Harvest Monday

Harvest Monday 2.28.11
Last Harvest of February.

A small shot of peas to throw on top of my spring green salad, 5lb head of, can you guess what? CABBAGE! You got it! 6 grapefruit, a bunch of lemons and a handful of tangerines and oranges. A few radishes for said salads with peas, an avocado (not form my tree so not on tally) and.... a handful of berries that once again did not make it inside.

Unfortunately the lemon tree is not likely to bear again. It's infected. :-( It's rotting actually. It was split a few years back and we did what we could to repair it but unfortunately I don't think it was enough. The lemons are wonderfully flavoured but they are soft and barely hanging on the tree. The tree itself is shedding it's leaves and while I really don't want to give up on it all the other trees are getting leaves not losing. It is was the heaviest producing tree we had. THe lemons until last year were twice times the size they are now. More the size of a large orange! So, we are with a very heavy heart harvesting the last of her bounty. It's a good thing the young tree is flowing like crazy and made it through the winter with flying colors. *sigh*

Linking in to Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelion's!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Sports injury?

Sports injury? Old war injury? I mean who really wants to admit – it’s a POOP injury!

*shame*

You may remember that last weekend I loaded 30 bags of cow manure and top soil into my poor old 1990 car and drug it home. Where I promptly unloaded it. Then, later that day and the following day I opened those bags, and put them into the garden, raising the main bed.

Apparently doing all this and moving a metric ton by yourself 3 times in 24 hours when you don’t normally move 40 and 50 pound bags of ‘stuff’ around is just not all that brilliant of an idea. But, really. When the forecast looks like mine has looked the last 10 days – and still looks for the next 10 days, I ask you this. HOW. How could I have not done it? Shoot, I would do it again. The irony here is that I rested and took care of my shoulder so that this weekend I could go out and have a repeat performance. J

The new bed needs prepped and it sure as heck won’t be doing the work for me. I’m slightly impatient I do realize that. I desperately want that new area done so I can plant it. But last night I had me a hot date.

With a jalapeño.

Named Jose.

Jose Jalapeno, on a stick.

I now have a shoulder that is MORE sore than it was the day after moving all that, uh, ‘dirt’ in my yard.  I did have a great time. I really did. I haven’t laughed so hard in years.

Apparently however, laughter for hours on end is really not good medicine for your shoulder. Just my FYI for the day.

And on the gardening front my smallest children (the seedlings) are spending the day outside today. Unsupervised. I hope they behave! They’ll have shade until 2 or 3 so I think they’ll be good. Just hope the (real) babysitter doesn’t try to water them, or let the kids mess with them much. *sigh* I feel like I’m leaving my infant nurslings for the first time to return to work. Sheesh. Whoddathunk?

‘Till next time

Barbie~

Something Happened

And this is what happened. The weather. Our 10 day looks exactly like this. The last 10 days looked exactly like this.

I can’t take it anymore.

I snapped.

My indoor seedlings are simply not growing fast enough.

I went shopping yesterday.

I played hooky from work. OK well I worked until 3pm anyway.

I went to 3 different nurseries. 2 good nurseries. I refused to go to the box store.

I only got 3 plants.

Can you believe that?! Only 3 plants!? I’m too picky for my own good! ARGH! No, I don’t want the hybrid. No I don’t want that I have that in a seedling I can just wait another 3 weeks and mine will be that size. No, that isn’t healthy enough. Too leggy, too common, I have too many….

I can’t TAKE IT ANY MORE! I’m a …..

a…..

PLANT SNOB!  *GASP*

So, I went home and threw my diagrams in the trash, and threw out my normal wisdom, ripped open my packet of beans and plopped (without soaking – though it made me cringe I just COULD.NOT.WAIT. ANY.LONGER) 4 squares of (saved)Roma beans, 3 of Royal burgundy and 1 little 20C packet of Harvester beans that my girls insisted I buy at the checkout counter at Walmart the other day. I didn’t want to but for a measly 20cent, I figured why not appease the poor children and let them have their own seeds! So, if you are ever wondering just how many beans are in one of those little packets now you know. About 20 and a good 7 of them were mangled to the point of never to sprout.

