Critter Ridder to the Rescue



You too could maybe, possibly be rid of your critters!

As previously discussed, we have a woodchuck problem.  A very hungry woodchuck problem. We have explored many options and have tried to come to terms with what we are able to do and still be able to sleep at night.  We are big animal lovers, so having them "taken out" just breaks our hearts. Relocating is generally just as bad, as it takes the animal away from its home and it has a very low rate of survival.  Plus, if you relocate, you have to catch the animal (or in this case, three animals -- mama and her two fat babies) in a trap, put them in your car and take them to an undisclosed location.  And then they probably pee in your car.  All of this is sort of illegal in Mass. too, as relocating an animal can take their disease (if they have one) and move it to an area that might not have that disease.  So this is more complicated than it should be.



See that tall plant there on the right? Yeah. That should have leaves and flowers.

I keep fantasizing that a fox or coyote or giant hawk will move into our neighborhood and take care of the issue naturally. I have no problem with that -- that's the circle of life. But in the meantime, we are experimenting with other ways to keep Alvin and the woodchucks out of our gardens. They have totally mowed down my pansies and petunias, and are working on the impatiens. We got this Critter Ridder stuff and it seems to sort of work in certain areas. I think it really depends on how much they like the plant.  If it's, "Meh, I wasn't really in the mood for petunias this morning anyway..." then it seems to work.  So it really depends on their moods. Brats.



I heart you, perennial garden.

It was bad enough when they were eating the annuals. But the perennials are expensive. (Though you buy perennials so that you don't have to buy more plants in the future. It rounds out.) This is my little perennial garden that I LOVE.  There is a place in Salisbury called Pettingills, and they have the most gorgeous plants and garden stuff ever.  Most of these plants are from there, as well as the iron dragonfly. Josh and I both spotted that and loved it, and now we have a trumpet vine growing up it.  Hopefully when that blossoms, it will be a hummingbird magnet. I have coral bells, foxgloves, twinleaf, mini irises, a rose bush, a peony dahlia (that's the big, red and delicious plant Alvin has been munching down on.) There's some salvia in there too, and some autumn clematis that I have to string up so it will climb. The shiny orb is a little mushroom that I got at Pettengills as well. Too cute.  I lined the garden with rocks that we've found around the yard, and I think it's a really cute edger.



Not Water Country for woodchucks!


We went to an amazing craft and antique fair at Pettengills last weekend -- my mind was officially blown. (And I have been to many a craft/antique fair in my day, let me tell you.)  There was some amazingly gorgeous stuff there.  As a special treat, I got this glass bird bath for the perennial garden. The artist basically takes abandoned, colorful dishes and turns them into yard art! I'm sort of obsessed with it. I can't imagine they are that hard to make -- just get some super duper strong epoxy and glue dishes together. But the end result is incredibly beautiful! I haven't seen any birds in it yet, but I'd better not see any woodchucks doing a backstroke in there either.



Not yet eaten by woodchucks. I don't think they like the thorns.


I'll leave you with this photo -- my rosebush! Such a beautiful blossom. The roses are a mixed pink/peach that goes really well with the rest of the colors in the yard. I am normally a bright red, bright everything sort of person, but the plants in our back yard are very tropical in color. It makes me think of all our vacations we have been on, and the colors that I had in my wedding bouquet. I'm not normally sentimental like that, but it's our first home and first garden. Those seem to be our happy colors!

Au revoir, gopher



Feeling sad.

I was feeling very sorry for my yard (myself) this weekend.

The 100 degree heat of the past week did a number on things, despite my consistent watering and encouragement. But the consistent watering emptied my rain barrel. And the heat made our solar lights fall down (we had them up there with classy white duct tape), as well as fade to a lovely celery color. They used to be more of a lime. The photo on the left shows how cute they were. Not so much at the moment.



Feeling sadder.



Then I felt sad that my baby birds grew up already -- evidently nothing is as motivating as 100 degree heat to make a chick grow up and get the heck out of a two-bird sized nest that has four birds in it. Josh said he saw one sitting on the fence, probably laughing about the lights that fell on the ground. My guess is that one was Clyde. He was a rascal anyway.

And then I was feeling REALLY sorry for myself because we have not one, not two... but THREE woodchucks who live in the neighbor's yard and have decided to eat everything I love and have planted. Jerks.

Breakfast.

Lunch.

Dinner.

