Category Archives: my garden

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I sooo need this!

Feb 13

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Where have our little birds gone?

Jan 14

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     G and I were talking the other day and during the conversation, I mentioned that I hadn’t had any birds at my suet feeders in a while.  She remarked that they haven’t had to put out fresh suet for quite a while either.

     In fact, the only birds I’ve seen lately are crows, grackles, and the occasional mourning dove.  Where are my woodpeckers, juncos, titmice, cardinals, and sparrows?  It dawned on us that we haven’t heard any birdsongs for a month.

     We’ve never had such a bird empty winter before.  I do hope spring brings them back and they aren’t gone due to some devastation.  I miss my happy little birds.

Posted in Misc, my garden

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Mother Nature gave us a big break

Dec 28

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     We were lucky we only got a little over two inches of snow while the major portion of the storm hammered south and east of us.  A couple of places in NJ had 28 inches of snow.  I’m glad we don’t live there.

     It won’t take long for the snow we have to go away.  The forecast for the coming week claims rising temperature climbing to fifty degrees by next Monday.  Can you say yippee?  I sure can. 

     We did get wind and lots of it.  I swear we’ve had more wind this year than I can remember having over the last thirty plus years.  At least it’s cleaning the dead wood out of the trees, which is something I hadn’t done this fall.

     Neither Gavin nor Patty like the wind or the snow and are quick to be about their business outside.  My poor wussy pups.  They will be happy when things warm up later this week.

     The new heater for the pond is working well, we have very little ice, and that is only where our Pan fountain is running at a weak trickle.

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I wonder, do Koi get the sniffles?

Dec 11

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     It seems that pond heaters, when used hard in very cold weather, have a two-year lifespan.  I have to replace ours this winter.  It isn’t heating well.  Without a heater in the pond, our lovely Koi won’t last through the winter.  I was glad to find them on Amazon and ordered two so I had a spare just in case.

     So far, we’ve been lucky with the old heater managing to limp along.  The pond hasn’t frozen over completely yet.  Sunday we’re supposed to have a day in the fifties with rain.  However, the temperatures will take another dive after that.  I hope the old heater survives until the new ones arrive.

     I also hope the Koi stay healthy in the meantime.

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Tree rat invasion

Dec 4

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     Squirrels are invading the yard and trying to take over the suet feeders.  It’s driving the birds crazy especially the wrens that have only recently discovered them. 

     I was sitting at my desk today and heard the pair of wrens raising quite a ruckus outside so I went to the window to see why.  Sitting on a branch above one of the feeders was a very fat squirrel.  I grabbed my coat and went outside.  The wrens continued to scold and gave me a chance to sneak up underneath him.

     I hollered and clapped my hands.  Have you ever seen a squirrel look as though he was having a heart attack?  I swear he clutched his chest.  He shot up the tree, dashed across a branch, leapt onto our roof, and disappeared.  As I walked back into the house, I could hear the wrens and this time they sounded happy.

     I spent the rest of the day checking on the feeders to keep the furry invaders away.

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There are no leaves in the yard

Nov 28

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     AJ of AJ Wildflowers cleaned our yard today.  She did an outstanding job and I highly recommend her.  The pups had to go out twice while she worked and she was very sweet to them.  After a good butt and ear scratching from AJ, Patty has decided AJ is a friend for life and even showed off her stick ‘em up trick multiple times without a cookie reward.  Gavin too has nominated her for good friend award.  He enjoyed having his neck scratched and back rubbed.

     With all the leaves are gone I can pull the netting off the pond, clean the filters, and get it ready for winter.  The Koi will be pleased.

     I can’t tell you what a relief it is to see the yard cleared.  With all that is going on here, I didn’t have the heart or energy to do it this year.

     The next time the pups will see AJ is when there’s snow to clear from the walks.  We’ve already hired her for both our walks and the MIL’s.

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Too many Cannas?

Nov 12

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     Is there such a thing as too many cannas?  I managed to dig out and bring in the cannas and black elephant ears yesterday.  It’s a good thing I did since we hit freezing temperatures during the night.  The day was a mild mid-fifty degrees.

     I was amazed at the size and number of cannas when I dug them out.  While I was working on the last bunch in the yard, S walked by with her basset hound Cosby, and I offered to give her some.  I have more than enough for the garden next year.  I gave her a plastic grocery bag full. 

     It took me three trips to the basement to get all the elephant ears and cannas down there.  I store them in a dark, cool, and moist area.

     I did set some of both plants aside for AJ.  I’ll give them to her when she comes to take care of the leaves.  She’ll also get some lily pads and the lizard tail for her pond.

     My van had its second flat tire for the week—same tire.  I won’t ask ‘what next?’ because when I do there’s always something that will raise its ugly head.

