Pheasant Under Grass

September seems to have thankfully brought back Summer. It has been lovely and warm - not hot - but in the 70F. range for the most part, and the garden is taking advantage of it.

This morning, and all last night, was windy. The infamous "Gale Force Winds on the Straits of Juan de Fuca" blowing like mad. This afternoon is what I would refer to as "breezy" but not "windy". There were lots of windfall apples on the ground this morning when we struggled in the wind to tie up the beach mats and shower curtain on the boat. As I tried to deactivate a doggy mine, using my doggy mine deactivation tools of course, it blew up...all over my hand. GAK! I am not a squeamish person, but doggy mines on my hand...eeeeewwwwwww! Needless to say, I dropped everything and ran - ok, for you purists, I hobbled quickly - to wash my hands!

Richard left to begin work at noon, and I reminded him to pick me up a case of tiny 125ml jelly jars. I found recipes and instructions online, at Not Martha's Blog, for making "tiny pies", that is, making and freezing or baking miniature fruit pies in the tiny jars and I just HAVE to try it. Last night I let my mind roam, free associating to see what other recipes for tiny items baked in a tiny jar to try, and came up with several: mini deep dish pizza - a suggestion from someone online - scones, focaccia, tiny cinnamon pull-aparts, mini cheesecake, Brioche, Christmas cake, fruit crisp, tiny cinnamon rolls, yeast buns. But I need the tiny jars. Yes, I had several boxes of them. No, I can't find them anywhere. Yes I am fixated on this.

In the afternoon, the kids and I wandered back out in the sunshine to the garden yard, where I did some more watering and they did doggy things: sniffed out bugs, rolled in things I don't want to know, lazed in the warm sunshine. Once I heard a strange noise coming from behind the house. The dogs looked that way, then went back to their sun tanning. I didn't get concerned, but I did tiptoe to the fence and try to see what made the noise, a kind of cracking, like maybe a tree branch broke. Hmmmmm. Maybe we should go inside.

Inside, I read the news online, sort digital photo files to take to Walmart for prints to send to Mom and Dad, drink an ice tea. A few times I peripherally take note of the cry and wing beating of a Ring Necked Pheasant in the yard, something I haven't heard since last spring.

As I walk into the laundry room, I see movement outside the window blind. It is the pheasant! And he sees me. I turn quickly, going to get my camera. Pheasants are wily creatures and I was unsuccessful in the spring trying to photograph him. Maybe this time...

...through a mini blind, and the dirty window behind it, half way down the photo, in the middle, there, right there, there he is. Not a Pulitzer Prize winner, but I did manage to get him, sort of. I preset my camera, zoomed the lens in a bit, slithered into the room around to the right, sneaking up like a Ninja, pointed the camera, set the focus and snapped. Twice. He ducked down, then scurried through the tall grass. Sigh. Better luck next time.

Hah, not bloody likely.

After dinner the dogs alert to something in the yard. A Cute Little Island Black Bear? A Cute Little Island Mule Deer? A Mole Person? Nope, just a cat. A black and white one we call Sylvester, who hangs around the farm, hunting in the fields and fishing in the creek. Time to take them out to the garden yard and put the boat to bed.

As I go, I deactivate more doggy mines, but this time, I am smart. I wear plastic gloves, just in a case a doggy mine blows up again.

Back inside there is an e-mail from Kelly. He asks: "Hows the great spider hunt going? I can see one of the dead spiders kids coming after you, ala the Mandy Patinkin character in Princess Bride, saying: my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die!"

Gee, thanks Kelly. Like I needed THAT visual in my brain!

Muttering Crows & Rosie's Nose

Another gorgeous Valley morning and we wander again to the garden. As I roll up the beach mats and the shower curtain on the boat, I hear them coming...the Muttering Murder of Crows. They do like to sit and watch me work in the yard. I cannot tell them apart, but they have distinctive personalities. One is a real clown. Today there is a lot of noise out by the bridge beside our gate. Mason, my Bichon boy, finds it all quite annoying and he lets the world at large know this by barking his opinions.

