Chipmunk Update

Last Friday I reached the end of my rope with chipmunks. Nothing was working on getting rid of them so I decided to try The Bucket of Doom. I merrily set up my bucket and baited it with sunflower seeds. No chipmunks came near it. In fact, I didn't see chipmunks anywhere. I was puzzled and thinking, HOW DID THEY KNOW that I was trying to kill them off. I just figured that it was just like as soon as you pull out the flyswatter, all the flies disappear. Then on Sunday my grandsons were over so for safety, I emptied the bucket.

Then it all came clear. 

On Monday evening Bill heard something in the carport. Behind the metal sheet that will be for making a chimney cap WAS A....

Diamondback rattlesnake.

Aha! That's what scared all of the chipmunks off! Maybe he even ate one.

He was quite fat. Guess the eating has been good around here.

Here is another picture of him in the sun.

You can really see how they blend in with the ground.

If you don't keep your eyes peeled you might step on one.

So guess what? Bright and early yesterday morning,
the CHIPMUNKS CAME BACK.

Thinking evil, happy thoughts, I went and got the bucket again.

The chipmunks like to eat the leaves from the flowers right behind the bucket. And they like to go on this bench too so I decided to use that instead of making a ramp.

Come on little chippies! Come get some yummy sunflower seeds!

 Heh heh heh. :))))

The Lying Liar Watermelon Packet and Other Garden Tales

Here is the seed packet. Looking all sweet and delicious.

Here is the description.

"Round 8-10 lb. fruits are easy to grow and store.

COMPACT VINES are easy to harvest."

But that part about COMPACT VINES is a LIE.

Evidence:

Hello?

These thing grow like wild things.

At first I was directing the vines but all of a sudden?

They are OUT OF CONTROL.

They have escaped everywhere and are covering the exterior garden fence and are now aiming for the tree...

They have a gazillion melons. Growing on the ground and up every fence.

When they are ripe they will weigh 8 to 10 lbs...... O_o
Just how strong are their vines.... Guess we'll find out. I may have to rig up a support for each melon. But at the same time, it seems if they climb things because they are vines...they should support their fruit???

And the packet said- "Grow up to sixteen plants!" Good thing I only planted 6- of which 5 came up. It seems like each vine is growing 16 watermelons!!!!! Next thing you know, they will start attacking the house.....


Meanwhile,

....the corn is all harvested. And on the other side....

...everything is doing fine! The neighbor girls' cucumbers are exploding too!

The cosmos are almost as high as my shoulders and the sunflowers are getting heavy with seeds.

Normally by now I would have cut the sunflowers down and just saved the seed heads for the birds but I'm thinking of just trimming all of the leaves off and using the stalks as poles for the peas. I thought it would be fun to try that this year.


Now.
I have a mystery plant.
The neighbor girls planted lemon cucumbers and we have harvested many. But they had some more seeds they planted but they can't remember what they were....

Here is some of the fruit just starting.

They are a pale greenish yellow with little black dots.

Can anyone identify these?

And whatever they are.... there are going to be lots and lots and lots soon.

This is what I have been busy with lately though...

Planning my fall garden!

I need to prepare the corn patch and start planting stuff in the next week or so- all the way to the end of August. I have never planted a fall garden before so I'm pretty excited to try it!

The Bucket of Doom

I can't believe that a couple of years ago I thought chipmunk's were so adorable.

It took me ages to capture this photo of one drinking from the bird path.

Since then, they have moved down in my opinion to the level of rat.

Infuriating, ugly, nasty rats.

They are constantly digging holes around the trees after I water them.

Same with the bushes that are irrigated. When it's hot they dig down until they reach damp soil and then they lay down in the coolness. Except, they expose the roots and the plant suffers.

They have started doing it to my pots too.

And this is the mess every day.
They throw all of the mulch out and dirt flies everywhere too.

I had had enough and set rat traps out but Bill said I might catch birds so he had me put out the Havaheart trap- which is that metal thing sitting there. Everything was going swimmingly except, then I had a live chipmunk in a trap. I couldn't just open the trap and throw the carcass. I would have to drive down the road aways and let it out. I caught two this way and figured I was in business, but then... I was reading on line and they have been known to come back after being let go as far as ¾ of a mile away. Plus, after the second one it got tiresome. And they seemed to be multiplying at an alarming rate. Sometimes there would be two in my pots in the front yard, some more in my pots in the back, plus several more around the yard. Things are getting serious- so now I will try....

