Friday, August 28, 2009

Tee Hee... my mother will never believe this...

84

As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Superior

Take the test!



I should note that a lot of the questions asked about capability, not necessarily practice!

More blogs to review sometime...

Trivium Pursuit (very clever name!)

Mr. Crowder, you make me laugh.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

I keep finding new blogs that I want to read!

How on earth do these people manage to do all this [and do it so beautifully]?
Pleasant View Schoolhouse
Just as I am
SimpleMom

Hawk update

Over the weekend we saw 10 hawks. We stood in the garden and looked down the line of trees along the irrigation main. It was incredible -- there were ten birds all in the sky at the same time. We even saw one drop something and its very close neighbor dive after it. I guess it is part of their training.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A book to read sometime...

Just watched Bill Whittle interview Glenn Sulmasy about legal issues concerning Gitmo. Very interesting. I'm keeping an eye out for his book, The National Security Court System: A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror. It was just published earlier this month, so I don't see it at the library yet.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Ok, that was a little unsettling...




I stopped to watch a soaring hawk this morning. He was making a wide circle. I watched him come around for a second lap and then he kinda, sorta swooped at me. It was like he was coming in to land on my arm if I held it up. He did this twice as I was exiting the garden and then again as I was on the sidewalk near the house. Weird. After a bit, more of them showed up; they're still screeching at each other.

Maybe they know we caught a gopher and they aren't too happy about that. I guess I didn't realize how things work in this neighborhood. I hope they don't want to make me an offer I can't refuse.

Update: After some reflection, some research, and a couple more encounters, I think this group of 5 is two adults and three chicks. So the good news is that they aren't hawk fellas and they're not mad that I trapped a gopher, and they are just protective parents. The bad news, from what I've read is that they can keep this up for 10 to 17 weeks. So we've had 2 weeks of it which I have been acutely aware, that means only 8 to 15 more weeks.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Got one!


Well Mr. Gopher, I don't think you'll be trying to pull my cantaloupe down through your hole any more.

This guy's teeth were as long as the last digit of my little finger.

Right after I snapped the shot, my DH shook the thing at me. (Such a nice guy I married!)

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Some gardening shots



So I was thinking yesterday, maybe the garden isn't a total loss. I was looking at it from this point and I thought it might make a nice shot, but now I'm thinking the lighting was significantly better yesterday! Oh well, this is the shot I can get today; I need to get this recorded so I can remember better what worked and what did not. Asparagus, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, zucchini, melons are on the left. The broccoli, beets, brussel sprouts, cauliflower are toward the right.

This other photo is the cucumber arch. The cukes just didn't grow very well this year. I'm not sure if it was the soil or what, so the plan is to do a soil test and make any needed adjustments. Like a big part of the country, our summer has been cooler than normal and we have had more precipitation than typical. I also probably need to do more that just add a lot of compost to the soil. I should feed each plant the fertilizer it prefers.

This is our second year for this garden. I think there have been some improvements, but we still have a long way to go. There's been an ongoing war with the varmints (rabbits, voles, rock chuck(s), and pocket gophers.) The Blakemore strawberries I planted did not survive; some stuff was planted to closely together. I'm hoping I've learned enough to have more success next year.

In a week or so we'll be putting in the cool weather stuff -- peas, etc. I'm hoping that I can find some local garlic too -- that's been hard of late and I can't mail order it because it can't be shipped in from out of state.

Check out this beauty...


I think (s)he is a Red-tailed hawk.

We've had 5 hanging around the past couple of weeks. I'm hoping they catch a pocket gopher or two.