Deer Ate A Shrub

Well, OK, that's not all that uncommon.  But it has been for me. 

The very first landscaping I did when I moved in here 27 years ago (new house so no initial landscaping) was plant a few shrubs on the east side of the house.  It was a Korean Dogwood tree with 2 Euonymus shrubs, several Nandina (false bamboo) plants, and some spreading evergreen.

Well, nothing bothered the shrubs in all that time.  Until last week!  But as I walked around that side of the yard (a least-visited side), "something" just looked odd.  It took a few minutes, but I realized all the bottom halves of the Euonymus shrubs looked "wrong".  It hit me suddenly that all the leaves on the bottom half of the 8' high Euonymus shrubs were GONE!  

Well, sometimes it takes a few minutes for the brain to "see" the difference between what it is looking at and what the memory says was there before.  So many possibilities came to mind.  Insect damage?  Not in Winter.  Fungal disease?  Ditto about Winter.  Natural leaf fall?  No, it's an evergreen. 

DEER! 

When I moved into to this newly-built neighborhood, there were deer around.  There was a swamp across the street and deer love wetland edges.  I almost got trampled by 2 panicked deer while I was mowing the lawn my first Fall.  I used to see deerprints in the lawn at first.  That all stopped after a few years as the street filled with new houses.

Last year, I had some hostas eaten for the first time in 15 years.  This Winter, shrubs for the very first time.

And they even left me a "gift"...

THEY'RE BAAAACCCKK...

Snowblowwer Snow That Wouldn't Melt

Well, I intend to write mostly about something else tonight, but I just stumbled across something on the Public Broadcasting System at dinner I really liked.  A show called "Classic Rewind" plays famous classical music set to film (like Disney's Fantasia" was classical music set to animation).  And apparently, it is a regular show but also available as an 8 DVD set of 135 pieces of music.  I plan to get it.  So I just wanted to mention that first.

OK, onward...  Before it gets too late, I wanted to mention a seeming violation of the laws of physics.  Seriously, ice melts in your drink too fast, right?  Well, I had the opposite problem.  I couldn't get snow to melt!

I happened after I FINALLY got to use my 3 year old snowblower for the first time March 5th (See?  This is already 10 days old).  But the point is that I used it, it worked pretty well, and I was done clearing the driveway and sidewalk.  But there was a slight problem.  Toward the end as the snowblower warmed up I suppose) the input area got packed with snow (so it was heavier than the snow on the ground) and the output chute got clogged with slush.  I had cleared it once, but when I was done, I didn't think about it much except to recognize that the snow in the snowblower would melt in the garage, so I placed an old towel under it to wick away the melting packed snow and let it evaporate.  Good plan.

Except the snow packed in the snowblower refused to melt!  The garage was at 40F degrees, so it should have melted.  Three days later, no apparent melt!  It was FIVE DAYS above freezing in the garage before the snow finally started to melt.  It was only 2 days ago that it finally all melted.

I wish I had taken pictures, but I had no reason to think it would be interesting at first, and after a few days I was just fixated on my annoyance that the snow in the blower wouldn't melt!

You can imagine it though.  Sort of like the "snowman who wouyldn't die"!

Warmer Weather

Just a few days ago, it was freezing at best in the day.  And before that, it was bitterly cold some days.  So what should happen the first nice day?

Mosquito bites.

And to make it worse, I got bitten INSIDE THE HOUSE!

Those Asian Tiger Mosquitoes make me reconsider DDT...

Last year, it was so bad I couldn't run out to get my mail without a bite or two.  Today, I opened the deck doors for 5 minutes and I killed 5 of the little suckers and there are at least 2 more around I haven't caught yet.

Topics

You know how sometimes you want to write, but can't think of what to write about?  Me too.  That's why sometimes I go on about something badly and then delete it a day later.

So I sat down a few minutes ago and decided to just scribble out some things going on around me, the house, and the yard.  I hit a dozen immediately!  Some days are like that.

1.  Frogs
2.  Mosquitoes
3.  Crocuses
4.  Deer Ate Shrub
5.  Car Battery
6.  Snowblower Snow Wouldn't Melt
7.  Enclosed Garden
8.  Tomato Grafting
9.  Dad
10. Smoking/Not Smoking
11. Covered Plant Rack
12. Wine

So, how about "frogs"?  Now, I generally LIKE frogs.  None of them around here are poisonous, they eat mostly bad insects, they are impressively weird, and they mostly don't bother me.


