It's A Fact Jack

A gardener’s net worth does not always correspond to their garden’s net beauty.

Grandparents have at least one tchotchke in their garden – do not judge.

Geese will begin to move North through Illinois in February.

That brief period between cool spring and hot summer when all things are possible.

Gardeners live in four-season regions to give their backs a three-month rest.

Most gardeners have one atypical tool in their bag.  Mine's a putty knife.

The amount of fertilizer needed on a garden is less than dished out by many product claims.

Maple sap starts to flow in February.

Weeds are like potato chips:  Bet you can’t pull just one.

Sparrows figure out the feeder has been filled faster than any other bird.

If a hawk can eat a medium sized squirrel or three big rats or a medium rabbit every day, why do I still get mice inside the house? 

An adult will react like a little kid tasting chocolate when viewing eagles for the first time. 

Eating a diet with substantial roughage equals flatulence – guaranteed.

A garden friend is one that makes excuses for the problems in OUR yard.

The only redeeming thing about February is chocolate.

When walking on pure ice, we all look like Tim Conway doing the old man routine.

Love is in the air.

Raccoons, groundhogs, mink, skunks, screech owls, squirrels and bald eagles all mate in February.  And you thought nothing much happens those cold winter nights.

Most weather events cause good and bad.  Examples:  A deep hard long winter freeze may kill the Japanese Beetles but it may also kill winter ground crops.  When rivers flood the water smothers vegetation but the rich silt left behind fertilizers.  

Other than the awesome power of nature, I can find no redeeming thing to say about tornadoes.

The severity of drought we will experience each summer is in direct response to the number of new trees I plant in the spring.

Give a plant start to someone and what is left in your garden will prosper.

Seldom does the person who buys your home appreciate your garden or landscapes.

I’m thinking garden nurseries pump pheromones into the air making gardeners need way too many plants each spring.

The difference between passionate and obsessive gardening is one is me and the other is you.

Baby owl we found on the ground 

Mother nature wasn’t fair when it handed out different voices to owls and crows.

If you didn’t make at least one joke about the drivers in Atlanta during their 1 1/2 inch snow event, then you’re a better person than me.  I must admit my winter sympathy kicked in during their second storm due to ice, accidents and outages.

When the wind chill is minus 37, it’s hard to take global warming seriously.

If you didn’t loose trees or branches this winter, they are pretty darn healthy.

You will have lost some perennials over this winter; let’s just hope they're the ones you don’t like very much.

1955 Howard County IN 4-H county fair - I know:
I've always been a fashion diva...but that's one good looking
show calf!

Fellow farm community: did you laugh out loud at the barn explosion caused by methane gas from a barn full of belching/tooting cattle?  (Pardon me for two gas related comments in one article – it’s the twelve-year-old boy talking.)

“And now as my garden quietly sleeps

I pray to Lord my plants to keep

If they should die before spring wakes

I pray someone comes in and plants all new

And weeds and mulches for free.

Amen”