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the garden...last week

Apologies for the garden pic slackage. The squash continue to intimidate all of the other kids in the garden. They don’t play nice, but have proven to be delicious.

We also planted a fig tree in the yard last weekend. And when I say “we” I mean the husband. It was my idea, though.

garden of iniquity

The garden continues to go bezerkers. Though the growth may not seem as impressive as in previous weeks, there are fruits and flowers happening now. I keep hacking away at the squash leaves (front left) so that nearby shishitos and tomatoes can have a chance.

Your money shot:

update from the chaos

Things have gotten a little nutso here in Swiss Family Robinson world. A quick update:

• We now have 3(!) hives of bees. It turns out that the queen wasn’t dead after all. Long live her! Whole story on the bee blog.
• Speaking of, I’m going to get a bee tattoo and need illustration suggestions. Nothing anthropomorphized, please.
• I am spending a ton of time trying to be the cat whisperer and coaxing him out of hiding with stinky fish treats. He wants to be loved - I just know it.
• The dog still smells a little skunky.
• Both of our dads will be in town this weekend.
• Nobody has fucked with the wall, though our neighbors have started passive-aggressively placing their trash cans in front of it.
• And the garden continues to blow up.

the bionic garden

As you can see, the garden is blowing up. (I was just tempted to use a snarky “literally” in there in as in “the garden is literally blowing up like The Hindenberg”, but I was a tiny bit concerned that I might just sound like one of the morons I was mocking. I’ll just be the regular moron that I am).

The husband sprayed the leaves with some kind of plant crack and the garden vigorously responded. We had to have an emergency tomato stake mission yesterday!

Bonus catcam photo below. Isn’t he handsome? Please note the improved camera placement and set decoration. One of the many bonuses of living with a director.

and so it grows

Significant progress in a week, especially from the tomatoes and squash (near left). Go little plants go!

sowing the seeds of lunch

We planted a little garden. It started as a gift to the bees, but I’m pretty excited about it now.

I’m going to take a picture every Sunday so that we can all see it grow (or not). This one is from last Sunday. I will attempt more prompt posting in the future. Blame the owl for my tardiness.

For the record, we are growing:

• Tomatoes
• Japanese Eggplant
• Yellow Squash
• Watermelons
• Soybeans
• Hot Peppers
• and Shishito Peppers, my favorite

For the record, the bees are all confused and queen-less. We’re going to need to capture a rogue swarm, put them in the hive and pretty much start over. Good thing we got that honey when we could.

adventures with wildlife

Apparently, the painting of the animals on our front wall served as a welcome to all of the local beasts.

I guess it really started before that.

We recently decided to adopt a couple of feral cats. They were going to be euthanized at the shelter and our yard is cat paradise. We would just leave out some food for them and that would be that.

Of course we had to get all geeky about it - Russell set up a catcam so we could keep an eye on the cats. They are totally wild and there was no other way to watch them. That is the cat we call “Doctor” above.

I was looking throught the catcam photos from Friday night and saw the creepiest vermin slide show ever. A possum and a skunk ate from the bowls several times that night - once at the same time!

We moved the cat food onto a wall that a skunk could not get to.

The dog nosed me awake at a little after midnight last night and insisted on being let out. I sleepily did so and flipped through a magazine waiting for him to be done.

There was a sound of running and a wail.

I called him and he came running in - blood on his mouth and covered in skunk smell. Great.

Unrelated (I think) - Now we have an owl in our tree and there are hawks and crows going fucking nuts about it. It is a cacophony of bird yelling and the crows are divebombing the owl in small groups.

The owl pegged me with his evil stare just now. It’s madness here! This may be an inside day.

The Talented Mr. Porkfist got some good photos of the owl.

pictures on retaining walls

Wowie! Young Phil Lumbang really outdid himself today.

I hope the neighbors chill out.

the good news bears - philip lumbang

Very excited! I just spoke to Philip Lumbang, who is going to come by and paint the wall in front of our house this weekend. I have a big crush on his polite and sincere bears that have popped up in the neighborhood. Maybe they will be discussing bees and honey?

You can see a video of Philip at work here.

See how polite the bears are?

Thanks to Lucinda Inganni and Orrin for the photos.