Day: July 4, 2018

Posted in Creatures, Oh noes!

We need a dust bath decoy

Posted on by Lily

I am an idiot.  Of all the things to forget about with gardening, I forgot about sparrows and dust baths (aka sand baths).

If you don’t know about this habit, the crazy almost rolling popping they do in such cases is them trying to fluff their feathers out to get the dust as near to their skin as possible.  The dust on their skin helps act as a deterrent to pests that would live there and annoy and possibly sicken the birds.

So if you see something like that, the bird hasn’t gone mad.  A cluster of them fluffing and flinging doesn’t mean they are a performance group.  It’s just self care. Continue reading “We need a dust bath decoy” →

Updated the Plant Progress yesterday

I updated the 2018 Plantings page.

We’ve had another casualty, but some success as well (one noted by image yesterday).  We also ate our first blueberries and raspberries of the season (red and black).  It was still a bit soon for the blueberries we taste tested.  The strawberries keep getting raided by the critters before we get a chance.  To be fair, we have a lot more raspberry canes than we do fruiting strawberry plants so far.

Status• Posted on by Lily
Posted in Behind the Scenes

Follow up of attending my first Conservation Commission meeting.

Posted on by Lily

As I noted before, I did finally attend a local Conservation Commission meeting, and in doing so found myself volunteering to help share some plants with a homeowner that inadvertently removed plants he didn’t know he shouldn’t because part of his land was in a protected flood zone.  Not a “you’ll flood every year” sort of flood zone, but what’s known here as a Q3 “100 year flood” zone.  You’d think there’d be some law stating sellers of homes should make sure buyers know about that sort of thing…I guess it’s more expected that folks will inform themselves about such.  I remember after I heard about one legendary Gardner flood, and soon found myself well acquainted with the OLIVER map which helped us strike a few homes off our house search possibles. Continue reading “Follow up of attending my first Conservation Commission meeting.” →

Waterworks unturned

A fickle weather report resulted in arid night soil.  Despite the humidity, I know the kitchen garden’s thirst is likely as strong as my desire to grab a flashlight and go outside to fill the can and do what would have been done had I checked again earlier and saw the cloud shift.

How can I expect them to survive, these children I one day hope to eat like Cronos did his own?  I feel as cruel as he, though my planned timeline for their demise is longer than he gave his own.  Yet I have greater fear of even the whiff of the skunks I know wander through at night than I fear for their health and wellbeing.

Hold fast, young plants!  Water will come to you with the dawn.  Forgive this terrible mother, and don’t let one night’s scarcity stem your growing selves.

(Yes, I know my brain heads in odd directions sometimes.  Other times, my thinking seems to take a more even path, too.)