The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Four Days of Rain: Does Not a Winter Make

Remember that scene in Water World (I’m speaking to the three people who saw Water World), the scene in which Kevin Costner pees in a bottle, then runs his urine through some sort of filtration system, and drinks it?

Well, if it doesn’t hurry up and rain, we'll all be drinking tinklewater here in California.

The good news is, with all this sunny weather, perhaps my La Brea Tar Pits may soon be taken over by green lawn, though I am not holding my breath.

Not only does my lawn look like a brownie with green mold on it, the smaller area of lawn that the dogs have been allowed on is now in worse shape than the moldy brownie lawn. 

I am thinking of replacing it. I am not sure with what. It has to be something that dogs can run on and catch balls on—and you know what else. 

I am considering taking out part of the lawn and planting natives, while replacing the rest of the lawn with faux grass. 

Or, replacing the rest of the lawn with some sort of wide rock path. 

Or I could replace the whole thing with a fake lawn. 

Or, I could dig a big hole and create a swimin' hole. 

Or I could have a cocktail and go in my house and watch the weather.

Gardeners Anonymous will gladly take any suggestions as to what to replace my abused lawn with.

They’re Back.

Two years ago I was passing our outdoor porch stairway when I noticed that the storage area underneath’s doors were open.

No, the doors weren’t just slightly ajar; they had been flung wide open from the inside by a bunch of intruders, mushroom intruders!

The fungus invaders disappeared a few weeks later but a couple weeks ago it was deja vu all over again. 

There I was again, minding my own business and walking past our stairs—and there they were again, just sitting there…mocking me.

This time there are more of them.

At first it was interesting and entertaining, but this time they are freaking me out a little. I have thoughts that they are trying to get into my house and that their presence under the outside stairs is just meant to distract me. 

I’m afraid that late at night some time soon I’ll wake up, go into the bathroom, lift the toilet seat and…there they’ll be…

...Ahhhh!

It all started with the flu.

What used to be my lawn

The day my husband left town, I came down with the flu that I thought I had dodged weeks earlier when my kids had it. But oh no, it lurked in my system until when I needed to be healthy the most.

While the sickness was ravaging my body and my mind, my gardener stopped by to ask me if I wanted him to fertilize my lawn.

I thought at the time that it was kind of a silly question. Of course I want you to fertilize my lawn. It looks bad. It looks like hundreds of dogs have been cavorting on it.

Because they have. 

Now, when my gardener told me he was going to fertilize my lawn I was thinking he would mow it and walk back and forth on my lawn with one of those plastic seed spreader things with the windy handle on the side and some of that plant food pellet stuff in it.

Well then he said he also wanted to reseed my lawn and of course you know what I thought: That ol’ seed-spreader contraption was going to be pulling double-duty with the seeds and the plant food. 

Sure, I’m down with that Antonio, sprinkle away, but right now I need a couple swigs of Nyquil, a Benadryl, and I need to wash it all down with a shot of brandy.

Then he stopped me and told me he really wanted to do it right this year. He wanted to cut my lawn really short, then aerate it, then seed and fertilize it. 

Wow, I thought, that sounds good. “Yeah Antonio, you go and give my lawn the works” and I’ll go feed my head.

“Ma’am, did you want me to sprinkle some dirt on the seeds so the birds don’t eat them?” This was the pivotal moment. All my addled brain could muster was an image of Antonio sprinkling handfuls of dirt from a bag over the seeds he had sprinkled earlier on my lawn. 

So I said “Sure, that sounds fine.” I turned and headed to my house and the long set of stairs to my Nyquil, my Benadryl, and my brandy. 

And fell asleep.

I awoke with a start and noticed the long shadows across the yard. I went to the window to look at my lawn…WTF…My lawn had been replaced with what looked like the LaBrea Tar Pits. 

The view from my window of what used to be my lawn.

I stumbled down my stairs and out my door to my landscaper’s truck, which was backed up onto my lawn dumping its last load of STEER MANURE.

