Gulf Oil Spill Update

The oil spill is growing by the day. Even if the oil were to be stopped today it would still take 20 or more years to clean up the estuaries. This mess is affecting the entire nation if indirectly. There isn't enough being done to clean up the beaches and to keep the oil from coming ashore. There should be clean up crews working all of the beaches all day instead the crews spaced out here and there and aren't consistent. There are not enough workers cleaning. This past weekend some volunteers cleaned some areas of the beach where there were no crews and went to give the collected tar balls and oil to the official clean up people and they said 'It wasn't his job'. What! This is a reminder of Hurricane Katrina only this is worse. These higher ups at BP are more concerned with their image. This is so frustating to everyone on the coast.

This is an excerpt from WKRG.COM our local tv station. A third fly over was on Sunday and this is part of the report by Debbie Williams reporter for WKRG.

"At first we had to go out 10 or 12 miles before we could see anything," says Walter.We don't see the floating patches of oil close into the shoreline instead, we see a sheen or film covering the majority of the water. "75 percent of the Gulf of Mexico that I've been able to see along Alabama's coast has a thin film of oil and you can see it, it's a shiny film."Beaches in Orange Beach are clean. But further west we see our first clean up crews working at the state park from the beach pavilion to the first crossover.As we flew into Gulf Shores, seaweed was washing ashore and along with it tar balls and patches of oil as big as pizzas littered the beaches.There was evidence clean up crews had been here but left before the job was finished."The further you come the sadder it gets," says Bambi Grods a beach goer from Excel. "I grew up in Pensacola on the beach and it's so sad to see your white sands have all this on it."The waters have been closed to fishing. A swimming advisory has been issued by the state health department and yet swimmers are everywhere.As we fly by the Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge we see more clean up crews and lots more oil, but as we get closer to the point where tar balls had littered the area, the beaches are white again.Still the sheen is everywhere including Mobile Bay and the oil keeps gushing.

On another note the temps here are horrible and getting worse this week. We will have temps in the mid and upper 90's with heat index of 105-112 degrees. Wow. No gardening for me till this breaks. The twice weekly weeding will have to wait till the temps change.

My son will be having surgery to remove about 18" or more of his colon. Please keep him in your prayers. My DIL is here with my sweetheart Ethan. Ethan has Jarcho Levin Syndrome. What a wonderful gift God has given us in Ethan. He is certainly a walking miracle.
Read about Ethan here. http://beccasgardenspot.blogspot.com/search/label/Jarcho%20Levin%20Syndrome. The son didn't tell me till last night that they came in on Friday. If he weren't sick I'd spank him. (well not really - just fuss at him). I can't wait to spend time with them this week.

I went to a plant sale this weekend - a once a year sale - yea! I only purchased 7 plants but they will be beautiful when they have some blooms. I purchased Rose of Sharon, tropical hibuscus, Iris - Cloud Ballet (purple and white) and Jasmine. I am at a lose as to the other plants I purchased. Memory well it ain't what it used to be. I had a great weekend - spending time with an old flame. The flame is still there. We shall see where it goes.

Hope you all have a great day and don't get too hot.

Fertilizer Friday - TGIF

Good Morning blogging buddies. It's Friday and ya'll know what that means. It's time to get together over at Tootsie Time and check out everyone's blooms they are sharing today. Check out Tootsie here http://www.tootsietime.com/

I have a few things to share today. I have to share this cutie. Little Buddy.

I am so in love with this hydrangea. This flower has gone from a pale pink and just keeps putting on the prettiest shades of pink. I am eager to purchase more hydrangea's. They are such a hardy plant. This particular one is a young bush from last year.

I love the way the Johnsons Blue Geranium blends with the dusty miller. Oops I got my toes in this one.

Love zinnias. They show off all summer long.

I soon will have some Blue Forget Me Knots. Thanks Darla.

Yellow viola's are still doing very well.

Verbena.

Ooohh and I must have more dahlias next year. I am so loving these.

More white zinnias.

More zinnias. Darla I do not know which ones you sent as they all kinda mingled in the beds. They certainly keep color in the beds.

Can't believe I still have some snapdragons putting on a show.

I soon will have a yellow canna to open.

The okra hibuscus will soon have blooms. Thanks Darla.

Well that's about all I have to share today.

I am feeling better after a week of feeling not so good. I spent last Friday at the hospital again. That is 4 times this year. The gallbladder is full of stones and sludge. The only reason that it wasn't removed last Friday at the ER is that even though there were more stones than the last time it didn't warrant an emergency operation. I will be trying to get into a state clinic to see what they can do for me. Otherwise I wait till it is an emergency. I do not have any funds to do any different since I barely pay my bills. Ya'll don't feel sorry for me though. It'll all work itself out. I always have faith. The good Lord knows exactly what my needs are.

The oil spill is on our minds daily. Everytime we turn on the news it is the headlines. Hope I do not bore you to death with videos but here is one that I watched and cried about these poor animals that are so helpless to what man's greed for oil has caused these poor babies. It is pure and simple oil greed. There is nothing we can do but learn from this. And I hope that WE can find better and less harmful ways of generating energy. There is so much clean up to be done and this will go on for years to come just like the Valdez spill they are still feeling the effects of the oil spill.

http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/raw-video-oil-covered-birds/892921/Jun-03-2010_7-20-pm/

Hope you all have a great weekend and have some good weather. We will have a partly good weather weekend.

