Crazy Animals

My mother raised turkeys for food when I was growing up. They were always stupid birds. I figured it was a domesticated turkey trait. I figured the wild turkeys that grace our yard occasionally were smarter. How in the world can they survive if they are as stupid as a domestic turkey?

It turns out they are just as dumb. I was mowing my leaves the other day and happily filling my leaf bins. I noticed the turkeys were out and about. The turkey flock is huge. It is usually about 12-14 birds every year. Most of the flock was in my neighbor's yard, but two were still in my yard. Between the two yards is a fence. Towards the front and side of the house it is a nice pretty cedar fence, but way in the back it turns to chain link. I've seen the turkeys fly over the cedar part many times as I come close.

This time however the two turkeys were having a fit. They were walking back and forth along the chain link fence and calling plaintively to their brethren. They couldn't figure out how to get over the fence. I guess since they thought they could see through it, they ought to be able to walk through it. So I was walking back and forth on my lawn. As I got close they started freaking out and making a big ruckus. As I left for the other side of the yard they would calm down.

I finally couldn't take it anymore. I had to put the poor turkeys out of their misery. I herded them down the fence to the cedar part. As soon as they couldn't see though the fence they flew right over to their friends. Turkeys are really stupid.

Sadly I hadn't brought my camera with me. I didn't even think about it so there are no photos. The next crazy animal was also not photographed. I had the camera in my pocket this time, but I was so shocked by what happened I didn't even think to take it out and photograph it until it had disappeared.

I wanted to put a layer of compost on a couple of the lower beds that will be seeded very early in the spring. I had just finished using up last year's compost. I needed to start with some made this year. The best compost is on the bottom of the pile, so I started turning the compost over. After the first couple of shovelfuls a mouse ran out the bottom. He leapt up to my leaf bin and climbed to the top. I went over to have a closer look and he leaped to the nearby tree and started climbing.

It isn't the first time I've scared small rodents in my compost piles. Once I found a family of voles living there in the spring. But I've never seen a mouse act like a squirrel before. I was just shocked at this crazy mouse climbing the tree when there were plenty of leaves closer to hide in. As soon as he zipped over to the far side and I couldn't see him any more, I remembered the camera. Too late. He was gone.

The compost had its own variety of weirdness. I often have huge worms in my compost. Worms are common. This time I had a plethora of baby worms all through the compost. I coudn't believe how many there were. The baby worms were strange though. They were quite colorful and their middle band was orange. Usually I just get the typical pinky purple worm color. Instead I had brighter red and orange worms. Has a new variety of worms found my compost?

I took photos of those worms, but only with the camera in my pocket not my husband's camera with the nice macro lens. All the photos came out blurry. All I can show you is my garden beds newly limed and mulched with compost. The browner areas are my old compost that had dried out. The dark black is the worm ridden compost. It looks really nice from a distance, but it is pretty clumpy. I used a lot of newspaper in this batch since I didn't have enough leaves. Newspaper it turns out is very sticky. Ick. At least the worms appreciate it. Hmm maybe the newspaper is why my worms are different.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day September 2009

Wow I almost missed GBBD. One of my fellow artists had an emergency and needed someone to fill her shift at the cooperative today. So I ran down to the store leaving my poor lonely blog to fend for itself. It still hasn't figured out how to write posts without me. Then when I got back, I was reading Michelle's blog and GBBD hit me in the face. Hmm the sun was getting lower in the sky and I had no photos. Luckily the garden wasn't in total shade yet and I could take photos without the flash.

It is amazing how fast you can take photos for GBBD when you don't have time. I'm supposed to be starting dinner in about five minutes so this post can't take too long either.

What would fall be without the blooming sedum. I swear this is the favorite place of bees. The pretty pink carpet is frolicked upon by a multitude.

This isn't right. My Trail of Tears beans has most of its beans already dried and picked. I'm waiting on a few more. I guess it decided that the last batch is done and it is time for some more.

My neck pumpkins never set any female flowers. In fact the 12' long plant never had one female flower even bloom. This will be the first. I wonder if I can eat it green because there is no way there is time for it to ripen up. It sort of looks like a zucchini. Will it taste like one?

At least the pepper plants are still blooming. They have a chance of getting big enough before they are killed by frost. They don't need to ripen like the neck pumpkin does.

My tithonia is still blooming as always. I swear the flowers aren't real every time I look at them. The color is too bright and the flower too perfect. I never show the plants for good reason. The plants look terrible all covered in mildew.

How did that get in there? My husband had been taking photos with the camera and left them on the card. I figured this guy is pretty enough to be a flower with his blue and red head.

Whoops. It took me more than five minutes to write. I'd better get off to make dinner.