The Bucket of doom

Heh. It's an idea from a Bing search....

Quote: *Reader Tip* Several readers have had success with the "bucket method." Here's the original tip from Jonathan: "You can get a bucket of water and float sunflower seeds at the top. Make a ramp to get to the bucket. It's a foolproof method: the chipmunk cant get out."

Bwahahahahahaha. The bucket of doom! I love it! That is what someone else in the comments called it and it's PERFECT. Those vile creatures are on my list. They shall "sleep with the fishes!" And this solution seems to be bird safe.

Read more at: "How to get rid of chipmunks"

Now. Just because I beat rattlesnakes with boards and sentence hornworms to certain death, that might give some people the impression that I'm an animal hater. NOT TRUE. I only hate the varmint type. And they started it.

Okay, I'm off to find a bucket, tra-la, tra-la.

Last Week

Had a humdinger of a dust devil come through. And my clothesline?

Lost the game.

Womp womp.

The end.

It died.

My corn is growing ears.

Now we shall see if kernels develop.

Gardening requires much patience.

Bill started on making a circle driveway out front.

It's going to go across here.

When it's done, I can plan my front steps up to the porch and re-landscape it all! 

Here is a view from the other side.

I am pretty amazed by myself.....

Not only do I kill scorpions with a flyswatter,

I fought a rattle snake with a board!

Yup.

Me.

I did it all by myself.

Bet you are impressed with me too!

One evening I was going to shut off the garden irrigation down by the shed and there was a diamondback rattler right in the path.

I was watching it and it wouldn't move. I was home alone so I waited and it slowly started moving into the rocks.

Then I realized I would have to walk back up the path and I wouldn't know where the snake was so I HAD to deal with it. I grabbed a board and as it came out of the bigger rocks I started whacking it.
There was quite a frantic hullabaloo going on for a few minutes there.

As I was walloping him, it kept rattling it's tail and trying to get at me. I hit it so hard a few times it bounced up in the air. Finally it got up near the house wall and I used the board and kept ramming it's head into the wall but it kept on trying to go under the rocks.

Finally.

It curled up in a ball and cried for it's mommy.

After I quit shaking and my goosebumps went away I wiped my sweaty brow.
Then I counted coup and did a little victory dance.

And boyohboy was I so proud of myself!

By this time Bill was almost home but it was getting dark so I used my phone's flashlight to watch it til then. Bill picked it up with a pincher tool and put it in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid. We decided if it wasn't dead, it was nearly so because it barely moved.

The next morning I took this photo. That is the 5' long 2x6 board that I used.

I was scrambling with that snake over a distance of 12 feet.

And then later Bill reported that when he went to dispose of the snake-
it slithered away!

Guess it was just a yellow-bellied cry-baby faker.

I still won.

Last Thursday came our first monsoon storm. It was so exciting! We haven't had rain since March 4th. 

It was so beautiful to sit on the front porch and watch the 'walking rain' in the sunset.

And we could smell rain in the cool breeze!

We didn't get any rain until later in the evening and it wasn't measurable, but still- reason to celebrate!

It had kinda bugged us that the bunting we had for our MN house was too small for this house but I decided to not worry about it. Then we went to eat at the Cracker Barrel a week before Independence Day and they had bunting on sale!

First!- See the clouds in the sky?!! Woot woot! The monsoons really have arrived!

These new buntings are 6' long and 3' wide and they only cost $22 each so we decided to go for it. We had priced bunting online and it was way too expensive to justify. 

←This is what our old bunting looked like.

Pretty wimpy!

I'm happy we went to eat at the Cracker Barrel that weekend. 

Exciting news for the San Pedro River.

source

From Arizona Highways....

"As Arizona Public Media reports, the county and The Nature Conservancy have joined forces to build a series of retention basins in the land near the San Pedro River . The basins will slow down the flow of rainwater out of the Huachuca Mountains, allowing more of it to seep into the aquifers that feed the river.The 2.5 million project aims to keep the river flowing even during the dry season. If it's successful, it's hoped that the project will spur similar efforts elsewhere in the state."  

(partially funded by a $1.7 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation )

I am so excited about this. Sure hope it is successful and they start restoring other rivers in the state!