Dewdrop Gizmos

It's good to have lots of hobbies, in case one dries up, as in the case of my recent gardening efforts.  That left me earnestly hoping for much-needed rain.  At the same time, I wished for clear skies for stargazing.  Apparently, my ambivalence resulted in clouds but no rain.

While I waited for either rain or clear skies, I knocked together this astronomy work table on the front porch.  I nailed the top of an old corner coffee table to the porch railings.  The idea here is to save the stargazing atlases from heavy dew.  I was getting tired of running back into the house to check on what I was seeing.  This elegant invention features two 2x2 boards supporting an old storm window.  The Foulers left dozens of the windows in various outbuildings.  The boards and glass are just laid on the table top and can be moved to the wrought iron table on the back deck when I want to see what's up in the north.

At Walmart, I found lots of  non-traditional astronomy equipment recently.  There was a baby bed mattress cover to keep the dew from soaking  my adjustable office chair.  The package said it would hold several cups of  liquid, which made me wonder if they hadn't heard of diapers.  While I was at it, I got an eye patch and an eyeglasses chain.  Also on my list was a piece of lightweight black fleece to cover my head to block out stray light.  I can hear cars approaching some distance away, which gives me time to toss the cloth over the telescope and duck into the house.  There, I shut my eyes tight until it passes.  All that is to preserve my night vision.  For that purpose, I have a red-beam LED astro flashlight, from Orion Telescopes and Binoculars.

So, I frequently am wandering around the house in the dark,  wearing an eye patch and black cloak, using the red-beam light to not step on the dog or cats.  I wonder what they think of all that.  They sometimes look a little worried about me.  I assume they take it in their stride, but that's only because they don't know how to roll their eyes.

My Junk Motif

My carpentry skills are such that a trellis-like affair I once made for cucumbers was downright rickety. This year, I put up this sturdy creation from fence posts and the trellis netting. I may be feeble at carpentry, but I'm good at pounding in posts.  Winds won't topple this one.

For some time, I've wanted to grow pole beans.  The bean towers shown in the gardening catalogs were terribly expensive.  Then I came upon a junky old TV antenna down at the pile of clutter that the Foulers left behind.  Perfect, I thought.  Cutting off a few feet with a hacksaw made it the right height.

I dug a hole in the last of the compost heap, soon hitting the clay layer.  It was a bear to dig but tamping the clay down around the pole had the same effect as setting the pole in cement.

Ground staples hold the twine for the Kentucky Wonder pole beans to grow up, as soon as they get brave and dare to climb up the rigging of the Adventureland I've made for them. Ahoy!  Cows off the starboard. Prepare to run aground, Fair Matey!

Meanwhile, the National Pickle cukes and the Cocozelle zucchini are coming on in the spot that had some soil amendments but is still mostly clay.

The water company guy, a local farmer, told me that the Foulers scraped all the topsoil off the garden area to use around the house.  That explains why I've had such a struggle to grow things; I'm working with subsoil.  Swell.

Up at the falling-down fishing shack, I found this handy wash tub.  Pushing open the door to get the tub out, I failed to notice, on account of wearing a visor hat, that one of the ceiling 2x4's was resting on the top of the door.  Had the beam not been suffering from dry rot, I'm sure it would have hurt a lot more when it bonked me on the head.

This is my simple water catchment system. Rainwater from the roof over the fruit cellar steps collects in the washtub and the other bucket.  I fill kitty litter jugs from the drain in the bottom of the tub.  In a normal year, the water isn't needed and in a dry year, it's barely a drop in the bucket, literally.  This is turning out to be a dry year.  I can think of all sorts of better schemes but they are more expensive than just running up the water bill watering the plants.  Sort of a Catchment-22.

Into Thick Air

Mornings are a great time to go down to Clam Beach.  It's shady and cool.  There's a big rock to sit on. This view is looking downriver.

The restful thing about the river is there's nothing to be done there.  No weeding, planting, watering or mowing, it's a true gardener's retreat.  The Grand River comes up and goes down when it wants.  It defies even the thought of landscaping along the shore.  Most of these young willows have already been completely underwater this spring.

Here's the view looking upriver. It's beautiful.  Flying overhead are bald eagles and, if I sit quietly for too long, vultures.  "Just resting!" I shout up at them.

Access to the river is through a lot of underbrush.  The happy thing is no poison ivy will grow where it floods.  Here, I'm following Beau, who seems to know the way.

