The smaller flowers in the wildflower patches have been blooming for several weeks. Now the larger flowers — the sunflowers — are starting to gain some altitude. I planted some giant sunflowers. They’ll probably take the longest.
Category: The land
Garden strategy
Sunday morning I pulled up all the defunct members of the cabbage family — broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage — and threw the carcasses onto a pile for composting. I left a few cabbages that might revive enough to be eaten. I got caught up on the hoeing and weeding. Every little bit helps when it comes to saving water. Not that many weeds had grown in the dry weather.
Late Sunday afternoon, about .3 inch of rain fell. In a way, that’s pathetic, because it’s all I’ve had in three weeks. But it was definitely enough to refresh the garden and help me hold out until the next rain.
These poor cabbages won’t be perfect, but I think they’ll be edible.
With the celery refreshed by the rain, I’ll pull it all within the next two days.
The high summer vegetables — tomatoes, squash, corn, beans, pumpkin, watermelon, and canteloupe — are holding up well, though the tomatoes show signs of stress.
Mr. Fox
Exposure: 3 seconds, f/3.8, ISO 800
About 9:45 p.m. this evening, I was lying on the bed reading, with Lily. Suddenly Lily, who was looking out the window, started growling. I had no idea what she saw, but the growl was kind of spooky, expressing deep hatred and familiarity. She jumped off the bed and ran downstairs.
One of the things I did when I overwired my house (there is well over a mile of electrical wiring in my house) was to put a switch beside my bed for all the outdoor floodlights. There are two floodlights on each corner of the house, giving 360-degree lighting. I quickly flicked on the floodlights. Above the day lily bank, clearly hunting for voles (an activity of which I highly approve), was Mr. Fox. I’ve known since last winter that I have a fox as a neighbor. Ken found its den about 75 yards below the house and even left food for it during the winter.
Mr. Fox seemed to totally ignore the floodlights. I grabbed the camera. There was simply no way to get a good photo. There was too little light, especially for my telephoto lens, and the camera had to use exposures of up to 3 seconds, making blur impossible to avoid. There was no time to go get the tripod. I had to do the best I could with my elbows propped on a table near the window.
I hope there will be other opportunities to photograph Mr. Fox. He (or she) is incredibly cute. And he can have all the voles he can eat.
Exposure: 1.5 seconds, f/3.8, ISO 800
I took the photos out this window, but well after dark.
Tired of groundhog pictures?
Too bad!
No buyer's remorse
Usually after I spend money on something I have to deal with a good bit of buyer’s remorse. With the Nikon D1X camera, not so much. I think I should have gotten one a long time ago.
I can’t identify that cute little yellow bird, but I have at least four of them. They’re making their living right now by alighting on tall stalks of grass that have gone to seed. They hold onto the grass, swinging wildly back and forth, and pick the grass seed.
Mr. Groundhog comes calling
My front door
Earlier today, while I was upstairs at the computer, I heard a thumping noise downstairs. It sounded as though it was coming from the front porch, or the front door. It sounded more like thumping than knocking. I stepped into the upstairs bedroom to make sure Lily was on the bed where I thought she was. She was, but she had an alert, confused look on her face. She’d heard the sound too.
I went down the steps, and there at the front door, nose to the glass, was a groundhog. I don’t know what he was doing. Trying to get the door open? Curious about what was inside? Intrigued by his reflection in the glass? Knocking?
In any case, when he saw me, he clumsily bounded down the steps and ran back into the rabbit patch, pausing a couple of times to look back over his shoulder at me. It all happened too fast for me to grab the camera, so that’s a scene that I was unable to capture, like the time before the garden fence was built when I found a deer and two turkeys raiding the garden together.
The behavior of wild animals can be so puzzling. But I do believe they’re much smarter than we think.
What's happening outdoors, June 3
One of the first cosmos blooms in one of my wildflower patches. Can you espy the beetle?
May was cool and rainy, but we’ve been in a hot, dry spell now for about a week. So far, the garden and landscape are tolerating the weather well. I’ve watered the celery, but that’s just the nature of celery. The beets are looking a little wilty, but they’re a cool-weather crop, and they’re almost ready to harvest. Otherwise the garden is looking great. The tomatoes love the hot weather, as do the cucurbits — squash, pumpkin, watermelon, and canteloupe — all of which are young plants started from seed. The real test will come in July and August, but so far the water-saving gardening methods advocated by Steve Solomon (Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times) seem to be working well. The tomatoes and squash, in particular, seem to be finding plenty of water deep in the soil.
The day lily bank
The onions are blooming and will need to be harvested soon.
I’ll harvest the celery as soon as the hot weather slows it down.
A young pumpkin plant
Young blackberries, on the way to the mailbox
Holly, who lives up the road near the mailbox and who sometimes comes to visit and stomp in my flower beds. The funny look is because she’s suspicious of my camera.
2011's first day lilies
The first three day lilies opened this morning on the day lily bank. The lilies are thick, and the bank is covered with bloom stalks. Soon there will be a jillion more.
Can you espy the rabbit?
The rabbit ran back into the rabbit patch before I could get any closer. It was out for its evening silflay.
Prime suspect: weasel
After some Googling and discussion with old hands at keeping chickens, Ken and I are of the opinion that the most likely suspect in the killing of our two young chickens last week is a weasel.
Googled sources say that there are indeed weasels in North Carolina. Several sources say that weasels, pound for pound, are the most vicious predators of all. They can get through amazingly small openings.
We’re going to attempt to trap the weasel. I bought a trap. It’s a live trap, a Havahart model 0745. The trap arrived today. We’ll set it for the first time tonight and see what happens. I plan to use an egg as bait.
Two nights ago, there were blood-curdling animal screams in the woods below the house. Lily ran and hid inside her hiding chair. I’m pretty sure it was not a bird. It was so loud that it couldn’t have been too small an animal. The sound was too shrill and cat-like, I think, to have been a fox. I’m wondering if there’s a new predator in the neighborhood that is tangling with more animals — possibly competing predators — than just the chickens.
Let’s hope the trap works.