Fruit Makes Me Nuts

Today is Bente's Birthday. Happy Birthday Bente!

My day starts out cloudy again but by the time I have my morning cappuccino and wander outside, the sun is breaking through. No sign of the Mole People, although there is a Scarlet Runner Bean seed on the soil surface. I poke it back under.

Wander over to the garden boat. It is doing wonderfully well. I check all the tomato plants. Still no tomatoes yet on the Pink Brandywine & Yellow Brandywine but I have great hopes; the Black Prince has some. All the rest - Yellow Mortgage Lifter, Striped Cavern, Bull's Heart, Brown Berry and of course the Tumbling Tom - are setting fruit. The remaining few Alaska peas have more blossoms, and I notice that the ones the cute little Island Buck Mule Deer had pruned back to 1/3 their length are producing new leaves. Maybe there is hope for them yet. My day brightens and so does the sun.

I make plans to do some planting in black florist pots and go to the library to pick up some books. Maybe use my Outdoor Gas Convection Oven and bake something. I have used it to bake bread a few times with great success. The loaves turned out even better than when I bake in my electric oven in the house. My day suddenly has purpose. I am off.

It's 3pm and and I have baked, in the electric oven, a pan of brownies with mini peanut butter cups in them. They smell delish.

I am back out in the garden yard again, fighting the Mole People, when I hear them...the Muttering Murder of Crows. They're back in their favorite pear tree on the south side of the yard, chuckling and muttering like a gang of kids. I ignore them, and continue on with what I am doing.

Soon I hear them being raucous, but they have moved from their perch. Ah heck, the Cherry trees. Cherries are like candy to this gang of thieves and my van is parked in the driveway directly under the Montmorency Cherry were they are sitting. That means cherry poop splatted all over the top and hood of my van. You'd think I'd learn after all these years not to park there. Sigh. Well at least they eat the cherries high up in the tree and leave the lower ones to us.

The Muttering Murder of Crows moves from the Montmorency into the Royal Ann Cherry tree - sweet, juicy yellow Royal Ann, my favorite. I shout at them and clap my hands together to try and scare them away. They laugh uproariously at me and don't budge, one of them choking on a cherry pit. That will teach him to mock me! Must get Richard to pick a pail of Royal Anns before they are all gone.

Now I notice that the Chestnut tree across the drive has been chewed on by that cute little Island Mule Deer. I was hoping for chestnuts this year. I am beginning to feel pressured. 4 kinds of cherries to pick; Saskatoons too. Soon there will be plums, then blackberries, pears, more plums, more pears, apples, quince...maybe it won't be such a bumper crop this year. Then there will be the tomatoes and hopefully some peas, zucchini, cucumbers, more tomatoes.

My mind spins: maybe I can take my time and get the fruit and vegetables in the freezer. Maybe my vegetables will ripen slowly. Maybe I will still get some peas from the pea patch. Maybe the Muttering Murder of Crows is in league with the Mole People. Maybe my garden trowel will turn up again.

What are the Mole People doing with my garden trowel and those rocks anyway?

Maybe I really don't want to know.

Invasion of the Mole People

It's later than usual this morning when I go outside. It's foggy/cloudy early on as I sit and sip my English Toffee Cappuccino, savoring it...ok, dragging it out so I don't have to see what the Mole People did during the night. I know they've been there.

The "kids" trail me to the pea patch.

mow pepl' 'gain?
yup.
why?
dunno.
mom gonna sayz a swear?
dunno.

The little upside down red clay pot is tipped back a bit, and I can see a hole. Hands on my hips, I shake my head. The mint stocks that had still been over the pea seeds on the right side have been moved and tiny foot prints dot the soil. I had come to terms with their invasion but am still annoyed.

I turn away and walk across the yard to the garden boat, to raise the beach mats. The sun is shining now and it is warm. As usual I am taken with the beauty of the scenery. I wander around the boat and note that there are pods forming on what is left of the Alaska Peas that the cute little Island Buck Mule Deer didn't eat. Well, if nothing else, maybe I will get one feed out of them. I wander some more. The Tumbling Tom Tomato plant is absolutely loaded with newly formed tiny tomatoes! The Brown Berry tomato has one tomato ripening, and the Bull's Heart and Striped Cavern each have tomatoes forming too! That makes my day brighter.

Everything on the boat is lush. A busy honeybee is all over the Tumbling Tom. I make a mental note to definitely plant that tomato again next year; maybe several of them. There are small fruits forming on my Bush Pickle cucumber and everything else is doing so well. Plans take shape in my mind. Hmmmmm, if we cover the bunkbed frame with heavy clear plastic, and use a string of Christmas lights, I could use that part of the boat as a hotbed in late winter. Worth thinking some more on it. I wander on.

