Garden Vandalism
Keep Out
Vicky discovered child sized footprints in her garden several days back. She also found that many of her ripe and nearly ripe tomatoes had been ripped from the vine and tossed into the neighbor's yard.
We won't starve without those tomatoes, but it certainly is a disappointment that kids would do anything like that.
The above Keep Out sign was added to our garden by the neighbor lady across the street.
Early Girl Tomatoes
These Early Girl tomatoes are Vicky's favorite, and unfortunately they are a determinate variety. In other words, they produce the best part of their crop more in a rather short time period.
Hopefully we will still get more tomatoes from these plants.
Grape Tomatoes
Vicky knows I like small bite sized tomatoes, and we have grown Grape tomatoes both this year and last year. I hope we have them next year, too.
Though small, they have a nice tomato flavor, are not too acidic, nor overly sweet, and are not nearly as juicy as the Early Girls are. Nonetheless, they are my favorite (this year anyhow) for snacking in the garden, and are great in salads and sliced for sandwiches.
If things go as last year, we should have a lot more of these Grape tomatoes in the weeks ahead, and until the first hard freeze. No rush for that...
Chipmunk the Squirrel
No longer a baby, but still young, the squirrel named Chipmunk has moved out of her previous home.
Baby Chipmunk Home
When a baby, and in her early weeks she lived in the hole in the maple tree pictured above. Now a resident of our garage, we will make no attempt to discourage her from living there in this dry space out of the weather.
All baby squirrels are cute, and worthy of feeding, but this one gave us a special reason for feeding it. You see, when it was very young and very tiny we noticed it living beneath our hosta plants, and very obviously injured.
She appeared to have some sort of hip injury, and dragged herself around by her front feet. We figured the least we could do was to make sure she had food and water handy. Now she seems to have recovered a lot from her injury, and though her movements still show traces of her previous injury, she does get around quite nicely.
Amazingly shy and cautious, it took many many weeks before she was brave enough to come to our deck for food, and we continued to leave food for her in a spot she would come to.
Eventually she did decide it was safe to come to our deck for food and water, and has come to accept us as the people with peanuts.
Although she will not yet accept a peanut from our fingers, she now will come to the deck when we are there, and if we do toss a peanut in her direction, she will come within a few feet of us. She does try to get up the nerve to come closer to us, and as she contemplates that, all four of her feet are in constant motion, stepping up and down rapidly, but going nowhere as she keeps ready for a potential dash away if needed.
Oh, a squirrel named Chipmunk? Sure, why not? It is nice to be able to discuss a specific squirrel, and a name does help in identification. Vicky began calling this squirrel Chipmunk because of its tiny size when we first noticed it, and the name stuck.
Is Chipmunk a girl? Well, we really don't know, but Vicky began referring to this squirrel as "she" or "her" and that has stuck.
Bird Seed Sprouts
Do birds like seed sprouts? Yes they, do, but they must be served in a special way.
Bird Seed Sprouts Closeup
Not too long ago, and thinking I was quite clever, I decided to use a "good as new" metal trashcan to store our birdseed outdoors, fairly close to the bird feeder. There wasn't a whole lot of seed to store in it (fortunately), but I transferred the bird seed to this trash can, covered it securely, and placed a heavy stone on top of it.
Overnight, it rained quite heavily, and for the next several times when I filled the bird feeder I used the seed from a different container.
Eventually I got around to opening the trash can with bird seed, only to discover it was not waterproof, and several inches of rain water were inside the can, and discovered the bird seed was completely soaked.
Well, I figured it would dry in the bird feeder, so I filled the feeder up with this quite wet bird seed.
Bird Seed Sprouts
The birds did stop by the bird feeder, but refused to eat this bird seed which refused to dry. Within only a couple of days we discovered the feeder was now full of sprouts!
Impressed by this, both Vicky and I took several photos of this before I dumped it out. I put perhaps a cup of these sprouts on the deck, and the rest out beyond the garden, thinking that perhaps the squirrels or starlings would get some use out of this.
Amazingly, after the seed sprouts dried for a couple hours, the birds rediscovered the (now dry) seed sprouts, and appeared to enjoy them thoroughly.
I am sure there must be a lesson to be learned from this...
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- Garden Vandalism
- Chipmunk the Squirrel
- Bird Seed Sprouts
- Backyard Blooms
- Squirrel Treat
- Just a Tree Stump
- Squirrel House
- Short Tail Squirrel
- Where are the Squirrels?
- Squirrel Sandwiches
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