Though an old gardener, I am but a young blogger. The humor and added alliteration are free.
Friday, August 8, 2025
August Surprises
Saturday, July 19, 2025
Weather Thou Goest
On his way home from work Friday night, ProfessorRoush turned onto the road leading to his house and, facing west, the sky ahead was this:
But the cloud pictured above came in and provided a 30-minute heavy downpour, dumping an inch of badly-needed rain in that period. To further illustrate our fickle weather, as I wrote these words, the radar looked like this as another storm moved in and yet, by the time I finished, the sky had cleared and this storm had evaporated, providing no moisture to ground level. How could it miss? How could it not rain? The leading edge of that rain is only 5 miles from my location!
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Eastern Giant Swallowtail butterfly |
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Arrowhead Orbweaver spider |
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Resilent and Resolute
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03/22/2025 |
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Brown Mush Incoming
Saturday, March 1, 2025
Hello March!
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Winter Jasmine |
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Daffodils! |
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weeds! (aarrggg!) |
As I wrote these few paragraphs, taking longer-than-normal because evidently I'm out-of-practice (and apparently subconsciously going for a hyphenation record here today), I can testify that, glancing to my left out the window, I was thrilled to see a bright blue male bluebird flitting about the front garden, likely fresh from his migration flight and ready to choose a nest and mate.
Blest be ye, Bluebird, and blest be thy brood as the days begin to warm.
Sunday, September 10, 2023
Dazzle Days
Sunday, August 27, 2023
Hot, Tired, and Nearly Over It
Sunday, April 9, 2023
Pack Rat Purgatory
If there is a Hell, ProfessorRoush is convinced that it is populated primarily by pack rats, and somehow I must have gone on into the afterlife, because I am living right in the midst of it, a pack rat purgatory. I know, I know, my war on these little furry demons is a recurrent theme on this blog, but this is serious, this is Armageddon with rats riding the 4 horses. You all know that I nearly lost my farm tractor to the fiends, that I've burned out a juniper and a spruce and eliminated an entire hedge of boxwoods in major tactical moves, that my 'Red Cascade' was overrun by the vermin in one skirmish, that I've created an alliance with local rat predators in a failed attempt at pack rat genocide, and that, at times, the evil hellions even attempt to invade the house and porch. Heck, I have had to cement the base of every downspout where it meets the drainage tubes because the little monsters were chewing into the plastic drains and ruining the runoff from the house!
A couple of years ago, I even allowed myself to dream that I was winning the war, but I either let my guard down recently or the malignant spirits of my garden have simply outflanked me. It all started last fall when I noticed that my wire tower of Sweet Autumn Clematis, so beautiful in its youth, was looking, pardon the pun, a little ratty (top right). It was evident that the pack rats had built a nest in it, hidden by the vining clematis and the wire, and had established a beachhead in my back yard again. I resolved initially to deal with it this spring, plotting to burn out the nest at the time of our spring burns.But I had not anticipated the damage they've caused this winter. Just look, above left, at the damage the little bas@#$ds caused to the Juddii viburnum next door. And look close, here, at the tunnel leading underneath the clematis tower, doubtless to an underground condominium filled with rat feces and urine and young vermin.At the same time, last fall and all winter, small piles of rat turds began building up each week just to the right of the front door on the porch. It was definitely an "in your face" move if ever I saw one. Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I were disgusted and angered. We tried traps and killed several, I have rat poison out everywhere, and I was spraying commercial rodent repellants in the area by the gallon. And still the turds came, deposited at night, silently and blatantly right near the welcome mat.
As the past two days and one day last weekend were nice enough to work in the garden, I've been outside, clearing and cleaning the garden, planning a nice summer with flowers and calm. Here, in a gentle scene, is the walkway leading to the front door, flanked by two 'MoonShadow' euonymus that I really adore. Isn't it lovely, even before the growth flush of spring?That euonymus on the left? Here's a closeup. Another new pack rat condominium, right under my nose and in one of my favorite evergreens! Now I know where the rats were living!Worse yet, this hole you see at the left is just to the left of the last two stairs into the house, just a few feet from the rodent bathroom area and 6 feet the other direction from the euonymus. You can't see it, but the hole leads right into the drainage tube from the downspout cemented into the stairs. They not only created a tunnel from their house to mine, they connected the tunnel to the downspout, their own Autobahn in my front garden!The last thing I did today was tear apart the rat home in my euonymus, fill the rat hole with a plug and then soil (dumping a few cubes of rat poison in first), and then I doused everything with the rodent repellent and I added a special brew of my own that has been effective in repelling deer. If they're going to pee on my house, then I believe I have the right to pee on theirs. I feel that I'll win this round, but I'm reacting defensively and likely losing the war, like the Spartans against the Persians at Thermopylae, or, more recently, Ukraine against Russia. I need to think about offense. Miniature intelligent robots, or an army of hyperaggressive terriers, something has to work, doesn't it?
I will never surrender. This is only a setback. Keep telling yourself that, ProfessorRoush.....
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Minor Miracles
Sunday, July 17, 2022
Pears Ahoy!
It's not my fault, I promise. My pyromaniac neighbors are responsible for the demise of several promising saplings. Despite protection within stone circles of bare earth, several near the boundary fence lines were regularly scorched by the annual prairie burns and simply gave up their efforts to survive. Rutting deer have killed several by scarring the trunks during antler growth. Of 4 apple trees, two were lost to fire and, although I have a love for 'Jonathan' apples in pies, the cedar rust here annually consumes my 'Jonathan', preventative spray or none. The 4th apple tree, a 'Honeycrisp', has never borne fruit and I don't know why. I've also learned that peaches of any kind are impossible here, the blooms destroyed by frosts every year, bearing any fruit at all only one year in five. And that 5th year will be the one in which I neglected to spray them for peach leaf curl and worms. Worst of all, perhaps, I completely underestimated the competition for water and nutrients from the prairie native grass, even when I kept it mowed beneath the trees. Consequently, I gave up maintenance of the orchard and any spraying routine several years ago.
Imagine my surprise, then when I mowed around the remaining trees last week and found this 19-year-old 'Bartlett' pear (Pyrus communis) was loaded with fruit, the first time ever since it was planted in 2003. I don't know why it's never had fruit, although I will admit I planted another pear in 2011 that, although it struggles, might have actually just bloomed and cross-pollinated with my 'Bartlett for the first time. Here they are, regardless, healthy and growing, and completely organic since I haven't sprayed so much as dormant oil here for years.I'm going to monitor the heck out of these until harvest now, because I do like an occasional ripe pear, although I'm sure I'm setting myself up for frustration again. If they survive the Japanese beetles which are munching nearby on the grape vines, and if the raccoons don't come in and eat them all before I realize they're ripe, and if the birds and worms don't ruin them, maybe, just maybe, I might have a tasty bite of pear this year before winter sets in. Hope springs eternally from a gardener's heart.