Except Spring Peepers.  For a month each year around now, they all start a "chirping contest".  And since there are wetlands across the street (used to be a full-fledged swamp) they are a biblical multitude!  10,000 chirping Spring Peepers can be distracting.  The chirps are of a sound frequency that comes right through windows and walls.  Well, no wonder at THAT, they evolved their sound to penetrate woodsy swamps. 



I can live with that; there are so many of them that the sound is constant.  Its the 5 or so of them that find my small 4'x6' lily pond that drive me NUTS!  The pond is only 20' from my bedroom window, and with only a few of them, the chirping comes and goes.  I can't sleep when they chirp randomly.

It was so bad when I worked, that I would sometimes have to go out at night, find the little devils with a flashlight, and stomp on them just to get some sleep.  And its not like I didn't try passive frog-friendly ideas first.  I put acoustical ceiling tiles covering the inside of my bedroom window.  It didn't work!  Well, it helped some, but not enough.

Even after retirement, when I can sleep later to make up for the disturbance, it is still aggravating.  The past 5 years, I have covered the pond with loose-woven garden cloth.  That works.  If they can't get to the water, they can't mate, so they don't chirp.

I usually notice them first as I go to bed and it is really too late to do the covering thing that night.  But this year, today, I caught them in the act.  It was suddenly very warm today (75F at 4 PM), s I had some windows open.  It was nice and quiet. 

Until...  At precisely 5:30 PM, I heard a chirp in the wetland.  And 2 seconds later, I heard 10,000!!!  They ALL started immediately when the very first one did.  I was astonished.  At least I have tomorrow to cover the pond.  The pond doesn't seem to warm up as fast as the open wetland do, so there is a lag.

Tomorrow, I will take out the garden cloth and cover the pond and ruin the mating possibilities of the several Spring Peepers who chose my pond as their "Dream Seduction Site".  Well, they are either the dumbest Spring Peepers and deserve not to mate, or they are the smartest Spring Peepers (choosing a less-competitive location) and just had the bad luck to annoy ME!  Either way, I doubt I am affecting the long-term survival of Spring Peepers...

And if I am?  Well, MY sleep comes first.  Being Top Of The Food Chain has its benefits.

Topics 2-12 to come later, maybe in no particular order, and interrupted by new topics as they come to mind.

Language Pet Peeve

I learned language early.  My Godmother/Aunt worked on the big 1976  Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Mom was a dedicated teacher of her children (and as eldest child I got the full attention).  I could read before my fellow 1st-graders knew the alphabet, and I had a library card at 6.  By 12, I had read all the "young adult" books in the local library and was allowed to read the "adult" stuff (with adult pre-approval).  I even use semi-colons; who does THAT anymore?  ;)  I had a boss who actually removed a comma from one of the letters I wrote.  I (and a co-worker) were so surprised we did research in the Government Style Manual about it (turned out he was right) and I don't think I have ever put a comma in front of a dependent clause since.  So I should be a language snob, right?  Nah...  I am WAY more relaxed about it all these days.

I got over that fast in college and in my first job.  I can read bad documents and even tweets without cringing.  Everyone has different things that come easy.

But I have a peeve.  I noticed it a few years ago.  The first examples were rare and I considered them editing slips.  But I heard President Obama make the same error in a speech recently, and I consider him to be a really careful writer/speaker.

It's "4 times less" (or 3 or 2 or any number).  How can anything be "4 times less" than the whole?  If a sector of the economy is 10 billion dollars, what is 4 times less than that?  The whole of a number is "one times".  Well, what is 1 times 10 billion dollars?  It's 10 billion.  So 1 times less than 10 billion (10 billion minus 10 billion) is zero.

So what is "4 times less" than 10 billion?  -30 billion (10 billion minus 40 billion, or even -40 billion if you look it it in a certain way).  Well, money can be negative numbers.  But what is "4 times less" of a 10 pole?  Have you ever seen a minus 30" pole?

