Getting Ready

The warm weather and steady melting, despite the time of year, have caused us to start thinking about the upcoming growing season, our fourth.

So far, with each successive year we've improved our production and selected an ever improving crop array.  Obviously, we're hoping for similar similar successes this year by building on what we've learned in past years.

Over the past three years we've two crops that have proven to be particularly successful: potatoes and celery.

Last year, thanks to Jeannette and my Mother, we had our potatoes in the ground early and producing potatoes early enough that we were able to have two crops in part of our potato patch.

Though starter celery plants were purchased at the same time as the original seed potatoes, they didn't end up going in the ground quite as early.  If I recall correctly, we again pushed our luck and put them in just a week or so later, still in early May.

This year, based on a few photos I saw online, I'm going to try a slightly different approach with the celery.  Instead of (or maybe in addition to) starter plants, I'm going to try to use the bases of the celery bunches that I buy over the next few weeks to start the plants.

So far, I've got two such plants going and I seem to be making some progress.

I'm really quite impressed by how much development I'm getting after about a week or so.

That said, I suspect that without the development of a new root structure - which I haven't seen yet - this operation may not be much of a success.  Assuming I do get new roots and the growth continues, I'm hoping that by the time we're ready to transplant our celery plants we'll have a few that will be ready to go and they will have come to us at no additional cost.

Cameron - 11

Neil - 0

A pretty successful summer

With the addition of our fourth raised bed (and the subsequent addition of our stone paths) our vegetable garden has really started to produce rather substantial quantities of vegetables, particularly potatoes and celery. Oh, and kale and spinach.

Starting in July our harvests started becoming pretty regular.

And gradually began into include a few potatoes.

And eventually grew to include carrots and tomatoes.

Finally, a few days ago we pulled up most of the remaining potatoes.

We also managed to collect a few squash and peppers.  Sadly, neither of these to types were particularly productive this year.

The good news is that after another year we've learned a little more about what works and what doesn't work.

Carrots, the non-stubby varieties, actually work quite well.  Next year we'll try to grow quite a few more than we did this year.

Tomatoes, even only four plants, can be incredibly productive.  Fortunately, Jeannette has started making her own sauce so this overabundance will not go to waste.  Now that we have a better approach to dealing with the crop we probably won't have to worry about having too many tomatoes.  Also, smaller cherry-like tomatoes seem to do much better than larger tomatoes (and are preferred by Jeannette).

Potatoes are easy and productive and one needn't wait until the end of the season to begin harvesting.  By gradually taking a few potatoes at a time, as needed, we didn't have to worry about storing many pounds of potatoes and either having no potatoes or all of the potatoes.  If anything, I think we may be inclined to go pretty heavy on the potatoes again next year.

Squash just hasn't been worth the space.  We dedicated 1/4 of our space to squash growth and ended up with one fully ripe spaghetti squash and a few smaller unripe spaghetti squashes.  Next year we're not going to waste our time with squash.

Spinach, kale, and celery are great season long producers.  In all cases I think we had pretty good numbers of plants to allow for outputs that we could consume without having to worry about spoilage.

My attempt to grow romaine lettuce was a failure.  As I'm not really all that much of a lettuce eater I think I'll give this a skip next year and focus on foods I really like.

Peppers are definitely a little hit and miss.  Most of our plants produced at least a single edible pepper, but many only produced a single edible pepper.  Our small chili pepper plant, on the other hand, has been producing chili peppers for months.  Next year we should just stick to this one type of pepper plant (as we've now had two consecutive years of success with this type of plant).

And while we're not quite done with this year's harvest I think it's pretty clear that we're already looking ahead to next year.  With a little luck, we may even to break even on our vegetable plot investment by next year (though that may require some real luck).

Raised beds and our long-term plan

Our first vegetable garden attempt more or less just consisted of us deciding on a location for our garden and then ripping up most of the grass, adding some peat, planting some seeds, and calling it a day.  Not surprisingly, aside from the potatoes, it was a pretty big disappointment.  Not only were there a few specific drainage problems, the overall soil quality was pretty poor (which we soon learned is common throughout the Regina region).

