DEATH TO THE GRASSHOPPER!!!

 WTF?  

The grasshhoppers have eaten my squash, literally overnight.

Last night when I watered they looked perfect (and I've been harvesting lots!) and between last night and now the grasshoppers have found them!

I have a huge locust investation, this is just a small picture, they are covering my fence, all the tree trunks and anything green I have.

How do I get rid of them?  I'd like to be "green" about it, but I'd be up for about anything right now!

 

If they go near my tomatoes, I'm pulling out the pesticide!

Dog on a bubble point

As a hunter I should be too embarrassed to post this picture ... but he's still a puppy.  

He's pointing ...at a bubble.  If you look closely you can see it in the grass in front of him.
(click on the picture to open it - and make it bigger)

In Piston's defense, he does point all things with wings, and he usually has classic point with his front foot up too!

Healing with laughter

Family,

My sister and niece came to visit me.  While they were only here for a few days, they’ve helped me to turn a corner to better emotional  health.

While I haven’t shared much of what has been going on in my life (it’s a filtered blog) I’ve had quite a few family issues that have been dragging me down.  Emotionally it’s been a tough road for me over the last 6 months dealing with the death of my boy Ripley and issues around children, parents and siblings.

I’d been walking around in a fog when my Sister and Peach arrived,  we had such a wonderful time.  I hadn’t laughed much in six months, and we laughed, and at times we REALLY laughed.  I hadn’t spent much time with my 23 year old niece in a few years and I found her to be SO much fun.  She should have been my daughter – she is so much like me.  I love her “attitude” it’s mine kicked up a notch.  It’s the one I’d have if I didn’t have to work in a professional environment.  I’m so proud of how she’s turned her life around, and I hope she’s found the right track.
__________

I’ve not laughed so hard in a long time, from making fun of others to my niece making me laugh so hard I thought I was going to wet myself in a store.  From our deviled eggs with bugs in them to my lack of decorating skills.
__________ 

Thank you both for giving me a few days where I was able to laugh and remember how much fun we Snell’s are. Thank you for giving me a few days where Ripley’s absence was not the root of my day.

Come back soon.

Is it time to harvest squash?

As we've seen my squash is out of control.  I really love squash and wanted to make sure I got plenty.  Every few days I cull this bed of all kinds of things.  My poor root vegtables don't stand a chance with all this squash.

It seems like just two weeks ago I had flowers, now I have piles of squash - HOW DO I KNOW WHEN ITS READY?  

I picked this one, and will be grilling it in a few hours (actually dang it's 630, guess I'll be doing it now!)

Look I have baby goards.  Roger was right (again) why did I plant things I wasn't going to eat?  I've been very harsh with their culling as they are big creapers, but I've saved a few.

This is kinda cool - I think I need another bed?!?

Piston Update

Piston is doing well, he's calmed down quite a bit from the crazy hurricane he was the first few days.

Ollie actually really likes him.  Piston is rough at times outside.... running over Ollie at full speed.

I did make the mistake yesterday of leaving my sheets on the line while he was out there.  I came out to them ALL over the yard.

Meet Piston

I picked up my next foster yesterday.

I took Ollie with me.  For those of you don't know - Ollie hates car rides.  He pees, he refuses to get in and he loses his cookies.

We had a choice between two dogs, so I thought best for Ollie to make the decision. But first how to get Ollie an hour away without having to pressure wash the inside of the truck (which is what happened last time he went to visit Bentley).

I tried a few different things - he rode in the front with me, I used the calming pheromones, kept cold air blowing on him and pulled over when he turned green.

He made it!

Ollie picked Piston.

Piston is a really big puppy.  He doesn't have much in the way of manners and just wants to put his mouth on everything. He is a big goof and needs constant things to do.

Ollie has enjoyed playing with him, but there are times when a 60 pound puppy should "knock it off", and Ollie doesn't put up with anything he doesn't like.

This meet and greet was alot better for Ollie.  He got to play with Piston for a couple of hours before Piston tried to touch HIS STUFF!  He still didn't let him touch his stuff .. but he was a little bit nicer about it.

Squash Culling

I've culled my squash for the greater good. I've taken out AT LEAST 1/2.

I've got baby squash already

Pork... the other dog.

I dog-sat a colleagues dog this weekend. She was quite entertaining.
Her name is pork, if you listen closely I think we can guess why.

Oh Goodness, I think I over planted

It's only been a couple of weeks, and my garden is taking over.  My sister tells me that I was only supposed to put in like 5 plants.

Not 5 seeds/mound and 5 mounds/row?

Now what?

Garden update

 

Before I mowed

First tomatoes

Roger's parting gift

It takes me 8-10 hours a week to mow.

For more than 2 years I've been mowing this yard while Roger is away.  I kept tellin him "I need a zero turn mower" and he kept saying "No you don't, you aren't doing it right - stop complaining".

Guess what happens when Roger had to mow a few months this spring ... he bought a zero turn mower!

