Views by Valerie: Hanging 7-19

Left you wondering what's been going on didn't I? Larry got home Friday night, late and we have been busy.

Saturday I found the disappearing rattlesnake. The problem with them is they hang around and though I had been on the lookout for it, it was still quite the surprise when I discovered it in between empty flower pots under my pretty potting table...where I am puttering around off and on all day. I had already gingerly picked up some pots that had fallen over, being careful in case it was there. I went on to water and I decided to wet down the dust around the table and the water hit the snake which made it move which drew it to my attention. WELL, needless to say my pulse went crazy...and I kept thinking I could have been standing right there next to it...ick....but the man was home so I ran inside and got him and let him do the manly dispatching of snake.

Larry's fire that he was at was still going, but as he was filling in for his boss and the boss returned so Larry headed home. We monitored the fire near here. They hit it hard on Sunday with the DC-10 tanker also known as VLAT. I asked Larry what the heck VLAT stood for and he said it would probably be hard for me to remember as it is short for a very technical name...very large air tanker, funny. The weather was changing on Monday so they knew they needed to get it knocked down, they still had challenges with the fire on Monday, but with the higher humidity levels and the cooling temperatures they caught a break and by Tuesday morning it was 50% contained. It was in nasty steep terrain with heavy fuels...they battled rolling rocks, bad skinny roads and bridges that had load limits, not to mention the heat that we had all last week.

Tuesday we picked up Ian from his Dad so we are having fun with him for the next week and a half. We'll get Seth on Saturday so the cousins will have a week to play together, they are very excited about it.

The blasted deer have been nibbling on the newly planted butterfly bushes and they even put holes in the fence around the crape myrtle trees using it for a ladder so they could eat the flowers off of it...made Larry very angry with them and more work for him. We moved the stakes out further and Larry had to drive into Auburn to get taller, stouter fencing. A friend recommended Liquid Fence, which I had been meaning to get but had kept forgetting about.

The thing I learned at my local nursery is that newly planted plants that are supposed to be deer resistant aren't until they have lived in the local soil and sucked up all the minerals from the local soil that makes them distasteful to the local deer. It seemed to be true of the baby manzanitas we planted last year...we had to cover them and this year we took the fencing off of them and nary a nibble.

So today I bought and applied the Liquid Fence...made of egg and garlic in a mix that is SO SO REVOLTING...it smells like poop. Supposedly after it dries we won't be able to smell it, but the animals can. Ooowee...nasty, nasty. Fortunately it only needs to be applied once a week for a few weeks and then once a month. Next year we shouldn't have to use it...unless of course we plant something new.

The yard changes daily and is so full of color! The plums are ripe and between the birds and the bees we get a small share. The bees get all over the plums that fall to the ground and split open or that had been half eaten by the birds still hanging on the tree. We have to be really careful when picking the fallen fruit off the ground or picking, because if a bird has put a hole into a fruit the bees start tunneling in and munching.

This year I had been growing out my hair to one length, but yesterday I was done with that. I hadn't had one length long hair in decades and I can't do it. It kept sliding in my eyes when I was out working in the yard, so I was always tucking it behind my ears with dirty hands and it would fall back. I would use clips and looked ridiculous or use those claw things and then would look like Mickey Mouse...done, done, done. I am once again layered though I have to get used to it again...I seem to have a duck butt thing going on the back of my head this evening.

The weather turned weird again...cooler than normal, today we even had clouds and rain, it was like Chester/mountain weather. I may have forgotten something, but I've got to get the pictures added here and wrangle a boy into getting clean before bedtime.