Our woodchucks all pretty much look exactly like this, but with a little more attitude.  I am pretty sure that after today's crazy rain, they may be doing a synchronized swimming routine in my new bird bath.

 

"In the words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir, gopher!'"

Blinky, Inky, Pinky & Clyde

Every morning at approximately 4:30 a.m., we are woken up by chirping.  A lot of chirping.  There's one big chirper, and and a bunch of little chirpers.  And that gets a certain little tiger all revved up, so she starts propelling herself against the window and making machine gun cat sounds: "Ack ack ack ack ack ack..." 

So the symphony goes something like this:

Mama bird: "Chirp chirp chirp..."
Baby birds: "chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp" chirp..." (continuing to infinity)
Tuukka: "Ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack..." Boing boing boing! kaboom! Crash! "Ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack..."
Me: (half asleep) "Tuukka, shut up! Go back to sleep!"
Baby birds: "...chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp..."
Tuukka: "Ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack..." Boing boing boing!
Josh: "CUT THE $#@*!!!"
Baby birds: "...chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp..."
Tuukka: "Ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack..."

This continues until one of us gets up to close the window and pull the blind down.





Blinky, Inky, Pinky & Clyde

 I was working out in the yard this weekend and decided to empty the bird bath that is located near our bedroom window. (I put it there for Tuukka, thinking it would kind of be like cat HBO while we're gone.) My movements out there got the babies all riled up, thinking I was their mother and was going to feed them. They calmed down after a bit, so I snuck in to take a peek.  There are four of these little beaks! (Though only two or three are in this photo.) I have named them after the ghosts from Pacman, for no particular reason. And I told Josh that we are Godparents again -- this time, we have Godbirds. He kind of rolled his eyes and told me to stop bothering them.

Fun side story: I went to dinner with a friend the other night, and before we left, I was invited to read two books to her children. The first was about trucks, which her son knows by heart, but the second was her daughter's choice, and it was "You're Not My Mother!" -- a tale about a baby bird that falls out of its nest, searching for its mama.  Very cute book, and so apprapo! I'm going to send her this photo.

This is how Tuukka looks every morning after she has calmed down a bit. Hanging out on my red reading chair next to the window. Monitoring their growth, she claims. She just wants to make sure they are ok and growing up the way they should. Aww. So caring.



She was muttering something about fava beans and a nice Chianti when I left.



Freaks of nature



I will survive.


Last fall, I planted some hardy mums in our front garden bed for some nice fall color. They did beautifully, then konked out when it got really cold -- so I cut them down to just about nothing, thinking that in the spring I would officially haul out whatever was left of them in there. Little did I know that they would grow back beautifully!

We had also put three butterfly bushes in there, as hummingbirds and butterflies (duh) love them. They were really scraggly plants that were on sale for like a buck a piece at the end of the season -- we didn't have a lot of hope for them. But as you can see, they have done quite well.  With no help from me, whatsoever. I will fully admit that I have no idea what I am doing.

The really tall plant in the back of this photo is the butterfly bush, while the bushy plants there in the middle are the mums.  Wait...

What is that?

Is that what I think it is?

Are those things actually blooming? In mid-June?



Seriously?

 Yeah. They are. The fall mums are blooming in June. Of course they are. Why wouldn't they? What is wrong with the plants in this yard? They have minds of their own!

Had I known they were going to pull this kind of stunt, I might not have filled in with these beautiful geraniums and petunias. They're the only ones who are doing what I predicted they would do, though they are also doing a bit better than I thought. I'm not sure how I feel about the fall colors mixing in with my nearly blinding pinks and pretty purples, but it's interesting. The garden bed is super full and looks kind of fantastic. I told Josh that I couldn't have done that intentionally if I had tried.



I'm pretty and I know it.





A pane in the glass... and lots of buttons

At least I wasn't driving. I would have peed my pants.

Our Monday started off rather eventfully. During our commute, the tire from a tractor trailer blew up and went all over the road, causing the pick-up truck in front of us to hit it and then propel it back into our windshield. So this was my view from Peabody to Boston. We're totally ok, and the windshield replacement people were very prompt and awesome about getting things done.  So Shortcake (what I named our car) is back to normal. I am also back to normal, after being jittery until about 11:30 a.m.

More.