Last I checked, steer manure does not equal dirt. 

Luckily I was there in enough time to stop Antonio from putting Steer manure on the lower lawn. 

My neighbors are now not speaking to us because the odor of steer poop is holding them hostage inside their homes. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

It will be interesting to see what happens when my house fills up with dogs and it rains.

Men In Make-Up, Mountain Lions And Marijuana

A few days ago I received two phone calls from my neighbors then ran into a third neighbor who mentioned the same thing: A mile up the road from my house were two Game Warden vehicles and out of the vehicles came 8 or more men dressed in camo from head to toe.

These men were even wearing camouflage face paint and were carrying very large assault rifles. 

They unloaded from the trucks and disappeared into the bushes and down a steep trail where I have never seen a human go before. 

I’d seen a coyote and two rattlesnakes go down that trail, but never a human. 

All three neighbors asked the same thing: What do you think these camouflaged, gun-toting guys are doing running down a trail where people usually don’t go? 

Well, I thought to myself, you have come to the right person because I have my figure on the pulse of this mountain. I am “in the know.” 

To each and everyone my reply was the same. I told them that I heard there had been a pot farm bust the week before at a different location on the mountain and that this was probably a continuation of the same operation.

All three of my neighbors reply was the same. “Are you sure they’re not going to shoot the lions? They were in Game Warden trucks?” 

“Nay-nay” said I.

They wouldn’t go to all the trouble to shoot a couple of lions that hadn’t hurt anyone.

My neighbors breathed sighs of relief and went about their day. Except one. I’m not going to mention her name because she is a friend and I wouldn’t want to make her look bad.

She called a few minutes later and said that she’d been told that the game warden and his posse were there to shoot the lions. 

What! 

My mind was spinning. I was angry. How could they? 

The lions hadn’t hurt anyone.

I needed to do something and I needed to do it fast. I had to stop eight burly guys with semi-automatic weapons from shooting my beloved lions.

So I looked down at the fluffy white poodle I was dog sitting and sprang into action. I threw little Chloe along with Moondoggie in my car and drove up the mountain.

Chloe on my lap

The Game warden trucks were parked along the road at the hairpin turn, a turn I call The Bay Tunnel. I was shaking with anger when I parked my Volvo station wagon behind one of the extended cab, Eddie Bauer green 4wd trucks and jumped out of my car in to the dirt shoulder.

I started around the trucks to the narrow path. The path I had never seen any human go down. But I was going down it wearing my Cole Hahn strappy sandals and my yoga pants.

“Excuse me, Excuse me, Hey, is there is anyone one there? Don’t shoot me.”

“Is anyone around, hello?” I yelled to the camo game warden and his crew. 

I had relocated two rattlesnakes to this very path and the last time was hiking in yoga pants near rattlesnakes well, all I can say is—Sixty-Six Vials Of Antivenin.

I started to get stickers in the bottom of my yoga pants and I looked down to see a fine layer of dust over my Boca Raton Pedicure and my Cole Hahns. 

I had visions in my head or stripping down to my undies and swinging through the trees holding a spear, a la Avatar.

I could hear the Door’s song, “The End,” playing in my head as I saw myself slowly ascending from the bottom of a pond in front of the Game Warden and his team of killers dressed in my own, more fashionable camo make-up, with a knife between my teeth.

Then… 

A wild berry vine looped over my foot and scratched my ankle so I turned back.

Happy Ending For Lunch and Dinner

My friend Ruth asked what finally happened to the roosters, so here’s their story:

Here is the reasons why I couldn’t keep the chickens.

When we first took the roosters in, people asked, “Why can’t you keep them?”

I even had someone tell me to keep them because ‘they’re fun.’ I couldn’t smell alcohol on her breath but then I remembered you can’t smell hallucinogens.

Roosters? Fun? Sure, why not, if you like big birds waking you up at dawn, slashing at you with their spurs, and trying to peck your eyes out, they are a barrel of laughs.

Even if I wanted to keep the merrymaking roosters—I can’t—see?

