Postcards from Foster Camp

First off, I stepped outside the other day and saw that the daylilies were popping out of the ground, so here comes Spring!  THANK GOD.

The Spring session of Foster Camp brought a mamacat and two four-week-old kittens.   A small bunch, but adorable.

"'Scuse me, can I borrow some toona?":

 

"WHAT?!  She makes a good pillow!":

"KIDS these days.":

What else?  I am still trying to get my sister's affairs in order (did you know you have to file a 1040 AFTER YOU DIE?!  Is true.), trapping for TNR continues apace (I'm trapping tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day - Erin Go Trap haha),  and work is going well.   What's up with you?

In the garden

I just realized it's been a while since I posted any garden shots; some of these pics (I'm looking at YOU, peonies) were taken over a month ago.  Right now the Rose of Sharon and hibiscus are getting ready to bloom, so it looks like I'd better take my camera out to the gardens more often.  ANYway, here is some of what has been blooming this summer:

This week in the garden

Lots of purple and some pink.

The hibiscus's last hurrah

A couple of weeks ago, I brought the hibiscus tree in for the winter.  And ever since, it's been blooming like crazy.

It's also dropping leaves like crazy; it's going to be mostly twigs by the time it's done, but for right now it sure is pretty.

A last little bit of summer color.

Mallow

The hibiscus (hibiscuses? hibisci?) and Rose of Sharons (Roses of Sharon?  I DON'T KNOW) in my yard are blooming away.

I have to net the crap out of the hibiscus(es?) in the side garden, or the deer pluck the buds right off.

 Horse and hibiscus:

I moved a couple Rose of Sharons from my old apartment's yard.  I moved a LOT of plants from the old place.  The new tenant probably wondered what all the giant holes were for.  Five years later, the Rose of Sharons (?) are doing well.

I planted this double one (which has a visitor) by the mailbox.  I really need to get a pic of the mailbox garden; it looks very pretty, if I do say so myself.

Gotta love the late bloomers.

In the garden

My garden has been horribly neglected this year.  Luckily, over the years I've kept adding perennials, so by now I don't have to buy any annuals as "filler", and things are carrying on just fine without me.  Well, I DO need to do some massive weeding, which hopefully will happen soon.

Summertime.  The best time of the year.

Tonight I had to google "trumpet vine pod" ...

... because a fantastical thing is happening out back by the shed.

I'll tell you what, fifty years in, something manages to surprise me every damn day.

In the garden

I love it when the silver lace vine starts to creep over the front door:

and when things start to get overgrown:

purple and red and orange and yellow go together:

the swans don't mind ...

... when strange things start to bloom:

metalcat is ready for showers:

the daisies are going to town:

even the hydrangeas are giving it the old college try:

and Mr. Z rides herd over it all.

Random

I splurged and bought a pair of swimming-pool-blue tights at Crapmart the other night.  When I went to put them on this morning, I discovered that they were not tights but leggings.  What the hell, Crapmart?  There is a difference between tights and leggings.  Please label your products accordingly.

Little girls look cute in leggings.  I?  Do not look cute in leggings.


I am still sick.  I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow.  Dear C-diff:  F*ck you.


It started raining about a week and a half ago, and with the brief exception of Sunday afternoon, has not stopped since.  Last night we got an inch of rain in an hour, and Tinks, for reasons I cannot fathom, decided that he wanted to be out in it.  He came in soaked.  I do not understand that cat.


Remember the lily I planted?  The one where I suspected the labeling was wrong, and would thus have to wait until it bloomed to see what color it was?  Yeah.  The deer ate almost all of the buds off of it.  I swear to GOD I'm gonna buy a gun.


My neighbor T. brought donuts over to share on Sunday.  It's nice to have a neighbor who is willing to share her donuts.


I usually take some time off this time of the year, but not knowing if my vacation is going to be pre-empted by hospitalization is putting a crimp in my plans.  Dear C-diff:  F*ck you.


Every Sunday afternoon, around four, a pickup-truck full of teens pulls into the park next door.  They head into the woods, come back out after around an hour, and leave.  I would say "party", but there's no loud noise, no coolers, and they're never there for very long.  Meth lab?  D&D?  I'm gonna have to go poke around down in there, because now I'm getting curious.

