tiggymalvern (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tiggymalvern) wrote2021-06-21 06:32 pm
tiggymalvern) wrote2021-06-21 06:32 pm
Garden and Wildlife
Summer is here, and the weather is lovely! The rabbits appreciate the fully developed clover lawn in the early mornings (and the cats are very frustrated that they can't get to the rabbits. Neko in particular is driven mad by them.)
I put some solar powered lights around the edges of the patio. I hadn't been intending to get ones with fancy patterns, but these ones got the best reviews for reliability and for no hassle warranty replacement, so I bought them with some slight apprehension over how they would look. But I actually like the result, and even the SO remarked positively on them.
I also bought a bird bath with a solar powered fountain that floats in it. It doesn't need full sun to work, but on an overcast, rainy Seattle day, it only gives a spurt every few seconds instead of the full sun continuous flow. I've yet to see any birds use it, but it's only been a week, and they're wary of new things.
We had another bat in the house incident last night, so we were up at 4.30am trying to catch and remove it. The sequence of events goes like this:
1. Locate and remove all the cats from the bat room.
2. Open the patio door.
3. Two naked humans holding a large towel between them attempt to use the towel to steer the bat towards the open door (we always try this and it never works. The bat always dodges back past us away from the door again. Next time we should probably skip this step.)
4. Wait for the bat to land somewhere not too inconvenient, put a large sieve over it, slide cardboard beneath and remove from the house.
After that, I was wide awake for another hour. And when I did finally go back to sleep, I dreamed of wildlife invading the house and we had to keep catching and removing them. I recall there was a band-tailed pigeon, and after I took that outside, there was a grouse in the house, so I caught and released that then found something like a big mole with claws for digging. I was getting very frustrated trying to figure out how they were all getting inside...
I was supposed to have gone diving this morning, but two days ago I got an email from my dive buddy saying he'd been in a 'minor' accident on his motorcycle and would have to cancel. I emailed back that even a minor accident on a motorbike is scary, wished him a speedy recovery and asked him to let me know when he'd be up for rescheduling. To which he replied that he's torn all the ligaments in his ankle, has a compound fracture in his tibia and is looking at a couple of surgeries. That is not 'minor', Eric! But hey, he came off his bike and he's not dead, and he's neurologically competent and typing emails that same day, so I suppose by some standards, that's minor...
So no diving for me, and no hiking in this beautiful weather either, because three weeks ago I slipped on the stairs and I'm pretty sure that I have a hairline fracture where my big toe meets my foot. It barely hurts at all just walking around on it, but I'm going to wait for all the swelling to go down before I hike on it. And that's the summary of me!
I put some solar powered lights around the edges of the patio. I hadn't been intending to get ones with fancy patterns, but these ones got the best reviews for reliability and for no hassle warranty replacement, so I bought them with some slight apprehension over how they would look. But I actually like the result, and even the SO remarked positively on them.
I also bought a bird bath with a solar powered fountain that floats in it. It doesn't need full sun to work, but on an overcast, rainy Seattle day, it only gives a spurt every few seconds instead of the full sun continuous flow. I've yet to see any birds use it, but it's only been a week, and they're wary of new things.
We had another bat in the house incident last night, so we were up at 4.30am trying to catch and remove it. The sequence of events goes like this:
1. Locate and remove all the cats from the bat room.
2. Open the patio door.
3. Two naked humans holding a large towel between them attempt to use the towel to steer the bat towards the open door (we always try this and it never works. The bat always dodges back past us away from the door again. Next time we should probably skip this step.)
4. Wait for the bat to land somewhere not too inconvenient, put a large sieve over it, slide cardboard beneath and remove from the house.
After that, I was wide awake for another hour. And when I did finally go back to sleep, I dreamed of wildlife invading the house and we had to keep catching and removing them. I recall there was a band-tailed pigeon, and after I took that outside, there was a grouse in the house, so I caught and released that then found something like a big mole with claws for digging. I was getting very frustrated trying to figure out how they were all getting inside...
I was supposed to have gone diving this morning, but two days ago I got an email from my dive buddy saying he'd been in a 'minor' accident on his motorcycle and would have to cancel. I emailed back that even a minor accident on a motorbike is scary, wished him a speedy recovery and asked him to let me know when he'd be up for rescheduling. To which he replied that he's torn all the ligaments in his ankle, has a compound fracture in his tibia and is looking at a couple of surgeries. That is not 'minor', Eric! But hey, he came off his bike and he's not dead, and he's neurologically competent and typing emails that same day, so I suppose by some standards, that's minor...
So no diving for me, and no hiking in this beautiful weather either, because three weeks ago I slipped on the stairs and I'm pretty sure that I have a hairline fracture where my big toe meets my foot. It barely hurts at all just walking around on it, but I'm going to wait for all the swelling to go down before I hike on it. And that's the summary of me!
no subject
And the motorbike accident! The MINOR ACCIDENT requiring multiple surgeries, yikes. (my FIL is currently somewhere with no cell reception in northern Ontario on a motorbike so uh hope nothing âminorâ happens to him!)
Your lawn looks so green and tasty for buns! I just looked up clover lawns, since I actually have a scraggly-looking lawn now, and maybe I should seed some clover instead of grass?
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I love my clover lawn. We inherited a grass lawn from the previous owners of the house, and since I was too lazy to mow it and wasn't pouring herbicide on it, it gradually became a weed lawn in parts and a mossy mess in others. I didn't mind the weeds except some of them were becoming bushes. Then we had the thing dug up and replaced. The clover lawn doesn't need to be mowed, the bees and other insects like the flowers, and it doesn't need to be watered through a dry summer like a grass lawn would, so it's more environmentally friendly. Clover lawns do tend to thin with time, so you have to add extra seed every couple of years from what I read, but scattering some seed every couple of years sounds much more like something I'll manage than mowing every couple of weeks!
no subject
no subject
The garden looks very bijou and tasteful. I like.
One hopes your dive partner dives safer than he drives!
no subject
Well, he does dive using a rebreather, which I won't do, because they require a lot of maintenance and if you a) don't do it or b) do it wrong, it will try to kill you. Everyone has their different preferences!