrots. The boy and the man love carrots. My garden does not love carrots. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking the garden doesn't love carrots out of spite. Last fall, I got some relatively decent carrots that weren't fat, but skinny and long, but they still made a good addition to meals. These carrots below have been in the ground since February.
It's a cruel joke. So what do I do? I plant more carrots in another part of the garden. I will grow carrots. I will. It's just a matter of finding the right place. Right?

We're getting excellent request for ribbons for Keychains for a cause. Someone from school asked me to stock awareness key chains for police officers and their families, otherwise known as The Thin Blue Line. You may have seen the blue and black striped decal on the back of cars before. I've also read it helps to raise awareness for police officers lost on the job.
This, below, is a troup support keychain sent to Erin yesterday. Erin's husband has been deployed for what seems like forever now. Hopefully he'll be returning soon, but she's a trouper and hossed out preparation for hurricane Earl all by herself. She's an inspiration. Erin, keep and eye on your mailbox! The fob went out in Saturday's mail.
Lastly, here's one more "support our troups" keychain, this one with stars instead of just stripes. I think I like it better.
Hope you all are having a better time with carrots than I am. Granny, Thomas, I'm looking at you. Send me some carrot growing vibes!
The morning comes early, even on a holiday weekend. Sweet gardening dreams.