On my thread about the tomato blight, I mention what Caroline Ingalls (Little House On the Prairie)said about loss. "There's no great loss without some small gain." Just wondering, what small gains you may have had out of your losses. Maybe a new way of doing something, an invention, a recipe. Something you wouldn't have done if you would have done what you thought you really wanted to do. We had some terbbible storms go through last night, we had minimal damage, but a friend lost her cherry tree and a really beautiful spruce tree. I guess the gain from that will be firewood and planting new trees.

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), August 10, 2000

Answers

I had a really bad year in the garden last year. The woodchuck ate everything that sprouted except the corn and the drought got the corn. I did a lot of planting work and was really bummed out but I knew my garden would be better this year. Guess what! I did raised beds with pvc piping covered with chicken wire attached to the wood. I tied it to the wood with eye bolts and shoelaces which allowed me to lift it to weed and harvest but the woodchuck couldn't get in. Had a great lettuce harvest. Next, I surrounded my main garden with five foot chicken wire fencing which was then bent out at the bottom about a foot and then weighted down with bricks and grass clippings. Result was that everything got well along until the woodchuck discovered the garden and went over the fence. I think he got trapped in there one night because I found a hole burrowed from the inside out the next morning. I repaired it and he hasn't been back in. I think it scared him. Although he did a number on my bottle gourds, he did little damage to everything else so I am getting produce. I now know that next year I will electrify the fence on the outside as well to finally take care of him.

Finally, I mulched my garden so the drought wouldn't ruin anything. Surprise! Surprise! we have had the wettest summer on record. But luckily the mulch isn't causing a problem. I have baby ears starting to appear on my cornstalks that blew down a few weeks ago and I propped up by running strings across the garden. So, all in all, I keep just plugging along handling each setback as they come up. Some I win. Some I win partially and learn more for next year and some I lose totally for this year and will get more creative next year. As long as I am not relying on this for survival I just jump right back in and try again.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), August 10, 2000.

If my first husband hadn't turned out to be such a bum (devastating at the time) I would never have found the teriffic guy I'm married to now! If I hadn't been so lousy at math we wouldn't have our precious little son!!! (Oh there's no way I could get pregnant today...ooops) If the deal on the first house we loved hadn't fallen through we wouldn't have found this better one with more land and less restrictions. If I hadn't got so depressed at having to leave the Pacific Northwest and come to hot miserable North Carolina, I wouldn't have been trying to take my mind off things by browsing through the magazine rack where I found Countryside!

I'm sure there are many more. It's fun to look at all the good that came out of the bad.

Pauline

-- Pauline A. (tworoosters_farm@altavista.com), August 10, 2000.