Oh, and the 3 plants I bought? A beefsteak tomato, another blueberry to add to my collection. I now have 7 plants 1 large 6 small and all different varieties and a second (small/dwarf) pomegranate. I really need to get into some type of a program. If they would have had some sort of heat tolerant cherry I would have bought that, too. As it is I stood in front of a very large, Florida friendly apple tree trying to figure out how to not only come up with $175 + delivery but then how in the world to keep the neighborhood kids from stealing the fruit. Beyond electrifying the tree itself I couldn’t come up with anything so I left it. L I wasn’t happy but I did leave the tree behind. For the most part the nurseries just didn’t have any veggies yet. It’s simply too early. I was only looking for a few little things so I didn’t feel like I was only tending dirt but I do feel good getting these few things to play with. I probably won’t be able to get them in the ground until this weekend but darn it I have them, and that just feels RIGHT!

And that brings me to my next question. Anyone know what a sparkleberry is? I’m so interested in figuring this out and finding one(berry or jelly or something) to try now. Sounds YUMMY, but I wonder.

More on the garden plans, and seedlings soon. Someone PLEASE make them grow faster. This is killing me!

‘Till next time!

 Barbie~

A moment.

Remember I said I’d get back in a moment to what happened about making sure I kept the kids out of trouble? Yeah. That part didn’t go so well. While I was unloading 1200 pounds of cow manure the girls were entertaining themselves on the playground.

Kate just the afternoon before had been playing on the playground and ran headlong into the post of a swing set. She ran into it flat against her ear, and so hard it nearly knocked her out. Poor girl. I wasn’t on duty. My Mom was. Grandma didn’t see the accident, but Sissy did, and Kate was mortified by it good enough that she reported it to me and begged for Tylenol and bed. I knew it hurt. That girl is a tank and even when she doesn’t feel good nothing keeps her down. I checked her pupils to see that she didn’t have any obvious signs of a concussion and after asking a few questions decided she was fine. No goose egg and after 3 kids I figure I know a concussion when I see one. She went to bed without a fight. (Now I KNOW she must have been hurting pretty bad)

Back to the story, so the next morning I was unloading my large load of poo and the girls were playing in the sandbox, like good little girls. I got the car unloaded and marveled at my amazing ability to stack bags of manure neatly and about the time I realized my shoulder was feeling a little pinchy I looked over to see Kate throwing mulch into the sandbox. ‘Kate, only sand in the sandbox. We don’t put mulch in there or our toys won’t work right.’ I walked to the shed and grabbed a few tools I needed and came back. As I rounded the corner mulch was flying in the air. ‘Kate, we don’t throw mulch, it will get in someone’s eyes. This is the second time. Next time we go inside’ Cringing of course because I REALLY don’t want to stop to go inside. I have entirely to much work to stop now. Sure enough a few seconds later…. There is mulch on the slide. Did I do as I said? Not quite I gave a big old holler though! ’THREE!!!!’ For some reason that seemed to work. ‘Sorry Momma’ and there was no more mulch. Well, that was interesting. Maybe I didn’t need to take them inside after all! Maybe the scare tactic worked. It was getting close to lunch time, so after pulling out the old mulch from the top of the main garden I decided to go in to get ourselves some sustenance. Guess what I found?

The reason the mulch stopped.

Turns out my little bug is allergic to ants. Poor thing.by that evening her hand was huge. Yes, we went to the Dr's. Yes, she is better now. Yes, I feel incredibly guilty. No, I am not moving out of Florida. Yes, good thing I only waited less than an hour before I stopped for lunch. Benedryl will be in my purse from now on, thank you very much.

And, on a side note a sudden realization I have a really hard time making harvest Monday you know, HARVEST Monday. Maybe it's more like Manic Monday for me. Teehee. Guess I'll have to start making a separate post for all the other stuff. Sorry if it irritates anyone. I'm a bit of a jabber box.  (Yes, really)

'Till next time! 

Barbie~



Harvest Monday 2.21.11

It's Harvest Monday again! Joining Daphne again to see who's harvesting and where!

This week the harvest is a little week. 6 oz of carrots while delicious it's nearly the entire 'crop' of fall carrots. All 3 of them. HA! Oh well. I suppose eventually I'll figure out the secret to carrots. As of yet I'm thinking next fall it will be the entire packet of seeds in the ground. Then MAYBE I'll get at least a pound. :-)

I also pulled the last of the fall snow peas to make way for the overwintered rosemary and the new cucumber seeds. With the plants the remaining edible pods a whopping 4.6 oz.  So a disappointing fall for them, but enough to throw into my stir fries and snack on here and there.

