Hunter Killer

Sidney was in fine form the other day, bringing me a freshly killed chipmunk. It was already dead by the time I saw it, so no chance of rescuing it. I did rescue a baby snake and several skinks. The skinks will drop off their tails as a defense mechanism I guess. The blue tail keeps wriggling and the skink then tries to get away. Awhile later I saw that Sidney had eaten the chipmunk, leaving just the hind legs, tail and a bit of bowel behind. Then the flies were all over it, and then Harley came along and ate the rest (but not the tail). Gross. I hope her stomach can kill all the fly larve. We had our first tropical style storm 2 days ago - 82 degrees and warm breezes with the afternoon popup thundercloud. And lots of steady rain yesterday, today was nice and sunny but breezy. Tonight they are forecasting a chance of patchy frost, it is going down to 39 degrees so I hope I don't lose any plants. Crazy weather!! But right now on the deck it is very nice.

Catch up

Yes we are back from Italy but I haven't organized my Florence pictures and movies yet. As usual I've taken way too many photos and movies and now it all seems like so much work. I still haven't done a page for our trip to Warsaw Poland which was last year! Anyways, I hope to do something soon if I would just stop procrastinating. However I have not been lazy in the garden, been planting lots of things and cleaning up the beds, plus mowing the grass which just grows like crazy this time of year. Also cleaning up the powerboat - we hadn't checked on it in the storage yard for about 6 months, and sure enough, recent rains caused the tarp to cave in and we had a small swimming pool in the front of the boat. We bailed that out and then lifted the tarp, and yuck - the interior cushions were all black with mold. So we brought it to the driveway and I went to work cleaning. Luckily because the mold had been kept in a damp environment and not allowed to dry in the sun due to the tarp, all the mold came up really easily using extra strength Fantastic. What a relief. The only permanent damage was to the small embroidered emblem on the front cushion - its stitching couldn't survive being under water with mold. But it is not that bad so overall I'd say we dodged a big bullet. Hopefully this teaches us to be more diligent in the future.
The spring garden is at its height of bloom and looking great. In the front yard by the mailbox, I finally have some blooms on the 'raspberry blush' iris I planted two years ago. But now after all that waiting, I am not sure if I like where I've planted it. Loser! After working all day in a cube with no natural light and only the hum of machines as background noise, it is wonderful to come home, crack a beer, walk down to the dock with the cats and sit on the camping chairs, listening to nature. Yesterday was a nice warm day - my first day wearing shorts - yeah, summer is coming! There must be at least 5 species of frogs living here, but I can't identify them. It is going to be pretty buggy down here in the summer if the lake levels don't come back but the birds, frogs, and bats will love it.

Off to Italy

Tomorrow we are off to Florence (Firenze). The green arrow in the picture is the location of our hotel which is right next to the pedestrian-only downtown section (the single grey lines on the map), and not too far from the river, across which are the Boboli Gardens. Andrew's conference is taking place in the Fortezza - the grey building in green garden square just above our hotel location. I'll be bringing the laptop so perhaps I can make a blog entry or two while there if we get an internet connection. I will be thinking of you all while viewing the amazing works of Botticelli, Donatello, Michelangelo and Leonardo - NOT! If I don't come back it's because I've got Stendhal syndrome and don't want to recover. Ciao!

Tomatoes are planted

After dinner this evening Andrew went off to "metal" band camp (his second band) and I went outside with the cats and got the tomatoes planted out. Love the longer days! I've got 6 tomatoes in 4 traditional square cages, and 5 tomatoes in 5 tomato ladders which I didn't know existed. It will be interesting to see which work out the best. I am thinking the cages, but then it might depend on the type of tomato being grown, whether it is shorter and bushy or taller and lanky. I also got my pepper planted - they should also be in cages I think but I don't have any for them. The bunnies or deer are starting to munch on my daylily plants which are just coming up now. I hope I don't lose them all. The coral bark maple is starting to show a bit of new green leaves. The contrast of the red bark and spring green leaves is very beautiful.