The goal is to get the crawlers to crawl UP instead of out and about.
Tomato ‘trees’ will hang on lateral wires to be strung in the coming days. Since some of those arms grow to be 8-10 feet long, this will be a significant improvement on the useless little cages we’ve been using for the past few years.
In the interest of simplification (and amplification), we transformed mounds 8, 9, and 10 into a new planter, which Ruby has nicknamed ‘the schooner.’
Enclosed therein as of today: new strawberry plants, spinach, lettuce, rhubarb, some bulb perennials on the east end (new photo pending).
The robins love it — perch on the side, on the lookout for worms, presumably.
And a big thanks to E for help with construction!!
The Schooner
Winter is lingering this year.
Pencil works great as (a) dibble and (b) magnetic wand for picking up seeds.
We’ve heard you can use one to scribble notes on paper, as well.
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Spotted this little feller on a shirt draped over the front-porch railing. If you look closely, you’ll see how the presence of my camera inspired a response.
Great yield this year on the new black raspberry bushes, so Ruby made a pie.
And then another one with a blend of gooseberries (off our bushes) and mulberries (from nearby trees) — hereby dubbed “Mooseberry Pie.” And quite good!
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Finding one dead Indigo Bunting on the porch was strange enough. But the very next day we found another — in the exact same spot. Both male.
Premise for a Stephen King novel? Maybe not… read on.
The day two experience got even more interesting when we heard some chirping nearby. We rattled a chair and a bird flew out — female Bunting, the dead male’s partner, loyal to the end. So sad.
Confusing woodsy reflections for the real thing, birds slam head first into our windows all the time. Some recover, some don’t. Both of these Buntings clearly didn’t recover. But why this out-of-the-way window, under the low porch ceiling? And why two in a row?
Buntings are bashful birds. I’m always thrilled to spot one because I see so few. With mixed feelings I carried them off to yard’s edge, studying their gorgeous indigo-black feathers up close before tossing the shiny limp carcasses into the woods.
Bye bye Buntings.
And then, late afternoon on day two, mystery solved — spotted a male (very much alive) in the high grass just off the porch, plucking seeds from the puffy spikes. For some reason our local Buntings favor this small swath of grass. And sadly they see in this particular window’s reflection a shortcut back to the north woods.
We took a look ourselves, and sure enough, with the window opened to a certain angle, the route does look rather appealing. Too bad it’s just a reflection!
So now we’re keeping that window either closed tight or open all the way, thus changing the angle, frustrating that deadly illusion.
And so far, no more dead birds.
A big raccoon tried and failed to break through the netting on top. We chased it away and then, inspired, came up with a recipe on the spot. We have no idea if it will work as a deterrent. Only time will tell, but if Mr. Raccoon and/or his friends want to come back and scale the coop again, they’ll have to wade through a blended cocktail of:
You can imagine how bad it smells. Maybe the odor alone will keep them away.
