Flooding, KIPping and Gardening

It turned out I wasn't too far from the truth when I wondered if Iowa would become a series of islands after our trip there. Since returning from Iowa, over 400 blocks of Cedar Rapids was flooded and Iowa City has experienced worse flooding than the devastating summer of 1993. Although there is much more flooding state-wide, I have been following the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City news flooding closely. Before moving to Wisconsin, I had lived in Iowa City for about 15 years, including 1993. The flooding that summer was more water than I could have ever imagined (and I am known to have a pretty active imagination), so it just boggles the mind that they have even more water rushing through there right now. Wisconsin has been pretty wet, too, but we are high and dry, though the surrounding areas have certainly had their fair share. Lake Delton, which used to be about an hour north of here, decided to go live in the Gulf of Mexico, taking a fair share of the local landscape along for the ride.

Saturday was Worldwide Knit in Public day, so Beeb and I joined the crew at The Sow's Ear to do our part. Daddy, Bug, and Bean went west to visit with Grandpa for the day, but Beeb and I settled in to knit in the glorious weather. Considering all the gray and overcast we have been having, the sunshine and pleasant temps were most welcome. As was the pleasant company...I enjoyed chatting with Last Saturday knitters MollyBee, Dale-Harriet, and Linda, among others. Even the thunderstorm and hail that passed through late afternoon couldn't ruin the day. We just ran inside and kept knitting. Beeb found a toy house out on the lawn where we were knitting and practiced doing dishes. I'm thinking that if the Sow's Ear hired him on as a dishwasher, I might get a yarn discount. Right??? Or would that be exploitation?

Today, we took advantage of more nice weather for a little gardening. I am loosely participating in Norma's Gardenalong (if you understand "loosely participating" as not following any of the rules or suggestions, but hoping that reading her blog will remind me to water our "garden". I am very much a survival-of-the-fittest kind of gardener.) Anyhoo, today we finally repotted out *cough*extremelyrootbound*cough* apple trees and our Sun Gold tomato plant that we got with last week's CSA box.


The tomato plant has been named (by Bug) "Hin" (Full name is Hin Tin Plant) on the ride home from the farm. Since I was so excited to dig into our produce, I didn't get any pictures, but we ran into Denise picking up her box at the same farm, so if you want to see what we got, you can check out her picture. We have already eaten our swiss chard, radishes, lettuce, green onions, and half of the cucumber. The beet greens, radish greens, and some of the spinach are going into soup tonight and the rest of the spinach and onion will become spanakopita later in the week and the turnips will be the veggie with another meal. YUM, YUM, YUM. It has all been delicious so far!