Part way through the first summer it became pretty clear that some sort of raised bed option would be required if we wanted soil and drainage that might lead to half-reasonable crop production.

We decided to go with a Lee Valley raised bed kit option that made for the pretty quick construction of our raised beds.  We were able to crank out three beds in an afternoon last year.  Of course, filling these guys with top soil probably took more time and effort than their construction.

After a relatively successful growing season last year we decided to expand our set up to include a fourth raised bed.  Again, the bed construction was quite quick.

Because we had only one raised bed to fill, instead of three, we decided to fill it with bagged topsoil and peat we purchased at local garden centres instead of having a load of topsoil delivered.  Several garden centre runs later this objective was completed.

Soon after we completed the fourth raised bed we realized that because much of the area between our raised beds was the same area that had been the site of our original garden site the grass we'd torn up had come back as weeds.  This looked really bad and probably wasn't helping our raised beds stay weed free.  

We decided that we would install a brick barrier and some weed barrier before dropping a few tonnes of rocks around the beds.

Turns out that rocks are heavy and hard to shovel.  We didn't manage to redistribute the rocks in a single session as I originally, overly optimistically, thought we would.  To make matters worse, immediately after our first rock moving session the garage, with all of our recently re-housed tools, became inaccessible because the garage door broke in the down position.

After some hand moving and also our garage door repair, I was finally to take a few more cracks at rock moving and finally finish up.

No we just have to work at getting grass to grow in the various bald patches and weeds to not grow everywhere else.  Maybe in a few years from now we might actually have a backyard that isn't most embarrassing (and because we don't have a garage or fence obscuring the view the entire alley can see our shame).

Looks aside, the great news is that all four raised beds seem to be doing quite well.  If all goes as planned by the end of the summer we will have the following crops: potatoes, green onions, celery, peas, edamame, peppers, cherry tomatoes, butter nut squash, pumpkins, green beans, carrots, spinach, kale, romaine lettuce, radishes, and kohlrabi (as well as an assortment of herbs and berries).  

A Few Quick Notes 623

-As noted previously, today has been a fair bit cooler than forecast.  To the best of my knowledge, these cooler temperatures can all be attributed to the sun-blocking powers of massive quantities of throat and lung-irritating smoke.  It seems reasonable to assume that as long as the smoke sticks around the temperatures will stay down, which is nice because it's not really open window weather at the moment.

-We've finally started harvesting food from our garden.  So far we've managed to grab a few early kale leaves, some celery stalks, and quite a number of green onions.  I suspect that for the next few weeks, at least until the peas come in, we'll more or less be suck with these three vegetables.

-On the fruit front we've also managed to grab a few raspberries and a few handfuls of haskap.  While the haskap are likely just about done for the year, our real raspberry harvest is still probably a few weeks away.  Hopefully by next year, when all of our plants are a little more established, we should really have good production from both types of plants.  Sadly, our strawberries, now relocated to the front of the house, don't look as though they'll ever do all that much.

-Since some library school friends in town for a conference paid us a visit a few weeks ago Jeannette and I have been a little obsessed with tofu shish kebabs.  Prepared with the broiler or the barbecue, these things are really great.

A Few Quick Notes 614

-Though thunder showers were originally in today's forecast, it turned out to be an almost perfect day.  It's been sunny, still, and about 22 for quite a while.

-Much to my chagrin, thanks to coaxing from Jeannette I ended up watching today's 'Labour Day Classic' between the Roughriders and the Blue Bombers.  After the lead changing hands a few times in the 4th quarter the Riders managed to pull out a last minute victory.  Despite the lead changes, it didn't seem to be a particularly exciting or well-played game (not that I'm in a position to be much of a judge of these things).

The best part of the game was from about the 1st quarter on when Pierre decided to take a nap on my lap.  He more or less stayed in place for the rest of the game (even after I repositioned him).

-Sooner rather than later Jeannette and I need to arrange for a new garage door.  We did some preliminary investigating a few weeks ago and a little more today.  Hopefully we'll have something fingered out in the next few days.  The upside may be that the new door should be much better than our old door, even before it was broken.