Walking up the sunny, steep hill from the river is not fun when it's humid.  Breathing air that has 85% humidity makes a person gasp like a fish out of water.

My thoughts turned to mountain climbing above the Death Zone, where supplemental oxygen is needed.  That led me to considering that people who work outdoors in the hot, humid summer could really use a solar-powered machine that wrings the water out of the air.  This conditioned air could be supplied by a lightweight tank in a backpack.

On several occasions, I've gotten a touch of heat sickness while gardening on  humid days. No matter how much water I drank, it seemed that my brain couldn't cool down despite copious amounts of sweating.  Now, I avoid getting a poached brain when it's hot and steamy.  I stay out of the sun in the heat of the day, which is from eleven to six.  At those times, I toy with the idea of not being an outdoor person at all.  Perhaps I'll live in a high-rise in the city and have no windows that open.  After a few hours, though, I start to get cabin fever and have to go find a shady spot under a tree and enjoy the breeze.

Yes, a dehumidified air gizmo would be a boon.  All outdoor people would come to rely on them.  Then we would read true adventures of intrepid gardeners who ventured out on humid days without supplemental conditioned air.

Someone should certainly invent such a device, even if Ed Viesturs would never buy one.

A Progressive Dinner

Relocating two possums and one raccoon didn't stop the midnight raids on the strawberry patch, now nearly decimated.

Down at the river, I found these beautiful  fresh freshwater clam shells.  My shoe is in the photo to show scale, not to show off my extra-cute shoelaces on my gardening shoes.

Apparently, the masked diner enjoyed clams on the half shell, eaten alfresco here at the elegant eatery on the Left Bank.

Nearby were these tracks, which I believe are precise directions to the dessert course up at the strawberry patch.  It's sort of like how bees do the dance to show the hive where the best yellow clover is to be found.

Sensing trouble heading my way, I once again wired the banana inside the suet cage inside the Havahart trap.  Not quite Bananes au Rhum, but irresistible, anyway.

This guy was given a complementary Missouri Mid-Continental breakfast of another banana before being escorted to join his cronies some miles away.  Perhaps they will find some wild strawberries in their new habitat.

I trust that I will soon lose my five-star Raccoon Restaurant Rating.  Anyway, they never left a tip.

Alleged Strawberry Thief Apprehended

In local news, a major poaching roundup resulted in the capture of this unidentified suspect last night.  Under custody was this  clever critter, who had eluded earlier attempts to get it behind bars.

In an interview with the tearful trap setter, this reporter learned that it was with great reluctance that she was forced to find a new home for this harmless marsupial.  "The poor little thing was getting carried around like a stuffed toy by my 'coon hound, who practices Catch and Release.  This guy was clever, getting into the trap to fetch the banana and then sitting outside the cage to enjoy it.  He smiled up at the light I shone on him, apparently  glad of my kindness. I had to wire a banana in a suet cage to finally catch him.  This morning, he let me feed him a farewell banana before taking him to join the other possum released a few days ago."

The gardener was prompted to drastic action by a strawberry harvest yesterday of five puny berries.

Roundup Time

Yesterday, on my mowed path above the river, I found big tracks.  Deer and even herons use my path.  Ruling out an enormous elk, I deduced that there is a breach in the fence that ought to be fixed before the entire herd comes calling.

I back-tracked and found the cow had come from upriver, around the fallen tree.  It was rather a brushy course for a cow to navigate.  The tracks didn't cross the mud at the intermittent stream between the river and the house.  She'd gone up the overgrown path to the farthest field.

It wasn't the Far Side Cow, who mysteriously went missing from the herd last year.  She probably wandered up to Iowa, jumping fences as she went.


Unfortunately, the direction the tracks came from indicated this was was not the cow I encountered a few days ago.  Nor was it the cow and two calves  I wrote about a few days before that.  That cow  showed up at the birdbath a few days ago, while I was kneeling in the flower bed there, praying for better fencing for whoever is supposed to be pasturing those bovines.


Beau chased her.  She ran across the front yard, around the side, across the back and up the hills toward the pond.  She is now fenced out of the cow pond and can't reach the river on account of steep banks.  But from these fresh tracks she may have company.

When the grand-kids were here on Saturday, I gave the two youngest ones the game of following the tracks left in the soft ground.  Too easy, they said.

Other entertainment that I offered during their overnight stay was to help bait the trap with a banana to catch the big possum.

Instead, we caught a big raccoon, which was just as fun.  They all went with me in the car to release the critter.  There is no end to nature activities at Grammie's.

More Roundup!

