Vertical trampoline
Saturday June 06th 2015, 10:27 pm
Filed under: Friends,Garden,Knit,Wildlife

So of course after writing last night’s post I went looking this evening behind the lemon tree and the fence where I rarely go for the tree’s thorns and the prickly perennials back there. Just not a lot of incentive.

To my very great surprise that fig stump of quite some time ago had two sprouts going again, both about 18″ high. They’re gone now, and I would not have known they were threatening the fence again for another few feet’s growth had I not found last night’s new volunteer seedling, triggering my thinking about the old. That definitely worked out well. (Photo is of the Black Jack variety we planted on purpose. I kinneared it with hands high.)

There is, meantime, one young and particularly clueless black squirrel that has been a nuisance. He thinks that if the bird feeder is empty there will miraculously be more if he can just reach it and that any surface is fair game to try from.

No it’s not.

I resorted to plastic bird spikes for the first time ever. He tried taking a long flying leap this morning from the one amaryllis in bloom, which was placed such that it hadn’t occurred to me as a possibility–and I seem to have come around the corner just after he ran as it crashed to the ground, because, seeing me, he acted like, Aagh! Caught!

He did the fast leap leap leap they do when they’re in a hurry but not really screaming fleeing for their lives–and jumped up right smack into the center of the birdnetting part of that tent. It sproinged him straight back to where he’d leaped from.

Wait–what WAS that? While I was just helpless with laughter. Since he was clearly fine.

That tent has street cred now. Not a single squirrel went anywhere near it the rest of the day.

I want to mention: I got a get-well card and a get-well package in the mail today from my friend Karin (I finally got to meet her in person the day in that link) of The Periwinkle Sheep in New York. Lovely, lovely stuff: superwash merino with glittery stellina, superwash merino/silk, superwash merino sport weight. Soft, pretty yarns that my eyes and hands can’t wait to get to, and I’m going to wind the first one up as soon as I stop typing this so I can get right to it. I find them all very cheering; thank you, Karin!

Our sour cherry tree that on its own just couldn’t shake off what was eating it? It’s looking so much better now (and see how much it’s grown back just in the twelve days since that picture!)

I know just how it feels. Recovering is wonderful.

 


4 Comments so far
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I wish I had a fig tree. My mother used to tell stories about the tree my Italian grandfather had planted and lovingly cared for. Every season’s end he would dig up the tree and lay it on its side to bury it for the winter. Then come spring he uncovered it, righted it back up again for another crop of juicy figs. By the time I came along he lived in a place where he didn’t have the room or the energy to care for a fig tree. And don’t you just LOVE Karin’s yarns?!?! I am currently knitting the Cathedral shawl with her merino/silk blend in the colorway “Rising of the Moon”. The beautiful chambray color and lovely sheen are going to look great with my jeans. I love knitting her yarns!

Comment by Jody 06.07.15 @ 4:58 am

I’m so very glad that you and the little tree are feeling much better!!
Happy Knitting!

Comment by Karin 06.07.15 @ 8:04 pm

lol, my dad put spikes on his feeder roof when we watched a squirrel take a leap from a tree that we thought was too far away. My niece started calling him (her granddad) “Grandpa the Impaler”. No squirrels were ever impaled but they never tried the feeder from that direction again. 🙂

Comment by Helen 06.08.15 @ 12:21 am

Silly squirrels! And I am glad that the get well package worked it’s magic…funny how yarn can do that for a knitter… ;o)

Comment by Pam 06.08.15 @ 11:43 am



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