Otherwise, our weekend was quite good, and filled to the brim with this and that. Father's Day celebrations, yard sales, friends, yard work, garage cleaning, grilling... and buttons. Lots and lots of buttons. A friend of our family gave me her button collection as she is trying to clean out her house.  (Despite owning about 1,356,902 buttons already, I was thrilled at the prospect of being the proud owner of more.)

So I came home one evening and there they were on the doorstep. I started soaking them in some water and dish soap to scrub them up a bit, then drained and dried them. There is genuinely a little bit of everything here! I am crazy about all the colors, sizes and shapes. They're like little crafty candies.

The pink ones taste like peppermint! No, not really.

Bert, King of the Buttons

My Dad is also a big fan of buttons -- my grandmother in Virginia had a giant jar of buttons that he and his sisters would play with when they were little. So on Saturday night, he and Mum came over for a BBQ and he helped me sort through the button extravaganza. It's kind of like sitting around and doing a jigsaw puzzle.  Just looking at little shapes and colors, matching them up to where they should go. And it was nice to relax on a summer evening, talking and doing nothing really important other than looking at colors, shapes, sizes and the like.

This photo of my Dad (whose real name is Hobie, but who I call Bert or Bertrude on any given day) was taken in our dining room, and some day, I will post more pics of that and the rest of the house. I made the wreath up on the wall. Oh, and we need to get curtains in there still.  One thing at a time. Curtains are right up there with dress and shoe shopping as far as I'm concerned. Way too stressful.



I'm seriously in love with that red layered button there.

On Sunday (Father's Day), we went to the Todd Farm in Rowley to walk around and see what the flea market vendors had that we couldn't live without.  Wouldn't you know it? More buttons! I indulged. (You're shocked, I know.) And Dad bought some for me too, so we'll sort through all of those on another night.

I know the next logical question is what I will possibly do with them all -- the answer to that is many, many, many things. Lots of projects.  They make their way in to everything very easily! Jewelry, altered art, cards, wreaths, you name it.  I'm a button addict and it runs in the family.

Not sideways

Totally vertical photo of our patio.

J: What are you doing? It's time to go to work!
E: Just a sec -- I have to take a few photos of the patio.
J: Why?
E: Hello? For my awesome blog!
J: It's quarter of six in the morning...
E: Exactly! Morning light!



Boring photo of our BBQ. But look how cute the lights are!

E: This ground is wet and cold!
J: Where the hell are your shoes?
E: I can honestly say, I have no idea.


Not really a window box. More like a porch box.

 J: (calling from inside) We have to leave now!
E: Hold on! I need a few more shots! They can't see how cute the nook is yet unless I take this photo!

The sitting nook. I love those chairs.

J: I'm leaving without you!
E: NO! One more photo!  I need to leave them with a teasing look at the garden I'm going to blog about next week!!

Somebody get the fly swatter.

The Dishcloth Commuter Project

Taking a break today from my regularly scheduled house and yard posts. Why? Because for the past two days, I have attempted to upload photos of the yard from my phone, and every time I do, they come out sideways. Enough already. Also, I believe that in my very first post, I declared that I might interject here and there with crafty stuff as it came up. To be honest, crafty stuff comes up pretty frequently in my house, so I have been sparing you the majority of all that. But now I find that I just can't hold back any longer.

I have an ongoing project of organizing my craft room. I say ongoing because I'm pretty sure it will never be done, but it has to get better.  The other night when I was down there, I realized I still had all this yarn that I bought last year that I was going to make dishcloths (or facecloths) from. Did I do that? Actually, I did.  I made a whole bunch of them, but I still have a tonnage of yarn left. Our commute these past few weeks has been getting more and more heinous, so I put two and two together. If it's daylight and I can actually see what I'm doing, there's no reason not to bring a project along in the car.  And crocheting dishcloths is pretty much the most portable craft you can have.

So portable, and yet so orange.

I use Sugar 'n Cream yarn, which is 100% cotton and made in the good ol' U.S. of A. I love the feel of it, and these make excellent whatever cloths -- they're as great for scrubbing pots and pans as they are for scrubbing your face.  (But I wouldn't recommend switching between both. Because, you know, you might end up with tomato sauce on your forehead or something.)

So while we're sitting here...



Yes, we do have a St. Bernard figurine on our dashboard.

I am starting a chain for a new washcloth.  (Orange washcloth got finished up while we were on Rte. 95.)

Chain, chain, chain... chain of fools...

And by the time we finally got over the Tobin Bridge and were heading into town...