I move about the garden yard picking up windfall apples and Pippi wanders with me, nosing about, checking out bugs and things that move. The other girls are sunbathing and sniffing the gentle breeze. In the background there are crow mutterings and then...something else. It sounds like a dog barking. A dog barking up in the cherry tree behind the house. Hmmmmm. I had a dog once who climbed trees. Had to watch Annie like a hawk or she would be 25 feet up as fast as you could blink. But I knew none of the Bichon's were climbers.

Orienting on the Wild Cherry tree, I see the culprit. One of the Muttering Murder of Crows has taken up a new vocation - that of dog mimic. Mason barks, and the crow barks, only it comes out more of a "mark, mark, mark". He hasn't mastered that "b" in bark that canines have. I snicker and shake my head at his cleverness. Time for a cappuccino.

Today is Bente's Anniversary and I have decided to go to Naesgaards and purchase a big bag of fresh, green, garden peas for her as a present. Now that may sound like an odd present, but it is one I know she will love, being a green-garden-pea addict like she is. I meet her at Quality Foods to give her her gift and she giggles with delight, immediately diving in and eating two peas. I am pleased that she is pleased.

I grill steaks to perfection - rare - for our dinner tonight and cook potatoes and corn. I made the mistake of using a purchased grill rub instead of making my own and the purchased rub doesn't agree with me. Soon I am sitting on the bed and watching television, attempting to digest dinner.

Richard is thumping about upstairs, moving things, who knows what, but it annoys the dogs and they periodically run hooting and barking out to the kitchen letting him know how they feel about the noise. This goes on a few times, and each time I try and shush them and each time I am unsuccessful. Sigh. Finally at 10:30pm I can't take it anymore. This time there is whining, barking and growling as well as a soft thump, so it is time to investigate.

Rounding the corner I notice that the gate is on the floor, Pippi is trapped in the kitchen and there are 4 Bichons gathered in a circle around Rosie. And there is something dark, and hairy on the floor at Rosie's feet. I swiftly cross the floor. Rosie just as swiftly grabs the dark and hairy thingy in her mouth. I even more swiftly grab Rosie by the scruff of the neck and hoist her up before she swallows whatever that dark and hairy thing is. Rushing to the kitchen I holler up the stairs to Richard that I really need help and he comes to my aid.

"Rosie has something in her mouth and I need you to get it out before she swallows it" I holler. Out of the corner of my eye I see something dangling from the corner of her mouth. "And please tell me that isn't a...

"...mouse!" Richard replies as he pries her jaws open and removes the vile, disgusting, well-chewed and very dead little mouse.

"Awwwgggghhhhh!" I reply.

The mousie remains are quickly dispatched into the bushes and an extremely annoyed Rosie rushes around the kitchen looking for more mice. Where she found it is not a mystery. The gate on the floor answers that question - Rosie, and the others, must have chased it behind the gate where it leans against the wall. When Rosie nosed it out behind the gate, the gate fell, and she grabbed it. Where the mouse came from remains a mystery, although I have a habit of leaving the back patio door open through out the day when I am home, an inviting portal for tiny mice.

Time for bed, my stomach has had enough today, and Rosie has a new moniker: Rosie Mousie Killer. She loves it.

I'd rather she kept her kills outside.

I am glad she got the mouse before it got into my room though.

Hmmmm. Wonder if that mouse was an advance scout for the Mole People.

CSI: Attack of the Mole People, continued

Mid-afternoon, I walk out into the garden yard to stroll around and see what flowers might need dead-heading, what plants might need watering. Of course the first place I go to is the pea and bean patch. I brace myself.

The hole to the right of the McKenzie Sugar Snap Peas box is bigger. Much BIGGER. I scrunch my eyes up. Then slowly let them wander over to the left, where the chewed up pea seeds are...GONE! A growl issues from my throat. War and Peas indeed!! En Garde whatever-pea-seed-eating-creature you are...I am throwing down my garden glove gauntlet. I will have peas from the garden this year. I will not let any cute little Island Buck Mule Deer nor any seed eating Mole People defeat me!!!

Rocks. I need rocks to fill in the hole. Under the old Golden Delicious apple tree beside me, the one with the beautiful rambling pale pink rose climbing to the top, I find just what I am looking for. Take that Mole People!

Time to regroup. Time for a glass of iced-tea.