  My dog stood like that for fifteen minutes straight just waiting for their cage to disappear.

So, as much as I wanted to keep those amusing roosters, a nice man named Richard adopted them. He picked them up two days ago and took them home to be with his family of hens to make pretty babies.

I want to believe that Richard didn’t eat them. The reason I think he didn’t eat them is that when I asked him if I could take a picture for a story I was writing, instead of telling me that he was in the witness protection program, and holding a folded newspaper in front of his face, he agreed and posed happily.

  Note my dog still hoping for lunch and dinner

Before the roosters left, I gave them names. I named the one on the right, Lunch, and the one on the left, Dinner.

Bye-bye, Lunch and Dinner.

Roadside Roosters

I dropped my son off at Los Gatos Rowing Club. 

I turned right toward the upper side of the Lexington Reservoir. Most parents live in town and make a left toward the freeway, but we live in the hills so I take the road less traveled. 

I love to drive this way. The road is windy, so I pretend I’m Grace Kelly maneuvering my convertible Sunbeam Alpine through the French countryside. 

I see a lot of wild animals along this route, deer, bunnies, bobcats so today was no different I rounded the first hairpin and there they were—two roosters. WTF? Yep, someone decided that they didn’t want their roosters anymore, so they donated them to the local predator roadside diner. 

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor little guys. They stood huddled together in the rain as if they were waiting for whoever left them there to come back—or like they were waiting to hail a taxi. One of them might have been saying to the other, “Hey wait a minute Bob, this is all going to make sense in a minute or two.” 

I kept driving my pretend Sunbeam, and then called my husband to tell him about the sad sight I had just witnessed.

My husband put my youngest son in his car and went back to get the roosters. What? As I was nearing my house, I received a call: “Mom, we got the chickens.”

“What are we going to do with two roosters? We tried this once before and it ended badly.” 

My husband chimed in, “Call Simon (our neighbor), I’m sure he will take them.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Sure I’m sure”

I called him, but he wanted nothing to do with the feathered castoffs. 

My husband drove home and plopped the roosters in our garage, went into the house and back to work.

There they were, two roosters in my garage, my dog and I staring at them in their little cage. Her eyes were dilated; she wanted to eat them so bad that she was shaking. She was shaking so much I thought I should give her a shot of whiskey or Demerol. I looked at the roosters again and decided I should be the one to get a shot of whiskey and/or Demerol. 

My son was already attached to the roosters and he was working on a letter to the newspaper in the hopes that they will publish it and save the roosters. 

Here’s his letter:

FREE to a Good Home—Beautiful Abandoned Birds!

 

Yesterday afternoon, my mom found two gorgeous roosters walking on the side of the road, abandoned.

She was busy, but I wasn’t. I was happy they weren’t dead. But I was worried about leaving them there on the road.

So, my dad and I went and caught them. But we can’t keep them because my mom has a dog sitting business.

Dogs and roosters don’t mix.

We would hate to see them get eaten, hit by cars, or starve.

So we’d like to find a good place for them to live. If you know of one, please let me know by contacting my mom through The Patch. 

Thank you very much for adopting them.

 

 

 

An Appropriate Ending.

I have been asked by several people, “what happened to the lions?” 

Well, quite simply, they moved on. 

Mountain lions will stick around usually for 2-3 days after they have made a kill and will feed periodically until the kill starts to get icky. That is my scientific term for it—icky. Then other creatures have their turn, like bobcats, skunks, vultures, and insects.

Before the lions left Alicia’s house, they moved the buck to another location. One that seemed more appropriate.Nature is so interesting and mysterious. I couldn’t help but come up with my own scientific theory as to why they dragged their kill to Alicia and Bernie’s picnic table. 

I would like to believe they were trying to share. Perhaps to say “Hey, thanks for letting us stay in your front yard and scare the bejesus out of you these past few days.”

“Thanks for letting us slay a large deer in the middle of your driveway and pick at the carcass at our leisure.” “Thanks for not calling the sheriff so that we would become carcasses ourselves.” Above all Alicia and Bernie, thanks for being understanding—and not hysterical—humans.”