-Our garden harvests have been quite plentiful this year.  Today I was able to make some cabbage soup with carrots, green beans, and potatoes from our garden.  Maybe today or tomorrow I'll have to head out and snag a big harvest of spinach and kale and also a squash or two.

The new soil and raised beds we added to our set-up really seem to have helped.  If we're able to add two more next year, as we're planning, we should really be in position to have a substantial harvest.

-Maybe I'll manage to get Jeannette to go for a walk this evening.  It really is a perfect night for a walk.

A Few Quick Notes 612

-Though we can often go months and months without any real rain, for the past week or two rain has been a very regular occurrence.  For most of the past few days we've had more than one very intense rain shower, and on a few occasions we've had rather extended rainfalls lasting for hours at a time.  Not surprisingly, the ground is now absolutely drenched.  What fun.

-A few nights ago we even had enough rain that we had a little water in our basement.  While it's unfortunate that we have any water problems in our basement, I'm glad that it is only when we have either massive thawing or a substantial rain storm that we have problems.  Arguably, that water came in exactly where I hoped it wouldn't because of an epoxy patching agent that I'd used at least somewhat conclusively confirms my sense that the patch work didn't stick.

If the rain ever stops I'll have to head down and try to do some crack patching again.  Hopefully this time I'll use something that at least works for one major rainfall.

-Since the local grocery stores started carrying cherries in the past few weeks we've really upped our cherry consumption.  If I know what's best for me I should probably consider dialling it back down to under two pounds of cherries a day.

-Last night we received a last minute invitation to attend a barbecue with a few neighbours.  Aside from the sudden downpour that forced inside for about an hour, we had a great time.  Because we brought a tray of vegetables with us I finally had the excuse I needed to harvest the first green onions from our garden.  As expected, they were pretty green oniony.

-While the rain means that we haven't needed to water our garden in weeks, a little more sun would probably be good at this stage.  I guess probably shouldn't be complaining too much - basically everything seems to be growing.  The potatoes, in particular, seem to be doing well.

-This year we've also planted a garden in front of our house.  Our original plan was to plant a variety of plants that would look nice and complement each other in terms of height and style.  As the absence of sun seems to have stunted growth I'm not sure if the plan will come to fruition this year.  Of course, even if it doesn't we should at least manage to grow a few potatoes, some corn, and a few tomatoes.

Because we don't have crocuses

We may not have crocuses, but we do have chives - and soon they'll be big enough to eat.

Aside from the arrival of a smattering of dead birds in our backyard, is there a clearer sign of spring then new growth?

Overrun with beans

Since the beans started pouring in a few weeks ago they've been coming non-stop.  It seems that we can't go more than a day or two without needing to spend at least a few minutes harvesting things.

Though there are a few repeats below, I thought I might bring together a few photos of our harvests to really demonstrate what I'm talking about (and these were all taken between July 13 and August 2, 2013).

Of course, with all of our success we're still waiting for a few things.  Despite the early presence of juvenile tomatoes we're still without even a reddish tomato.  Our edamame plants, despite their ever increasing size, are without fruit (or even flowers - though these should be just around the corner).  I guess it's still just early August so I probably shouldn't be too worried.

A Few Quick Notes 601

-After a few days of regular thundershowers and downpours we've had a few rain free days.  While the days haven't been quite as sunny or warm as I expected, they've nonetheless been a welcome change of pace.  Actually, aside from the fact that they're not quite as sunny as I'd like they've been almost perfect (not to windy or hot or humid).

-Today we went to an open house/jazz concert that was held down the street from where we live.  Not only did the open house allow us to see one of the units in a row-house complex we'd been contemplating when we were in the housing market, we got to hear the jazz band while were outside working in our yard.  The only bummer was that by the time I was finally ready to go the jazz band had finished their show and was packing up.  I guess this will teach me to be a bit prompter next time I was to see a free outside show.

-The regular pea pod stir-frys we've been having with our backyard-grown pea pods have been really wonderful.  I think that next year we'll have to consider doubling the portion of our garden we devote to peas.