Now it's 8pm. I go out directly to the pea and bean patch to see if my rocks have worked. The Mole People have returned. Their hole has been excavated larger and the rocks I put in there, all 5 of them, have been pulled down into their subterranean lair. I will NOT be defeated.

I remember from my study of herbs, that Mint is supposed to be a deterrent to mice and I wonder if it will work for all rodents. I hurry to my Mint pots and harvest large stocks of it. These I place directly over the row of peas and beans and even stick some down in the hole. But what can I plug the hole with?

I settle on red clay pots, placing two of them, one inside the other, over the hole. Surely those are too heavy for the Mole People to cast aside and escape above ground to harvest my pea and bean seeds again. It's been a long day. I will check one more time, at 9:30pm, when I go out to unfurl the beach mats over the patch. Those pots had better still be there.

It's 9:30pm and I go out to the pea patch, sigh, again. My feet are dragging because I don't know what I will find. At first glance, the red clay pots are still in place. I begin to lower the beach mats - there are four of them - and I work from right to left. I have 3 mats down and fastened and am lowering the fourth, when my eyes catch up to my brain...

This morning I had shoved a garden hand trowel into the hole on the left end of the pea patch until I could find something better to put in it. It sort of slipped my mind as I was fighting the Mole People over the hole in the middle of the patch. What my brain saw, and my eyes took a bit longer to see, was that the hand trowel WAS GONE!

Now the Mole People not only have 5 rocks in their lair, but they also have my garden trowel. Um, uh oh.

I wonder how hard it is to make plaster casts of tiny rodent footprints? Or collect rodent DNA or samples of rodent hair for comparison?

Whaaat?

Well it's what Grissom and the CSI guys would do!

War and Peas

I am a gardener. Today I planted two kinds of peas: Laxton's Progress and an edible podded Sugar Snap Peas. I planted them in a narrow patch of earth measuring 12 feet long by 20 inches wide in the garden yard, up against a shed. Good shelter, southern exposure and when the sun hits it, lots of warmth. Way back in May, Richard had stapled stucco wire to the shed for me. First it was too cold to plant anything, and then we did the Garden Boat, so nothing got planted in that narrow strip of earth. Until now...

Today I planted the peas right smack up against that shed where they can climb the wire and give me pails and pails of crisp green peas. Pardon me? What's that? I am being a tad optimistic, you say? It's the middle of July, you say? Yes...so?

I live in a valley. Not just any valley but the Alberni Valley. On an Island in the Pacific. And not just any Island, but VANCOUVER ISLAND. Our weather patterns here are, well, different. We have microclimates. Wikipedia defines a microclimate as: a geographical zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square feet (for example a garden bed) or as large as many square miles (for example a valley). And in my microclimate garden bed, in the valley, I planted peas; and 2 Patio tomato plants, 1 Roma tomato plant, 5 Celebrity Tomato plants, 2 Sage herb plants & one Thyme plant.

I know peas like it a bit cooler, so by planting the tomatoes, sage and thyme in front of them, I reason, they will have some shade on their toes and will keep growing. The tomatoes, sage and thyme will get lots of sun, which they love. In a microclimate like the garden yard, you can grow two crops a year. It's just that no one I know of ever does and the cute little Island Mule Deer ate most of the pea crop in my Garden Boat and I really, really wanted some home grown garden peas this year and no cute little Island Mule Deer, or cute little Island Bush Bunny, is going to stop me from my goal!

I planted the peas really thick. I mean REALLY THICK. My dad always planted his peas that way. Soak the peas overnight in water. Then chicken wire strung along the row, peas planted on either side of the wire and just as thick as you can. Not spaced out one or two pea seeds every few inches...oh no. Just as thick as you can along both sides of the wire. Lots of fertilizer. He harvested 5 gallon pail after 5 gallon pail of peas by growing them vertically. It's what I did in the garden boat and what I did by the shed.

In the photo at the top of the page, the Laxton's Progress is on the left up against the wall and the Sugar Snap peas are on the right...maybe. You see a wind came up and blew the empty seed packets around so they became mixed up and I am not entirely sure I have them right, sigh. I will have to wait until the plants produce pods to know for sure.