I cringe every time I hear the phrase "X times less than".  Yes, I know what they mean; "4 times less than" means 1/4.  But it just raises all the hackles of my brain (metaphorically speaking) every time I hear that phraseology!

More Snow

I was caught off-guard Sunday to hear we were getting more snow the next day.  I really thought we were done with that here, and I hadn't paid attention to the forecast.  Then Sunday night, I saw that we were dead center in the storm-track and could expect to get 6-10"!

And sure enough, Monday morning it was snowing.  Not hard but steadily.  Worse, it had started as freezing rain, so we had a nice later of ice down first.  YUCK!

Well, at least it meant I would get a chance to use the snowblower.  You may recall that after the previous 8" snowstorm (which ended in the morning) I awoke to find that someone had snow-blowed my driveway for me.  I thought I knew who had.  I sure appreciated the neighborly gesture, but I was disappointed to not get to use mine for the first time after having it sit around for 3 years.  At least I did start it up and widen the driveway clearing by one pass on each side (and mostly hoping that the helpful neighbor would notice that I had a snowblower).

But while it was still snowing in the early afternoon Monday, I heard the likely good neighbor snowblowing his driveway, then a neighbor's, then another neighbor's, so I watched carefully.  Seriously, I wanted to use mine, but I was going to wait at least until it stopped snowing!

As soon as he came to the foot of my driveway, I ran down to the garage, pulled my snowblower to the garage door and opened it.  When he looked up, I smiled broadly and pointed to MY machine with a big "Ta-Da" gesture.  He laughed and came up to the garage and we talked for a while.  He admired my snowblower (and it is a good one - I did some careful research before choosing it). 

I thanked him very much for doing my driveway previously, of course.  He completely understood I was anxious to use my own for the first time.  We talked for a while.  Which was good, because I don't talk to my neighbors all that often.  It's not that I'm unfriendly, its more that I spend most of my time outside in the fenced backyard.  And I'm not good at standing around out by the street just "hanging out".  I'm more the "you need help, just knock on the door" kind of neighbor. 

It turns out he does things like snowblow neighbors' driveways because he's bored all the time.  As he said "I watch TV, fall asleep, wake up, watch TV, fall asleep".  Which may explain why he has so many "toys".  He has 2 cars, a boat, an ATV, a jet-ski, and probably other mechanical stuff I haven't seen.  In the Winter, he's trapped inside! 

While we were talking, another helpful neighbor came by (with a snow plow blade on an ATV) and decided I needed the snow at the end of the driveway shoved to the sides before I could say anything.  What had been light powdery snow became a 2' high block of ice...  We both waved at him so he came up and we all talked more for a while.

Well, they were both wearing heavy Winter coats and I was out there in my shirtsleeves, so eventually I had to admit I was freezing AND needed to get back to my lunch (if the cats hadn't already eaten it).  They both laughed and went along their helpful way.  It was nice to talk to them both though.

Later, just before dark, the snow stopped so I went out and used my snowblower for the first real time.  Wow, those things are great!  I have to admit that it was actually fun.  It really threw the snow well off onto the lawn, and with powered wheels, going back up the sloped driveway was a breeze.  6 passes and I was done.  But it is SO COLD that even in my garage, the snow packed around the augers in the front hasn't melted yet.

But funny story:  The snow surface all around my driveway is now MUDDY!  You see, my asphalt driveway is 27 years old and I've never been one to re-coat the driveway every few years (if things are functional, I don't bother with them much).  So grass as grown up through it in places.  I didn't realize that the growing grass was creating humps of soil on the top.  Things that happen very gradually escape notice.  So when I went along the driveway with the snowblower, it cheerfully scraped the humps of grassy soil right along with the snow.

For right now, I would be glad not to have enough more snow to need the snowblower again this season!

Gardening 2

Well, it was my favorite weekend of the years last weekend.  Its the day I start seeds of some of my favorite crops.  8 weeks before average last frost day...

It was TOMATO DAY!  And bell pepper, broccoli, cabbage, radicchio, celery, and "some other stuff" day.

I love fresh heirloom tomatoes above all individual foods.  Right from vine to mouth, sides on the dinnerplate, in salads, as snacks.

