I have so much to get caught up upon. The wildlife is going crazy. We have had so many episodes nightly that I am not supposed to go out in thongs cuz a little, shitty, nasty critter will f’in bite me! It is Monday night and I just came in from being dive bombed by bats. Freaking bats! I love bats. I just hope the owl shows up. It could get fun.
Anyway, the carrots are going off and I have orange skin. I have always loved carrots.
(Dave and Chef John Merlino displaying some of those infamous carrots and the latest and greatest from the garden!)
The garden is an interesting thing right now. I don’t know what the weather is going to do so I have to guess on what to plant. My girls and I are planting late season anything like peas, beans, corn, even a desperate tomato or two. We don’t know how the season or soil will behave this fall. The fall is really the biggest determinate in what happens year round. I will be hero or zero come late October.
(From our garden to your plate!)
Last night I came home from Ladera and the girls were finishing a movie. Five minutes later Ruby started barking like the dog she is about something in the garage. The family wasn’t impressed but I thought something was up and it turned out to be a prehistoric monster that she was telling us of. Check out the scorpion photo. The scorpion was right outside our kitchen door we use to enter and exit the house and remove our shoes. Yikes! Good doggy dog.
(The newest Donaldson member.)
This morning I found a dead rattlesnake on our road. I stopped and cut off its rattle. I am starting a collection! Also this morning I went out to tend to the garden and I could feel something watching me. I turned around and there was a ten foot tall coyote eyeing me. After we had a staring competition he went into the bushes and a bevy of quail went crazy as he tried to eat them. The wildlife is our like never before. I think it is a combination of the heat and us coming off a wet winter that produced a bunch of good foraging for the animals. The deer are all over as well. They always seem to disappear when October comes and hunting season starts. Are they hiding or just dead?
Speaking of dead did I tell you the one about my neighbor who shot a homing pigeon in my yard a couple days ago? So this pigeon showed up about six weeks ago in my backyard by the pond mooching off of the duck food. He was lost. As he let me get closer to him I saw he had a band on his leg. Turns out he was a racing pigeon from Diamond Bar as I learned from the markings on the band. I actually only read the band after I found him dead by the pond. After closer inspection I found he had been shot. The day before one of our ducks had shown up dead by the pond as well. My next door neighbor is quite the hunter so I invited him over to get his professional opinion on the cause of death. He quickly admitted to shooting the pigeon but not the duck. He likes ducks. Now we have an agreement that he will not shoot animals on my side of the fence. Life in country!
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