Oh and did I mention the Marigolds? I have all these Marigold seeds I saved from last year. I planted a big swath of them between the peas in the garden boat and they grew like crazy! Just broadcast the seeds heavily, watered them well, covered with a thin layer of potting soil, watered again and they are now 3 to 4 inches high and loaded with buds. That is my plan for the rest of the open space in that micro garden.

Now if I can just find another open space to put the cucumber, zucchini and acorn squash plants I bought. Hmmmmmm. Say, Richard, what about over there in the corner where the shed and the house meet? What do you mean you don't think so??!!!

Like a Deer in the Yardlights

I don't eat wild game of any kind. I am not a hunter. My father used to hunt game for food. My husband was a hunter in his youth, to put meat on his family's dinner table. I don't eat wild game; just never could get past the childhood trauma of Bambi. There are lots of others out there like me. You know who you are.

Last night before closing up the garden gate, I seriously considered lowering the shower curtains attached to the bunk bed frame in the garden boat just in case some creature decided to visit. "Naw", I told myself "you'll just have to get up at 6am to put the curtains back up so you don't fry your garden in the heat." I am NOT an early morning person. "Besides, it's too early in the life of your garden to be worried yet, no peas, no tomatoes to eat".

If you have seen the photo's of my garden boat, you know that since the heat arrived here in the Valley July 1st, my garden has exploded. It is lush and green and vibrant with life. Roses blooming, squash blossoms, startlingly orange Calendulas, Geraniums just getting ready to burst into brilliant reds, yellow tomato blossoms everywhere, and, oh look there, the peas are starting to bloom!!!

My best friend Bente is a Dane. She loves green peas in the pod fresh from the vine. Each time she visits, we walk out to the garden boat and she checks the progress of the pea plants. "If you come out here someday, and your peas are missing, don't look at me" she jokes. We oooh and aaaw over how well the garden is doing, dream longingly of the day we can walk out and pick tomatoes and peas. How can I tell her.....

Before breakfast today, I made my morning pilgrimage to the garden boat. On the way, I looked at all my plants-in-pots that I have placed along the inside of the fence. The cute little Island Mule Deer made such a feast of my potted plants outside the fence last year that I moved them all inside the yard. There is probably about 75 to 100 large black florist pots with various veggies, herbs and flowers. As I passed by my pretty and highly scented pink rose-in-a-pot, I blinked. Twice. All the leaves, flowers and flower buds but one were gone. Hmmmmm. Well, it was right up against the fence, and the openings in the fence are roughly 3" x 6". I suppose a cute little Island Mule Deer muzzle could reach through but....hmmmmm.

I moved on down the line. Several pots away another rose, this one a fragrant, creamy white with the faintest hint of pink at the edge, was missing it's 3 blossoms. HMMMMMM! Now I am afraid to look. Afraid to turn and face my garden boat. I had seen from the gate that things in the boat looked normal, but up close? And personal? Oh, deer!

Did I mention that last year the cute little Island Mule Deer ate a lot of my plants-in-pots that were outside the fence? Or that one of their absolute favorite things was my Scarlet Runner Beans growing up the outside of that fence? And didn't I mention before how much they thoroughly enjoyed Richard's Soup Bean Mix Garden? How they munched it down to dust? Sigh...

So here is the GoodNews/BadNews part. The GoodNews is they didn't eat all the tomatoes. Nor all the flowers or herbs or onions. Missed the zucchini, the corn, the cucumber, the parsley, the chives, the marigolds...well you get the picture. The BadNews part: they picked those Scarlet Runner beans clean down to the stems. Nibbled on the tomatoes, LOVED THE PEAS, tried an onion or two, enjoyed the jalapeno peppers, munched up the soup mix beans and ate the geraniums in the bow of the boat down to almost nothing! Oh there are still about half the pea vines growing, in the middle of the boat where he - I know it was that cute little Island Buck Mule Deer who has been hanging around - couldn't quite reach...yet.

So after Richard gets home from work today, we are extending the fence upwards, then hanging old cd's from this extension as a deterrant (Can't you just picture the deer in the dark: "oh look, a Garth Brooks CD! I love Garth Brooks! And an old copy of Greeting Card Maker. Now you can make your mom a card.") Well, one of the gardening sites online swears that hanging cd's will keep them out of the yard.

