Saturday, April 15, 2017 – No Eagle, Tomato plants, Sis. Daines’ Bonnet,

On the road to Keokuk to do our P-day shopping there wasn’t a single Bald Eagle sighting.  But the Buzzards have definitely returned to Central Illinois. The sky is full of them and for good reason. This morning on the river road to Keokuk there were dozens of dead possums on the road. There is lots of buzzard food everywhere. I’ve never seen such fat and healthy buzzards before.

It isn’t planting season yet. The old timers say I have to wait until May 10^th before there is no more threat of frost in Nauvoo. Well, I’m going out on a limb and taking my chances. We bought a half dozen very mature tomato plants on our shopping trip and I planted them this afternoon. They look great and barring any unforeseen frost, they will taste great too.

I have the “Weather Channel” app on my tablet. The Weather Channel gives the daily high and low forecast all the way to two weeks in the future. I checked and the overnight lows for Nauvoo were not predicted to be below 50 degrees through the end of the month. I think my new tomato plants are safe.

 

This afternoon one of our “Emma Hale Cast” members came over to our house. Sis. Daines plays Abigail in the “Peter & Abigail” vignette in our “Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo” show. She asked Sis. Johnson to help her decorate her new bonnet with silk flowers. Sis. Johnson was happy to help; she has the “Fastest Glue Gun” in the west!

 

While Sis. Johnson was shopping I was working on our new flowerbed beside the house. All told, I’ve added 55 ft of flowerbed around south and west side of our house. I planted many varieties that Richard gave us because he had too many. We’ve been holding them in our “Sun Porch” for months waiting for the right time to plant.

Among other varieties I planted were: Celosia (Cockscomb), Nicotiana (Ornamental flowering tobacco) Coleus, Digitalis (Foxglove), Coreopsis Sunfire (Tickseed or wild daisy), Gaillardia, Salvia (Sage ), Dusty Miller (Candicans or Silver Dust), Zinnias and Snapdragons.