February 10 - 3 o'clock

My husband and I in years past and my friend and I in weeks past have missed
seeing this guy, perched in a tree along Indian Creek. Until yesterday. At 3 o'clock.

Be careful what you wish for

Today's post has absolutely nothing to do with fitness or weight loss or counting calories. Well, at least starting out it doesn't, who knows where I'm going to end up?

I'm electing to begin receiving my Social Security benefits in May, when I will turn 62 and before the GOP does anything to destroy them. Heh. I mentioned to my husband on Saturday that we might want to think about replacing my car at some point, since we'll have a little extra income.

You guys are SO SMART. You know exactly where this is going, don't you? He decided to take my car – the one in the garage with the all-wheel drive and no snow on the windshield – to church yesterday morning, since there were snowy and ice patches on the roads. Less than five miles from home, he hit a deer. Head-on.

He's fine, not a scratch, THANK YOU GOD. The airbags didn't even deploy. The deer is quite dead, however, and so, we think, is the car. We'll find out today if it can be repaired, but it has 120,000 miles on it and might not be worth fixing.

The front end is quite smashed. Radiator, left headlight, bumper – all are crumpled and broken. With little tufts of deer fur here and there. Ick.

I elected not to go to church yesterday and  – amazingly! – was within earshot of my phone when he called. Driving his truck, I delivered a warm coat and gloves to him while we waited for the authorities. NOTE TO SELF: When the weather is bad, always toss some warm outerwear in the car. You never know.

So we'll be spending the day at the repair shop, hoping for the good news that the damage isn't as bad as we think it is, but preparing for the possibility that we might have to go car shopping.

I'm just grateful he's not in a hospital bed. We can take care of the car, one way or another. And I'd rather take care of it together than on my own.

I don't need filters …

I just need to read my freakin' e-mail! Here's the funniest one I found when I plowed through them (finally!) yesterday.

And this is funny why, exactly? Because I telepathically invite the local deer to live in my woods and drink from my pond during hunting season. Hunters are supposed to request permission to hunt on private property, and that hasn't always happened. I've seen men dragging dead animals out of the woods a couple of times, and my husband saw a dead fawn near the pond several years ago. (Who would shoot a fawn!?!?!?!)

As a gardener, I know I shouldn't like deer. This year, especially, I should really, really, REALLY not like them, since they harvested the tomatoes before I had a chance to. But I think they're beautiful and graceful and still, now, 15+ years after I moved here, I run to the window when I catch a glimpse of them in the yard.

If I were gardening to feed myself for the year, I might have a different attitude. But I'm not a survivalist and, well, the deer were here first. And they're pretty!

Honestly? I'm more miffed at the birds for eating all the blackberries. Heh. I'm ready for them next year, though. I now have bird netting and a holographic owl that shines and flutters and is supposed to be freaky-scary to birds. We'll see. It looks pretty benign to me.

Fairy wings tomorrow. I worked at Democratic headquarters today and since no one else volunteered I will be there today, as well. Then football at 3:30, leftovers for dinner (the soup was delicious but it makes a lot) and, probably, more football. WVU is ranked 4th, so we're running out of teams to watch who are better than we are. Not being smug, it's just a fact. Heh.

Deterring critters

I worked at the garden center yesterday, not by myself, as is usually the case late in the season, but with the owner, moving plants and tidying up benches to get ready to display the mums.

And then it rained, so we ended up not working for very long at all.

Two gardeners can't get together in August without asking, "How's your garden doing?" so I had a chance to wail once again about the deer and the tomatoes and the sweet potatoes. (Today would be a good day to take the shovel out there, the ground is nice and soft after the rain.)

She will be going out of town the end of this month and told me to come! pick! tomatoes! Yay! I should at least be able to get a few more jars in the pantry before the season ends.

Winnie, the spray I use is called Liquid Fence, and it's very effective. I should have been using it every couple of weeks, but it's one of those chores I get lazy about once it starts raining tomatoes. And, honestly, I've never had deer bother tomatoes before. I seriously thought I'd lose all my basil, because who doesn't like basil, but according to my local expert, deer don't.

A border of jalapeños and basil is now sounding like an excellent idea.