Purty

I've got a shed in my backyard.  It's just your standard shed, composed of some kind of metal, I'm guessing aluminum.  It's fairly good-sized, maybe 10 x 10, and it's my understanding that during the flood of 2006, it relocated itself to the back of my neighbor's yard and had to be hauled back into its current position.  A travelin' shed.

I put a trellis up against one side of it and put in some honeysuckle and trumpet vine, but the trumpet vine has produced a grand total of one bloom in the past four years, and the honeysuckle ain't doing a lot better.  I thought about putting some ferns in along that side of the shed, but after observing the space for the past couple of weekends, I think it gets too much sun for ferns to thrive.

So I went down to the creek last weekend to see what I could find.  I found some daisies about to be taken over by the murderous knotweed, so I liberated them from their position of doom.  I went to the garden center and picked up a lily for 20% off.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the ID tag stuck in the lily's pot may not belong to that particular plant, so what color it will be when it blooms is anybody's guess.  A surprise!

Remember Our Lady of the Really Big Dress?  She'd been leaning up against that shed for quite some time, so she and her larva baby got the place of honor.  Then I went back to the creek for some flat stones to keep weeding to a minimum, and voila!

Shed chic.  It's my specialty.

Add "fox"

... to the list of wildlife I've seen in my backyard.

Of course, there's always the deer.  I discovered today that sometime last night, the deer had come through and  buzz-sawed the garden phlox.  The phlox that is approximately two feet away from my house.

And let's see, there's turkeys, and pheasants, and of course the raccoons.  And hawks.  And rabbits.  And woodchucks.

And then, tonight, I was looking out the kitchen window when I saw a fox crossing the yard.  He popped out of the brushline, and the lowering sun illuminated his red-gold fur, spotlit his bottle-brush tail, and turned his ears translucent as he swiveled his head around, observing, before he headed back into the brush.

Ain't life grand?

Desperate times and all that

A few weeks ago, I set up the deer netting in the gardens.  Last weekend, I monkeyed with elevating the netting, because the bastid deer had figured out that if they stepped on the netting, they could eat the plants through the netting.

Well, the deer were still managing to get to the plants.  So the other night I went to the dolla store and bought laundry baskets - the plastic kind with the holes in them.  I took them home, wrapped them in deer netting (to keep rabbits from squeezing through the holes, doncha know), and plopped them upside down over the plants. 

So far, so good.  My gardens look like the front yard of a trailer, but the plants are safe.  If the deer can figure this one out, I'm gonna cede the war.

Next battle?  The people who are letting their dogs run loose in the no-dogs-allowed park next door.   Dear a**holes:  I DO NOT APPRECIATE your dogs coming to "visit" my yard, leaving giant "presents".  I understand that your dog needs to run.  However, if you wanted a f*cking border collie, you shoulda fenced your yard.  Or, you know, BOUGHT A GOT-DAM LEASH.  Exercising with your pets is fun!  Try it some time!


Coming soon:   How to save a f*ck-ton on flea meds!

Work sucked, and so I bought a horse on my lunch break

Thursday night, I stopped by the thrift store after work.  There was a child's ride-on horse there, one of those big plastic ones on metal springs.  The kind they don't make any more because kids either fall off and give themselves concussions (raises hand), or get their fingers caught in the springs.

Years ago, I bought one and turned it into Mr. Z.  And then I bought a smaller one, Mini-Z, who has remained a horse.  And when I saw that one at the thrift store Thursday night, a pinto no less, I almost bought it.  But it was twenty bucks, and I wasn't sure, and

and then I got to work yesterday and work sucked.  Extremely busy, which is not terrible in and of itself, but my boss and one of my co-workers were screaming at each other, and I was tired because Tinks had been out all night the night before, and I was worrying about the FRANKENBURGERMEISTER STORM that is going to KILL US ALL, and I kept thinking of that horse in the thrift store, and how awesome he would look all cleaned up, and

I bought the horse on my lunch break.  Meet Blaze.

(No, I did not name him.  I NEVER GET TO NAME ANYTHING.) (His name  is printed on his saddle.)

This afternoon I washed him up and put a coat of varnish on him and I'm pretty sure he's going in my side garden.  COME ON OVER TO MY PLACE, GUYS.  IT'S AWESOME.

Other things I did today:

Painted some faded pink flamingos blue.  Because obviously.

Raked some leaves.

