Can you take yet another critter?

I seem to be on a theme here although it was not intentional.

This morning as the dog and I were returning from a walk midmorning I noticed this critter on the front lawn quite near the curb and heading towards the road. It has been a number of years (perhaps five or more) since I have seen a box turtle in our yard. I'm not sure if it could be the same one or not. In the 2000 - 2004 period we would see a box turtle perhaps two or three times in a year and usually in the back yard area.

When I checked thirty minutes later there was no sign of the turtle so I hope it did cross the road and find someplace safe to go.

Introducing the newest critter

Here we can see the most recent critter to be graced with a name in my garden - meet TT (that would be short for Tomato Taker). Over the past couple of days I had been noticing a small pile of what looked to be tomato skins left on the deck railing. And in the early evening today I happened to look out at just the right time to see TT. So I made a mad dash for the camera and then took a chance and took the photo through the glass door so as not to disturb the little rascal at dinner.

Here is TT praying after a good meal that another will be available next time.

And here we see the remains. Not only is there tomato skins but also, well, you can see the damp patch.

What to do? You can see the next meal hanging right there for the taking in the above photo. And tomorrow the forecast is for strong thunderstorms with gusty winds. So the chances of the plant surviving are, well, reasonable if you remember my precautions. But for the chipmunk surviving? No, I would not do anything to harm the little critter. But I might just clear away all the remains and spray some nasty smelling liquid in the area.

You might recall reading about the rhubarb rascal. Let me tell you, that critter is still around and still eating.

Natural events

We have had an unusual afternoon and I needed to abandon my plan for an outing. Instead I was sitting out on the deck having a much needed restorative cup of tea and watching the birds in my garden. It finally occurred to me to go and get my camera and see if I could, at last, get a photo to post to show the hummingbirds coming to my feeder. Here you might have to click (I think it is a left click which will enlarge the photo for you) on the photo to find the bird just to the left of the feeder.

Look carefully and in this shot the bird is about to dip it's beak and get the reward. I did confirm my earlier sightings and I have three hummingbirds regularly visiting my feeder. One seems to come alone. But there are two who are very territorial who spend more time chasing each other away than they do actually getting the sugar water.

Before the hummingbirds I had been watching this yellow finch having a wonderful time on the coneflower. If you look carefully at this photo there are two finches. The upper one was easily feeding there for more than five minutes. However, the flower was some distance from where I was sitting on the deck so it was not easy for my little camera to get a good photo to show you.

And what caused me to have to abandon my plan for the afternoon? Well, the earth shook. Despite my disbelief it really was an earthquake and they are saying about 5.9 so I absolutely did feel it. I thought sitting outside for a while might be safer than staying indoors. But now here I am sitting inside again to bring you the latest news of nature from my garden.

Another day, another view

I seem to think that I had intended to also show you these two volunteer tomato plants. Last year I had a couple of plants show up in this planter bed and to my surprise they did produce some edible fruit although it was pretty late in the season.

By this spring I had to add a few inches of soil to the planter before again putting in the annuals (that would be flower plants) and I likely added some compost out of my bin along with the soil. The rabbit discovered the annuals and has, by now, totally destroyed the pinks that I had at each end. But that is the minor part of the story because in the meantime there appeared two really strong tomato plants. When my sister was here in July she was kind enough to go out there with a few strong stakes and some of my supply of fabric selvedges and tie up the plants.

And now I am picking quite a few tomatoes from the plants. I have no idea what they are but there are up to ten fruit on one truss. The fruit size is not large but they are absolutely bigger than a cherry tomato which is what I have in pots on the deck. So that is a fun little aspect of the garden this season.

This however is a not-so-fun event in my garden year. On late Thursday afternoon we had a series of violent thunderstorms pass through and at one point we had large hail (think at least 1/2" but perhaps 3/4" diameter) and it lasted for ten minutes or so. At one stage the deck was quite covered in the hailstones.

I wanted to open the door to take a photo but the dog was afraid of the storm and was glued to my side so I could not open the door when he was right there. These two photos were about 15 minutes after the hail stopped. And as well as the hail that you can see I had tomatoes all over the deck; ripe, green fullsized and tiny green and yellow blossoms too. So I'm not sure how much more fruit I am going to be able to pick from these plants.

But on the bright side, no pot was toppled by the storm thanks to my efforts, as detailed in the previous post, to secure my pots in the upright position.

My sisters will roll their eyes

And think of our dad when they see my solution to making sure that my tomato plant does not blow over when the thunderstorm rolls through. As you might remember I have to grow my tomatoes in pots on the deck - it is an agreement I have with the deer. And an agreement I have with the company that cleans the deck is not to have pots sitting directly on the surface of the deck.

So my plants are in big pots which sit on saucers that have wheels underneath. This works out well to begin with as when there is a storm brewing I whip outside and just wheel the pots over against the wall of the house out of the way of the wind. But once the plants grow bigger I lose that option. By then I have to start my cringe inducing campaign. The first step is to take long lengths of fabric selvedge and I tie the pots to the railing. Although this helps the pot to not fall over the wind that blows through just before a thunderstorm defies that and can topple the pot which is really bad for the plant. So the next step is to "chock" the wheels of the saucer like a airplane on the runway.

But last week I had to take an additional step - I dragged over the outside chairs and placed them strategically against the pots so the chair back would hold up the tomato stake system and then I loaded old paver stones on the chair to give it some weight. And my plants have remained upright.


This season it is the yellow cherry tomato which is producing the best tasting tomatoes. I really think I should no longer buy the grape tomatoes as they do not seem to do well at all.

The intense heat and humidity we had in the month of July has not been kind to the plants but I am picking quite an amount of fruit. Now if we could just keep up with eating them! Sometimes during the day as I pass by the bowl on the kitchen counter I will pop a few in my mouth as a snack and they are good that way.

How is your garden doing this season? It is not clear from any of these photos but this year I have three tomato plants on the deck; a yellow cherry, a red grape and a red cherry. Oh, I was going to take a photo or two of the "volunteers" that are growing out down by the patio and are also now producing ripe fruit, but I forgot. Maybe another day.