Wolf's Den

So if you follow me on Twitter, you'll have seen my mention of a raccoon that decided to help itself to the birdseed a few nights ago (around 10pm) and how Caena was so not impressed.

Well, it decided that it enjoyed being told to get off my roof SO MUCH, that it came back last night. At 330am. Yeah. I scared it off. It came BACK at 430 am.



"Oh hai there, I'mma just gonna help myself, k? thankx!"
(Yes, the feeder was swinging. It had just let go of it and it had been 3/4 FULL.)

Yeah. No. Not ok. Git off my porch. It's 330 in the damn morning! Quit ringing the wind chimes every 5 minutes and waking me up!



"So, umm, ok, no feeders then. Welp, I'll just clean up the seed I spilled then, in the hopes you'll go back inside and turn the lights off. No? That don't work either?"

NO, that doesn't work either. I threw a couple empty woodpecker feeders at it. It just looked at me and silently mocked my poor aim when I'm half asleep and haven't bothered with putting my glasses on. I swear it was laughing at me. Then it climbed down and left.

I took the feeder down.

30 minutes later, it came back. And promptly left again when it saw the free food buffet was gone.

For the record? That deer/squirrel/raccoon/wildlife repellent stuff? So does not work.

I took myself outside, weeded my front Iris bed, a couple containers, pulled out the #$%%^&#% Chamomile that's insistant upon taking over, trimmed the Horehound of dead ends and propped the Lavender and Rosemary back up- they seem to think it's their duty to hide the walkway or something, who knows.

Got a big bucketful of weeds(well, Bachelor's Buttons I didn't want crowding out the Irises this year) and dead stuffs for the compost bin and I smell like Rosemary.

The Lilac is covered in blooms that when the wind blows just right, the scent of which drifts into the house. The Wisteria I can see from my desk is just starting to open its buds and it's covered in them. The Clematis on the fence is bud loaded and the few along the porch and slowly waking up.

The back hill is covered in violets. They're competing with the Dandelions for a lovely riot of color. The Forsythia is just finishing blooming and the Mock Oranges are slowly budding out. There's a bee, probably a resident Carpenter Bee (I have a section of fencing in a remoter area of the yard where they started a colony. It was moved there from closer to the house expressly for that purpose. They're great pollinators and as long as they leave the house along, I'm good with them being here.)

The Rhubarb is leaving out, the 5 HollyHocks that I started from seed gathered from my dad's gardens last year, are growing rapidly. One of the Bronze Fennel is coming back. There were 2, but they're roughly 5 years old, so not surprised one isn't coming back this year.

The Dwarf Azalea out front under the white Buddelia is about to burst into bloom, which means that up the mountain at Happy Hollow Gardens, they're likely about to bloom as well. Would be an excellent time for a ride along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

There's a pair of Goldfinches visiting the feeders this year. The Carolina Wrens haven't returned to build a nest on the porch, unfortunately. In fact, I haven't seen them lately.}:(

I do need to trim some dead ends on the Lilac and Wisteria, but for now, I'm just enjoying the sights and smells.

It's been in the low 70s to mid 60s during the day and high 30s to low 40s at night for the past few days/nights now.

It rained for 2 days straight- dreary, grey, cold rain. Made me rather glad I found some plastic to cover the volunteer tomatoes with. Also glad I brought in the plants that over winter inside on Friday too. The cats aren't real happy about losing one of their easterly facing windows for plants- well, Max and Aries aren't, Morrigan thinks it's grand because SHE fits in the window sill behind them. That would be the Peace Lily, the Anthurium and the Bay tree. Good thing I have cats not inclined to chew on leaves.

The Curry Plant, which has quadrupled in size since I repotted it, is in the bathroom, where it gets southeast light and a lot more humidity/moisture than it would elsewhere.

The clematis vines are dying back already, trees are putting on their fall colors now- quicker than last week.

A few leaves even fell past one of the kitchen windows earlier.