-Our very own sweet little Marie has been really misbehaving the past few days.  It's been a real bummer following her around just to clean up her messes.  We're hoping that now that we've switched her back to the kitty litter she'd been using for her first few months with us that she'll calm down (but that may be too hopeful).

-As of this week the our house is now completely repainted.  The body of the house is purple and the trip is a cream colour.  We both are quite please with the outcome.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the colour change seems to be attracting a fair bit of attention.  Most drivers seem unable to drive by without at least slowing, some even come to a complete stop.  Pedestrians, as you might have guessed, are also frequently stopping to look at our newly purple house.  I get the impression that the people of Regina aren't quite used to houses being painted purple.

-I guess it's time for me to get back to dinner.   Hopefully it hasn't burned in my absence.

The harvest keeps on happening

It seems that every day we have to harvest some of our crops or they're turn bad.

Amazingly, even though I did a once over on the peas and beans yesterday (pictured above), I managed to snag another few servings worth today.  Of course, I should also mention that Jeannette also snagged a nice handful of kale yesterday after I finished my once-over of the place.

The other exciting news is that a few of our female pumpkin flowers actually look as though they might  end up doing something other than failing to flower before they die unceremoniously.

I'm a little worried that these developments may be a little late for us to end up with a full-fledged pumpkin by harvest time - but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In other news, after removing the bushy parts of an arbor vitae and some evergreen bushes in the front of the house a few weeks ago we removed the stumps this morning.  Much to my surprise, the stumps came out much more easily and quickly than I anticipated.

Why these developments are important is that they should now put us in a good position to turn the area that previously housed the bushes into a secondary vegetable garden (hopefully with fewer weeds than our primary garden).  If all goes according to plan I think we'll even be able to select plants and plant positioning that will allow us to have a very attracting area.

And the harvest expands

After returning from the local farmers' market we went out to our own garden and harvested a few things.

I'm particularly impressed with the number of pea pods we found, as well as the two sample potatoes we dug up.  I'm a little bummed with the size of the beets, but apparently they're a mini variety.

Things are definitely coming along and we should have more beans that we know what to do with very shortly (and while they're coming in more peas will continue to come in).

This is definitely pretty exciting.

Harvest progress

In late May Jeannette and I planted our garden.  At the time this seemed a little late, if anything, as Spring was already several weeks behind schedule.

After several weeks of rainy grey weather, if anything, it felt as though we'd jumped the gun and planted far too early.

Now that we're into July things finally feel as though they're catching up (or at least close to catching up).

Of course, the weeds are also growing quite well and we've definitely fallen down on our weeding duties.

Our herb barrel has also really picked up over the course of the past month.

In early June it didn't have much going on.

And now in early July it's damn near full (and that's after a fair bit of chives, thyme, and mint harvesting).

Of course, we've also had our fair share of radishes (actually a full row of them at this point).

And Jeannette's been collecting various greens (beet, kale, spinach, pea, and strawberry spinach) for at least the past two weeks).

So just to round up what we've had so far because I haven't been diligent about photographing the harvest we've managed to get at least a handful of each of the following (in more or less this order):

1) Chives
2) Thyme
3) Apple Mint
4) Radishes
5) Spinach
6) Strawberry Spinach
7) Beet Greens
8) Pea Shoots
9) Pea Pods
10) Kale
11) Spearmint
12) Basil (two varieties)

My recollection of what we have left to come is as follows:

1) Green Beans
2) Edamame
3) Beets
4) Hot Peppers
5) Sweet Peppers (two varieties)
6) Pumpkins
7) Celery
8) Carrots
9) Sweet Corn
10) Potatoes
11) Tomatoes
12) Onions

If all the stuff on this second list works out we may actually manage something of a feed for ourselves at some point this summer.  I'll be particularly impressed with us if we can somehow managed herb roasted potatoes and corn at the same time (and maybe with some edamame for protein).