Richard says that buck is going to look really nice in our freezer this fall. I don't think so. I don't eat wild game. I am not a hunter. Still, I have to be honest here...I think I am getting over my Bambi trauma. And how am I going to tell Bente about the peas?

We're talkin' ship here!

It's summer here in the Valley...finally. I'm a gardener. That is, I love to watch things grow. It has always amazed me that from such tiny seeds, something will grow so tall - like corn or a tomato plant. I love to do other things too, like create my own recipes for baking and cooking, untangle the mystery that is a computer, read. But right now, I AM A GARDENER.

As many people do, we have a problem with deer - those cute little Island Mule Deer. And rabbits - those cute little Island Bush Bunnies. They live to eat your garden, if you let them, so I spend half my time thinking up ways to defeat them. This year, I think I have done it...at least so far. It all started with a boat.

Not just any boat, mind you, but a boat that sat upside down in the yard for about 17 years. It is about 16 feet long by 6 feet across at it's widest point. And it has become MY GARDEN. My Ultimate Raised Bed Garden. My plant-everything-you-can-think-of-in-it-and-see-what-grows Ultimate Raised Bed Garden.

Now please understand, we live on 160+ acres of land, of which we have about 20 acres for our own use. Every spring a neighbor comes down with his tractor and plows up our garden spot south of the house. Every spring my husband, Richard, goes out and plants his "18 Bean Soup Mix" Garden. And every spring, after the 18 Beans from the Soup Mix are growing thick and lush, the cute little Island Mule Deer, and the cute little Island Bush Bunnies, eat his Soup Mix garden down to the dirt. Yes, you're right, he DOES have a short memory. But I digress...

The Boat. My husband got it in a long-forgotten trade years ago and as I said, it sat upside down in the yard surrounded by weeds. Until this spring. That's when I got an idea to use is as The Ultimate Raised Bed. Using the tractor, Richard dragged it into the fenced yard on the east side of the house, under the King apple tree, facing Mount Arrowsmith and the morning sun. Then, after he filled with dirt, and some well rotted cow poop, I set out to create my masterpiece.

My goal was to plant as much as possible in that space, and plant it I did: several Heritage Tomatoes, yellow Corn, Alaska Peas, red and white Onions, a Bush Cucumber, Eggplant, some beans I picked out of Richard's Soup Mix, Scarlet Runner Beans, Jalapeno Peppers, a watermelon, good old green Zucchini, Chives, Lemon Thyme, Orange Thyme, Purple Sage, mixed Sweet Peas, pink Lavatera, a sweet scented yellow-orange miniature Rose, pink & purple double Petunias, bright red Geraniums, fragrant Pineapple Sage, blue Beebalm, Summer Savory, Feverfew, Gladiolus, tiny white Snowland Chrysanthemum, bright yellow Osteospermum, orange Calendula, bronze Marigolds, white Echinacea, yellow Agyranthemum...and nothing grew, nothing moved, for weeks.

Spring, which usually arrives here on the Island at the end of February or beginning of March, never did arrive. I planted my garden - finally - at the end of May and it suffered through cold, wet, nasty weather until the end of June. It languished, and so did I, sigh.

Then summer arrived with a vengence. My garden woke up and started to flourish. Tomatoes that never grew a half inch suddenly were growing inches. I had given up on my scarlet runner beans germinating and one day they were a foot tall! My Lincoln peas didn't germinate - and peas like it cold. My Alaska peas grew like crazy. Wow! Vitamin D really does work! Suddenly everything in the yard is lush, and vibrant.

But back to those cute little Island Mule Deer and those cute little Island Bush Bunnies. I think because my Boat Garden is 3 feet tall, that it is safe, relatively speaking, from the bunnies. And I think it's safe from the deer. The fence is 3.5 to 4 feet tall. But....deer can jump 7 feet - straight up and over. So, we have this metal bunkbed frame that Richard put in the boat, over top of the peas and tomatoes. And I have attached plastic shower curtains to it, to act as a deterrent in the unlikely event...ok, in the likely event that those cute little Island Mule Deer decide the lure of fresh heritage tomatoes & peas is too much to resist. I'll let you know how we do.

So, Richard, about that old bathtub sitting out by the well house....