3 small heads of black seeded Simpson lettuce totalling 7oz and... a few 'crawberries' that neither made it inside nor to the scale. There were also a few small garden peas that the girls popped like candy then begged for more. Those little treats don't get counted in the tally. It's nearly impossible to tell just how many little things the girls pick and eat on the run. Lets see and a small cutting of green onions for a sauce. I tried to weigh but it was less than an ounce. LOL.

There is the onion tops if you can see them hiding out in the old section before I hacked them so I could raise that section farther. Hard to believe this started out with 3 timbers high! Between the landscaping and the Florida sand we seem to be sinking. Though the sod did eat 4 or 5 inches of it.

My peas are doing very well.

I have 2 heads of the large cabbage left. They are doing really wonderfully. I'll be harvesting them soon. They are in the last small section of the main garden that needs to be raised. The temps are beginning to soar and I'm starting to see a few little holes in the bottom leaves so I know their time is limited anyhow. I do love to watch them grow. But, I still don't like eating them much. LOL

Radishes lined up like soldiers...This is the section of the garden I thought I'd raised earlier in the winter, and I did but just not quite enough. so once these are out and the spinach it will be finished and raised another 2-3 inches.

Lots and lots of work went into the garden this week. You can see in the picture above that the new wood was installed to raise the main bed. Now remember the boys were out of town so all this was just uno - me, and my girls... and that means just me and me trying to keep my girls out of trouble. I failed at that part. More in a moment. 30 bags of Cow Manure. and a load of compost. A sore shoulder and almost all the fall veggies are gone. I left a couple of the big cabbages. I just can't see cutting them when I can't sue them right away

And I end with my upside down bear. I love this. Go figure. He's such a goof.

'Till next time!

Barbie~

My kids

There's a couple things I really love about my kids. I know we all love our kids and we have our favorite things that they do, but these are ways that they are so much like me, and ways that I want to be.
I love that lunch today was sliced heirloom tomatoes and when there were no more to hand out there were sighs of disbelief and little children were disappointed that we didn't have more veggies.
I love that the same lunch consisted of homemade cheese and apples and nutbutter and that was as satisfying to them as a Big Mac meal with fries and a coke. Not that my kids don't appreciate some fries and a sprite now and again. But then again they prefer homemade and I think that's pretty cool, too.
I love that I can catch my kids making up lyrics to songs and it includes things about how great our God is and how He gives us rain and let's us work His Earth and tend His soil to provide food, and in the very same breath say how wonderful it is to play games and swing and slide. They know what is good in life and abundant.
I love that sometimes you just reach out and smack your sister or brother upside the head and other times you kiss them, even though they REALLY don't want kissed at that moment.
I really love that when they think they have made up a really bad game it is something like pretending to be a renegade bee and running around stinging everyone with your butt. And I truly love the giggle that it incites from not only them, but from me.

See you tomorrow for Harvest Monday its not looking good for pictures. I've been in the garden all day for some spring cleaning.

'Till next time!
Barbie

A little bragging on my blog here.

And a lot of pictures. :-)
Don't say I didn't warn you.
I do believe I've hit the jack pot people!

Both figuratively and literally!

Someone decided that I have to pay attention to more than just seeds. That you know Valentine's and flowers and all that was also done recently and she should get some recognition, too.

Let's not forget those flowers.... beautiful roses.

HEY! How did that picture end up down here? Eh, that's OK. I don't mind ending on a gardenin' type note. :-)

See those plant tags? I could not find tags that would work for me. I had purchased the little tags that you write on in sharpie and those didn't work. They seemed to bleed every time. And if you look in the 3rd picture you can see the tall one that you write in pencil. Those don't work the pencil fades off. Pen fades off, and they break, too. Not to mention that the large markers don't work for the little seedlings like this. Just look at that gangling thing hanging out over them. Towering over - making them feel all inferior like. That's not nice. Besides it doesn't look neat, falls over and is hard to keep track off. To top it off it blocks the light. Uh-Huh. Sure does. And, that is BAD in my book.

