Tonight I was headed to the garage and came upon . I’ll call her Bridgette. With her two very young fawns . She stopped and turned to look at me . " I like your yard in her eyes ." Come any time I’m open twenty four seven . I see you enjoyed the watermelon. " Our family has been eating here for years now ". She said . I know . Apple season is coming. . You’re always welcome.
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It’s not what happens to you in life but your attitude toward and response to it.
Yours sound conducive to a mellow life.
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Our local zoo used to sell big cat poop at a premium price. I heard it was effective. There used to be an arsenic systemic for ornamentals sold years ago, but I haven’t seen it (in the US) in awhile. I heard it is available in Canada.
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One year a deer nibbled on nearly all of the nascent cherry blossoms. I think we got one cherry.
The mopher (mole or gopher–we don’t know) has taken out a few of our plants. And we lost our passion fruit plant and a couple of others to an unexpected cold snap in the spring. (We’re in the SF Bay Area).
As for livestock on the run: we’re surrounded by a lot of rural, hilly areas–cattle and horse farming and such. More often than you think, there are local NextDoor posts saying “Are these your lost cows/horses/goats/peacocks”?
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The latest sob story; the stunk (grandson’s name for skunk) hit the veg patch and compost (they’ re at least 30 feet apart) early yesterday morning. I don’t think this is the same one we kicked out from under our wood shed last year, but it could be. Now what? Gotta find some kind of deterrent. 6 foot electric fencing? Suggestions welcome!
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That reminds me of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon!
Yes! It was Loony Tunes, for sure.
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This reminded me of my dearly departed Australian shepherd/blue healer mix. As I was was planting seedlings, she would come along behind me and pull them up, shake the dirt off and drop them on the ground. I have no idea what she thought she was doing.
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The first house my sister and her husband lived in after they got married had a nice and very large patch of asparagus. I’d bicycle over and harvest for them mornings before work (my work started several hours later).
Their dog would accompany me each morning, just sit there and keenly watch what I was doing. I’d test for tenderness with a pairing knife starting down near the ground then snip off each one just past any woodiness, and lay the spear down on a towel.
After the 3rd day, the dog started harvesting with me. He’d snip off a spear, carry it over to the towel, and drop it with the rest.
I didn’t have the heart to shoo him off, so I got him a separate towel and taught him to put them there. I kept his, and gave the ones I harvested to my sister.
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We once had neighboring golden retriever brothers that ate everything in sight. They’d raid the soccer game snack baskets when no one was watching. One time I was planting bulbs in the front yard’s wine barrels. I used bone meal in the plantings. Later that day I came back out to find my work destroyed. Yup, those devils dug it all up. They may have ingested a few bulbs. Caging the barrels afterwards stopped that problem. A few years later both of them perished by poisoning from something else they got into the neighborhood, possibly someone’s trash can. A sad story.
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What a sweet story! Thank you for sharing.
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Welcome. He was a special dog in many ways. They found him as a pup, swimming for his life in the middle of a big, very busy lake. Apparently fell overboard? They went to closest marina and reported the find and left their hotel info, but by the end of the week no one had inquired.
So of course they named him Biondi. He was very fast - I clocked him at 38 mph on my bike (special circumstances with a very stiff wind at my back). I had a bunch of 20-30 mile routes laid out around their house (this was Midwest where everything tended to be in 1-mile square blocks). I’d whistle to pick Biondi up going past their house and take him on a 4-mile run going around the block and as we came back past the house he’d drop off, tired.
Two miles from their house going off onto a separate block there were 2 dogs that always chased me as I went by, and I had some near misses where they’d dart out past a bush or something and almost hit them. So I took Biondi on that route one day. He was off to the side running through the corn fields (as he often did) when I went past the house with the mutts and they came out barking and chasing me. Biondi popped out of the cornfield at full speed and T-boned one of them, bowling him over and over, then dashed after the 2nd and gave him the same treatment.
By then I was long past and whistled for him and he came with me and I ran him back to his house.
The next day (and any day thereafter), those two dogs just sat in their yard and watched me cycle past.
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Another wonderful story! Thank you again for sharing.
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What a dog!
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Concur. I have red sorrel growing in my front yard and it is a hardy perennial (DC area). Spouse planted it years ago as a border plant and now I have to intentionally harvest and chop back to keep it under control. The french sorrel is a little more finicky but still pretty hardy.
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So very many sob stories but I’ll start with the first that happened to me as a teen. My bestie and I decided to plant an edible garden in the empty beach lot next door to her house. We used our summer earnings to buy potting soil and some vegetable plants as well as seeds that we sprouted in advance. We had been reading about Indian (native American) gardens and the use of fish heads/spines as a fertilizer. So we walked over to the nearby fishing pier and asked all of the fishing folks for any leftovers. After a couple of hours, we had a big bucket full of yummy smelling fish. Took them back to the garden, chopping into pieces, and planted underneath all of the vegetables. Hours of smelly work. Admired our work and watered thoroughly.
The next day, we came out and the neighborhood cats had partied all night and dug up everything. EVERYTHING. V. depressing. Didn’t try to grow anything edible for years after that.
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LOL!! Sounds pretty similar to my place. One day a heifer named Snowflake busted loose and made it down by me. She was right in my driveway (sweetheart of a milker), and before I could run her back up the hill to the neighbor, I saw he was pulling out and coming down by us. I sat in my driveway with Snowflake to be sure he saw up. Put my arm around the cow like we’re buddies (we kind of are). He stopped and said “where’d Snowflake come from?” I said, “we’ve been meeting like this for months.”
My other neighbor raises spring heifers, and they are rambunctious.
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I love this.
Oh no! Those darn cats.
Thinking fish emulsion was the way to go for fertilizing my new garden plots, the next day I discovered, (I am assuming it was a skunk and not bear), everything dug up and ruined.
Growing your own is a constant learning experience.
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