Bang a right and we'll put on our nun masks for our cameos in The Town II.

I have half a washcloth done. Pretty productive.



This pink hurts my eyes.



And here's an extra city shot. Even after all the traffic, we still get stuck at every red light in town.  Good grief.



Maybe this is just a sign we should go home.



Foxgloves: Beautiful flowers, wildlife accessories or lethal drug? Discuss.

Bring on the hummingbirds.

Josh is on a mission this year: to attract hummingbirds to our yard.  We have two feeders out, but we've also done a lot of planting that is supposed to cater to the hummers. Foxgloves are evidently some of the flowers that they like as they are bell shaped.  Hummingbirds adore bell shapes.

Notice the bell shape.

We had this shady area next to the house in the backyard, and when we moved in, it was filled with hostas.  My husband evidently hates hostas. The reasons for this hatred are still unclear, but they actually made him angry to look at. So the hostas went bye-bye, and foxgloves and impatiens moved in.  (Both are supposed to like a bit more shade than sun.)

Do not eat this.

Educational tip: many species of foxgloves are incredibly poisonous -- that means every part of them, from blossom to leaf to root and back again. So much so that according to wikipedia, some species are called Dead Man’s Bells, and Witches’ Gloves. Oddly enough, there are some medicines made from foxgloves.  (And if you don't take them carefully, you get very, very sick. Kind of interesting, huh?)



You had me at hello.


We still had a lot of room left after planting four foxglove plants, so I added some impatiens that I fell head-over-heels in love with at the greenhouse. These are double impatiens, but they look like little roses, don't they? They're baby pink, and I have a variation of tropical impatiens that are a lovely peach.



The lone hosta.

 Here's a little look at how it came out -- foxgloves and impatiens together in harmony. You may notice a lone hosta in there too under our gas hookup thingy. (Very technical term that only people in the industry understand.) That's staying there because the roots on those puppies are pretty serious, and I started to panic about hauling things out so close to potentially dangerous parts of the house. Josh doesn't love it, but didn't seem thrilled at the idea of hauling it out either. It's like we both think the thing is holding the pin to a grenade -- if we fight with it, the whole place is going up. And then the hosta will win the war.

You can see in the background what our little patio looks like in relation to the rest of the yard. It's starting to be a nice little place. I kind of love it.

The lady of the house is not with it... a word from Tuukka

I told the lady writing this blog that she needed to have more patio pictures ready to go today.  Did she listen? No. She went downstairs and played with paint all night and yelled at me whenever I tried to climb in the closet. Whatever.

I mean, hello? Are we maintaining a blog here or what?

She said we'd have to fill in with pictures of me instead then.  Because I'm cute or something.

 So embarrassing.

Fun with rocks, cont.

I'm sure you are all still completely overwhelmed by the excitement of my last post.  A pile of rocks? Good Lord, what will they do with them? Throw them at cars? Institute a new currency? Take over the world?



Epic failure.

Don't you worry your pretty little heads -- we aren't taking over the world. Yet. But we did take over the backyard.

When we purchased our new domicile, the backyard was just as insane as the front yard. Spanning from our two back doors, there was a sand and slate/paver mini walkway. It just didn't work. We have no idea if this was left from the previous owner or from the seller that we purchased from (who had purchased from the previous owner and flipped the house.) But either way, it was an epic failure.

The photo here on the left shows how the pathway looked the first time we saw it, before we purchased the house. Ooh, sandy. (As you read that, know that I totally wrote it with a PeeWee Herman voice in my head. Remember PeeWee's Playhouse and how every adjective he came up with had a y at the end of it? "Ooh, adjectivey!")



Here's what we were working with by the time we owned the house.

Weeds, Season 1.

So that's where the rocks came in.  Or rather, the pea gravel, as Josh informs me.  P-E-A. (Little rocks.) My industrious husband hauled out the big slates and got to work on shoveling all the sand out.  There was a lot of sand.  We still have a pile of sand to figure out what to do with, so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to lay them out there.

We then got to work digging out the grass, creating an edging, and finally, filling in the area with pea gravel. What we ended up with was this:

A paradise of pea gravel.

The slates are no longer in a pile back there -- now they're in a pile on our side yard.  But that yard isn't pretty yet, so you won't be seeing that for a while.  We are enjoying this little patio area very much, and would enjoy it significantly more if it would stop raining for longer than 15 minutes at a time. This was a HUGE project though, so if you ever decide to undertake something like this, allow plenty of time, have a sturdy wheelbarrow, and know that pea gravel goes everywhere you want/don't want it to end up.