 I LOVE (serious here, folks) things that look neat and orderly. So I whipped up these little plant tag gems yesterday. Super inexpensive. Super easy. All it really cost me was a blister for cutting them out. How will they hold up out in the weather? I dunno. But, I don't really care either. I don't normally use plant markers in the garden so much. Once the plants are in their permanent location they stay there so I don't need to have the reminder. I will occasionally mark an area if it is something special for the kids, but it's fairly rare at this point. 

And, so with that I am on garden seedling tag high and I'm off to play with diagrams again. One can never re-plan the garden too many times!

'Till next thyme!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 2.14.11

Happy Balentime's Day!

My little girls are so excited about Valentine's today. Last night we had a lovely romantical dinner for 5. Fondue, of course! Cheese with bread cubes, apples, carrots, broccoli, carrots, and meatballs and chocolate with strawberries, bananas and cheesecake! YUMMY! And, NO there are no leftovers. On purpose! Well, at least not of the cheese, chocolate and cheesecake. Plenty of the healthy stuff left though. :-)

This weeks harvest consisted of 1 large head of cabbage. 3lbs13oz after the guard leaves were removed and all.

I really thought it was going to be heavier. It truly felt like 5 pounds, but it didn't weigh out any heavier. I also may have possibly eaten some snowpeas and strawberries from my garden, but I'm not telling! They didn't make it inside so I can't put them on my tally. Beside 4 or 5 snow peas only equal about a third of an ounce! LOL. They were a lovely snack for the girls and myself while I was out playing in the dirt though. I have SO MUCH I want to accomplish in the garden over the next 2 weeks. I just can't see another freeze this year. It's suppose to be int he 80's this week! WHOOT! But, I went to play in Daytona instead. I'll have to work double time this weekend to try and make up for my laziness. Unfortunately I won't have any man power to help. The men folk are talking a trip Alabama way to take care of a few things up on the farm. I'll hang back to be with the girls and make the trip easier and faster for them.
Linking in to Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions! Thanks Daphne for hosting each week and allowing us to share our harvest and how we are using our stored harvests!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Daytona

Yesterday autographs and 200 today Pole positions. MUCH warmer today without the wind whipping through here!

Daytona

Dang its chilly but beautiful!

Oh yeah baby!

MAIL TIME!

Lookie what I got!

Seeds! Tatsoi was my bonus as well as Bay beans (a local sword) and the Seminole Pumpkin sent by Roxanne!

Thank YOU!

No, I have NO IDEA where in the world I'm going to plant the Seminole pumpkin, but believe you me I'll find some place. I've heard tales of 40' vines and taking over everything in sight. I've also heard it's resistant to nearly everything and if that is truly the case i may have just the place... hehehe... there is an empty lot not to far from our home and I know the kids go there to horse around and ride dirt bikes and such. But, this vine and the fruit looks so foreign I highly doubt that they would even think that it was edible. They might think to throw the squash just to see what's inside, and that might be a risk I'm willing to make with at least one vine. I've also got Alabama. I could let a couple vines fend for themselves against the animasl up there. I can't plant on the next trip as it will be too early. Next week we will be there but I'm assured failure by way of frost/freeze if I do that. I guess that leaves March or April for planting. The plant itself will survive provided the pigs don't destroy it. But, will any squash be left? It is a hard shelled squash so there is a chance... *sigh* I really wish I had more space. It seems all my favorite veggies need the most room. 

*disclaimer- not my picture* here is the seminole - If I didn't know and I saw them in the wild I wouldn't try them!

Now, I'm off to daydream up a place to plant this!
'Till next time!

Barbie~

Some more work...

This week I became one with my food saver.  Truly. I feel that I owe this machine a large apology. It's been sitting stored away for a year now!

A whole year! How can that be, you ask? Well, see I had been given the gift of a far inferior brand. A generic copy of this lovely machine a few years back. It worked, well, kind of anyway. It hated me. The sealer didn't always seal and the vacuum didn't always uh- suck. (yes, pun intended) But this is most indubitably the biggest case of 'stear clear of the generics' I have ever seen. For all of the lackluster of the review of my older unit I can honestly say this review gets all the luster it can hold, baby! This sucker, SUCKS! AND it seals, and it does so without me having to stand on my head and jiggle around and press as hard as I possibly can while breaking a sweat trying not to change where the pressure point was so it wouldn't break the suction. I simply stuck the end of the bag in that slot and the machine did ALL of the work. Every.last.bit. Amen.