Calm before the Storms

Today we are getting hit by three different fronts all colliding at once. My trusty weatherman has taken to calling it "hybrid storm Danny" since one of the fronts is the remains of tropical storm Danny. Danny is a warm weather system. We also have a nor'easter hitting at the same time. Nor'easters are storms formed by cold weather. So it will be a wild day.

Yesterday the wild life and your trusty gardener were preparing for the storm in own ways. The wild turkeys were roosting in the backyard woods occasionally taking a break to scratch in the dirt for bugs. They weren't too pleased by my going out to garden.

What are you looking at me for? Go mind your own business.

They decided to find a less busy spot to roost over the fence in my neighbor's yard. I wonder what they do during a big storm. Do they hunker down or do they start looking for the worms that rise to the surface during heavy rains?

The bees were busy in the sedum collecting nectar. This plant was swarming with bees. It was quite fun to watch. Sadly during the sunflower bee count there were no bees. Now I know where they all went.

I had another rush of busyness in the garden. I put in the last of the fall seedlings. I had 5 komatsuna, 2 tatsoi and a handful of lettuce plants that went in. My laundry room seems so dark now. The seedlings are all gone. The grow light is off - at least until next year.

No more eggplants

Then I ripped out my eggplant. The only one that was putting out nice eggplants were my Slim Jims and with the sun so low they are now shaded most of the day by my bean plants. I figured it was time to plant spinach and mache anyway.

I didn't plant the seeds yet. They might get washed away since we are predicted to have 3-5 inches of rain, but I did prepare the beds. I added compost to this spot and where some of the onions used to grow. Then turned it under. I'd been waiting for the weather to break before planting out and now we have some nice cool weather predicted. Now I just need to somehow keep the sowbugs and slugs from eating the seedlings before they are really up. I've never grown mache before. I got the seed from Michelle over at From Seed To Table. I'm hoping they will overwinter.

Monday Seedling Update

Even more seedlings are coming along this week. I seeded some more soil blocks on Friday and the basil and cabbage are up, but not the tomatoes yet. I really don't need more cabbage, but I thought it might be damping off. Nope. It has recovered very well and is trying to take over the flat again. Now what will I do with the reseeded cabbage?

So here are the photos of all the little seedlings. Brassicas and Lettuce with no more signs of damping off:

Boy do those brassicas need to be put in the ground soon. It isn't worth transplanting them and they are getting crowded. The flowers are doing well. At least the ones that germinated. The bottom row has all germinated they are just tiny. The marigolds in the middle had four ungerminated spots so I reseed the blocks. Now we have two new little seedlings. I'm hoping the other two empty ones come up soon:

The peppers are doing quite well and have their first true leaves coming in. I still don't know which ones are which, but maybe I'll just plant them all:

Then I took a look at the little seedlings outside in the ground. The spinach was soaked for two days before sowing on 3/17. All the seed seems to be coming up:

The radishes are also poking up. They were sown when my lettuce was transplanted on 3/26. It only took 11 days for them to peek up in the cold weather. The peas that were planted the that same day still have no sign of coming up. We just need a little warmth.

And finally my lettuce is beautiful in all its redness. I have a fondness for red lettuce. I'm sowing five lettuce every two weeks and rotating them in the garden. The latest sowing includes lettuce seed from Dan. These are not red, but are yellow and green. I can't wait to see them. They will contrast nicely with these red lettuce.

And last but not least, the turkey. I'm not growing it. It grows itself. I was in the laundry room checking the seedlings and heard a loud sound from outside. The wild turkeys must be starting to mate. I fear for our neighborhood. They tend to stop traffic by standing in the road and not moving. Last year there were mommy, daddy and 12 little turkeys. They all seem to still be around, but are at breeding age. We are never going to be able to go anywhere in a car.

Visiting Turkeys

I've been very busy posting about other things, but wanted to share a couple of fun photos. New Year's Eve brought a heavy snow storm for us, maybe 9 inches. We were supposed to go to a friend's party, but their town was having a snow emergency (no street parking) and we thought it was the height of folly to drive in the snow storm with all the not quite sober people.

So we stayed home and invited over a few friends that live close. Two families could just walk, but two had to drive in. They had to park in the driveway so the plows could get by. I went downstairs (we have a split) to check out front to make sure the driveway was still clear for them to park in. Who should I see in the front yard but the neighborhood turkeys.

I was getting worried about them. I hadn't seen them in a long time. I wasn't sure if they would get enough food this year. Like the rest this quadrent of the US, we had no acorns this year. I figured the squirrels and chipmunks that usually collect them would have to be eating other things and the turkeys would have more food competition.