Update on Gulf Oil Spill

We have oil on our beaches in Alabama. There is an oil slick headed for Pensacola Beach and NOAA expects it to reach Florida by tomorrow. The area of oil and oil sheen encompass most of the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf has been closed to fishing, shrimping and oystering. There are so many people who make their living in the Gulf fishing, etc. So many lives have been changed and are being changed. There are crews from the Coast Guard and some locals who have been trained to do clean the clean up of our beaches but it isn't but a drop in the bucket. BP does not have any of their people cleaning here but hopefully that will change. BP has let us all down. There is a current that swoops down from the northern Gulf down to the south and loops around the bottom of Florida and up the East coast. That is how large the area is that may be affected from this massive disaster. BP currently is trying to cut the steel pipes below with a digitally operated saw blade. Yesterday the blade became stuck but they say they are placing another blade down to complete the cut. This is expected to increase the flow by about 20% before they place another dome over it to siphon the oil to the surface. this method is only expected to bring barely half of the oil into a holding tank. If this doesn't work, it is iffiy at best, then we could be looking at mid to late August before the oil is stopped. We cannot even imagine the consequences if this isn't stopped. There are still so many unanswered questions because this has never happened before. People's lives have changed and many will never be the same. Hurricane season is upon us and there is so much wonder of what will happen if a storm comes into the Gulf. I guess we won't know until it happens. Think of all the animals - birds that migrate south in the spring and summer who won't make their destination. So much wildlife will be affected.

This is a connection to one of our local stations to get a first hand perspective on what is happening and also a live feed of the oil spewing from the rig 5000 feet below the surface. You can also see the blades cutting the rig. http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/spill_cam/

This and That

The poppie plants are so fluffy - Buddy decided to lay in them. Bad boy.

He leaves a nice imprint here. They'll bounce back.

Now he wants me rub his belly. He is apologizing now.

Everyday the weatherman predicts the Gulf Oil Spill as if he were predicting a hurricane. The winds are coming out of the north and will be a few more days. As of this morning the spill has moved off a little to the south and west. It is still a threat but it is a ways off. There is so much preparation by all kinds of local organizations to prevent the oil from washing ashore in the bayous and bays and rivers. There are areas set up now and being set up in other areas for the animals should they be found with any oil on them. So far we have had turtles wash up but there is no evidence to show they died from oil contamination. Volunteers are gathering at the beaches and cleaning up debris. Debri soaked with oil is very hard to clean up.

This morning the 4 story high dome that is going to be placed beside the oil leak is on its way. It will take 12 hours to reach the spill and 2-3 days to set up. This procedure has worked before but never at this depth which is about 3-4 miles down. What they hope to do with this is to re-direct the leak into a funnel to be delivered to a ship on the surface. One of the sources of the leak has been capped but that did not change the amount of oil still spewing.

We are all keeping our fingers crossed that this works.

What a mess in Tennessee. A couple of bloggers have posted about the floods and folks there are folks who have lost everything. Water is so damaging and with it comes the mud. Even though I've been through floods where we live my home has never been flooded. Our prayers are with you all as you recover.

Fertilizer Friday

Good Friday Morning. Tootsie is celebrating Fertilizer Friday and I am joining the party. This is the day set aside to remind you to fertilize those babies for some awesome blooms. Ya'll go check out who else is joining the party.

I will be fertilizing today. I don't like to fertilize my plants when we are experiencing dry conditions. We have rain in the forecast for the next 5 days.

I needed to start with a flower and I didn't load things quite like I wanted. This azalea is not done yet.

Seedlings are doing very well. I water everything nearly everyday. Hollyhocks growing like crazy.

Okra Hibuscus is doing very well. Thanks Darla.

I wanted to share how the gardens are filling up now.

I have daffodils, cosmos, hollyhocks, red and yellow cannas, zinnias, milkweed, dahlias, sweet peas, phlox, peony and snapdragon in this bed so far. I will be adding just a couple of others to this bed.

Full view of the same garden.

This is a different garden (didn't load in the right order). Blue forget-me-nots - thanks Darla.

Shasta daisy's doing well.

The bigger picture here. Here I see forget-me-nots, lupines, okra hibuscus, hydrangea, dusty miller, yellow violas, breadseed poppies, blue geranium, iris and a couple more - can't remember them all.

Here there are begonias, dianthus, iris, red melon poppies, shasta daisy, and zinnias.

Trimmed the pansy's back a few days ago and now they are going to show out again. Loaded with buds.

Johnsons Blue Geranium is beginning to bloom. It is loaded with buds now. Blur...yuk

The daffodils are not thru blooming. The flowers that keep on giving.

That's it for the flowers.

I'm sure that most of you have heard the news of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This is setting up to be the worst disaster. This will have far reaching affects to the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida. Alabama is preparing but about all they are doing now is putting out booms to try to deter the oil. They have been using the word 'if' a lot but this is not an IF situation. This is a WHEN will the oil impact us by reaching our beaches. The magnitude of this disaster will effect not only the fishing, shrimping but the sport of fishing. Dauphin Island is the home to several tournaments. It will effect the tourism, all the way down to the little man trying to make a living. Devasting this will be. Alaska is still recovering from the Valdez spill. This is of great to everyone who lives here on the coast of Alabama and the other state that will be effected. Our government is dragging their feet just like they did during the Hurricane Katrina Disaster. BP should have realized the magnitude of the oil that continued to spew from the well right after the disaster instead of waiting 4 days for the spill to be measured at 1000 barrells and 4 days later determined to be 5000 barrells a day. They are talking that it could take 3 months to construct an underground something that will cap the oil that is presently leaking.

The eco system will be devasted. The animals could be covered in oil just like in the photos we saw back in the 80's when the Valdez spilled. The birds of all kinds, dolphins and other fish and the list can go on and on. I just hope that they will be able to think of something that will work before we are damaged for 20 or more years like Alaska.

Thats enough ranting for now. I'm sure there will be more news everyday for a while.

I hope you all get out and play in the dirt a little. Have a nice weekend.