Category Archives: garden

Majestic and Fuzzy

I had noticed that part of the garden where I’d just tossed some seeds looked stirred up. And there was one tomato plant that looked like the top was snipped off.

But I didn’t think much of it until I saw these clips.

I went back out there and looked more closely.

Those deer have been enjoying quite the buffet, snacking on many of my garden offerings.

They’re so pretty, though.

The camera is set low to the ground so they look gigantic.

I have the camera strapped to a 5 gallon plastic bucket that is easy to move around. I did not expect deer when I put it in this location. I thought I’d get a better view of the raccoons or opossums.

I am still amazed by how much is going on out there in my not at all rural location.

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Do Not Freeze Whole Pumpkin

I left the pumpkins on the deck until I had a chance to deal with them only November was chaotic and all the weekends filled up and then we had the Dad-tastrophe right after Thanksgiving and I forgot about them.

Then it froze.

They did not like that.

When I had a chance I chopped them up and threw them in the garden so the critters could have a snack.

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Return of the Tulip Bandit

Here are the tulips right next to the front curb.

Back in the days when I was buying bag after bag of bulbs, I had to get creative finding places to put them.

Now look at this. It looks like someone came by and cut off the flowers.

It doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to steal a flower, wouldn’t you cut it at the stem?

But also who would come into someone’s yard and steal tulips in the days when everyone has a doorbell camera?

I though maybe an animal came by and ate them but wouldn’t that make a bigger mess? Another mystery.

Pretty tulips by the front door.

Anybody remember a long time ago when the tulip bandit clipped some of my good tulips? You have to scroll down to April 18 — I can’t bear to go through the gymnastics to figure out how to link to that post by itself.

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New Critter Alert

One morning I ran into the kitchen to do a step on my bread and I saw 2 deer in my backyard.

!!!

I froze and then moved as smoothly as possible, tiptoeing to grab my phone from my desk. I was afraid motion from the house might scare them off. Sometimes the birds fly away if we’re moving around in the kitchen.

They noodled around out there for almost a half hour — nibbling apple peelings from where I “composted” them in the middle of the garden. They sniffed around the bird feeders.

Then they started chewing on the apple tree.

I don’t care how cute you are or how beautiful your brown eyes are: don’t chew on my apple tree.

I ran out in the yard.

And they stood there and stared at me. They did not flee the yard.

They did stop eating the apple tree.

They finally jumped in the yard next door to nuzzle the fig tree before eventually moving on.

My yard is magical.

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The Mystery of the Missing Turd

This is the chaos that is the garden at the moment. I enjoy letting it do its own thing. The sunflowers are huge. Pumpkin vines going everywhere. Bush beans unimpressive. Slug eating the greens. Tomatoes looking good with little green ones on the vines.

The other morning Bob and I headed out for a walk and there was a big old turd in my flower bed.

I am accustomed to finding turds in my yard and in my flower beds but this one was right by the front door.

I’ve never seen one quite like this.

I finally remembered I wanted to grab it — like with a plastic bag and get rid of it but when I went out there it was gone.

I went and asked Bob if he’d gotten rid of it, even though I knew that was preposterous and indeed, he had not.

So what happened to the turd?

We think maybe someone saw their dog do it and felt bad and came back for it which also seems preposterous but these are the times we live in.

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Blue Jays And The Spool of Destiny

via GIPHY

Opossum and bunny have been hanging out in the yard for long stretches of time just sitting there nibbling or whatever they do in the middle of the night. One time I pulled 147 clips from the camera after only 3 days. I love them but it takes a long time to go through 147 clips. Skunky has only shown up once in the last several weeks – I hope that’s not because there’s a litter of skunkies under the shed. Mousey ran through the other night.

Lots of raccoon shots. At least one comes through every night.

The other day I was out in the yard trying to get the spring weed jungle situation under control.

The blue jays recognize me as peanut lady and they hang out on the power lines and fly around my general vicinity to make sure I know they are there.

I put their peanuts on the Spool of Destiny so they were landing there, too.

Who should show up but Noah, the next door cat, strolling casually through the yard. Blue jay flew to the spool, spotted the cat and blasted out the blue jay screech of warning as it zoomed back to the overhead wires.

I called to Noah to leave the birds alone and he came over to me to get petted — the cat who goes out of his way to completely ignore me suddenly wanted my attention.

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Pumpkin Crop

I finally remembered to get all the squash and pumpkins together and take a photo.

This is quite a crop. At least three of those by themselves would be plenty to get us through the season.

Yet still, I mourned for a couple I had to compost already because they got a little rotten. So greedy.

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Outside My Window

Sound on!

This frog hangs out somewhere around the house and is so loud – it cracks me up every time it gets going.

Isn’t this how frogs look for a mate? How can I help this little guy out?

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Turned the Corner

This is now the third time I’ve caught the coyote on camera so I guess we’re part of his rotation. And smart move for him seeing how many animals we have running around back there. (Also, I think he left us a turd back there.)

Yesterday bunny showed up. I haven’t caught him on camera for awhile.

I do consistently get Stinky but haven’t seen the family. I put the water bucket away and I have some motion lights out there so maybe they are doing their job?

But also who knows what’s going on in the back half of the yard. Maybe I’ll put the camera back there again. I need to research other ways of mounting the camera. We don’t have anything to strap it to back there.

There’s always a moment in August when you realize that summer has turned the corner. The days are getting a teeny bit shorter. When the sun is down there is a coolness in the air.

When you’re young and in school, this is a sad moment because you can see summer is going to end soon. But now I like that moment.

My pumpkin/squash crop is incredible this year. I better check the freezer and see how much we have left from last year. Time to eat pumpkin.

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We Have A Family

I don’t know how well you can see from this but there are four stinkies in this clip. Try fullscreen.

I am escalating my non-harm measures to encourage them to leave. I don’t know what I’ll do if that’s not successful.

One idea online was to trap them. WHAT? And then what? Put an agitated skunk in my car? I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Here’s a story from when I returned from Orleans.

My neighbor texted asking if I wanted figs. “SO SO SO many figs,” she said.

She was not exaggerating. Their tree went nuts and we’d already eaten all the ones from our tree.

They picked me a GINORMOUS bowl. It was Sunday night after a long day of driving and unpacking.

I set aside enough for snacking and a salad and chopped the rest, added a boat of sugar and put in the fridge.

Monday I came home from work and made and canned jam.

Spontaneous canning is not a thing that I do but we can’t let figs go to waste. The result looks a bit runny but I’m sure will taste great on yogurt or ice cream. The uncanned bit that we’ve been eating this week is delicious.

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