April 13 2019
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What a weather map today. Blizzards on one end and monsoonal rain and tornadoes on the other. I just decided to take a couple of pictures of my wife's flowers she babies in the hopes the straight line winds miss us today. The red amaryllis had a really big cluster of red blooms before the last blow but unfortunately they got snapped off and the blooms on the plant now opened a few days ago and have lost some brilliance. My sister brought an amaryllis back from Holland but she keeps it indoors in New Jersey and hers just bloomed also. The other amaryllis at the base of the hibiscus is a striped one that is a few days from opening. It's constant work around here keeping a yard that is almost four acres but I guess it's better than pushing a snow blower around. Did I mention mosquitoes?
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The striped one has started blooming and for some reason only one out of four of my images would load to my picture files. I will get some more pic's when the rest of the blooms open.
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The rest of the blooms opened last week and are already withered away. Other plants are starting to flower also. We have a couple of Asiatic Lily's that are budding and are interesting colors that should open up any day now. The pollen is unbelievable this year and we have had winds just about every day blowing in excess of thirty miles an hour at times. When I was shrimping for a living we called it a million dollar wind as it blew lots of shrimp larvae in from the gulf on high tides. Along with the shrimp comes some stuff we called berry grass though and that's a whole subject in itself. I used to plant a really big flower garden at the entrance to my shop and I must have got some bad seeds the last time I did it and hardly any came up so I quit. I had flowers for almost three years just from their seeds and then that was it so I replanted and nothing.
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Beautiful flowers. Thanks. Unable to defend landscape plantings from urban deer here.
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@rr2241tx
Speaking of deer. My neighbor cut hay a week ago and must have spooked a lone doe out of her hiding place and that sucker found my garden. It proceeded to top four of my biggest tomato plants and at random did some thinning of my sweet corn plants. With all the lush green grass it had to eat of all things a nasty tomato plant, couldn't taste good. Have you ever smelled a crushed tomato leaf? Yucch, I'm not a deer so maybe it tastes like kale to one of them. I found some pictures of my flower garden I did and I think this was the last year they produced. All those plants came up volunteer from previous years and finally they petered out. You could tell they were declining and still a zinnia will pop up somewhere around here. I bought an entire rack of seeds when our Alco store here folded up. I bet no one else has ever heard of that store besides maybe you. Kind of a mini Wal Mart. We can't even buy a pair of socks in this town now, maybe at the Dollar General or Dollar Tree. I hated to see that place go. Here's some old pics.
opposite side of the gates
at their prime
these were pretty then a big mess
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@bigfoot
The other side of the gates.
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I worked at Alco when I was in high school. It went under awhile ago (probably same time as yours) it was replaced (eventually) by Pamida, and then ShopKo, now ShopKo is closing up. Nearest Walmart is an hour and a half drive at highway speed.
I do most of my shopping on Amazon anymore.
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Alco was a pretty good store, hated to see them go. Walmart/Lowe's certainly not their equal.
We planted Texas wildflower mix from the Wildflower Center in Fredricksburg a couple of years back when the Water Nazis from Austin decided we weren't allowed to water lawns anymore. They put on a pretty good show for a couple of years but the perennials never got established well. There was one bluebonnet and a pretty thin stand of Mexican Hats this year. Without water and fertilizer my yard won't even grow crabgrass and dandelions.
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We had alco in south dakota as well... and they folded here too. We scored a pile of nice blankets for nearly nothing.
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@orkan
I didn't realize Alco was that spread out. The building was modular and went up in a hurry. There is a Lowes Market right next to it that opened before it did and replaced our Super S which was an IGA and before that a Minimax. I had hoped Alco would recover and open this thing back up but it doesn't look like that is happening. More dead real estate.
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@bigfoot Soon there will be only one store in the world.
... and it will be called amazon.
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@orkan
Our rural mail carrier ain't too happy with this fact. You know you hate to not support your local stores but man sometimes waiting two days saves you a big chunk. I needed 100 feet of 1 1/2 discharge hose for a water pump and trotted down to my local guy and he of course had it, hell I could build a spaceship out of his store but a buck 49 a foot hit me square in the Levi's. Amazon prime 100' three ply $69.00 delivered. His was that pissy blue single ply throw away stuff and I even gave TSC which was a thirty mile drive a chance but they didn't have it. You know they keep saying Sears was the first Amazon and you see where they went but of course we didn't have all the power in our hands that we do now. And in the end it might get us.
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@orkan said in April 13 2019:
@bigfoot Soon there will be only one store in the world.
... and it will be called amazon.
Better start that Babble course on learning to speak Mandarin. OmniCorp will be a Chinese company.
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Sears was one time the force to be reckoned with. They offered the same convenience that amazon now offers, but they did no in catalog form before there was online. Sears could have maintained their position at the top had they changed with the times and embraced the internet when it was young. Yet Sears thought that their brick and mortar stores and catalog orders were all they needed...so they eventually went out of business.
Blockbuster is the same way. They were a nation wide strong business 15 years ago and now there is maybe one remaining. Blockbuster had the resources to be the next netflix, but they were not willing to change with the times.
I imagine one day...maybe in our lifetime we will see the same with Amazon. I just wonder what form of technology will open the door for another business to take over the bulk of the market
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I was told by the chief gardener in charge of flowers we no longer have an Asiatic Lilly but we do have an African Lilly. It's the picture of the plant with the long shoot coming out of it with a little cluster of blooms that I assume are not quite at their full glory. Lots of plant not too many blooms. Anyway, I'm waiting camera in hand. I forgot what that other thing is called but it's kind of cool looking. It seems to be doing OK in that spot but I sure need to clean the stonework around the bottom of our tin can house. Hopefully the African thingy will burst open any day now and be spectacular.
the bloom
mystery plant
its bloom
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Well, the African Lily is doing its thing finally. Another day or two and it should be 100 percent. The striped Amaryllis shot out a couple more blooms also. It's going to hit ninety here today and the winds have been blowing in from the Gulf to the tune of thirty miles per hour just about every day this week. That's the fuel for all the violent weather going on at the frontal boundaries. Plenty of humidity to go with the wind, almost see it in the air. Got my shadow in one of the pictures.
