My garden is doing ok this year. The peas are small, some little brown birds ate the leaves off my beets, and I have a critter eating my carrots. The lettuce has been beautiful this year. I provided lettuce for Aleta's wedding dinner. That was a challenge. Keeping it from going to seed in 100' temperatures was a feat. I covered it with wet sheets during the heat of the day and uncovered night and morning to let it dry out some. It worked!! My lettuce was beautiful. Of course I won't count the hours spent washing it to get it from garden to table. The latest problem is frost in August. I keep telling myself that this is not unusual but I hate it. I want to at least make it to September but ma nature always has other ideas. Nothing much was hurt except a few zuch leaves and beans that stuck their head out of the cover. The water went on before the sun got on the garden and saved the annuals such as cosmos and zinnias.
A funny thing happened while I was gardening one morning. A blue heron flew into the pond behind my garden. It caught several fish spearing them and throwing them up into the air to catch them and swallow each. I watched as each fish traveled down its long neck. Two deer came to the exact place the heron was fishing. The first deer stared directly into the heron's eyes and challenged him to move which after a few minutes stare down the blue heron huffed out of the pond and onto the land where it walked to the other side and back into the pond to his spot. The deer walked nonchalantly where the heon had been. The next deer also challenged the heron to move but this time the heron said, " no way." The deer then walked on the bank around the heron and headed on her way. It was all hilarious and quite unbelievable.
I also had a western tanager stealing raspberries from my garden. They are beautiful birds with a yellow body, black wings, and an orange head.. He pulled so hard on a berry that when it came off he did a flip backwards. I am afraid I laughed pretty hard. I love the birds and hate when they head south. I miss their songs and wonderful antics.
Here are a few pics.
