Smarties Bar & Grill #77

It hasn't rained for a while. I am afraid my watermelon and tomatoes are going to pop if we do get a good rain. Getting green beans and okra. Corn is coming on. And we got baby cantaloupe. I also have a 4 rows of flint corn and a few late stalks of late sweet corn. Need rain. Beginning to get large watermelon and sugar baby.

 

Oh, nooooos, not this guy again!!!



We're well on our way towards a high of 100 degrees today.

I'm getting way too acclimated to this heat - the low 90s are starting to feel temperate....

 

A repeat but earlier than last year... This is more like August heat. Corn is shriveling up it is so hot and dry.

 

I lived in Indiana during the 1988 drought. You would be surprised to see how fast corn recovers when it gets a good rain.

 

It does recover quickly but some of the stamina is gone.

 

We got some rain but with rain came the wind which blew the storm further East if only it had been the rain and not the wind.

 

We got a few minutes of rain early this morning which was more like the humidity re-arranging the furniture but at least it wasn't triple digits again today. I did dig most of my earliest planted potatoes today. Probably should have done last week but was too hot. The tops were deader than dead.

 

We finally got rain a total of 3 inches which was a blessing. It has been so hot here and the rain cooled off the land.

Day before yesterday I drove to Alabama and on the way I saw a big truck stopped in the road and then proceeded very slowly .. When I got to the place where he stopped I saw what he had stopped for. It was a Mama skunk and four little ones. Mama took off to the pasture and the babies were racing around in a circle trying to find where Mama went. I had to stop and the only thing I had was my cell phone and I didn't get a good picture it was also raining. There was a car behind me so I had to hurry and get a picture.

 

Had a nice meal. The green beans are really good and the sweet corn was delicious. Fresh tomatoes ain't bad either.

 

Made it back out to my happy place in placida on Tuesday. This railroad trestle is what's left of the rail line that used to run all the way to the tip of Boca grande Island and the phosphate docks.

Probably hasn't been a train over these tracks and the better part of 60 years, in fact there is no more steel on top. But it is nice to get up there and fish.

It was a beautiful day but I got completely skunked on fishing. The only fish I caught was the finger mullet that I cast netted. I had a live 4-inch one out on the bobber for several hours and not one bite. In fact the only thing that bothered it at all was some seagulls which was not a good sign because that meant that was the only fish they could see.

Oh well, better luck next time.

But you know what they say about fishing, even a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work.

You can see how far that railroad trestle runs in these pictures, in fact portions of it run about another 6 mi to the tip of Boca grande.

Where it meets the tip of the island it is a good spot to fish because that is Boca grande pass world famous for tarpon fishing. I may take the kayak out there next time but you have to pay close attention to that current ripping through there.

I would hate to be the next one on the news that the Coast guard was looking for. If you look off in the distance of the middle of the first picture, you can see little dog Island. It is a very small island of probably less than an acre but it does have a nice Beach. Spent a few hours there.

A kayak is nice to get to places other boats can't go but it really sucks when the wind and the tide is working against you.

I was kayaking with a couple of other guys at one point and one of them spooked a manatee on the grass flats and the manatee damn near capsized his boat. They are very powerful animals, probably really good eating too but they'd want to put you in prison for that. Lol

 

Stocked up on the beginning salvo of the the Walmart end of season clearance in the garden department. Milogranite for 75% off was a steal. Wish they had more bags. Lots of potting soil. A couple more seed seed starting grow lights. I feel like Garden Year 2025 has already started

 

Baby skunks are one of my favorite things.

 

They are adorable and so innocent. Those babies just wanted Mama and she probable knew they were safe because they were skunks and cute. One of the babies was more white than black which was unusual.

 

@JohnHamilton got these for 20$

72 82 and year 87

So not silver but still mint uncirculated. Is there anything special about the treasury coin in the left corner of the red case?

 

We're finally past the second of our two recent heat waves where the temps got up around 100 degrees and I think I can initially declare my tomato, zucchini and pumpkin experiments a success. Between the heat-resistant varieties and shade cloth all of the veggies kept cranking out flowers and fruit through the heat wave. I'm already harvesting Sungold cherry tomatoes and the fruit on the Black Krim are beginning to turn from green to purple. The Prudens Purple and Brandywine OTV plants are cranking out some nice-sized fruit and the late indeterminate Cherokee Purple and Virginia Sweets are bringing up the rear. The succession tomatoes (more Sungold, Black Krim and Brandywine OTV) that were planted later are looking great and flowering. As far as squash go, the Cocozelle zucchinis are cranking out zukes and the Jarrahdale pumpkins look healthy and are flowering - hopefully, we'll start seeing little pumpkins in a week or two.

