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This year I wanted to try shades of purple and lavender. Which is a change from my normal winter porch planter box.
I wanted some trailing plants and some that weren’t. I wanted different plants with different sized and shaped flowers.
Here are the flowers I used in my boxes:
Petunia Dreams Blue
Million Bells (Calibrachoa) in dark and light purple
Bacopa white
Lantana Luscious Grape
Trailing Ivy Geranium in Amethyst
I think they work really well—and will only look better as they grow.
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Last Saturday, a rattler bit my dog, Moondoggie.
I didn’t see it happen, but I was there.
I was taking her for a walk and I looked back and saw that she was holding her paw up and licking it. I initially thought that she just had a sticker in her paw.
Then I noticed that she wasn’t moving and couldn’t put her paw down—so I walked to her and checked the pads of her foot. While I was checking her foot she just fell over.
It was then I noticed the puncture wound in her right foreleg. My heart started to race as the realization set in that she had just been bitten, probably by a rattlesnake—maybe a coral snake—but most likely a rattler.
We just happened to be at the end of the trail, of course, at the furthest point from the trailhead.
Luckily we weren’t down at the lake or I would’ve had to run uphill.
I did what anybody who loves their dog would do.
I threw my coffee down, picked up that 44-pound dog like a baby, and ran.
I tore the quarter- to half-mile distance down the path and back to my car.
My sunglasses flew off, and I kept running.
She just lay in my arms and looked up at me as I jostled her skinny little dog body to and fro.
Normally, she wouldn’t have let me carry her like a baby—let alone run along a dirt trail with her.
I would remember later that she looked up at me with total and unconditional trust.
Continue reading "Live and Learn: How my dog survived a rattlesnake bite" »
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The pests in my garden have been out of hand this year.
It’s kind of depressing. I am growing some strawberry pots filled with succulents but something has been eating large holes in my hens and chicks (Sempervivum tectorum).
I had a sneaking suspicion who was eating my little hens, so my sons and I borrowed a high powered flashlight from my husband and we waited for the sun to go down (which took a while since the summer solstice just occured) and then we crept outside to the scene of the worst damage—and look what we found.
My hunch was correct.
While my sons and I were collecting a container full of these fat pig-like mollusks our neighbor, who also happens to be a chef, stopped by and laid claim to the snails.
You see, he wants to take them and purge them and make escargot from their little soft bodies.
Umm—tasty.
My kids couldn’t have been any more grossed out.
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… is far better than a bird flying around your bedroom, scaring the hell out of you and landing on you husband’s sleeping head while you are trying to catch it in a terribly inadequate butterfly net while keeping your cattle dog from having it for an early-morning snack while being watched by two snickering children.
My family and I went to Yosemite for a 36-hour whirlwind mini-vacation while my neighbor watched my dog. Unfortunately, she left the side door open so our dog could come and go.
It seems that the birds at my feeders were able to come and go freely also.
An adolescent female oriole wandered in, flew upstairs, and hid on top of the ceiling fan in my bedroom all night. Unbeknownst to me, she silently watched The Bachelorette along with me.
Then, at first light, she tried to make a break for it.
I slowly opened my eyes and there she was diving down at me unannounced which was slightly disconcerting since the cabin we stayed at Yosemite had bats in the attic.
I got out of bed and went downstairs to borrow my son’s butterfly net.
My two boys peered at me through a crack in the door as I ran around my bedroom like an escaped mental patient—in my bathrobe—swinging a butterfly net and yelling obscenities at a defenseless little bird.
It was over fairly quickly, which was good for all involved. My sleepy husband took this picture of the feathered vagrant and then I set it free—out the same door I suspect it had entered.
All was right with the world once again.
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Gardeners, as well as plant and nature lovers, can join Green Thumb Sunday every Sunday. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information
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I went to Love Apple Farm today.
My trip was very short because it was last minute and unannounced.
I hope to return for a more in depth interview and tour sometime soon.
While there, I did notice that Cynthia Sandberg the owner and I have quite a few things in common.
Cynthia lives in an old farmhouse, I live in an old farmhouse.
Cynthia likes herding dogs, I like herding dogs.
She raises chickens, I had a chicken once.
Cynthia uses organic compost and worms castings. Me too.
She seems to like mosaics, and so do I.
Cynthia reuses and recycles broken concrete, I reuse broken concrete.
She has a vegetable garden, so do I,
Cynthia has an RV, I have an RV.
Cynthia supplies Manresa, a famous Michelin-rated restaurant, with fresh produce from her garden every day
and…I have an RV.
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It’s always a good feeling to do spring cleaning in the old garden. I think I mentioned before that my husband and I removed an old, icky, woodpile and a heap of broken concrete. We were concentrating on a part of the yard that had been neglected for a long time. This is great for us but not so good for the creatures that made their homes in the piles of wood and concrete.
The before picture
Going
Almost gone
Ta-da
About five days after we removed the junk, someone else came home. That certain someone was none other that a Northern Pacific Rattlesnake, (crotalus oreganos oreganos), which, while watering some daisies, I almost stepped on. Oopsie.
I pivoted on one foot and put the other one down about 12- or 16-inches from this foot-long snake.
I froze immediately and I noticed something interesting—rattlesnakes don’t just coil and rattle their rattles when they’re scared, they try to get as flat as they can. This poor little snake was so flat I thought for a moment maybe I had already stepped on it.
I called to my husband and he brought me the trusty rattlesnake cooler. I picked up a long stick and herded it into it’s home for the night.
The next morning, after showing it to my son’s Cub Scout den, once again we took the displaced snake up our hill to a safe location—both for the snake and for people.
We sang our favorite verse of “Born Free,” dumped it out, and then ran like hell in the other direction
Released and look, she blends!
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