I’m an idiot when it comes to keeping my camera’s batteries recharged, so pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.
First, my very Kung-Fu like battle with the grasshoppers continues. I don’t want to kill them, I just want to fuck with them. I’ve got about four — one is HUGE. I pester them by looking at them and then slowly anticipating their avoidance maneuvers. It’s a game of “you can’t see me” and “oh, yes I can!” I zapped them with the garden hose yesterday and this morning. Those fat fuckers were back later in the afternoon. There’s one that I just plead with. She’s (?) just on the sunflower. I beg her not to be greedy.
The swallowtail caterpillars are another story. I love them. It is amazing how quickly they grow. I spotted another cocoon, and one that is making a cocoon. They didn’t much care for me watering the damn parsley they are living on, but what’s a caterpillar to do? One showed its “horns” but that was about it.
I didn’t write about the possum earlier. I wish I had. A possum got into R’s bathroom and Dora was throwing a fit. R went in and discovered the possum last week. We set the(humane!) trap and then nothing happened. Until today. I was putting some clean bedding in R’s room, and there was that smell. That possum smell. Sure enough, it was in the trap. I had no idea how long it had been in there, since I hadn’t checked it everyday. In retrospect, it had only smelled today, so the damned thing was just playing possum. I put a cloth over the trap, took it out to the driveway and opened the back. The first couple of times I checked it (via the window — possums give me the heebie-jeebies ) I thought it was dead. I kept cleaning up its mess and checking on it until it finally left the trap. Possums aren’t the smartest animals in the world. It went along one side of the fence, and then it turned back, only to go into the area it had just avoided.
Later the storms came. Dora got under my desk. As I was watching the weather on TV, Dora came over and tried to curl up in another little nook. I went back over to the desk, in an attempt to get her to go back there, and noticed a puddle on the floor. At first I thought she had peed herself. Bad mommy. Rain was streaming in the house from under the window A/C. I apologized to Dora and sopped it up with the towel I had planned on using to dry off Tammy and Murphy, who were still outside. Upon coming back to the leak with another towel, I found Francisco licking rain water off the wall.
The storm passed without Tammy or Murphy wanting in. They seem to enjoy the yard more and more. Dora finally sacked out on the bed, and the kittens finally ate dinner and fell asleep next to their food bowls. The outside kittens ate during the shower, and I fucked with the two grasshoppers I found. I checked on the caterpillars, but didn’t find as many as I did this morning. I’ll look for their cocoons tomorrow.
Finally, I have decided that food is only a side show to my garden. Keeping up with the insect life and figuring out how to take care of each living thing is more important than how much my garden produces. It’s an ongoing experiment, and while the end result might be a very productive garden, my end goal is to have a place where all of the living things have a chance to thrive.
calle viena 