David from the Open Space Authority said it best: "The way Alicia and Bernie handled a couple of pumas in their front yard gives me hope that we have a chance to protect these animals."

 

Double the Fun In Alicia’s Wild Kingdom

The mountain lion left the carcass of the big buck at the base of Alicia’s backyard hill. 

The buck seemed too big for the lioness to drag any further. Alicia woke up before dawn and looked to see if the buck was still there 

She noticed that the carcass had been eaten further. She watched it and waited patiently to see if the lion would return. 

She didn’t have to wait long.  The lioness approached the carcass a few minutes later and Alicia almost snorted coffee out her nose when a second, smaller lion joined it.

Mama and teenager.

Holy Venison, Batman! 

The day before, when Alicia first reported to me from her Wild Kingdom, she said the mountain lion looked so big she thought for sure it was a male. I said, ”Well at least it’s not a mama with cubs, that might be a real dangerous situation.” 

Oh crap.

The cub seemed older, more of an adolescent than a baby. It was nearly the same size as its mother, probably about a year old.

The female lion is wearing a radio collar.

The pair of lions started to feed on the carcass. According to Alicia the meal was cooperative and carried out in a very orderly manner, unlike dinners at my house.

  Mountain lion doing the dishes

After the two mountain lions had finished their meal, they took turns burying the carcass, which, I guess, is the mountain lion’s version of the doing the dishes. My kids don’t do the dishes without a fight.

  Maybe tomorrow night I’ll give them a choice between washing plates and burying a dead deer. 

The Mid-Peninsula Open Space researchers came up in the afternoon and placed an infrared field camera near the carcass. 

In the next couple of days it should record some great insight into the everyday life of a mother lion and her offspring. 

Heaven knows I could use some tips.

What To Do If A Rattlesnake Bites You

My leg one week after the bite.

The chances are very remote that you will ever be bitten—unless you decide to pick up or handle a rattlesnake. 

But it pays to know what to do.

If The chances are very remote that you will ever be bitten—unless the perfect storm happens, as it did for me a year ago when I stepped on a rattlesnake while photographing wildflowers, this is what you need to know. 

Most people who receive a legitimate bite from a rattlesnake (not from doing something stupid like handling one) do not hear the snake rattle before being bitten.

They may rattle. They may not. Snakes blend into their surroundings as their first line of defense. So, most people don’t even realize what has happened when they are first bitten.

When bitten, you have just received two injections of poison venom. The venom is already in your bloodstream. Stay calm.

You’ll feel the effects in 1-2 minutes.

The most important thing is to stay calm. Move away from the snake. The snake will probably be rattling by now. It will be just as interested in getting away from you as you are from it. 

Step away from the snake. Get a safe distance, sit down and relax.

You have some time. 

12 Things I Learned After Being Bitten By A Rattlesnake

Baby Northern Pacific Rattlesnake

While in the hospital recovering from my bite, I did a lot of snake thinking and learning. 

I became freakishly drawn to snakes. I read about them. I watched TV shows about them. I spent hours lying in bed with my laptop perusing the Internet for snake facts. I spoke to other snakebite victims. I spoke to snake experts. I spoke to snake bite experts. It was almost as if I was becoming a snake.

When I thought of swallowing mice whole, my mouth would start to water. 

And although my life hasn’t changed much, I still hike the same trails and do all the same things—maybe with a little more caution.

What has changed is that I know a heck of a lot more about snakes, what happens when you’re bit by one, and what to do when you’re bit by one, than I did a year ago.

One of the first things I learned was that rattlesnakes don’t necessarily rattle before they bite you. Their first line of defense is to blend in with their surroundings. Many people who are bitten either step on a snake, like I did, or the accidentally put their hand on a snake. 

It usually takes a serious threat to cause them to rattle—like a giant size 9½ running shoe crushing down on them. 

Here are some things I learned that you should know: