stubbed toes and mud pies

What about This on your Wall ..

. behind the fridge?





.

if it was a frog gargoyle with eyes Mom would like it.

garden club meeting today, i took my maybe planting beans with me to work on just in case nobody showed up. it was cold and windy today so i thought everyone was going to stay home. well, no the regular three of us were there again.

i woke up feeling tired and worn out and had very little energy and was thinking all morning about just taking a nap all day, but responsibilities meant i had to go into town so i did get things done as needed and then the garden club meeting.

for the most part we sat and talked about what had been going on for the past month and some of it was gardening related but then we got onto parents issues and care taking and ...

i did get some beans put into the seed library since the supply was a bit low. i'll take some more with me next time i visit to fill up a few more packets.

one thing about a fresh snow is that you can check out the mouse population by scanning for tracks. the first day there weren't any tracks at all and i was hoping they were gone for a while longer. yesterday scanning, nope, a few tracks, so i put out some traps in the afternoon. not quite ready to go out but in a bit i'll check them.

my crow friends will come around and check if i put out any offerings for them. i've not had to do that this winter so far so they're not around as much but they do still come by on their daily route. since we don't grow corn we've not had them disturb anything in the gardens.

planted the first groundhog today...









...

sick, blah, nothing major, just crud of some kind.
taking it easy today.

2nd groundhog sighting/firing at... i did try to use the air rifle but i'm not sure i did anything other than warn it off. normally this doesn't work for very long and if i didn't hit it seriously enough to kill it then it will be back eventually.

It's surprising that you can dispatch them with an air rifle.

If they are like their marmot cousins, it would not surprise me if they abandon the territory if hit. I was so surprised, and pleased, that blocking their burrows resulted in them disappearing. It was pointed out to me that they live in the ground for 6 months each year and they know how to dig. Nevertheless, it worked for both the marmots and ground squirrels. I never learned how or if they made it out; they just disappeared from the scene.

The blocking was quite "thorough" with a number of large rocks.

I know that that it may be difficult to locate their burrows and they might be on another person's property. Living under a building may be especially difficult to deal with.

Steve

digitS' said:

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All this time I thought it was to sell more pies!!! haha

Mary

digitS' said:

It's surprising that you can dispatch them with an air rifle.

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there are some pretty powerful air rifles available these days. also if you are lucky you can have one that is sighted in and has a good scope and you can accurately hit them. i have a powerful enough one, but it isn't always accurate enough to ensure one shot will do it. sometimes i have to go out and find them and finish what i've started. sad for sure. i do not like doing it, but without doing it i'd not have much for gardens.

digitS' said:

If they are like their marmot cousins, it would not surprise me if they abandon the territory if hit. I was so surprised, and pleased, that blocking their burrows resulted in them disappearing. It was pointed out to me that they live in the ground for 6 months each year and they know how to dig. Nevertheless, it worked for both the marmots and ground squirrels. I never learned how or if they made it out; they just disappeared from the scene.

The blocking was quite "thorough" with a number of large rocks.

I know that that it may be difficult to locate their burrows and they might be on another person's property. Living under a building may be especially difficult to deal with.

Steve

Click to expand...

some of them i've hit multiple times and they eventually come back. it is not easy for me to access their den openings. plugging them up with rocks and stakes pounding around where they are digging slows them down enough that you can have a chance of keeping them out. however that takes a very concerted and consistent effort.

well ok, so perhaps this will be fun or not, we'll see how it goes.

the past several weeks we took a bunch of dug up and chopped off daffodil bulbs to the greenhouse and they've been giving them away. which is great as it gives them some traffic they'd probably not normally get but also it takes care of getting rid of them.

the problems are that i'm sick and not able to dig up any more for at least a week or more and on top of that it would be really nice if people could see what they are getting in flower types and when they flower, etc. plus they can have the whole plant with the leaves so the bulbs will have a chance of blooming again next season instead of what we did to them before.

on top of this i also have tulips in spots i'd be happy for people to take, hyacynths, crocuses, etc.

so today i called the greenhouse and thanked them for what they've done already and then asked them to include my e-mail address and that if anyone would like to come dig them and see what they are as they flower i'd be happy for them to do that, plus if we coordinate by e-mail this removes Mom from having to deal with it at all any more.

then of course i can also talk about the bean collection... and peas... and the garden group... and ...

so we'll see what kind of response this gets...