Easter Weekend

Not so sunny and bright on this Easter Sunday morning here in the hills. We had a misty rain this morning which prompted Gatsby and Mickey to go back into the garage not long after I let them outside. Our street-wise outside cat Gatsby has taken to being ensconced in that garage at the tiniest change in the weather.  Not a surprise, since a corner of the garage is filled with a carpeted cat-tower and comfy baskets covered with a blanket-tent to keep away the chill. (No, my cats are not spoiled.)

We've had an outbreak of black flies up here this past week, so I guess Spring is officially here. These teeny-tiny flies are like gnats and they hover in droves all over the grass, the road, the yard.... no getting away from them because you can hardly see them at all until you feel them on your face or arms. I was never bothered by the flies before, but now with Savannah, I'm walking her either on the property or up and down the road, so there's no escaping those blasted flies. I know that every time we come in the back door, we're bringing one or two flies with us, but inside cat Sweet Pea manages to catch them quickly and then he eats them. (Yuck.)

The barn swallows are back... renovating the nests from last season and perching themselves on the edges of the nest to watch the goings-on around the porch. The baby birds who grew up here are still coming back, and not only do they watch me as I go up and down the porch steps, but they seem to be comfortable with Savannah as well. They watch her, she watches them... everyone's happy.

The neighbor's goats across the road have gotten out of the fence twice so far this month, even though the neighbor repaired that fence during the winter. Looks like the goats just dug out a spot in the dirt underneath the repaired part of the fence, and they belly-crawl through the dirt and emerge near the road to discover if the grass is indeed greener on the other side. Maybe those goats really know that their destiny over there is to end up in a roasting pot, poor things.

Owls in The Night

I've been seeing a lot of the great outdoors these past few nights, courtesy of Savannah, who insists on going outside after midnight on most nights. If I sleep through her barked requests to visit the grass, I wake up to find a puddle on the kitchen floor, so being outside along the driveway grass really isn't an option right now.

Last night as I opened up the back door, there was a huge something on the concrete driveway near the light fixture. When that something swiveled his head towards the right to look at me, I quickly realized what it was--- a very large owl. He must have caught either a small mouse or snake in the grass and was ready to fly away with his midnight snack when I startled that huge bird. So I may have saved the life of a garden snake or a field mouse because when the owl flew up and away, his talons were empty.

That owl taking flight scared the heck out of Savannah, who doesn't need much to be scared. She watched the owl flying into the sky and then decided she didn't need to go outside after all. I had gone to the trouble of putting on my coat and boots, so I wasn't giving up that easily and I pulled her down the steps and out into the driveway. Well, being true to her puppy self, Savannah wasn't giving in that easily. She walked up and down the road with me but didn't do anything so I brought her back inside. I kept my coat on and waited a few minutes and then took her outside again. Thank goodness for a puppy-memory like a sieve... Savannah went out there and did what she needed to do and I was back inside the house in just a few minutes.

I've heard plenty of owls since we moved out here, but last night's owl was the only one I've actually seen on our property. I know there are more owls out there, most likely sitting up in the trees and watching me walk up and down the driveway with this puppy who very rarely sleeps through an entire night.

A new set of wheels...

...or actually, just one single wheel. My friend C, who has been helping in the garden, insisted that we needed a wheelbarrow. "How do you bring things from one end of the yard to the other?" she wanted to know. When I told her that we just carry them, she smiled and told me that she would find me the perfect wheelbarrow.

And she did... not exactly the perfect color (light brown) but she told me that they didn't make this particular model in either hot pink, apple red, or purple. I told her they would sell more wheelbarrows to women if they offered more (and prettier) color choices.

Be that as it may, we now have a brown wheelbarrow. C has filled it up with pulled weeds and I have wheeled it across the yard to the compost pile and dumped the contents without so much as breaking a nail. And rather than five or six trips back and forth with buckets of weeds, it took just one trip with the wheelbarrow.

The flowerbeds are shaping up nicely. Morning Glory seeds have been planted by the walkway, azaleas have been moved to a not-so-scorching flowerbed that's more protected from the afternoon sun, roses have been pruned, weeds have been relocated to the compost pile, and ant hills have been sprinkled with white powder.

New mulch has been spread in the smaller flowerbeds that have been completed... and it took our cat Gatsby about two hours to discover the sweet-smelling mulch and decide it was the perfect spot to use as a litter box.

Compost + Rain

My newly-established compost pile has been rained on since last night... a good soaking rain that has probably turned the vegetable peelings and fruit rinds and coffee grounds and tea bags into drippings that have seeped into the weeds that were pulled up out of the flowerbeds. Friend C tells me that the old weeds along with the newer fruit and veggie bits will be like 'gold for the garden' once that compost pile gets to breaking itself down into minerals and nutrients and all-things-good for the flowerbeds.

I will take her word for that, being that she's been gardening in these Hills for decades now, and I'm only a novice at all of this. I've seen C put her hands into that dirt without wearing gloves and I just cringe at that... she dug up a long earthworm and was so pleased with her discovery... you would have thought she had found the Hope Diamond in that dirt.  I saw that worm and closed my eyes, turned my back, and started walking backwards towards the porch.

"It's only a worm," she told me.
"One worm is all I need to get me back in the house," said I.

My husband was so shocked that I was out in the backyard wearing gardening gloves that he went into the house to get the camera and actually took a photo of C and I, both wearing gloves....... C was pulling out the weeds and I was putting them into a bucket and bringing them to the compost pile. C is definitely the gardener, I am the mere apprentice. She laughs at my weed-pulling skills, which are close to non-existent. C can work out in that yard for three or four hours straight.... I get bored with it after just half an hour. All that dirt... and the worms underneath... and the ants.... not exactly my cup of tea.

About three years ago, however, I cleaned up the flowerbeds and put down new mulch.... I planted some azaleas and a cute little green shrub, and a beautiful yellow tree.... and I was quite proud of my accomplishment. However... the azaleas died, the little green shrub bloomed with just two flowers, and the yellow tree shriveled up when the temperature got over 100 degrees that summer. When I saw all of my work get blasted and burnt by the summer heat, I threw in the shovel and quit.

C told me I had the azaleas in the wrong place.... the mulch might not have been the right mixture for the soil, the yellow tree probably needed some shade instead of full afternoon sun... but she did like my placement of the garden gnomes and the little ceramic ducks. She also told me that I didn't buy any of the correct plants and flowers.... "You need low-maintenance, drought-resistant plants that will come up year after year in those flowerbeds!"

So now... C is in charge of the gardening. She told me to get myself to Lowe's last weekend because they had good mulch on sale, so we got 5 bags of that... and would have bought more but that's all we could fit into the trunk.  I'm saving every fruit/veggie thing for the compost pile, and raking it all underneath the weeds so every raccoon in the Hills here doesn't feast out there after midnight. As I said, I'm just the apprentice out there in my garden. And with any luck, she may decide not to fire me.