But the last few years, my heirloom tomatoes have not produced well (even for heirloom tomatoes) in spite of good care.  So when I read about grafting heirloom tomato stalks on disease-resistant hybrid roots, I got interested.  Well, almost all grapes grown for wine are grafted on disease-resistant roots, s why not tomatoes?

I planted 2x my normal number of heirlooms (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Prudens Purple, Aunt Gertie's Gold, and Striped German) and as many of the hybrid Big Beef to use as hybrid roots (plus 4 to grow for themselves as backups).

The idea is that you cut the tops off the heirlooms and the hybrids and attach the heirloom tops to the hybrid roots.  I bought small silicon clips to hold the 2 together.  It may be tricky to do (I have shakey hands from teenage DDT exposure), but I will give it my best try.  And I've planted enough of the heirlooms so that, if the grafts fail, I will have enough regular heirloom plants for the garden.

I will take LOTS of pictures so that I can look back on the points of success or failure.

There is good news on the previous weekend flower plantings.  There are SEEDLINGS showing!  That is encouraging, because the seed packets said "germination in 7-21 days" and I'm seeing some at 7 days.

I bought a mini greenhouse today.  And I mean "mini-mini".  Its a steel frame with metal mesh shelves and a vinyl cover with zippers that allow you to adjust how closed/open the cover is.  Its for hardening off plants outside before permanent planting, a transition I have always had difficulties with.  It's kind of simplistic, but at $30, worth a try.  I found it at Lowes.

The other gandenng project I keep working on is an enclosed garden surrounded by chicken wire to keep the squirrels from tearing up the seedlings and eating the ripe veggies. I made a fast and crude attempt last year and it "sort of worked".  But not well enough and it was a real effort to harvest anything through the barriers.

I looked up "enclosed gardens", and found a decent design.  But it was small and had flaws.  I've been thinking of improvements.  Thinking of improvements even in my dreams at night...

I think I have something easier to construct, easier to build larger, and sturdier.  I won't give out all the details right now (they are changing daily), but basically, its a 20'x20' grid of 1/2" metal pipe built of 10' pipes and connectors, covered all around with chicken wire and chicken wire extended out from the bottom at ground level about 3' to discourage animals from tunneling under.

I'll show pictures when I settle on the design.

I will have a busy early Spring to deconstruct my existing framed beds in early April (falling apart after 25 years) before the planting season starts in late April.  But it is either then or not and I want to have a garden free of the evil squirrels.

Niece Wedding

My sister's oldest daughter got married Saturday.  The wedding was in a fancy old victorian house.  I'm told the food was great (I didn't attend - too long a drive, a late ceremony so an overnight stay at a motel was required, etc).

The bride was beautiful. 

The couple was thrilled.

So they left the ceremony to go on their honeymoon to the Dominican Republic.  At the bottom of the stairs outside, Danielle stepped on a very small patch of ice and fell.  She fractured her fibula!  What a sad way to end a wedding...

Goodbye Dominican Republic honeymoon!!!  She will have a cast on that leg for 3 months.

I plan to send her a card with an letter enclosed.  Finding a card may be a challenge.  How many "Sorry you were injured on your wedding day" cards do you suppose are available?  I may have to make one myself.  But my newly updated Photoshop Elements is baffling me at the moment.

So you have a couple days to leave sympathy comments that I can include...  Personally, I am going for the light-hearted ("How many brides does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  Depends on how awkward the cast is" and I have a good famous one I can adapt rather weirdly to a bride in a cast (no dirty thoughts allowed).  OK, OK, I'll work on better punch lines.  And feel free to suggest some.

Cleaning

Last week, I became obsessed with cleaning the garage and basement.  Now, I'm not saying that you would look at either place and go "Oh Wow"!  That's because you wouldn't have seen how bad they were before I cleaned.  Seriously, all cleaning is relative.  Your cleaning compared to your mom.  your mpm's cleaning compared to HER mom.  Your floors compared to a new developement model home compared to a hospital operating room compared to a science lab.  There is always something cleaner than you.

So my point is that I am WAY cleaner in the basement and garage than I was last week.  And in some cases, maybe for 25 years.  I used my shop vac BEHIND the water heater and I think that is the first time EVER!

Hey, I've been a bit clutterred since I moved in in 1986.