I'm (needless to say) completely thrilled with it and while I was driving home dreading the experience, I am now oh so happy I picked up the 4 extra large packages of pork sirloin on sale for $1.59lb. My freezer is happy as well 'cause now I'm gonna go shopping for the bins I'd been putting off buying because I had given up packaging meat this way. And, don't you know because it isn't so much work any more I'll not be so grumpy next time. Oh, and Rich finally got the thanks he deserved LAST Christmas when he gave that to me as a gift.

Wanna know what I bought this week?

Yup.

That's right. Canning jars. I've decided to do it this year. I'm going to can. I CAN after all. I just can't stand the idea of buying *gag* aluminum cans of mush, I mean green beans and feeding them to my children. Besides my husband is honestly begging me and that means.... he'll have to help! :-D

Off to get jelly jars and freezer jars this weekend in preparation for the Strawberry freezer jam I will make. I LOVE the fresh taste of the freezer jam. The only problem I have is where I live. Enough in the boonies that I'm not close to anything, and close enough to the city that I can't find supplies like this. *sigh* I need something to strain the strawberry seeds and that is not an easy find to begin with. I won't want to strain them all out because after all the fresh taste of freezer jam wouldn't be the same without actual hunks of berries. So at least I have chosen the very easiest of tasks for my honey to cut his teeth on. I will probably get a pint of blueberries just so I can make some traditional jam to put away and give him a taste of the water bath while we are playing with pectin.

Last but certainly not least....

Oh, wait that was dinner that isn't the work I wanted to talk about... those need to get on the grill while I'm thinking about it...

The newest section of the garden is being laid out. It wont be finished this weekend as I would truly like, but I know that it has been started at least. It will be approximately 2.5' x 40' This will be the main area for tomatoes and bush beans for 2011. Next year they will be moved back into the main garden to try to rotate crops as much as is humanly possible in my tiny yard. I'll have 15 indeterminate tomatoes along the fence with 32' sq of bush beans. Plantings for snaps will be 8' sections every 3 weeks and replacement plantings will be summer crops of cowpeas and dry beans. For now what my seed stash has to be used is Pink Eye Purple Hull, Black turtle, and limas. They are the few beans that will still produce over our long, hot humid summers. They take longer to produce, too so at least I won't feel like I've wasted that time waiting for them. Still looking for SOMETHING that the stinkbugs don't like to try to keep them away from the beans. They especially seem drawn to the pinkeye beans. I especially seem drawn to finding a tiny vacuum for sucking them up this year. I'm tired of hand picking them, and squishing has never been my thing.

The work is finally getting done though it is taking much longer than I like. I wish there was a way to lay out the garden the opposite direction of the way it is. I think Richard might have my head if I asked this of him. So, I'll save that for a few years from now once I have manage to thoroughly brain wash him. As it is he doesn't think he can eat veggies from the store without complaining now, so I'm getting there! I like the idea of 5 or 6 smaller beds running east/west rather than these long beds, but I'm oh so happy with what grows either way! Soon I'll update that the sod is being torn up and that is back breaking work. Wish me luck!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

A little work,

Goes a L~O~N~G way! Of course this was only a  little bit of work, but it did take hours to complete. The work I refer to is the strawberry patch that was divided (and conquered!)

It began with 4 mats of strawberry plants much like this one. flowers abundant under the thick cover of green leaves.

*pardon the freaky lines I promise that isn't my camera it's the blogger. I swear the picture thingy hates me here!*

Anyway, the beds were so smashed together under the mats that they stood nearly no chance of pollination. The flowers themselves were hard pressed to even open fully and expand their petals.

I had mentioned previously that the strawberries were growing too low to the ground and I couldn't figure out why. Now I know why! The landscape fabric that I had put in the garden not only kept the weeds out, but kept them from getting to the nutrient rich dirt underneath. I just hadn't realized how much the plants had grown and needed to be released from their confines.

I went from 4 mats of strawberries to over 50 individual plants! It nearly made me cry each time i had to dig up the roots and separate them. But, I knew it was better for the plant. It may set me back a couple weeks but in the long run I will get more berries this way, the plants will be healthier and I will be richly rewarded for my somewhat heartbreaking efforts.

