Bee Solutions and Gardening

We all know about birds and bees and their contribution to the garden, but by the thousands one has to question. Today most of the bees had found other homes, but we still have some. We bought some granulated stuff that's supposed to discourage all sorts of bugs. In our garden we've found some hefty wolf spiders (they're just scary looking but harmless), lots of gnats, and thankfully, a few lady bugs. We've had a flock of finches eating aphids off our roses, which is really nice to watch, and a few jack rabbits eating whatever they can find. The finches show up in the morning and get the cats all excited. While we want the local ecology to stay balanced and function as it should, we need to feel safe in our own back yard, so the bee situation had to be dealt with . The stuff we applied to the yard should discourage the bees without killing them off. Hold the thought that it works.

Since we were in a Garden Department, we bought some tomato and pepper plants. Two years ago we planted a couple of jalapeno plants and we're still using the peppers they produced. This year we're going for three kinds of tomatoes and three kinds of peppers. We're also planting some petunias and we've planted a lot of seeds (zinnia, lobelia, impatiens, basil, cilantro.)

We had an enjoyable day - we went into Fairfield and had lunch at a good Chinese buffet and then went shopping for Jessica and Debbi's birthday presents :>). Jessica's birthday is the 20th and Debbi's is the 30th.

We need to find a Thai restaurant in either Fairfield or Oakley/Brentwood.

Our first golf game as husband and wife is tomorrow. Our first real test :>). I'm going to use some clubs that belonged to Jim and one of our neighbors contributed a class putter. Seems like a lot of activity for a little humility.

Love to all
Corrie and Jim
mzcorrie@frontiernet.net
jmcrhoads@frontiernet.net