More fun that a pile of rocks

Direct source of wicked jealousy.

What could possibly be more fun a pile of rocks, you might ask? Not much. Our patient neighbors got to look at this beautiful sight for about week while we prepped our projects. I know they were wicked jealous. (I've been talking a lot with random people lately about the use of the word wicked and how it sneaks back into your vocabulary... even though you have tried to repress it since your days in junior high school. But a pile of rocks would make anybody wicked jealous, so why repress it? It's wicked awesome!)

Now you're asking, "Why is she talking about a pile of rocks today? I thought this blog was going to be remotely interesting!" Well, there could be two reasons for that:
1) This pile of rocks is the perfect segue way into the riveting post that I am going to share regarding the transformation of our backyard. Or...
2) I did not get those backyard photos uploaded to my blog last night, so you're stuck with a pile of rocks.

I'm thinking it's 2.

The Best-Smelling Tree Ever

That's what I call the tree in the front yard because, honestly, I have no idea what else to call it. It doesn't look like much when it's not in bloom, but it's cute and short in stature. We've hung our bird feeders from it, and the tree is usually filled with sparrows, cardinals, wrens, finches and... squirrels. We have squirrels the size of small dogs around here. There's good eatin' in the Best Smelling Tree Ever. Oh, and on occassion, we have Downy Woodpeckers. I love those. They enjoy the suet feeder.

Once spring finally arrived, Josh and I got bees in our bonnets about this tree needing a bit of color at its base, since it was taking so long for any color in its leaves and flowers.  So Josh dug a circle around the base and put in some more little gray bricks. And we made trip #3,245 to Home Depot to see what they had that we couldn't live without, flower-wise.

I can't resist a good hipstamatic garden shot. Especially when there are watering pots in the foreground. In the back you can see our pine trees that still desperately need to have their bottom branches removed.  That's on the to-do list.  The ever-growing to-do list. Also seen is our neighbor's fence that I really love.  Next year, I am envisioning some day lillies or lavender growing along our side of that. Just thinking.

As I was saying, we ended up getting some flowers at Home Depot.  Not sure what they are, other than a flowering spring bulb. So they'll be back next year, which is exciting because they were very pretty purples and blues.

Later, I discovered that we had some violets in our back yard.  Violets! I love violets so much. They remind me so much of my grandmother. Well, both grandmothers, really. And I had an aunt Violet in Virginia who passed away not too long ago. Many reasons to love violets and know that their appearance in my yard was a very warm, homey welcome. Since they were in the middle of the yard and in danger of being mowed over, I transplanted them under the tree. They seem pretty happy there.





A few weeks after we built our mini-garden, the tree blossomed. Gorgeous, dark pink blossoms that hung down in clusters with yellow and white centers. And the scent was heavenly. Every morning when we left for work or came home at the end of the day, we were just overwhelmed by the sweetness of this little tree. Such a treat! Treasures like this have been an incredible reward for us during our yard discoveries. It must be an apple or cherry tree or something like that, but regardless, it's been wonderful.

It's raining, it's pouring

The rain this weekend has put a complete damper on my outdoor plans. I had bushes to trim, a new garden to dig out and plant (I did get this underway, but looked like Swamp Thing by the end of it), a hill to clean up, etc.  Basically, a whole lot of stuff that requires nice weather. And the rest of the week isn't looking much better.

So in the spirit of torrential downpours, I wanted to comment on one of the best investments we have made for our yard: a rain barrel. A 67-gallon rain barrel. During the first week that we had it, we had three days of on and off rain, and it filled up.  So I had 67 gallons of rain  water to play with when watering all of my flower beds.  Since owning it, I have not had to turn the hose on once. And I think we could actually use a second one. 

A second plus to the rain barrel has been the lack of water in our basement.  My craft room in down there, along with Josh's man-cave, and water was constantly seeping in through the door that leads from my craft room to our side yard. Since getting the rain barrel -- and it has been pouring this weekend -- we have had minimal water in there.  Fantastic! I am a happy woman.

*Amusing note: Tuukka just attempted to type her own blog entry. It consisted primarily of the numbers three and four, and went all the way across the page. She has a lot to say, and is very frustrated that she can't type or spell very well.