Did you know squirrels are part ninja?

I am not terribly excited to learn that squirrels have been trained by a secret sect of no good ninja squirrels. I know this for a fact after watching the acrobatics of one particular squirrel in my garden. I think he is their sensai.

A few weeks ago I went outside to my garden only to find 3 of the little bastards sitting on top our table eat tomatoes and cucumbers like it was a dang salad bar. Their own private Sizzler. One was the chopper; he nibbled it to pieces and spit it out. The others at and sniffed at the bits. I think the nibbler was the ninja. When I started screaming at them they all took off in seperate directions. One went over the fence, one was trapped for a second but then darted by and trough the fence, and then the other climbed up a ladder to the roof better and faster than a human probably could (the ninja!).

Jerks.

I clean up their mess...and retreat inside.

5 minutes later I return outdoors to check up on things. There was the ninja again!!! He darted up the fence up the electrical pole, which is metal, and scurried along the thin wire for about 30 feet... BUT not on top!! He scurried across upside down hanging on with his little ratty feet...like some Mission Impossible business!


moar funny pictures

Double Post Saturday!

I worked in the garden today from 12:30 to 5pm. It was gorgeous outside and I feel so relieved to have accomplish some much  needed replanting and rearranging.

I battled many spiders, centipedes, grubs, and rolly pollies to finish the job, but all in all I'd say that I get the winning score today!

What a perfect way to spend such a beautiful day!

 

 

Nature-3, Leslie-0

Yesterday I went to work in the garden after I got home from work. It was a beautiful day, and I was quite inspired to get things done!

So, I go outside and survey what I need to do. I check on all my darlings. Remember that one watermelon that was surviving?? I have bad news...the friggin squirrels got to it!!!

They yanked it off the vine and cracked it and only nibbled a little. What jerks!!
I rinsed it off real well, and cut off the infected area, and decided to eat it anyway. Though small, it was delicious.

...But screw those squirrels for not allowing it to fully mature!

Nature-1, Leslie-0

While in the backyard I was getting bit by mosquitoes, so I put on a lot of bug spray. So much that I could barely inhale. But that did not stop the mosquitoes. The continued to bite everywhere including such odd places as my cheek, my eyebrow (2 places), my lip, my ear, and my armpit.

Nature-2, Leslie-0

Final Round...
I went to put some garden scraps in the compost, which I keep in our tiny alleyway. Remember those scary spiders?? I think they are starting to get smart! I was walking through the alley and I felt something on my leg. I looked down and I had walked through a web which spanned the alley!!! He was on my leg eating his bloody dinner. I had bug blood smeared on my leg. I naturally started to scream and rapidly jump up and down. ...his spikey legs were crawling on me... ehhhhhh

Nature-3, Leslie--0

I lose.

I have things I should be doing.

I am dividing my time between work, errands, cleaning, internet-ing, eating, and sleeping. Aside from all that and other social obligations, I can't seem to find enough extra minutes outside while it is still light out to work in my garden. Clean things up. Do some rearranging. Root up dead plants. (Maybe I killed them, and maybe it was natural causes...) I refuse to do any of this in the guise of night while the spiders are spinning their webs and the praying mantis are eating worms.

I am not afraid of the mantis, but I would certainly hate to be in the way of him and a fat juicy worm! I've seen it in full action, from the plucking out of the dirt to the last dripping kibble. Ew. I have a tiny bit of it recorded.


The spiders scare me. They are big, bulbous, spikey-legged, creepy yellow and black, and they spin this intimidating zig zag on their webs. When something has landed or agitated their web they profusely shake it to entangle it even more. I have witnessed one spider catch a bumble bee and a fly at the same time and do some serious damage to both almost simultaneously. There are enough of these spiders in my garden, that I am certain if they had larger brains, or not enough bugs to eat, then they would realize strength in numbers and would capture me effortlessly. I think they might especially have it out for me if they realized I was the one flicking them off their webs with a long bamboo pole. (I was not doing this maliciously, I just needed to get to my tomatoes and they were blocking me.)

Watermelon, what melon?

I hate squirrels.
With a fervent fever, I hate them.

I took a morning stroll in my garden looking for ripe tomatoes to pick before the squirrels get to them, and to my horror and found a discarded 1/8th eaten baby, like one week old, watermelon! Oh the terribleness of it all!! Of course you discarded it you stupid squirrel. It was no where near ripe! It had barely begun to live.

The squirrels have managed to kill every baby watermelon that has tried to exist, minus one. That one is about the size of a softball right now. I have been rooting for it all summer. I hope it makes it. I will strangle a squirrel with my bare hands if I so much as see paw prints on it.

I was really excited last weekend to see that I might be blessed with 2 watermelons. The squirrels just crushed my soul.

My plan for the squirrels is total annihilation.

My garden, my inspiration, my roots itch

I failed a lot this summer in my garden. It's okay though. I think I expected it, but did not want to admit it. I found things to blame it on like the weather or squirrels, but truth is, I had grand plans and I did not do all my homework or side work.

I dug out my potatoes yesterday. The hard part about growing them is you never see them until you dig them out. So I greedily reached my hands in the soil expecting to find such a bounty (as I had actually dreamed about a few nights before) and was greeted with handful after handful of dirt. There were a few potatoes. 8 to be exact, and all about the size of a grape. How disappointing. I am sure I will enjoy the potatoes still. (Imagine me cutting small thin sliver after sliver off my tiny potatoes...)

There were other fails in my garden. The squash. The watermelon (still debatable). The English peas. Tomatoes with bottom rot. Peppers with bottom rot. The list goes on.

I still have a lot to learn. And I have all winter to come here and dissect what I did and did not do. Not much grows besides herbs on my window sill during winter. Speaking of which. I killed my thyme. Literally and metaphorically.

Things to come:
Squirrels and my plans to poison their frequent picnics on my patio table.
Why I believe garden spiders are the most scary garden creepy crawlers.
Should I burn the forest of weeds in my neighbors yard.(Forest being an understatement.)