Liquid Fence smells like urine when it's first applied. The scent fades for humans after a day or so, but remains for deer. You need to reapply it after a rain or every couple weeks, whichever comes first. I hope you get rain more than every couple of weeks, but I saw the drought map on the national news last night. Seriously bad news for farmers and gardeners almost everywhere in the United States.

(I sent up a little prayer of thanks for my full freezer of grass-fed beef, and put "stock up on chicken" on my to-do list, since food prices are expected to rise dramatically in the next six to eight weeks. And don't you just hate it when the news is so doomy and gloomy all the time? I'm much happier when I don't watch.)

Deer Away smells like rotten eggs and Deer Scram smells like a dead body, while Deer Out offers a fresh, minty scent. All of these products work, but it's worth asking at someone at a local nursery which one is most effective in your area. Believe me, I would be using Deer Out if we stocked it at Groundworks. Liquid Fence appears to be the best deterrent for this area.

Denise, you might want to pick those tomatoes before they fully ripen (and, obviously before they are nibbled on) and stick them in a brown paper bag. They'll taste just as sweet and won't serve as hors d'ouevres for whatever is checking them out. I'm guessing a raccoon, since it would have to be something that could stand up on its hind legs to reach the fruits.

Today is another work day, and I need to keep knitting, knitting, knitting. Tonight is the monthly Democratic women's club meeting and I'd hoped to have the bag we're donating for the fund-rasising auction completed to show them. Not. Happening. I'm a third of the way up the body of the bag, but there's still a long way to go. At least this one will be the right size! Knitting on a deadline starts to feel like a job, unless the deadline is the birth of a new baby. Then it's fun.

And since we're speaking of knitting – thanks for your comments and if you're one of those lurkers who only reads and never peeps, this is a good time to quit hiding. There's yarn at the end of this rainbow! (Rules are here.)

Garden fail

This has not been the best garden year here in the Middle of Nowhere. It started out great, full of promise, as most gardens do. Because I was working part-time, it was good that I left much of the space fallow this year. I haven't had time to weed what's there, let alone what could have been there if I'd planted the entire plot.

The strawberries didn't produce much at all – enough for a bowl of cereal, maybe. The birds ate the blackberries, one by one as each little shiny black berry ripened. I finally bought bird netting, but alas – it was too late.

I'm ready for next year, though!

I got a few snow peas and snap peas, enough for a stir-fry or two. And that was great. I'll probably devote more space to early-spring crops next year. (Gardeners never quit figuring out how they can do it better next time. I guess that means we're good learners.)

The big fail is the tomatoes. (If you're a Facebook friend, you already know this story. Apologies.) I noticed the Cherokee Purple looked a little lopsided a couple mornings ago, so I ventured out to find that the fruits were gone. I then looked to the left, where the Amish Pastes, Vilms Paste and yellow Oxhearts were flourishing, to find not a single damned tomato in the whole bed.

The deer had had a feast.

I knew this day would come, sometime. I've been warned and warned and warned that every year the deer get bolder and braver. They figure I'm planting all this food just for them. They'd already eaten the edamame leaves. (I managed to freeze exactly one quart-sized bag of shelled edamame.)

I was astonished at how thorough they were, though.

They also ate the leaves from the sweet potato vines, and I understand potatoes need leaves to develop. I haven't taken a shovel out there to see if any baby sweet potatoes had started to grow or not. I'm still mourning my tomatoes.

The Oxheart still has some flowers and the Cherokee Purple has two green tomatoes the deer somehow missed. One was quite large, so I brought it in to ripen indoors. And the deer haven't found the Sweet and Neat cherry tomato plant on the patio. They'd have to be pretty bold to come that close to the house.

The other garden area that remains untouched is the new herb bed. Maybe they were too full from eating tomatoes. Or perhaps their cunning little brains are letting me think the herbs are safe this year, and they'll make a meal out of it next year.

I found it very amusing that two jalapeños remained on the ground with bite marks in them. Serves them right! I'm thinking of planting a jalapeño border next year.

What worked? Onions and garlic. Success. Big success. Enough success that I'm sharing the garlic and have onions sets ready to plant for a fall crop.

