Friday, May 02, 2008

The Best Time of Day

Another glorious morning here at the Mexican Chalet. Even rainy mornings are glorious, because then I don't have to water the many plants. Tomorrow we expect a good storm but today will be sunny and warm.
I missed the bottom stair and fell on my butt yesterday. It was my famous ankle that always gets sprained. It didn't hurt for several hours, and I got some work done, but when I was planting on the hillside slope, it spoke to me loud and clear. I had to hobble off to bed midday. After a nice nap and some Aleve I was much better thank you. And meanwhile Dave MULCHED THE HILL!!



Ok there is still some more to do, but if you click on the first picture, you can see he has lots more mulch to add to the lower parts. What is difficult to see is that we dug 8 holes and filled each with a 40lb bag of composted cow manure and will add seedlings to each.
So far I have planted zucchini, and Sweet Baby Watermelons, with acorn squash, butternut and cantaloupe to follow. I also planted two hills of watermelons sprouts in the orchard, in an area made vacant by a dead blueberry bush. I saw vole holes, and that means the babies probably will be discovered and the roots eaten. Those damn voles. If not, and they reach maturity, the melons themselves may be stolen. That's what happened the last time I ventured into vine crops. Funny, no one ever steals the zucchini.

A Good Fire Pokin' Stick
Don't tell Al Gore but we have been burning wood outdoors this week. The huge dump of logs is diminishing and Dave puts out the fire each night. But...when I take my morning walk the coals under the white ashes are still red, so I find a good fire pokin' stick and add a few bits of bark, leaves and twigs and soon it all is ablaze again.


Then I wake up Dave and he adds more wood to the fire. When they built this house they moved the downed trees to three or four spots on the property and they are such an eyesore. It will take quite some time to eliminate all of them. If I lived here alone it would never happen, but Dave dreams bigger than I do.

5 comments:

  1. Gad, a horticulture-related injury. I hope you feel much better soon. Be careful out there among the greenery.
    I'm having visions of Chip & Dale type cartoons where your melons and such instantly disappear down a hole. It must be whack-a-mole time...NO??? How big is that pokin' stick anyway?

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  2. Anonymous4:01 PM

    The ashes from those fires will be perfect for your flower beds!

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  3. Your morning sky picture is beautiful. That is the color I always think of for the sky, but so often it isn't that blue.

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  4. Anonymous9:23 AM

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  5. There are 2 products on the market that might help with the voles.. they are both natural... unless you want to go the poison route. One is called Shake Away... I think it is made from the urine of coyotes and bob cats... it has to be reapplied every 2 weeks.It claims it takes 2 weeks to work but I gave it a spritz of water and it worked immediately. The other is Critter Ridder by Havaheart.... I think it is mostly Cayenne pepper but you only need apply it once a month, and it is immediate... I am the lazy type so you know which one I will be using! They can both be gotten at Lowes, Home Depot, Ace Hardware or online.

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