A Few Quick Notes 598

-So after several months without rain and clouds grey skies and rain have finally returned to Regina.  For the better part of the past few weeks we've had at least grey skies for part of most days and somewhat regular rain.  The upside of this weather is that on Thursday night I got to see my first double rainbow, the downside is that it's almost always not quite as warm or sunny as I was expecting it to be at this time of year in Regina.

-Despite the grey skies, cool temperatures, and plentiful rain the plants we planted in our garden a few weeks ago are mostly growing.  Sure, most of them would probably be doing a fair bit better with a few more hours of sun a day and soil that at least occasionally is a little drier, but that hasn't meant that most of them haven't continued to grow - if somewhat slowly.

Not surprisingly, the radishes are furthest along.  And had this weekend not been as rainy as it was we would have even planted a second and third row so that we can start to have a stead stream of radishes. The peas and beans are also doing well, though, again, more sun would surely help.  

The plants that seem to be growing particularly slowly are our pepper and corn plants.  The corn plants seem not to have managed to make it beyond about three inches while the pepper plants don't seem to be any taller than they were when we moved them from indoors to the garden.

In any event, the fact that most of these plants are even alive seems kind of remarkable given the incredible number of weeds and the high clay content of the soil.  I suspect that not weeds be an annual battle, but so will the soil.  Who would have guessed that in a province known for agriculture that the soil is mostly just clay?  In Newfoundland it's always a challenge to put a shovel into the ground because of the rocks - here the rock-free clay is just to dense and goopy for one's shovel.

-A friend of mine from library school is coming into Regina for a conference tonight and I've offered to give her a ride from the airport to where she's staying.  Not only am I looking forward to catching up after about five years, having someone else in the car finally provided me with the motivation I needed to finally get around to giving the car a quick vacuum and clean for the first time since we've owned it.  Not surprisingly, the back was a fair bit cleaner than the front.

-Now that our balcony rail has been in place for a week we've started thinking about our next project.  As some discussion we finally settled on re-roofing our garage.  Yesterday I picked up most of the supplies, though I still have to snag some flashing.  So whenever the skies clear and the rain stops we'll have to start on this project.  I'm a little worried that this is going to be a bit of a nasty project - but at least at the end we'll hopefully have a garage that doesn't leak quite as much as our garage does currently.

Oh, and then once we're done with the roof we'll have to move on to re-siding it.  Hooray!  

Fortunately, I think we've got the game plan for this more or less figured out - though that doesn't mean that there won't be surprises when we finally get around to it in a few weeks.

The Birds II

It seems that my pigeon deterrence installations of a few weeks ago weren't quite as successful as I'd hoped.  Over the past few days what had just been hanging out under our eaves has reverted to a major nest building operation.

Obviously I will have to initiate a nest removal operation later this morning or early this afternoon.

Another worrying trend is that the appearance of dead birds in our backyards, at least as of a few days ago, has continued.  On the same day I even found two just feet apart from each other.

Of course, it took me a little longer to spot the one hiding in the fence.

On a more positive note, aside from the bird nest removal project we're also hoping to finally get around to planting our garden (after we add another few bags of peat moss and topsoil to the clay base that is Regina soil).

A Few Quick Notes 593

-Despite the fact that we've had nice weather during the day recently, our nights and mornings have definitely been getting cooler.  I'm constantly surprised in the afternoon that I need to take the sweater off that I'd been wearing all morning.

-This weekend, thanks to a reminder from my mother, I purchased some millet.  Since we fed this stuff to our pet budgie in the early 1990s I've been curious about the stuff.  Maybe I'll manage to get around to cooking some of it tonight.  I'm imagining that it will be comparable to quinoa, but I guess I'll have to wait to find out.

-I realize that I'm likely of a dying breed, but I really love waking up to a freshly delivered newspaper.  While I also check online news sources, there's nothing quite like being able to flip through the newspaper every morning.

-Today, while running an unrelated errand I happened to walk by the parliament buildings and was able to see the remnants of some protest activities.  I guess these protests were timed to coincide with the first day of the House's fall sitting.  I also witnessed a corresponding increase in the number of police officers.