The "kids" are now sunbathing while I look at my plants in pots. Richard comes home and I drag him over to look at the pea patch. "Wow" he says "gotta be a rat". I bend down and move the pot. "Wow!" I say. The hole is really big under the pot, big enough for a cat to get through, should it be of a mind to. Or Mole People...

Richard wants me to go over to the other side of the creek to identify some plants growing in a field and I agree; maybe it will get my mind of the pea patch. We jounce down the rough trail in the old farm truck admiring the gorgeous scenery along the way. Arriving at the field we find the plants in question. Oh my goodness!!! There are acres of pink flowers and I pick a plant with tiny, bright pink blossoms. As we drive away, I wonder if the Mole People would like it. We come home to the internet, where I quickly find it is Centaurium muehlenbergii: Muhlenberg's or Monterey Centaury. The flower mystery is solved but why it suddenly showed up in that field remains unknown.

Now it is late afternoon and I am watering some of the plants in pots, the ones that suddenly look droopy. I debate with myself about watering the pea patch, then decide I will. After all, there are still some tomato plants and some sage and thyme. And dried up mint stalks. And a big hole in the ground...my face scrunches up.

I sayz a swear.

Mole People, Revisited

This morning I marched out to the pea patch to roll up the beach mats, trailed by my entourage. Did I mention I have six dogs? Emmy, Molly, Missy, Mason, Rosie & Pippi. They have watched my battle with the Mole People with interest and have followed me to lend a paw in case I need backup.

wat mom doin'?
lookin' fow mow pepl'.
mow pepl'?
wats mow pepl'?
dunno, but she mad at 'em.
dey gud ta eat?
dunno.

As I roll up the beach mats they sniff the ground by the pea patch, searching for clues. After the mats are up I look down and turn the air blue.

uh oh.
wat?
mom sed a swear!
she mad!
we hep u find da mow pepl', mom.
wats a mow pepl'?
dunno.

The stocks of mint I had placed up against the wall of the shed over the pea and bean seeds has been pushed aside, and dirt has been kicked on it. The red clay pots are still there, but the dirt is all scuffled with little paw prints and there are tiny holes where the seed used to be. I scrunch my eyes. Still no sign of my garden trowel. I stand with hands on hips gazing back and forth, trying to come up with a solution. None comes.

Growling to myself I walk away to the garden boat to roll up the beach mats there and nearly step on a doggie mine. Sigh, that's all I need to make my day complete.

Time for morning Cappuccino.

It's 3pm and I still don't have a solution. I have considered and discarded several ideas as either too labor intensive or too far out there. I decide to revisit the scene of the crime. My entourage follows.

I wander past the pea patch, thinking; nothing new there. Pea seeds are still MIA. Decide that now was as good a time as any to scoop up the doggie mines so I don't step in one while working on the Mole People Mystery. Most of my entourage is now noticeably absent. Having a low boredom threshold, they have moved on to other adventures I guess. Pippi and Emmy remain with me. As my self-designated guardians, they dog my footsteps.

wat mom doin'?
dunno.
huntin' mow pepl'?
dunno.
wen suppah?
dunno

Time to regroup again. When things get tough, the tough bake bread. I am making Craisin Bread to bake in my Outdoor Gas Convection Oven, aka the BBQ. I love dried sweetened fruit. Dried cherries and dried cranberries are my favorites, closely followed by dried blueberries. But today I am making Cranberry yeast bread. The gathering of the ingredients, the mixing of the dough sooth me and I come to a decision about the Mole People.

I will let them think they have beaten me. Let them think they can have all those pea and bean seeds. After all, I do have more to plant. I am moving my pea and bean patch to a very large green tub, two feet high and two feet in diameter, which I used for flowers last year and haven't got around to using at all yet this year. They can't tunnel up from the bottom; can't tunnel through from the sides. I can cover it with landscape fabric to keep them from getting at the seeds should they try climbing up and into the open top. Hah! Take that Mole People!!

And I have another tub the same size I just might plant to peas as well. Maybe if I can finally convince Richard to move the old bathtub from beside the well house into the garden yard, I will plant it too. What else can I find to plant peas and beans in??? There must be something....

Will it work? Will it keep the Mole People at bay? Will they finally return my garden trowel? Will my Craisin Bread turn out?

dunno.

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!

CSI: Cherry Creek - Attack of the Mole People

First thing every morning I walk out into the garden yard to roll up the beach mats on the garden boat. The sun is shining beautiful and bright; the sky is that blue only an Island sky can be; there is a soft breeze kissing my cheek. I am entranced with the view of Mount Arrowsmith in the distance, across Cherry Creek.

I meander slowly around, checking the tomatoes, the peas that are left, the flowers, the herbs. Make a mental note to bring the loppers out later and trim back the weeping rose bush that is crowding the boat. Inhale the sweet scents. Get lost in the view again.