The results? I am pleased to say that by the end of the year the strawberry plants will definitely take up the entire area of this planter. Seeing the plants now makes me sad that I didn't do this for them sooner.

The twigs in the picture are a dormant tree that has been pruned back. This is the last year that it will be allowed to wallow in misery. I've nursed it for 3 years. It either makes a miraculous come back or it's gone. I had to write that because I've been saying it for a while. Now it's in print. No going back. LOL I moved it from our original home 5 years ago and it made the first move easily enough but when we moved again 3 years ago it didn't fair so well. Last year we had a really hard freeze several times and a severe winter (for Florida) so i took mercy on it. This year our winter was blissful, not without cold weather but no massive freezes.

The berries seem happy already. I expected some sort of transplant shock. I mean I did rip their roots apart and all but so far nary a pip from the little beauties.

It must feel good to finally stretch the roots that have been cramped and receive the nutrients that they have strived for. I'll keep a close eye on them the next 2 weeks and then feed them. I think March is going to be a very yummy month around here. Though not many berries make it inside. I wonder if more will make it in now, or less?  And so we went from 3 square feet of strawberries to a 4'x3' box filled!

 Do you know what else? I'm preparing....

For the STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL!!!!!! WHOOOT!!!!

Any and all strawberry thoughts, recipes, ideas or other berry goodness is graciously accepted in the comment box.  :-)

I see fresh strawberry jam in my future.

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday. 2.7.11

It's What? FEBRUARY? Nah. I'm in complete denial. I can't believe that the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season made way for the calm cool of January and I'm still running around all crazy like!

Linking with Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday!

My harvest is simple I'll wrap it up quick. Only 2 strawberries and a handful of sugar snap peas. Nothing major to report there.

I did do a lot of work in the garden this week, I separated all the strawberry plants. I was waiting for back to back freezes to kill back the tops but it didn't happen. We'd get a night here or there but unlike last year there was not 10 nights in a row nor any days that we did not rise above freezing. They were blossoming fervently. But so tightly packed the blossoms stood no chance of pollination, and as luck would have it the landscape fabric I'd placed as a deterrent to our weeds was preventing them from spacing out naturally. I'll come back to this in a minute. I have something else I need to discuss first.

The major report is the fact that even though I tried as hard as I could, and believe you me - I did try. I held my breath and I stopped my feet! But try as I might the proof is here.....

The snakes have shot forth from their burrows in masses. We were definitely invaded with all types of snakes this weekend. Sly little devil...

Up to no good she was. I found these critters all over my house and int he garden. Thought she was just SOOOOoooo cute. Well, Momma's got a sense of humor too! I pretended to have a fainting attack upon seeing each and every one. LOL. Little bugger thought that was even better!

But, that isn't all I found out and about the yard this weekend! Oh BROTHER!!!!

The Pomegranate tree has sent tiny red foliage everywhere rejuvenating the lost brown wintered leaves, my GRASS! Oh, how I've missed it!

The peach trees are preparing for their big show.

The blueberries.....the oranges, limes, lemons....

All beginning to emit a wonderfully Florida fragrance!

 Onions are unfolding and the roots are thickening. Every once in a while I'll brush against them just to hear the kids squeal- eewww Mommy- that smells! :-D

Apple trees are budding and the leaves are truly so green it nearly hurts your eyes to look at them! Oh the promise of their sweet bounty! Will this be the year we will finally see out first return for the care of these trees? Oh I hope so!

And spring has come in yet another form..... The weeds have returned. Of course this time of year I'm only out in the yard once or twice a week so it's much easier for them to reach this size, to go unchecked longer.

But, along with that is our wonderful peach blossoms. Mary, I'm only 2 weeks behind you now. This was our first blossom. The rest are meerly buds but they are bulging and blushing. They'll show their splendor soon! Ho rah for peaches! Praying it doesn't freeze again now. It very well could. Nothing major int he forecast for the next 10 days but this is Florida and this state needs Prozac. We and Texas are after all the Bi-Polar states. Never can tell what kinda weather you'll get! If the weatherman says 90% chance of rain you can count on cloudy and not much else. :-D