While choosing heat-resistant varieties was a must, I think the shade cloth is what really got us through these heat waves, and that leads me to the conclusion that it's not the high temperatures that cause tomato plants to shut down, but the blazing direct sunlight. I'm basically seeing the same thing with the zucchini and pumpkins - protecting the base of the plants from the sun has kept them healthy and productive.

I took a few pictures of the beds where I put up the shade cloth and post them later. Once the temps get back down to a reasonable level I'll remove the shade cloth and let them get some direct sun, but I can see the protection has made all the difference once the temps soared into the mid-90s and up to 100 degrees. I guess the plants are much like myself - they can handle the heat as long as they're in the shade, but being out in the sun is just too much.

 

I didn't use shade cloth because I am old and it is too much trouble. But I think you are right. The sun pulls the water out faster than it can be pulled up through the plant. My garden is just about ready to be shut down till fall. I just want my melons. They are not bad size for the variety.

 

We have a heat advisory every day now.

 

Man, I would have loved to have been there last weekend. It was BLAZING hot up here - heat indexes over 100 every afternoon.

Thankfully, the afternoon rains appear to have returned. The heat is one thing, but drought is an entirely different and worse matter.

Oh, and a couple of nights ago I had my first run-in with a Copperhead this summer. Had my wife heard me calling for my shotgun it would have gotten far worse than rough ride back into the woods at the end of a long stick.

 

What you have are Proof sets. They are coin sets that are made on an annual basis for presentation purposes and for collectors. The coins are struck on specially prepared blank (planchets) with polished dies under higher pressure at a slower rate than normal, than the made for circulation coins. The term "Proof" dates way back (well over 200 years) to when such piece were made to test the dies to make sure they made a nice impression under idea conditions.

Unfortunately the mintages have been high for these sets, and the collector interest is limited. Investor types know these coins come nice, so there is no challenge (hence profit potential) for them. For $20 for the group you did okay. You should look for Proof coins that the mirrored finish which are not cloudy or spotty. These sets need to be stored in an even temperature environment with limited humidity. i.e. Air conditioned space is a good idea.

I like them and have a date run that goes back to 1936, but the mint didn't issue sets for all the years in between. The mint didn't make any Proof coins after 1942 because of the war and didn't start again until 1950. Here are two 1936 Buffalo Nickels in Proof. They were done in two finishes that year.

Collectors didn't like the duller, Matte finish.



They preferred the brilliant finish. This style is more common, but since collectors prefer it, it's more valuable.

 

Opps! I forgot to answer that one.

Now there isn't. The mint had a bunch of 6 opening cases left because they had been putting Susan B. Anthony dollars in that spot. The Anthony dollar was a flop, and the mint suspended production of them in 1982. To fill the hole, they added that medal to the set. Few collectors care about it.

 

This is the new and improved experimental veggie garden setup, completed last weekend (when it was around 98 degrees in the shade):



Zukes are front left, everything else is tomatoes except way in the background is the pumpkin patch....



I used 4-5' garden fencing to keep the land borne critters out and the shade cloth to foil the crows (and the sun)...

 

Here are a couple of pics taken under the shade cloth. In this shot you're looking from the bed containing 5 different varieties of tomatoes (Brandywine OTV in the foreground) into the bed containing the Cherokee Purple plants:



And here's a somewhat crappy blurry shot looking down the long bed with the five varieties (Sungold hybrid cherry tomatoes in foreground):


I got a sharper shot somewhere, but you get the idea....

 

You must be at least a month ahead of me - I stuck our first tomatoes in the ground in early May. The succession tomatoes got planted on June 10, and hopefully they'll keep us in tomatoes until September-October. If all goes well the pumpkins will still be alive and kicking then, too.

Whether I like it or not I have to use fencing and something over the top - either gourd netting or shade cloth - to keep all the critters out, so I have no choice but to do all this. Nevertheless, one of the things about this year's trial run is figuring out how to do it with the least amount of time and effort. The fencing helps make things easier since all you have to do is drape the shade cloth over that. Wire hoops work for the pumpkins and other low-lying plants.

Livin' and learnin'....

 

I would like to try pumpkins some time.....and am looking to grow some iceberg lettuce. I am going to learn what I can about the day length and go from there. April 15 is my frost free date.

 

Very interesting. Thank you for the information.

I figured that they were probably not worth a ton seeing as they're not silver. But I figured they were worth at least $20 to me cuz I'll sit on them as long as the good Lord sees fit to keep me around.


I have six or so Buffalo nickels that I have come across over the years as well as probably about 10 Indian Head cents.

It makes sense that the specially struck ones would be more valuable. Two or three of my Buffalo nickels have a readable date which I am told makes them somewhat valuable as many of them have a date it is no longer legible as it wore first.

I wonder why the Susan b Anthony was considered a flop?

You still see those in circulation somewhat commonly. Sacaweigah dollars are also very common.

So when the mint releases these proof sets, how do they distribute them? Do they go to Banks or do people order them directly from the mint?