It’s a beautiful spring day here. Rachel is outside giving our pond its spring cleaning. I’m inside preparing a budget presentation. One of these things is more fun than the other.
Posts in: Gardening
First sighting of the frog in our pond this year! Looks like he survived the winter. Can you see his head poking above the water near the edge?
We live on a 1/10 acre city lot, mostly covered in a house, detached garage and driveway. Rachel told me today that she has now sown 65 varieties of plants—perennials and annuals, flowers and vegetables. We have a wildlife pond, a grape arbor, and more room to expand. That’s a lot in a small space.
Spring is coming and I'm making lists
Also, I’m putting off reviewing financial reporting this morning. Projects to complete in the next couple of weeks: A 2x10 on one of our raised beds has buckled and needs to be replaced. When we first built these beds, we weren’t considering the chemicals in treated lumber, which is what we used. This will be the first board to replace and we’re going to go untreated from here on out.
Ah, spring really is on the way. Woodland crocus is the first flower we see in our yard every year. I need to get out to the woods soon to see if any of the ephemerals are up.
Crow visitors!
We’ve been hoping to attract some crow visitors for a while now by putting out bread and popcorn in addition to the seed and suet we already put out. Three of them finally found us yesterday! One of our new crow friends picked up a stale piece of bread and pecked at it a few times. Apparently unsatisfied, he/she carried it to the garage gutter and dropped it in some water, presumably softening it up.
We pruned out Concord grape vines today. It’s more complicated than I would have thought! Hopefully we did okay.
This is a good list of ideas for cleaning up your garden at the end of the growing season while also keeping the well-being of your local critters in mind.
When we first began our garden in 2020, we intended it not only as a collection of pretty flowers and vegetables but as a flourishing habitat. One of the keystones of that habitat is our tiny wildlife pond. We were amazed at how quickly life starting showing up in it; even larger critters started drinking from it regularly.
This is Morty. He’s a raggedy neighborhood cat who first showed up last winter to drink from our pond. He disappeared by the spring and then returned a few weeks ago, again to drink from the pond during the late summer drought. This time, though, he seems to have decided to stay.
Rachel was the first to notice that he is blind in one eye and hard of hearing. That combined with his shagginess makes us think he’s pretty old. After he started showing up every day and laying by the pond, Rachel named him Morty and started feeding him. While he never lets us get near him, he has stopped running every time we go outside.
He’s almost always by the pond, either napping or watching whatever is going on in it. At first we were concerned he would kill a bird, but he doesn’t seem to have enough energy for that.
Our garden is only peaceful if you’re an apex predator—but that cycle of life and death is part of the deal when you’re trying to build a flourishing habitat. I’m glad Morty is spending some part of that cycle in our backyard.
I saw a hawk pin down then carry off a pigeon in the garden today. A few days ago I saw a hawk (probably the same one?) on a power line overlooking our yard but all the birds were wisely hidden or gone. Today he must have gotten the drop on them.