They are still there, all 14 of them. It put a smile on my face. They came in to the yard to eat my holly berries. I have two female hollies that flank either side of my front landing. DH took these photos just inside our door and he was just three feet from the closest birds. Now I'm really hoping holly berries aren't poisonous to birds like they are to people.

Spring Harvest

Today my Fun Jen was ready to pick. It is a bok choi type of plant with frilly leaves and slightly narrower leaf stalks than bok choi. It is a little ragged because of the slugs, but not bad. As I walked past the chard, I figured they were big enough to pick a few leaves, maybe for a salad. Then I saw the peas. The snowpeas loved yesterdays weather. It was only in the 60s and wet. A lot of snowpeas were ready to be picked. I figured my first picking would be maybe one or two peas, but I got a whole handful.

Hmm snowpeas and bok choi....and left over chicken from last night. It was time to make Thai greens and chicken for lunch. It was a good excuse to pick a little basil and cilantro too. Ok so my cilantro is not very little. I always pick a huge handful when I harvest. I put it in a mug and cover it with a plastic bag and keep it in the fridge. It keeps very well like that. And I always have fresh cilantro available in the kitchen. My scallions aren't nearly full size yet, but I decided I would rather use a smallish one than a store bought onion.

I brought it all inside to wash up. As I washed, I noticed that some of the leaves of my bok choi still had slugs on them, six to be exact. I glared at them and squished each one. They weren't very big, just tiny 1/4" long slugs, which means they have been multiplying. I've been remiss about trapping them. Maybe tonight I'll put out beer traps for them.

It was nice to have a hot lunch for a change. I've been eating salad non-stop for lunch for about a month due to an inundation with lettuce. I do occasionally eat dinner leftovers, but not much else. This lunch had five things from the garden: bok choi, snowpeas, scallions, basil, and cilantro.

As I was writing this a rose-breasted grosbeak showed up on my branch. I took this fairly crappy photo through the screened window, but at least it is indeed visible in the photo. Most of the time I try to take photos of the birds through the window, they are unrecognizable. It is such a beautiful bird with a heart shaped red splotch. Much nicer than having to look at my slugs.

Cilantro and a Turkey

I usually don’t go into the garden until after breakfast, but I wanted to harvest the lettuce before it heated up for the day. I told myself I would just grab the lettuce and come back in. That didn’t happen. I had to check out the whole garden to make sure nothing nasty was illicitly snacking. Then I noticed some of the cilantro was starting to bolt. Cilantro bolts very quickly. It is really a very strange plant. Instead of one kind of leaf, it switches as it starts to bolt. The early leaves are much like flat leafed parsley, just a little rounder. The later leaves become frilly. You can see in the photo that the leaves in the back are older and the lighter leaves in the front are starting to become frillier. I think cilantro is better before it bolts, though I’ll eat the leaves either way if that is all there is in the garden. Since I have tons and it is useless after it bolts, I quickly IMed some friends and asked them if they wanted some. Since I got a couple of takers, my cilantro will have a good home.

I said cilantro was useless after it bolts, but that isn’t really true. Cilantro is coriander. So I’ll let plenty of the plants bolt and collect some of the seeds. I’ll also leave a lot of the seeds to self sow for next year.

I did get around to thinning out my lettuce and picking the last of the early lettuce. The early lettuce was transplanted into the garden. All the rest of the lettuce is direct sown. I brought it in and decided to look under it to make sure I wasn’t bringing in too many bugs. Ack! A big black spider was hiding underneath. I broke off the leaf he was hiding under and tossed it away. After the shivers went away I washed up the lettuce. My daughter commented that it looked just like the lettuce from the store. Actually it was larger than the ones I usually get there. My lettuce is being very strange. It usually doesn’t grow quite this well. It is kind of nice to have too much lettuce.

I’ve also noticed something else strange in my lettuce patch. When I pick a head of lettuce, I reseed for a later crop. Then the next lettuce is picked and I move some of the newly seeded lettuce that has just come up. It usually doesn’t even have its first true leaves but sometimes it does. The lettuce that was moved seems to be growing faster than the lettuce that wasn’t. Very strange.

Nature’s gift to me today was the wild turkey visiting me outside the garden fence. If he were inside it wouldn’t be much of a gift since I know from my childhood what turkeys can do to a garden. But there he was very close and just ignoring me. Usually I have my dog with me, and the dog loves to chase the turkeys, so I don’t get to see them up close. Today I did.

