Happy Earth Day!

I thought I’d share some of my favorite photos of the Earth around my house from the past months.

I just love the colors in this shot of a little Snailio Iglesias in my garden.

Save the bees, please!  My artichokes went to flower and the bees loved it.

This is one of my favorite pictures of flowers.  I was pretty happy with myself when I shot this one.

Another favorite: can you find the hidden caterpillar?  Honestly, I did not even realize this little dude was there until I looked at the photo on my computer.

I am a sucker for all things tiny and delicate.

I found the combination of the light and the water here really beautiful.

I took this recently up in the mountains.  This bird’s feathers are amazing.

This little radish was delicious.

Have a good day, y’all.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

— Dr. Seuss, from The Lorax

Yesterday while the 3 year old and I were out playing in the yard, I kept hearing this bird squawking.  I looked up, and I saw a hawk circling over our yard– and another bird, maybe a crow, was literally dive bombing this hawk.  I sat, fascinated, watching this display of heroics and bravery from the crow-bird.  It did NOT give up.  It kept following that hawk wherever he/she went, dive bombing here and there.  I’m guessing said bird had a nest somewhere close, it being spring and all.  I suppose I am happy to report that the crow-bird was successful– it actually drove that hawk away.  So, yay for the little man.  Although that hawk’s gotta eat, you know.

As soon as I saw it, I wanted to capture this scene for all posterity.  I weighed my options.  Regular video camera?  Could zoom better, but might take too long to retrieve.  Flip video?  It’s close and does pretty well, and I’m running out of time.  What am I doing thinking about this?  I gotta MOVE if I want to catch anything!

So I ran inside and grabbed the Flip.  By the time I returned, the crow-bird had successfully driven the hawk much, much higher, but they were still up there above the yard.  So I started rolling, as we say in the biz.

The resulting video is substantially worse than any footage you’ve ever seen of Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster, but I figured, what the hey.  Maybe you will enjoy it.  You might need some kind of magnifying tool, so, go get that.

[vimeo 10944396]

Spring has sprung and the garden is progressing nicely.  When I went out to check the tomatoes today, though, I noticed that some of them had a few holes in the leaves.  I’m thinking it’s likely slugs.

I don’t usually do a lot of pest control in my garden– well, really, none– but I figured maybe this is the year to try it out.  In the interest of establishing really, really healthy tomato plants, I decided to try to cut the slugs off at the pass.

I feel like I read about or heard about making these metal plant collars to keep slugs out somewhere.  I can’t really find what was in my brain online, but I’m quite certain I didn’t make it up myself.  It is possible that I’ve horribly twisted some real solution in the recesses of my memory, but I don’t think my solution will hurt, at least.

I had a couple of extra toilet paper rolls hanging around– like, who doesn’t?  So, the 3 year old and I headed out to the tomato patch with toilet paper rolls, aluminum foil, a knife and cutting board (that was for me, not the 3 year old), and a few paper clips.  I know, you are thinking, “She is totally MacGyver.”  I aim to impress, people.

Here’s what we did.  Essentially, the overview is that we cut the toilet rolls into smaller rolls, covered them with aluminum foil, and wrapped them around the stems of the small plants.  For some reason I think that the metal will deter the slugs; I think copper in particular will do it, but I’m banking on foil, as well.  We’ll see how that works out.

Now, in more detail:

Step 1:  Slice the toilet paper roll (or paper towel roll) into smaller cylinders, about 2″ tall.

Step 2:  Slice each new cylinder vertically, allowing you to unroll or open it.

Step 3:  Tear off a piece of aluminum foil that will cover the unrolled cylinder.  Place the cylinder on the foil.

Step 4:  Fold the bottom of the foil up.

Step 5:  Fold the top of the foil down.

Step 6:  Re-mold the aluminum-covered cardboard into a cylinder.

Pretty easy.  Then, you place the collar around the base of the plant:

he gets paid a good wage

The first few I did, I not only folded the foil up and down, I folded the edges in so that all I had was solid cardboard covered in foil.  This system made closing the collars a little more difficult, so I used a paper clip on these, like so:

With a little experience I got a bit smarter, and I left a longer “tail” of foil beyond the ends of the cardboard so that when I attached the collar, I could sort of twist and bend the malleable foil together to complete the circle.

I’m really hoping not only that this solution will work against slugs, but that it’s slugs that are eating my plants in the first place.  If you take a look at the kind of sad state of Isis Candy, here:

I’m a little afraid that this damage might be from flea beetles, so I’m probably going to treat for that, too– a natural insecticide, like Neem oil or something like that.  If any of y’all gardeners out there can tell me which I have, I’d be forever grateful.