Hypothesis: I Need a New Camera

I was sitting on my stoop when out of the woods across the street came a young fox, slightly larger than a cat. I watched him for a while and then noticed a doe coming out of the forest. She and the fox ignored each other and actually stood quite close. Then the buck arrived and while he seemed okay with the fox at first, he apparently changed his mind and began crowding the fox until it got the hint and headed over to our yard. It was amazing and I couldn't get any of it on film!

I knew this because the doe and the buck have been hanging out across the stree every evening for several weeks now. Occassionally, a fawn emerges from the grass as well, but usually it's just the two of them. Our dog, Archie, fierce hunter that he is, looks for them every night and just lies there gazing at them. They will occassionally, look up at him, or me if I'm out there, and then go back to grazing. They never seem bothered by Archie, but if I get too close they will stamp their feet until they've decided they can't let me get any closer and one of them, usually the buck, will give a whooping cough-like bark and away they go. So a few nights ago, thinking of the blog, I tried to take a picture of the deer and Archie watching them. This is the best of them.




and now you see the conclusion is clear: I need a new camera!

Pond Renovations

I couldn't take it anymore!


I hadn't wanted rocks all the way around the pond. I thought draping plants would be a nicer accent and I'm sure they would have been eventually, but in the meantime the black vinyl was just plain UGLY. There was also a tiny problem with those two uncovered sides; they were uneven so when it rained (not something I've had to worry about recently) some of the water drained out on the right side.

So last Tuesday, I began the renovations. I didn't need a lot of rock so I called my favorite dealer, Cortney's, and asked if they had any pieces available. They happened to have a broken pallet they let me go through to choose what I needed and gave me a great deal! At first I thought I could just raise the sides by laying the rocks. You can see by the big wet spot in the picture to the left how well that worked (of course, I completely laid out the right side in the heat before I thought to check!)

The second time around, I put inexpensive pavers under the liner first; putting some effort (but not too much) into making them level. If I had to have rocks all around I didn't want it looking too perfect and scream"landscaping!" Once the rock was laid, I climbed around applying cement while Mike handed me the supply. Finally, I could backfill and on Sunday, Simon and I lay newspaper in the bare spots and mulched everything. It looks much better!


The biggest obstacle in all of this was not the horrendous heat, but the dozens of tiny baby frogs surrounding the pond. I had to walk on tiptoe and wave my hands around the ground to shoo them out of the way before I knelt or laid any rock . Here's a picture to give you an idea of just how challenging this was; there were a couple of times I almost took a head dive to avoid a last minute jumper!


Oh yeah, and if all of that wasn't enough, one of the new rocks had a great shape that Simon recommended we incorporate into the waterfall. Fine-tuning the waterfall has almost become an addiction for me so I was certainly game! While we were working, we finally solved the flow problem we had been having. The waterfall would pump perfectly for a day, maybe two, and then the flow would slow to a trickle. It turns out we had a major leak in one of the plastic tubes! We put that part of the tube into the pond itself and the problem is solved! A perfectly flowing waterfall completes our newly refurbished pond! Now if only Fall would arrive so I could do some more landscaping...Of course, now that I've added the picture, I'm noticing how the top rock doesn't quite cover enough of the rock on the left...

Shhh...Don't Tell the Deer

Some new asiatic lilies have appeared; note the deeper pink raised part inside.

The Kitchen Garden

The one thing I missed from our old house more than anything was my herb garden, only this time I had the room to not only expand my herbs, but grow vegetables too! I knew I didn't want a traditional row garden and I definitely wanted herbs, vegetables and flowers grown together. Not only would it be pretty with everything combined, but it would also let me practice companion gardening. Once the spot was picked it was so close to the house that once again its colonial style dictated part of the design. Of course, for me all of that combined meant research, research and research.

Eventually, I put my design to paper; a 36' by 16' rectangle on the "inside" with four 4' by 16' beds on either side of the "gates" (fencing to come.) The interior beds are mirror images with one exception. On either side of the main walkway the beds are 8' at the back, 6' wide on the sides; the two beds together form a sort of hexagon in the walkway. Behind each of them is a rectangular bed and at the back another long rectangle. The only fracture in the mirror comes at the far end from the house, where the long rectangle is broken in two, leaving room for a future trellis and bench. The bench you see now is strictly a placeholder.

The inside is mainly devoted to vegetables and their companion plants. The outside beds closest to the backyard holds edible herbs and the ones facing the front are old-fashioned herbs of the kind Brother Cadfael himself would have grown.

Creating all of this was, well, horrible! I learned a technique from The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward C. Smith for "easily" making right angles--"The Magic Triangle." Apparently it was first developed by the ancient Egyptians about 4,000 years ago and the formula is: if one leg of a triangle is 3 units, the 2nd is 4 units, and the hypotenuse is 5 units you have a right angle. Got it? Okay now repeat it approximately 40 times and keep your sanity! I began sometime in April and finished the end of May. It was a little late in the growing season for planting vegetables, but after all of that I still had to try. Things are growing slowly and as you know I've had some challenges from the deer. The crows too. I came home one day after planting seeds over the weekend to find the straw removed from the beds! Oh well, we're plugging along!