Current status on hats for U.S.S. Decatur

I just received an acknowledgement note that my package has been received and for those who are interested in this project, the newest blog post... with photos... from Adventures in Paradise is linked here.

My apologies for not posting more lately. I've had many not-good days of late. Several days when I was doing better, I worked on some front yard gardening... planting bulbs for spring and moving some roses from the back and side yard to the front yard. I can't wait until spring now! I feel like that old Mervyn's store commercial... I stand at the living room window and say, "spring! spring! spring!"

My BearMan has provided some hardscaping in the front yard which will be filled with flowers in the spring & summer...

There will be peonies, roses, a few iris, and tons of spring bulbs in the oval planter. I'm not certain what else will go there, but another climbing rose will be trained up the arbor on the driveway side when I find the "perfect" rose. The peonies and two of the roses were already on the property when we moved here. Surrounding the basement egress under the living room, more spring bulbs including daffodils, tulips and crocus, as well as cyclamen, bleeding heart, astilbe, and columbine have been planted. Except for the front corner where the existing azaleas remain... for now... very little sun falls in this area, so these are almost entirely all shade plants. The interior of the basement egress walls will be painted to help reflect more light into the basement, later this spring. Also later in the spring, after they have flowered and been pruned, the azaleas along the driveway, and those in the planter in front, will be moved to the property line, behind and to the left of the rose planter.

A second egress access is being constructed around the basement window on the other side of the front since I took these photos. When that is done, the other side of the front of the house will be prepared for more shade plants this spring & summer.

The hydrangea will have a new home as it was planted directly in front of the basement window, which had to be severely excavated to eventually install an egress window. By the front door is an "ancient" rhododendren. After it flowers this spring, it will be at least a third shorter. I've been "taming" it for a couple of years now. I still need to dig up the hostas and divide them. The area that is largely brown between the rhodie and the hydrangea now has been covered with a wild variety of bleeding heart so lush you cannot see anything but green and the little purple-red flowers through spring and summer. I'll keep some of it, but the entire area will likely be replanted with new shade plants once the planting area has been installed.

In addition to the gardening, on "better days," I've also been working on "behind" the scenes projects. But, I will try to do better posting... I'm working on getting all my photos backed up to a different drive, but I then have to export photos to a different folder to share them here...


It is hard to see in the front yard, but in the back yard, our neighbor has a maple tree that is almost in full fall color. The temps and weather have finally seemed to recognize that it is time to be cool and rain... I love this time of year!

Joy in the journey,

Elianastar

Gardening & critters don't always mix well...

We have a cat & two dogs. (Or, maybe they have us; it isn't always clear.) They are all more or less the same size, given the dogs are both Pomeranians. Mercy is a little guy, being a toy Pom. Goodness is huge... for a Pom, but small as generic dogs go.

... Goodness & Mercy shall follow me...

... all the days of my life..

... Miss Kitty = 100% "cat"...

We also have raccoon that roam in the night, and a bunch of squirrels that run the "wall" of arbor vitae along the back of our property. I'll not list the army of slugs I hunt at night with a flashlight and salt shaker, but trust me, many of them are of a size to saddle and ride... and name as pets if they weren't such voracious eaters... hence the salt. We have a small vegetable & herb container garden going this year. In addition to the cherry, heirloom, and beefsteak tomatoes, there are lemon cucumbers, tomatillos, sugar snap peas and green beans, carrot & radish... and of course, basil! If I grow nothing else, I grow basil!

There is also a small rectangular box of greens. One-third lettuce, one-third arugula, one-third mustard greens. (The latter entirely AdesinaCat's idea.) The latest sowing of each were going really well and one evening a few days ago, AC thought we'd harvest lettuce for a salad for dinner the next evening. While out slug-hunting the night before I'd also noticed the lettuce was ready for a salad, so I know for certain she wasn't hallucinating about that.

However, when she went out to harvest the next afternoon... the one-third of the box that had been lettuce was demolished! Uprooted, gnawed to the ground, gobbled, gone! I was just as dumbfounded as she was. What on earth had happened only to the lettuce??? My very first thought was slugs. No way. Even we don't have that many slugs! Nor are they that discriminating of taste. The next suspect was raccoon, but I know the lettuce was still there that morning, I'm sure of it. Raccoon are night time marauders. Given how shredded the remains were, we were most suspicious of some kind of critter. The only remaining suspect we could think of, having interrogated potential human snackers, were squirrels. (This photo is after a few days of regrowth... it didn't look this good when first discovered!)

This is our second crop of lettuce. The initial crop was a lot larger, but we'd had issues with "someone" getting into that too. The box had been much closer to the arbor vitae, which means closer to the squirrels and where the raccoon come onto the property, so we'd pretty much assumed they had been the culprits. There was enough left for us to have a salad out of it and we don't mind sharing. However, "sharing" implies everyone gets some, but this latest gobble-event had left practically nothing for the rest of us.

I mumbled something at the time about such things being an inevitable part of the fun of gardening, but I just wish I'd been able to get a picture of it! Sadly, I didn't place my camera near the door, just in case our greens-rustler returned and wasn't scared off by being caught in the act.

We have plans to build a moveable screen around the greens to protect future crops from poachers. A simple frame of some sort with chicken wire top & sides. Just big enough to keep the nibbling to a minimum.

Today, however, I must confess the squirrels were unjustly and inaccurately accused of poaching, and I sincerely apologize to each and every one to whom I lobbed disparaging comments in the days since our lettuce disappeared.

I took the pups out this afternoon for a potty break while I made a cup of delicious Mount Hagen Organic Instant coffee, iced with milk. When my coffee was made, I opened the patio door... curtains are drawn because heat reflects into the dining room area in this heat... to find my sweet, no-longer-so-innocent, black she-pup, clearly not living up to her name "goodness," standing in the greens planter, snacking on mustard greens. Who knew??? Sadly, it didn't occur to me to grab a camera until much later, so you'll have to take my word for it. I did, however, grab a snap of the remains of the day...

There will definitely be crop protection in the near future.

Joy in the journey,

Elianastar

P.S.: in the interest of TMPI (Too Much Perverse Information) I offer for your twisted pleasure, "Perverted cannabalistic hermaphrodites haunt the Pacific Northwest!" You'll never look at a slug in quite the same way again... lol!