Header Picture

Well, I've had enough of looking at my own picture in the header, so I posted a Spring photo of hollyhocks growing  alongside my garage. The wife planted them a few years ago and they keep coming back fluffier and blossomier than the year before. Ain't Nature grand? For some reason hollyhocks were always a desired flower to put in the yard, but I never saw them grow as tall as these in the wilds of Northeast Utah. Maybe the summers are too short or maybe it was lack of proper watering or fertilization. No, it couldn't be fertilization, because their was always plenty of cow manure to spread around them. I recall helping to shovel a load of the stuff into a manure spreader while the horses stood calmly but observant swatting the flies with their tails and shaking their heads a few times. Once loaded, my brother-in-law headed for the garden where he set the gears and let the S--t fly through the air, perfuming the environment and everything around the garden. It would produce a wonder crop all through the summer, and we would have fresh peas, beets, corn, cabbage, watermelons, canteloupe, potatoes, and wonderful weeds and beans. Ah, the joys of farming! My brother and I used to do the weeding of our garden, sometimes whacking the vegetables instead of the weeds and ending up in a tussle over who cut the most weeds the fastest or some other nonsensical reason and giving each other a black eye and a few bruises. Ain't Nature grand?