[Funny story:  The first thing I did when I moved in was nail the metal pan that held the fruit my sister sent me as a house-warming gift onto a basement frame board.  It's still there]

But anyway, I went into cleaning mode.  I spent 4 hours  moving stuff around so I could vacuum.  I brought stuff to the trash can, I brought stuff to the recycle bin, I brought stuff to a box of hazardess materials.  I folded up yards of that brown paper they use for shipping (great weed-reduction stuff between plants), I collected odds and ends of board scraps and piles of sawdust in buckets for future fires, I sorted out all the various odds and ends on the top of my workbench, etc, etc, etc.

My basement space in increased by a 1/3 and that's a lot if you think about it, and my next effort will make equal gains.  For example, 5 years ago, I bought an oval maple table at the Salvation Army store that needed "only" some sanding and refinishing.  If I don't actually do that work THIS YEAR, I'm giving it back to them.  And I have other projects too.  The attic needs plywood flooring so that I can fill it with sturdy boxes for when I more "someday".

I want to allow for fires in the fireplace too, finding space to move the fancy tablesaw out of the way of the fireplace heat.  And I need more space for woodworking tools and less for boxes of newspapers kept for years do be mulch in the compost pile I have yet to build.

I will solve one problem in the basement each week, and finish one good project in the upstairs twice a week!

First Seeds Of The New Gardening Season

I am glad to say the new gardening season is underway.  Well, I suppose you could say it started when I ordered new seeds, but it doesn't really count until a seed meets dirt!  I started on Sunday.

Does it seem a bit early?  Yes.  But many annual flowers can be planted indoors 10-12 weeks before the average last frost because they are slow to germinate (7-21 days) and grow slowly at first.  And in fact, Sunday was 9 weeks before average last frost, so I am late.  So I planted impatiens, salvia, dusty miller, butterfly weed, forget-me-not, and wave petunia.  I also planted a dozen leeks, so the veggies are started too.

I love the lighting stand I made from a storage shelf.  It originally had five 2'x4' thin plastic-coated wood shelves on a steel frame.  I added 1/2" plywood under the top 4 shelves and attached 4' fluorescent fixtures under each plywood shelf (4 tubes per shelf).  I can fit four 11"x22" planting trays on each shelf if I want, but I start the trays 2 to a shelf lengthwise to get the maximum light at the start.

It felt SO GOOD to get into the potting soil and fill the cell-packs, read the planting requirements for each seed, and PLANT THEM!  The earliest seeds to plant are usually the trickiest.  Those are the ones that are tiny, need light to germinate, and are fussy about moisture.  

Things will  be more traditional this next weekend.  -8 weeks before last average frost is the time to start the major veggies.  Tomatoes, bell peppers, broccoli, lettuces, will get planted.  The tomatoes are always my favorites.

I'm trying something new with the tomatoes this year.  In past years, I've grown mostly heirlooms (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Prudens Purple, Aunt Gertie's Gold, and Tennessee Britches) with a couple hybrids like Big Beef for backup if the heirlooms do poorly.  Over the Winter, I read about tomato-grafting.  It's just like grafting grapevines; you put a good fruiting top on a healthier rootstock.

With the tomatoes, you put an heirloom top on a hybrid root. 


The plants are more productive because the hybrid rootstock is larger, and the plants avoid many soilborne diseases because the hybrid rootstocks are resistant to them.  I've seen comparison pictures of heirlooms alone grown along side of grafted heirlooms and the apparent production differences are impressive.  And I mean pictures from agricultural sites, not scammy commercial advertisements.

You can buy the grafted plants from catalogs at high prices, but I am going to try doing the grafting myself.  I bought some small soft clips designed for attaching the heirloom tops to the hybrid roots.  I just hope I'm adept enough for the effort.  I don't have the steadiest of hands (DDT exposure in my youth), so my efforts may not work out.

That's why I will have 2 full sets of tomato seedlings!  One set will be let to develop naturally, as if there was no grafting intended.  The other set will be for the grafting experiment.  I usually plant 2-3 of each type of tomato outside but start 6 seedlings inside of each type anyway, so I don't even have to plant more than usual.

If this works I may be the happiest gardener in the county (just guessing I'm the only person trying to graft tomato seedlings in the county the first time this year).