It' a bit challenging for me. It's like backing up a trailer, it's different than what my mind thinks should be happening.

It only took me all of about 7 and 1/2 minutes to get it stuck and have to call for help.

Harley Bling

Well.... it IS a girls bike.

Roger's question was ... why are you putting jewelry on a motocycle?

The chicks hatched!

This is a story of life.

2 weeks ago we lost many chickens; they were attacked and eaten during the night (probably by a fox).

However during this time we had our first mother that decided it was time to hatch a clutch of eggs. She's been diligently sitting on these eggs for 3 weeks, and she hatched most of them yesterday.

We have no real idea what these mongrel babies will look like. We had (and lost) many different breeds and she was sitting on more than her own eggs. It’s not obvious to us novice chicken breeders what these chickens will turn into. Color of down does not seem to correlate well to color of chicken. We do know that we have one with “head gear” because he/she already has a pompom on it’s head. It’s also orange, and we lost all our orange “head gear” chickens.

So maybe, just maybe we have a small piece of our favorite chickens that we lost. It makes for a good story about life.

We also have 39 new chicks coming on July 11th … stay tuned.

Audrey's trip to Harpers Ferry

Audrey came to visit for a few days.  She spent 2 days in DC wondering around, then we went to Harpers Ferry.

It was Roger's first time too!  I've been there so much (I take everyone here) that I didn't realize he hadn't been there.

Eggs of all sizes and colors

We are getting a variety of eggs. We just happened upon these two extremes. One is a green egg that looks like it came from an ostrich (it ended up being double yoked) and there other appears to be a first egg from a Bantam chicken. Notice another smaller yellow one in her hand.

We get mostly normal size white, tinted (green) and shades of brown.

We recently lost about 1/2 our chickens to a fox. We will be getting new babies in July. These eggs are wonderful.

My sister will be here next month .... Oh I can't wait to have her slaving away on deviled eggs.

A Tree for Ripley

I want to plant a tree for Ripley.

I wanted to plant a tree in our yard with some of Ripley's things and maybe Ripley's ashes. This would be a tree that would grow and be nourished by Ripley and/or his things. It would also be the tree where we place his rock.
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I've been searching high and low for the right tree. I thought I wanted a big, strong (and expensive) tree, but it turns out that I think I found "the right" tree right  it in our back yard.

Last year I planted a bunch of saplings - I even posted them.

http://snell-bennett.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-sapling-garden.html
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This year one of these trees is standing much taller than the rest. As I was standing there watering them I realized that this should be Ripley's tree. Ripley was there while I planted it, and it survived him peeing on it. It seemed like Ripley was already a part of it.

Once I find a place for it - I'll be moving it, making a spot for it and burying Ripley's things under it.

Anyone know what kind of tree this is?

Ollie ... drunk happy.

Ollie isn't often happy - but I snapped this picture of him today while I was planting.  He'd eaten so much chicken poop from the garden that he was slap happy.

His shirt is for a medical issue - not becuase we like to dress our dog.

Spring planting

I've been wanting to put in a garden, but with Roger gone over the last couple of years - it was just more than I thought I could handle.

I love these boots!

Since he is home this spring, I decided that maybe this year I could manage it. We have mostly clay so I wanted a raised bed. Roger (the practical one) wanted to just nail some board together, but I really liked these cool brackets and after some hounding ... he finally gave in.

For the last couple of weeks I've been working the soil. It's a mixture of clay, leaf mulch, peat and the stuff I pulled out of the chicken coop yesterday. The idea was to use top soil, but instead of 3 yards of leaf mulch and 2 yards of top soil, they delivered all leaf mulch and I decided to improvise.

As I was planting this evening (in humid 90 degree weather) I realized that I have not had a garden since I was a child. Actually probably since I was about 8 years old. Now, I've grown tomatoes, and I once did potatoes in a tire. It’s hard to get things to grow in Seattle with all the shade and such a short growing season.

I’d already planted my onions and potatoes a few weeks back, and I decided to do these in these new grow bags.

Look I already have potato greens coming up!

And for the 3rd year in a row I’m doing my upside down tomatoes in buckets

It's kinda cool to think that these seeds will become food.In the garden I planted Carrots, Beets, Watermelon, Cucumbers, Squash, and Gords                                                                 

They don't just make eggs...

We have been enjoying loads of fresh wonderful eggs. We are having to give them away.

They don't lay in those boxes very often.  They prefer to lay in the bench or in the corners under the perch.  They want us to have to hunt for the eggs.

However, eggs are not the only thing that chickens produce. It was time to clean out the chicken coop.

I'm preparing the garden and planting my tomato upside down plants - so I thought it was a good time to put the manure to use.

I can't get a tractor in there, so I had to shovel into 5 gallon buckets and then dump it over the fence.  It's only 85 degrees out.  It actually wasn't so bad, just hard on the lungs and eyes with all the ammonia.

Here you can see some of the chickens out the door.  They weren't happy I made them all leave.