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Life is a laundry list of clichés

Nov 11

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     A dear friend told me, “The writing will wait.”  Yes, it will but I do wish it didn’t have to.  However, now I am overwhelmed.

     The expression ‘time and tide wait for no man’ (or in my case, woman) comes to mind this week.  Hospital runs for his mother, doctor appointments for him, and a run to the vet for allergy meds for Gavin one day this week.  I feel as though I’ll never catch my breath.

     I look out in the yard and almost feel like crying over the amount of work that needs doing before winter hits us.  I am doing none of it this week.  The leaves are getting deeper.

     As of last night, we hired AJ to get rid of the ton o leaves.  (She’s the peach who cleans our walks in the winter.)  After that, maybe I can get to the pond to clean it and the filters and then to the garden plants that need digging up and taking in for the winter. 

     I thought I was going to be able to keep up with things this year as I did last year but luck has never been one of our strong suits.

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Welcome to robin central

Nov 4

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     As the robins prepare for their migration south, my yard has become robin central.  Every day there are literally hundreds of robins in our three trees, on the ground, in the birdbath, and at the pond all vying for their turn to drink and bathe. 

     The other day I somehow managed to stretch the netting over the pond on my own.  The idea was to keep more leaves from getting into the pond.  Mother Nature had other ideas.

     Fifteen minutes after I had the netting in place, a robin flapped around on the pond trapped under the netting.  I freed it by showing him an opening and with some coaxing.  He wasn’t thrilled with me.  I had visions of things to come.

     When I crawled out of bed today, DH told me, “I had to set five robins free this morning.”

     It took a minute or two for that to register in my coffee deprived brain.  “From where?”

     “The pond, they were under the netting.  I lifted the edges in a few places so they can get out on their own next time.”

     “Oh, crap.  I thought I had enough openings for the idiot birds.  If we still had bullfrogs the birds wouldn’t swarm all over the pond.”

     Oh, yeah we’re getting more tadpoles in the spring.

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The frost absconded and the green tomatoes fried

Oct 12

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     The other night there came a dire weather prediction.  Possible frost!  I nipped out to the garden with shears and a basket.  I cleaned all the tomatoes, ripening and green ones, from the vines.  The last two eggplants joined them in the basket.  We didn’t get the frost and now I have a large basket of green tomatoes on my table.

     Last night for dinner, I took advantage of having green tomatoes on hand.  I sliced them, dusted them with seasoned flour, dipped them egg then a seasoned cornmeal and breadcrumb mixture, and fried them to a lovely golden brown.  I placed them on a cookie sheet and kept them warm in the oven while I cooked the rest of our dinner.

     Which, since I’d already headed down south with the tomatoes, and had a hot frying pan ready, made me make a quick decision to turn DH’s hamburger steak and my steak into chicken fried steaks.  Well, then when the steaks were done, I had to make redeye gravy didn’t I?

     At least I stopped there and didn’t add mashed potatoes.  We would’ve burst had I made them too.  As it was, we were full.

Posted in Food, my garden, Weather related, Writer

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We have a diverse critter population

Sep 23

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     We have a quite a large crop of red back salamanders in our yard.  I discovered this fact after a heavy rain last night that brought out various denizens of the yard and garden.  Seems we have a good eco system going here.  The only things we’re missing are frogs.  Yes, I do miss my bullfrogs.

     One of my favorite things to do is to take a flashlight and go out into the yard at night.  You see so many different small creatures during this time that you don’t often see during the day.  I refuse to go wandering about the yard at night without some sort of light source.  It’s no fun to step on a snake and jump out of your skin when it wraps around your foot—yes, it’s happened to me.  Thank goodness, the only snakes we have are harmless garter snakes.

     Nighttime is also a great time to rid the garden of pests.  I bet my regular readers remember how I went out picking cucumber bugs off my cantaloupe and watermelon vines.

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Garden news

Sep 15

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     Today a neighbor stopped over to check that three quarters dead branch on the magnolia tree.  He used to work for a landscaping firm that did a lot of tree trimming.  He says he can remove the branch for us no problem.  Sometime after his 17 days of day shift or over a weekend, he’ll take care of it.  That’s one weight off my mind.  I had visions of that branch, heavily loaded with snow, crashing down on our shed this winter.  Now I won’t have to worry.

     We’re still picking tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.  There are two different varieties of sugar baby watermelons and each have one fruit on the vines, I hope they ripen before the first frost.

     The cardinals had nested in the magnolia the parents and several now fully-fledged young ones hang around the feeders most of the day.  It looks as though two of the youngsters are males and three are females.  We have a family of Downy woodpeckers that hang around in our yard and G’s. 

     I had to fill the hummingbird feeder today so even though I don’t see them often they are coming around.  The small flock of goldfinches is enjoying the Echinacea seeds every day.

The cannas are continuing to bloom and they are now quite a bit taller than I am.

Posted in my garden, Writer, Writing

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