October 28, 2010 - Weeds?

I was happy to see the radishes growing in the little Arizona salad garden already, but what I wasn't happy to see were the zillions of weeds sprouting in the lettuce bed. I can identify them in the spinach/radish bed, as those vegetables are planted in rows. The lettuce seed, however, was scattered helter skelter over the other bed as a cut and come again crop. There is no way of telling what is weed or what is lettuce, at least until it all grows to an identifiable stage! In fact, it could all be lettuce. That's the bed where it was planted last year, and I left several plants in that went to seed. If that's the case, I won't be too unhappy about it.

The little garden is all cleaned up and planted. I'll be planting more seeds in the pots, and transplanting the chard (long container) to a larger pot as soon as I get to town for a bag or two of potting soil. I remembered losing a few seedlings to birds last year, so I covered the tops of the boxes with plastic netting, as well as the sides.

The radishes I planted on Saturday were peeking through on Wednesday.

The unknown weeds-that-might-be-lettuces are forming a green carpet over and everywhere near one bed.

Cookie is happy to be out of his travel cage, and back into the larger, airier one. It isn't a tri-level cage like the one up north, but he doesn't seem to mind. I brought his harness and leash, so I can take him out for exercise once in a while.

The dogs are adjusting just fine. I made a drastic change in their routine, but they seem to be taking it all in stride. They have always been my foot warmers in bed, which is fine in the king sized bed at home. Down here we have twin beds, and two dogs take up an awful lot of room. I felt like a pretzel sleeping with them last winter! I decided the change from one house to another would be the time to also change their sleeping arrangements, so the very first night I put two big soft blankets on the floor next to the bed, crawled into my bed and just ignored them when they sat there looking at me like "What about us?" They can't jump into bed without their little stool, and were at a loss as to what to do. Fortunately, it only took them a few minutes to decide they were sleeping on blankets on the floor. They now do it as a matter of fact, which was much easier than I thought it would be for them. Actually, I'm the one who misses their company. I love waking up to Annie staring me in the face, then giving me a sloppy kiss when she sees my eyes open up. I miss Otto's tail beating out a happy morning drum roll against the sheets. I'm sure, as the weather gets colder, I'll miss their warm little bodies against my feet and back. It will be a big decision to make whether to let them back in the human bed next spring.

I've heard nothing more about the WIFI across the street, so I'm not counting on it happening any time soon. For now, the library will have to suffice. It's open only three days a week, but I'm probably due for a bit of rest from all my blogging. There will be more to do and say once I get back home next spring, so I'll just spent a quiet winter with a tiny garden and a tiny blog! What I do miss is reading all of your blogs. I've been downloading quite a few to read off line, so I'm semi-caught up with all of you, but, of course, I can't leave comments when I'm working off line. Just know that I am reading what you are writing, even though I can't comment back. I'm also enjoying your comments to my blog, as my daughter calls me each evening and reads them to me before she publishes them.

Mr. H., yes we do have rattle snakes here. In fact, I think there are more varieties of them in this desert than in anywhere else in the world! The Mojave Rattle Snake is common here. This rattlesnake has a very potent venom which is considered ten times more toxic than other North American rattlesnakes, a fact that makes the Mojave rattlesnake one of the most dangerous poisonous snakes in the United States. I've not seen one, but two of our neighbors have killed them in their yards, and one friend's dog was bitten but survived. We did have a large hawk fly into some of the brush in our yard and emerge with a large snake, but we couldn't tell what kind it was. We've also had a visit from a gorgeous King snake, and a big gopher snake once slithered out from under the laundry shed and very close to my feet. Mainly we have lizards, small and large. In fact, I actually picked up a tiny lizard this morning. He looked like he was hurt, which must have been the case or I'd never have been able to catch him. I removed him to a shady area, where hopefully he can recover from what ails him. I haven't spied any Desert Iguanas yet this year, but here is a video I took of them fighting in our yard last year. These fellows are well over a foot long. OK, forget the video...it's taking forever, and the library is closing early today :-( How about a photo instead!




Until next week,
Granny