Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Wednesday, June 19th. The lights didn't work all that well.

A little sun and a little water and things grow like crazy here. It's no wonder that agriculture has played a role in our little valley for more than a thousand years.

We left on the 12th to participate in my little kid's wedding, leaving our neighbor in charge of all things living (flora and fauna) around our place. We returned to no losses in either case, but an amazing growth spurt in all things green. Everything had added height and bulk, in particular our peat pot sunflower experiments which doubled and tripled in size. Of course it takes a few days away to really see the changes, but these changes was extraordinary in only 3 days.

Two days later - widespread destruction when the masked bandit returned for a rampage. I had accidentally left the water running on Sunday night, soaking the areas surrounding the raised beds  and it occurred to me that the last time I'd done it, Rocky had paid us a visit. This time the damage was extensive - holes dug around the base of every raised bed, fences crumpled under his bulk, plants dug up and most of our Cosmos and Zinnias trampled flat. I suppose I should have taken some photos but I was just too angry and instead threw my energy into repairs. It seems now that he's grown accustomed to the glare of the lights, so we doubled down and salted all the walkways with Kritter Ridder (a chokingly awful concoction of black pepper powder) in hopes that it would turn him off for a while. We put down so much that the air outside was akin to sitting in the back room of a Mexican restaurant on Relleno night - almost too bad to sit and watch the sun go down while having a glass of wine. So far this stuff has worked in moving him away from his latrine, we'll see how it does out back. Two days now and no more trashing. It may be that careful water management, lights and the repellent will do the trick. We'll see.

Week to week - things change -

May 20th
June 4th
June 10th
June 17th


First Sunflower

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