Gradually I work my way across the yard, checking various pots, until I get to the shed where the tomato and pea patch is. I untie the strings on the mats there and roll them up so the sun will warm the ground and entice the peas and Scarlet Runner beans to germinate quickly. And come to a screeching halt.

Let's back up a few hours...Before rolling down the mats over the pea and bean patch last night at dusk, I noticed that a few of the peas and one of the bean seeds had "popped" out of the earth. Hmmmmm, must have had the water from the nozzle turned up too high and washed the soil away from them. I poked them back into the earth and mounded some soil up over them. Still, it didn't seem like the spray of water was that strong.

Flash forward to now...Not only are those same pea seeds and that one bean seed popped out of the soil again, but a couple of the pea seeds have been.....CHEWED! I squint my eyes. Is that...footprints? Tiny little footprints and is that a HOLE AT THE BASE OF THE WALL!!?!! I follow the tiny footprint trail. There, to the right of the McKenzie Sugar Snap seed box and at the base of the wall, another hole! Is it a rat? The holes at the base of the wall are pretty small. A mouse? Then why didn't the mouse pack the seeds away? Could it be......MOLE PEOPLE???

Naw, we don't have moles on the Island. Do we? We have rats, and field mice and shrews. No gophers thank goodness, and no ground squirrels. But MOLES? On the prairies years ago we had trouble with pocket gophers. The little beggers would dig up under where your plants were growing and in the blink of an eye, your plant was gone. Pulled down into their burrow for the family stew pot. But back to the Mole People. Something had dug the holes, popped the seeds out of the soil and chewed some of them up.

Richard comes home from stacking bales and I nag him out into the yard for a look at the mystery. "Do we have Voles here?" he asks. Hmmmmm, Voles. I go to the internet to check. Yes, it says, we have Townsend Voles, which are a rodent not as large as a rat but larger than a mouse and they usually burrow near water. What it doesn't say, however, is if they have an appetite for pea and bean seeds. "Do you want me to set a trap?" Richard asks. "Not yet" I reply. But I am thinking about it.

What I really wish is that I had what my dad always referred to as a "ball-bearing mousetrap". That would do the trick. It's quick, efficient, humane and environmentally friendly. Safe. Leaves no carbon footprint. That should keep everyone happy.

What's a ball-bearing mousetrap, you ask?
Felis Domesticus.
Male.
Unaltered.

I still think it's Mole People. I'll keep you informed.

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??!!!

Recipe for Loss Prevention

I went hunting yesterday. No, no, not for a cute little Island Buck Mule Deer - for CD's. I have hundreds of them sitting uselessly on shelves: NT Workstation 4; Corel 5 Unleashed; Windows 95; Canon Creative; Adobe Photoshop 5; Best of Bill Cosby; CorelDraw 6; HP Idea Kit; and several hundred I-have-not-a-clue-what-is-on-them-and-don't-care CD's. I have a plan...

After Richard gets home from work, eats and then picks up two loads of hay bales from the field, he sets to work making the baler twine fence extension. I busy myself with cutting & tying raffia to all those CD's. I hang a few on the fence. Not fun. I let Richard do that and I just cut and tie. And cut and tie. And cut and tie. An hour and a half later and 3 forages through the old CD's on the shelf, we are done and it's 9pm. Now to hang the beach mats. Doesn't take long because: I HAVE A PLAN.

And it works. Using plastic clips from shower curtains we clip the beach mats to the metal bunk bed frame, two mats per side. Cover up all those chewed up Scarlet Runner beans. Then clip mats together at the bottom. Take one of the shower curtains and clip it to the front of the metal frame and hang it down over the front of the boat covering all those tasty little tomato morsels. TAKE THAT cute little Island Mule Deer. Now it is quarter to 10. We Are Done.

The yard light comes on and I go in and plug in the fence lights. There is a breeze and the raffia-tied CD's dance crazily, reflecting brilliant shots of light all around.

"All we need now is some Disco Music" Richard comments. I give him THE LOOK.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice is whispering something about barn doors and horses. Kind of apropos here.

Recipe For Loss Prevention

Take 200 old and useless but extremely reflective CD's.
Stir in hundreds of feet of baling twine.
Add raffia.
Tie.
Tie some more.
And still more.
Hang at varying heights from 6 inches to 1&1/2 feet from top of baler twine fence addition.
Stir vigorously in a breeze.

Make 2 trips to town to grocery store to purchase twelve 40" x 70" beach mats, on clearance, because you never checked the first time and thought all those folded up beach mats were only 13 inches wide, not 40 inches wide, sigh.
Hang beach mats from metal bunk bed frame in garden boat using plastic shower curtain clips.
Place potted plants at base of beach mats to hold them against garden boat to keep beach mats from blowing around because what the heck, that cute little Island Buck Mule Deer has already nibbled on those plants anyway.

12 Beach Mats on clearance: $26.07 on Debit Card
Making your garden yard look like a Disco Club - Priceless!