June 29 panorama

I am continuing my project of taking panorama shots of the back garden at the turn of the month and at the middle.  Since June is ending on a Monday. I went out and took the pictures today.  I spent yesterday working on the vegetable garden, taking off the bird netting and putting in supports for the plants. Today I did some weeding, so the garden was ready to have it's picture taken.

TaDa:

I was talking to our neighbor, Pat, last night (we had her over for a barbecue) and she said she doesn't remember a summer when the plants got so big.  So these pictures may not be typical, but they do document the stages of growth and change through the summer. At the end of the summer I am going to put together a couple collages showing the development of the garden and print them off on photo paper and put them into my garden notebook.  So I'll have a record of the garden (as it is this year) and what blooms when and where in the garden. 

As I mentioned, yesterday we took the bird netting off the vegetable garden.  The tomatoes and cucumbers were growing through it, so we figured it would be more a hindrance to us being able to harvest anything than effective protection from the birds.  (We've already started getting zucchini, and cucumbers, and the lettuce is done for the season.  Tomatoes are very close.)

So, I was saying (twice now) we took down the bird netting.  What I didn't realize was how much the plants were using the netting for support.  Once I had the netting free, everything fell over.

That's a big pile of tomato and cucumber plants that's too heavy to support itself.

A trip to Lowes and a couple hours later we have this:

It wasn't quite the plans I had for the afternoon, but now the tomatoes and cucumbers are supported and have more room to grow.  We can also see and reach the tomato plants on the inside of the box. We found another ripe zucchini and Gloria made zucchini tots to go with the grilled chicken and pasta salad for dinner.

Now I'm just hoping that the raised bed is high enough to be out of reach of the bunnies.

No One Expects...

The Spanish Inquisition (unless you're a Monty Python fan.)

Gloria was out on the patio with her camera this afternoon while I was in my den starting to study for a professional certification.

Between the heat this week, and the studying, I haven't had a chance to get many pictures - or even spend much time enjoying the gardens and the wildlife.  So, I'm happy to have some new pictures to post from the yard.

We've seen this guy, but haven't had a camera handy.  But this afternoon we caught him in the act,

despite his best efforts to look innocent and deny everything.

The evidence was overwhelming.

After he cleared out, the buffet went back to business as usual.

And a little more down to earth, things were hopping too.

All pictures thanks to my wife Gloria.

A Garden Visitor

We were having a cookout last night to celebrate a friend being in the country for the first time in 8 years (he lives in Thailand.)  We were sitting back with some other mutual friends after the cookout and enjoying the company and the evening.

After dinner conversation came to a halt as eight grown adults stopped to look at a baby rabbit explore the grass.  The cuteness factor won out.

We have a lot of rabbits in the yard and the yards around us.  Something I have noticed is a lack of squirrels. Every place else we're lived, I've always seen plenty of squirrels - and the dogs have loved chasing them out of the yard(s.)  But here we don't seem to see them very often.  Which is OK with the dogs since our current crowd are mostly seniors (ranging in age from 8,10,15,to 17.)  The only one who chases anything (one of the two who is not blind) chases birds.  She even started barking at a plane once as it appeared over the horizon at the top of the hill in back.

Fortunately for the rabbit population, our dogs don't seem too interested in them either.

We also have a couple of chipmunks out back.  I saw them for the first time last week. I heard them first and looked over in time to see two of them running down the pole at the top of the chain link fence.

While I'm talking about the kids, let me share a picture that one of them snuck into last night.

That's Truman at the bottom right.  He was trying to check out the buffet before we all had a chance to get to it.  I love the tongue hanging out!  We had Baltimore pit beef, steamed shrimp, hot dogs, seafood salad, vegetable pasta salad, deviled eggs, watermelon,and roasted vegetables.  Dessert was strawberry shortcake, homemade ice cream, and Berger cookies. Several bottles of Far Eastern Shore wine, a couple types of beer, and sodas rounded out the menu.

Did I mention that I'm hoping to include cooking, gardening, and the dogs in this blog?  I hit on all three today.