Just before a nice gentle rain, I got these tomato plants and three pepper plants settled in at the remote garden.  The poison ivy wants to grow along the fence there, where it was so happily established until I showed up with my spray bottle and a nasty glint in my eye.

My ongoing campaign to keep the poison ivy from taking over the entire place continues.  Even though the scary stuff will keep me out of the woods until a hard frost,  am determined to not have it grow up my lawn chair.

In the patches were it is standing alone, it is already over five feet tall.  It offers delicate white berries for birds, who then obligingly drop the seeds along fences.  Never eradicated, it can be kept somewhat in check by repeated applications of Roundup.

Towering high over the path to the river is this mostly dead willow tree.  Those are not tree leaves, they are poison ivy.

So far this season, I haven't gotten any outbreaks of poison ivy, but just looking at it gives me an itchy trigger finger.

Oh! Possum

When I first moved here, the raccoons were bold, coming out in the daytime and showing up on the decks at night. I didn't have a dog then. Those raccoons were obviously used to having the run of the place. Perhaps they were a factor in the former owners moving away.

By the way, smacking a raccoon with a wet mop does nothing to change their outlook.

Chris brought me a Havahart trap. He told me to spread a bed of grass inside and put a single egg on it. Using that method, I dispatched thirteen of them that first summer.

 The grandkids got to see them up close and watch them run away when I released the trap door some miles away, far from other houses. Occasionally, there would be a possum in the trap. Since they are useful critters, eating bugs, I let them go.

After the coon hound came, it must have wiped the little smirks off those raccoons' faces. Even so, I kept setting the traps and did catch some.

Several times, Beau got one of the possums and brought it up to the yard. After a while, it would recover and wander off.

What inflation means to possums is last winter, when sunflower seeds shot up to over thirty dollars for a fifty pound bag, I had to withdraw my patronage from the birds. That left no seeds to clean up under the feeder. I thought I would be seeing the last of those dear possums.

Which was just as well, because last spring the strawberries started vanishing. There was a little possum path through the fence into the garden. One small possum came through it when I was finishing up at dusk. Not just a few berries were eaten, judging by the seed-filled droppings all over the yard. The little gluttons.

This spring, I forgot and left the cat food out on the back deck and found they had not moved away, after all. The sliding door was open. Beau charged the pet-proof screen, knocking it off the track. Dog and possum ran off into the night.

After that, it appeared there were two different possums, one bigger, that came up on the deck after dark. That set off Beau's loud barking that they completely ignored. Maybe possums have developed fearlessness on account of being unconscious when huge jaws grabbed them and carried them off. They probably think, "How'd I get here?" and then give it no more thought.

Alas, we came to a parting of the ways. With lots of green strawberries coming on, I made a decision. It would have been different if they had helped in any way to plant, weed, mulch, cover against frost or pick the berries. It was very much Little Red Hen of me, but I got out the trap. Also, I was was getting really tired of being awakened at night by Beau's deafening bark.

For about a week, I didn't catch anything. Then I added an over-ripe banana, sliced lengthwise in an attractive setting of green grass.

So, this is the smaller of the two possums. Obviously, the cat is used to seeing it around. The possum was very calm in the car and we said our good-byes five miles from here, at an undisclosed location.

Who could not love this face? Anyway, I hope there are only two of them. I'll need to go get some more bananas.

Lifelike Lawn Art

The cows haven't been on my side of the road for very long. They are in a lush field of grass and clover, with a lovely pond surrounded by shady trees.

True to form, they waited until the ground was nice and soft from gentle rains so they could leave deep tracks. There was also another calf that followed them, leaving the birdbath reeling as it ran past. Cows aren't especially interesting but they do leave a lasting impression. Thank goodness that I fenced the garden. The day they moved back into the field, I went up and fixed the gate on the remote garden. I knew the cows would be out before long. It isn't much of a gate but should keep those big critters out.

Not wishing to sound like a big whiny crybaby, but busting sod has proved to be a lot of hard work. First, I mowed, then scalped, then dug up the small tree stumps.

Then I hopped on the shovel and loosened the thick mat of grass roots. It was the only time I wished I weighed more. Before the soil could get too dry, I carried Tillie up there and bounced it over the ground. The Mantis has plenty of horsepower but not much weight. My big Troy-Built has heft but is a bear to turn at the end of the row. Tillie was actually fine for the job, but it was a bit like hanging on to a bucking bronco, not that I ever have.