Can you spot the cat in that pic?  Hint:  Look for the ringtail.

Duct-taped back together the seat belt latch I had managed to hulk-smash the night before.  Sadly, the duct tape did not magically fix the smashed-beyond-repair latch, so add that to the list of things-I-will-spend-money-on-never.  Hey, it's in the back seat.  Nobody sits back there anyway.

Went for a nice long walk.  I was doing one of the tougher trails, and was pretty impressed with myself, until I saw a woman doing the exact same trail while walking a spastic pug and drinking a cup of coffee.  Now THAT's  impressive.

Ran into my ex-husband's sister.  Seeing as how I haven't seen any of his family since I left him, over twenty years ago, THAT was awkward.  And I'd just done a four-mile walk, so I wasn't exactly looking glamtastic, but then again, I'm pretty sure I STILL looked better than I did by the time  I walked out of that marriage, so there's that.

Started some laundry.

And  now it's time for a beer.  Join me,  would ya?



Butterfly and tiger lily

Oh, now it's ON.

Okay, first off, scroll down, because yesterday I took on organized religion. Just ... because.

Now! World War III is about to go down in my yard.

Because the deer are eating my about-to-bloom hibiscuses. (Hibisci?)

This. Will. Not. Stand.

I KNOW there's been some talk lately about the deer coming to tell me something, and I'm totally down with that, BUT THEY CANNOT EAT MY HIBISCUSES WHILE THEY'RE HERE.

I put up with the deer this spring, when they ate half my damn (deer-resistant) (my ass) daylilies down to the ground. I put up with their gigantic poop piles in my backyard.

But they cannot have the hibiscuses.

I worked HARD to carve that hibiscus garden out of the sloping side yard last year. I CELEBRATED when the plants popped out of the ground this spring. I MULCHED and I WATERED and I delighted when the first buds started to appear.

The first buds. WHICH THE DEER ARE NOW EATING.

F*ck no.

So I'm arming myself with knowledge. I've looked up deer-repellent spray recipes, and I've learned that hanging aluminum pie pans in the garden, while cultivating the hillbilly look, may also help keep the deer away. I've heard the whole Irish-Spring theory.* I will sit out there with a f*cking FLAMETHROWER if I have to, to keep the deer away from those hibiscuses.

You're crossed the line, deer. You've been warned. It is ON.





*am I the only one old enough here to remember the old "Manly, yes! But *I* like it, too!" commercials?

Where you beeeeeeeeeeeeen?!

Busy weekend. Beautiful weather, lots of hiking, installation of an AC unit in the foster room to keep the babies comfy, one shift at the adoption center, gardening, let's not leave plenty of sleeping out of the picture, and, of course, kitten-sittin'.

How about you?

Dudes. Duuuuuudes.

I was pulling out of my driveway this morning, and I happened to glance over into the garden, and guess what?

Daffodils. The daffodils are up! Little bits of ACTUAL GREEN, poking up out of the ground.

Spring is surely on its way.

Yippee!

Now I've gotta check the bleeding hearts. If the daffodils are up, the bleeding hearts can't be too far behind.




(oh, and for you non-gardeners, "bleeding hearts" are PLANTS, NOT the remains of something that I buried in my garden.) (ha.)

Perseverence

Two weeks ago, the hibiscus garden was covered with rushing floodwaters.

After the water receded, I picked the left-behind flood detritus off the plants. I rinsed the leaves off with buckets of (clean) water to clear off the creek crud, propped them up from where they had gotten beaten against the ground, and hoped they would come back next year.

This morning?:

And in other yard news:

It's a crabapple tree.

The deer won't even eat the fruit.

Anybody want some crabapples? I've got PLENTY.

In the garden

Things are staring to wind down. Right now it's mostly lilies and hibiscus.


Double orange daylily:

Red/yellow daylily:




Butterfly on tiger lily:




Stargazer lily:

Pink hibiscus:

Red hibiscus:

Rose of Sharon:

I actually bought a couple of mums at the grocery store, although it seems way too early. I use mums like annuals, to provide some late-season color; I've never had a mum come back for a second year.

Oh! And I've got lots of tomatoes on my one tomato plant. I've already had a couple of ripe ones, which I gave away because I don't like tomatoes. I KNOW! Sacrilege! Why do I grow them, then, you ask? Got me. Because I can?