A Walk in the Woods and Beans

Today I took a walk in the local conservation area. It is a beautiful little woods, only about 200 acres, but with paths wandering all through, a nice pond and a little stream that dries up in the summer. It is as enjoyable seeing what flowers are blooming there as in my garden. Today I was extra thrilled. I not only saw many pink lady slippers (the photo was taken by my husband a few years ago as I always forget to bring a camera when I walk) but the Jack-in-the-Pulpits were also blooming. As a child I thought they were sort of freaky plants and because of that I loved them. I still love them in all their strangeness.

As I was watching the plants I heard a loud bird call. I couldn’t believe that the birds were still there. This year a couple of Red-Bellied Woodpeckers have decided to nest. I’ve never seen them before and they are kind of hard to miss with their distinctive call and mostly red head. At least the one I saw had a mostly red head. I’m assuming it was the male. He would swoop out of his hole in the tree and quickly find food and swoop back. Supposedly they don’t live here. They are a common southeastern bird, not a northeastern bird. Or at least they were.

After my walk it was time to water the garden. We have had less then a quarter of an inch of rain this week and my lettuce is looking limp. The squash are wilting. This is probably the last time I’ll water the whole garden by hand. I’ll bring out the sprinkler next. But right now I have too many things under protection and the sprinklers can’t get to it well. It is amazing how quickly a plant will perk up with a little water. Now the lettuce looks happy and the squash are happier. Though one squash is still a little bit wilty. I hope he is ok.

Yesterday my direct seeded cucumbers finally peeked their heads out. Now the beans are finally showing themselves. I have one yard long out of the soil already and a couple of others just showing their necks. These next couple of days ought to bring all the warm weather seeds out as it is supposed to be in the mid to high seventies (F). Today is absolutely lovely, which is good since I’m off to a barbeque.

Caterpillar Invasion

Last year we were inundated with caterpillars of all kinds. What made it such a good year, I’ll never know, but there were tent caterpillars in all the trees and green ones hanging off the branches. If I took a walk around the neighborhood I would have to pick them off my cloths before going inside. My poor maple trees in my front yard were looking very sickly last year and lost some branches over the winter. They still haven’t quite recovered. I really thought about spraying Bt all over the trees, but didn’t more due to laziness than a conscious decision not to spray.

The advantage of last year’s invasion showed up this year. We have more birds here than ever before. I’ve seen three varieties that I hadn’t seen before. Even my husband noticed that the robins were taking over the backyard. The birds are doing a decent job of eating the caterpillars (note all the caterpillars in the beak of the robin). Not perfect, I still have to occasionally pick a caterpillar off my shirt before going inside. That was until the other day. The caterpillars are definitely getting ahead of the birds. I can tell because my patio is covered in caterpillar crap. I wonder what the NPK rating of caterpillar crap is. I could sweep it up and use it as fertilizer.

Mother’s Day

As I went outside this morning to put out my plants, I was greeted with beautiful birdsong. We have a lot of birds in this area, but usually they aren’t so noisy so late in the day (9:30am). Usually they sing en masse closer to sunrise and just individually until dusk. Then after I had just started writing this post, I looked outside. There was a bird that I had never seen before. It was on a branch right outside of my window; hopping all around the branch looking for insects. The bird was black and white striped with a white throat. It was a very distinctive bird. I looked it up and found it was a female Black and White Warbler. LOL Halfway through writing this yet another bird I don’t usually see showed up on the same branch the other had vacated. This time it was a Yellow-rumped Warbler and boy was he singing. So I guess they were noisy this morning because I have a bunch of warblers in my yard. I think they’ve finally shown up because the caterpillars have hatched. Little green ones are hanging off the trees. I have one tent from the tent caterpillars on the branch right outside my window and a tufted titmouse was happily eating them. Though I’m not really a bird watcher, I do love the birds. It was a nice gift for Mother’s Day.

My daughter is already home from college so is here for Mother’s Day. However my son will probably forget it is Mother’s Day. He is still off at college. I was going to harass him earlier in the week to tell him his responsibility now that he is not around. I don’t need gifts, cards or dinner out, but the phone call is mandatory. This is his first year away so I have to get him trained up for the rest of his life.

I have two mothers in my life, my mom and my MIL. I sent my MIL a basket of plants which is traditional for me (that or flowers). My mother got something else this year. I sent her the Organic Sampler gift from Diamond Organics. She lives in Colorado and is a long time from having really fresh veggies. They ship freshly picked organic produce overnight to your door. Not quite as good as the farmer’s market (since it get shipped via plane), but still fresh and healthy. Happy Mother’s Day to both of you.

BTW sorry no photos of the birds. I think I would have to use my husband’s good camera to get photos of skittish little birds and I'm just not willing to play with the lenses right now. Instead I took a photo of the Lily of the Valley that is blooming in my back yard.