This went on for several days. I picked out grass clumps and poison ivy vines and made a new compost heap in the fence corner. Finally, it started to look good. Beau thought I went to all that trouble so he could be comfortable in the dirt.

Only two-thirds more to do, but a few days of rain have halted the project and given me and my arms a chance to rest up for the next assault.

What Growing Lettuce Says About Me

Every year, I grow lettuce. Not just lettuce, but several kinds of lettuce. I'm always hopeful that this will be the year that we won't have the wildly fluctuating temperatures. Lettuce is unfazed by frost that kills (and did kill) some dear coleus starts I forgot to bring inside. Heat is the thing that turns lettuce bitter and makes me surly, too. There are just a certain amount of days that it takes for lettuce to be ready to eat. I started off this season with some plugs that I grew under lights in mid-February. They went into the garden March 15, pretty much as early as is possible here. Of course there was a record high of 82 degrees the next day. It was 85 degrees on April first, no fooling.

Then on the second of April another record high of 89, followed by hard frost on the eleventh and twelfth. I had to rush out with sheets to cover the strawberry patch both nights, but was unconcerned about the lettuces.

Another frost on the twenty-first of April only made the lettuces laugh. By then, some were big enough to make great salads with the bumper crop of radishes. These made such a lovely bouquet I had to take their photo. Yesterday, it was another record high. It was ninety-four here and some of the lettuces finally had had it. When a leaf is plucked on a bitter lettuce, it oozes milky stuff, like a milkweed. I've discovered it doesn't even pay to taste these because they will be dreadful despite looking quite tempting.

The worst ones were the Deer's Tongue, which I failed to notice took 52 days to harvest. Too long! Some of these Tom Thumbs were still good and might reach salad size shortly.

These bronze beauties, Merveille de Quatre Saisons, French for Marvel of Four Seasons, are still quite good. So, what growing lettuce says about me is I continue to be optimistic about having a lovely spring here in Missouri, with heat only a possibility after mid-June.

By the way, the strawberries are doing great and have berries already, which is surprising since they are supposed to be a late June-bearer. I'm still keeping the sheets ready.

Rowdy Neighbors

The cows decided to move back to the field on my side of the road. They took advantage of an open gate to explore the grazing opportunities on the gravel road. The first I heard of it was a lot of mooing, so I stepped over to the lily bed at the crest of the hill. There I could see that the cows were unaccompanied, not a good sign.

A few minutes later, the cow guy drove his truck back from over the yonder hill and found his charges had all vacated their green pasture. By then, they had wandered into the yard of the rental house down at the corner, where they were milling about waiting for the gate to open. Those folks don't have any vegetable garden or flowers, preferring to race around and around the house on four-wheelers, so probably there was no harm done to their yard.

The cow guy made several attempts to drive the herd of about thirty cows, calves and one bull back across the road and through the gate. Finally, he came to the obvious conclusion that one person can't herd cattle. He opened the gate on this side of the road and they poured into the field in an orderly fashion. None of the last-second pivoting and breaking away that they had perfected earlier.

My house is close to their fence, so it takes me a while to get used to seeing them as sort of part of my summer living room. The cows come up in the afternoons to stand around in the shade and see what I'm up to in the garden. There have been socially incorrect moments when I have come out with a steak for the barbeque.

The herd was out in the field yesterday when something spooked them. They came as close to running as cows can, sort of a speed walk. After a while, I noticed some birds diving at something and saw it was a small coyote. It probably was after meadowlarks' nests. The coyote ambled up and over the hill.

Nighttime Coyote Noises Off

Just after dark, a great cry of joy is heard coming from the coyote pack. I have the same feeling when waiting for it to get dark enough to stargaze. Night, at last!

To start the night, the pack must howl and yip and run. They are very fast. If I hear them close by, across the road, they will be gone before I can grab the big flashlight and step out on the porch. One night recently, I heard them as they made a run through the back yard. The cats were safe on the high deck, which has no steps. They were wide-eyed and eager to come inside.

The Lone Coyote

In the early mornings, I have seen one big coyote. One time, I stepped out on the side porch to watch him. Loping across the field, he spotted me. He made a wide u-turn, then went back the way he came. He seemed to be saying, "Better not risk it, these country folks are so gun-happy."

I've watched him through binoculars and found him to be magnificent, not long-legged and scruffy like some coyotes. Telling my daughter Lissa about him, I said he looked more like a wolf or a German Shepherd. She offered that maybe it was a German Shepherd.

So I thought maybe I might call him, but feared I would be known locally as Whistles at Coyotes.