Meanwhile, my Russian Sage is budding out, the Lavender, Catmint, Chocolate Mint and Rosemary are still growing and I swear the Lemon Balm never stops growing. The transplanted Hollyhocks have new leaves on them, so I think they've gotten mostly established in their new bed for now, thankfully. It also looks like the Wisteria is finally stopping its growing to settle in- there's a few yellow leaves on it, and it's made a lovely nearly green cover over the wood fence now as well.

The feral cats are showing up again- a little black kitty, rather the same size Morrigan was when she showed up 2+ years ago, was in the driveway. No getting near this one though, it ran as soon as we tried talking to it. Either a feral or the resident hawk left a 'present' next to the CR-V for Mark the other morning- a gutted, half eaten rodent carcass was found. Fun times.

In the meantime, I've been busy making cuffs and bracelets and listing them, 5 in the last week or so. Working on a new Bead Soup cuff and have 2 more kumihimo cuffs in the works- they need beading and the clasps put on. So look for a big post containing photos of all those within the next few days or so.

Obligatory Caena photo. Later this fall, we'll finish the fence up the right side and then she won't need the run lead anymore.

I cleared out a lot of weeds, dead stuff and morning glory vines from the front garden last week. Then it started raining.



2.5 days of rain have done wonders for the back hill. The bottom is nearly covered in wild violets and is now starting to creep up the hill itself.



The Ajuga is managing to reestablish itself and get bigger, despite being mowed down by Mark a few months back. Eventually, it'll take over that side of the back hill, at least along the bottom. Best volunteer ground cover ever.



We're working on rebuilding the fire pit. The large, tan rock at the bottom of the photo, my dad gave me from his rock garden up in Michigan. The other large rocks came from the mountains here. We figure we need 4-5 more of that size to complete it. Then I can use the smaller rocks elsewhere. Obviously it works great.}:P



I direct sowed some red Hollyhock seeds that I got last summer from my dad's garden up in Michigan, back in late May. 5 sprouted and after I cleared out the dead tomato vines, I transplanted them to the raised bed.



The ^%&%&^$%^ rats and field mice have finally decided to seek greener pastures and now the poor rhubarb is starting to come back. We plan to build a new, deeper, raised bed in a sunnier location, so it'll be transplanted next spring. The ground here at the back of the house is hard packed, full of clay and shale- rather like the back hill, which is nearly entirely shale, except at the very top where I'd built up a brick bed on one side and a border along the back, then filled with reasonably good dirt.



The bronze fennel didn't particularly care for the extra high temps this year, either and is looking very bedraggled. It'll be transplanted next spring as well.



In fact, the only thing that grew exceedingly well in that bed this year, was the garlic chives. They even have seed heads on them. I can't use them fast enough, so they tend to simply look nice instead.



We moved the compost bin up the hill where the shale would make it hard for the rats to tunnel through (they liked to use the bin as an egress to the bird feeders, because it would protect them from the resident hawk) and where it's in more full sun throughout the day. In the remaining compost pile, volunteer tomato plants started and are now nearly a foot tall. We'll see if I can overwinter them.



The wisteria went nuts on the fence. It kept sending out new growth and blooms all summer, vines that needed to be trained back into itself or along the fence. I'm training it to grow towards the old metal fence on that side, where the honeysuckle is- that's bouncing back after half of it was killed by the landscapers/handymen working next door. So far, I've managed to keep it exactly where I want it.

The thought is to build a pergola and patio behind the front porch, where the current raised bed is. I don't want the wisteria to grow on it though, as it'd then have easy access to the house. So I'm thinking more clematis there instead.

( On to the front gardens )

We, personally, didn't really have much damage, beyond losing power for 22.5 hours. A bunch of smaller branches down in the backyard and the like.



But my poor tomatoes took a beating.



Luckily, the tops only had mostly flowers or buds and no set fruit yet. Plus, they seem to be bouncing back ok.



The Butterfly Bush had a huge branch twisted violently to the ground. It didn't splinter or break, so we propped it back up. This fall, I'll prune it back drastically to help it recover better.

( Meanwhile, elsewhere... )