And basil. I'm really, really pleased that deer don't seem to have a taste for basil. In addition to devoting a section of the herb bed to it, I also have 10 lush, gorgeous, fragrant plants right next to the Cherokee Purple. All of them intact.

Perhaps I should be a pesto farmer. 'Cause I clearly can't take care of tomatoes.

I got some great advice for a product from a Facebook friend, which I will be putting to use next year. I also will be getting new! stronger! fencing. And maybe a solar-powered motion detector deterrent. (I put it on my amazon.com wish list to think about.)

Grateful for onions and garlic. Grateful for the salsa and tomatoes I've already canned. Grateful (kinda) that the food garden season for me is, essentially, over. Garden fail and garden fatigue rarely coincide.

Too close … for a picture

When you are groggily searching for your favorite mug and wishing you'd put the coffee on auto-start, the last thing you can wrap your brain around is setting up the camera to take pictures of THE TWO DEER IN YOUR FRONT YARD!

Hershey, our eight-year-old part chocolate Lab, was on it, though. Not taking a picture, but chasing them off the property. They're getting bolder and bolder. They ran into the field adjacent to our yard and stopped, not even bothering to hightail (hah! That's exactly what they do!) it into the woods.

My coffee and I took a perfunctory walk around the landscape bed to make sure they hadn't nibbled anything, then walked around the vegetable garden. All that corn and they didn't even touch it.

I think I'll put the electric fence up next year, though.

Deer don't like squash, so I always plant that along the perimeter. I also have marigolds at the far end, where deer are most likely to enter. They don't care for the smell, and marigolds also keep other pests away.

You could look it up. I'm too lazy this morning. But my primitive deer-proofing is working so far. And Hershey, of course, is the best deterrent of all.

Or tired, maybe. Yesterday's workout was brought to you by HERBS. As in, I laid the foundation for the most awesome herb bed in the county. I thought this was going to be an hour-long job; it ended up taking two and a half hours.

I'll post all the details – with pictures – tomorrow. Right now, I need more coffee.

So glad y'all like the meat-and-three post yesterday. Here's the "three" we had last night. It almost qualifies for the raw-food plan. (I've linked to my favorite tabbouleh recipe.)

From front to back: Chunky Gazpacho, Black Bean and Corn Salad, Tabbouleh

Rainy days and Mondays

A quarter of an inch of rain fell yesterday, and it sprinkled or showered off and on nearly all day. Is that two Mondays in a row we've had precipitation? I believe it is. Gardens need rain, and my thirsty pumpkin plants have perked right up. The second carrot crop hasn't germinated and one entire row of walking onions haven't done a thing, rain or no rain, but crop failures of some kind are to be expected.

I'm astonished the deer haven't had their way with all that produce, as I have yet to electrify the fence. And I use the word 'fence' loosely, as it's merely plastic-coated wire strung on flimsy plastic poles. So attractive, I know, but apparently effective even without the battery-powered fence charger.

We see deer in the field beyond our yard every morning and every evening and sometimes even in the middle of the day now. There's plenty of vegetation for them to eat, we're not in a drought, so all I can figure is they've gotten all they can from the woods and need to venture further out for food. I hope I get all my corn in the freezer before they find it.

Each season I tell myself I'm going to plant a fall crop of greens or beets or radishes or something that will go from seed to produce in a short period of time. But I don't (well, except for a short row of yellow onions). I'm a little tired of the garden at this point, and ready to move on to knitting again. I've not tired of picking dinner from the back yard, however. Tonight will be green beans, corn and cole slaw.

I picked about 12 pounds of tomatoes yesterday, so will have to wait a day or two for more of those. There are six more pints of seasoned tomato sauce in the freezer, ready for spaghetti dinners this fall and winter.

I should have planted more okra, I'm not sure there will be enough for even one jar of it pickled. I love okra. I know some people are turned off by the gelatinous slimy quality of it, but it doesn't bother me. I never ate it growing up. The cook (my mother) must not have cared for it. That's one advantage of being able to navigate the kitchen on my own! Another is I never have to eat liver again. Ever!


I have some graphic designing work to do today, and a slightly muddy floor to clean, and my volunteer gig at the prison tonight, and maybe putting some of that corn in the freezer. Pretty typical day around here lately.

Pretty nice.