-While out on my aforementioned errand I had the pleasure of walking along Sparks Street.  Despite the fact that the pedestrian-only nature of Sparks Street is one of the things I like most about it, I keep getting the sense that it's perceived as some kind of failure.  Though I don't necessarily head there all that frequently, it always seems like a resounding success to me.

-I suspect that the cooler evening and nighttime temperatures are slowing down the growth rates of our plants.  Presumably in the relatively near future I'll have to start wrapping everything up for the season. It will be strange to see our bare balcony after so many months of relatively rampant plant growth.

-On a related note, I think I spotted someone in an adjoining backyard engaging in some anti-squirrel sling-shotting.  I would guess that this means that I'm not the only one frustrated by their presence.

A Few Quick Notes 592

-After a few cooler days we've had a few return to summeresque temperatures.  Today, for the first time in what must be weeks, I actually had to turn on my AC unit for a little while.  Of course, by tomorrow overcast skies and rain should help drive temperatures down below 20.

-After weeks or months of delaying, this afternoon I finally got around to re-potting a few of herbs I originally planted a few months ago.  The seeds were originally planted in pots that were far to small.  I'm hoping that the new, larger pots will be more conducive to growth.  Of course because many of these plants were also in less than ideal growing mediums it's entirely possible that even with the transplanting that they will continue to under-perform as plants.

-The morning glories that I was busy bragging about a few days ago have stopped blooming quite as prolifically.  For instance, today there were only two smallish blooms.  As much as it was nice to have about 7 of full blooming, it would have been nice if months and months of watering had lead to at least a solid week of flowers.

-For some reason I got lazy and neglected to mention that last weekend Jeannette and I took a quick Sunday afternoon drive up to Wakefield, Quebec.  Had we done even a little planning we could gone up for a pleasant lunch, instead we went after we'd already eaten and ended up just walking around for a while.  It was definitely a nice looking town and I'm sure we'll head back at some point in the not-to-distant future.

Other exciting plant-related developments that I keep forgetting to mention

After months of waiting and watering our mo(u)rning glories have finally started to bloom.  For the past few days we've been getting between about 6 and 10 blooms each morning.  It's been pretty nice to have a few hours of flowers each day.

One of our avocado seeds has finally started looking like more than just a seed, though it still hasn't produced any leaf growth.  Maybe even more exciting is that despite the fact that they're still not doing much of anything we still have two other avocado seeds that are still alive and may eventually turn into something.

One of the squirrel caused plant casualties that I neglected to mention a few days ago was our banana plant.  For some reason the squirrel decided to rip up one of the incoming leaves.  It's this kind of squirrel behaviour that I just don't understand - what could it possibly be hoping to find in a leaf?

A few weeks ago I purchased a nice piece of ginger with intentions of sprouting my own ginger.  Of course I didn't put the ginger in a big enough pot, but it has started to do its thing and I'm hopeful that every few days we'll keep seeing new signs of growth.  Unfortunately, I'm not particularly hopeful that this ginger plant will ever lead to much edible ginger.

Those were some pretty exciting plant updates weren't they?

A Few Quick Notes 590

-After a few relatively pleasant low-humidity days we seem to have transitioned back into that muggy weather that Ottawa does so well.  It's been so muggy and humid that I'm almost starting to think that the appearance of rain may be helping by cooling things off.

-I guess quite a number of university students started classes today.  Maybe that is why it was a little quieter last night?  I guess we'll probably have to wait until Friday to find out how much of a U of O party scene we'll have to contend with in this neighbourhood.  Hope it's not too bad.

-One of local feralish kittens has taken to sitting on our front steps.

And though at times I've simultaneously seen about ten cats hanging out in our neighbourhood, these days this is one of the few cats I see on a regular basis.  If only this thing was big enough to take on the local squirrels.

-So my cayenne pepper and water solution seems not to have worked (though the squirrels were absent for about 24 hours).  For the past two days they've been back and badder than ever.  If I didn't know better I'd think that they were purposely destroying things before they ripen just so that we can't have them.

The worst part is that I have no idea what it is they are looking for.  They keep digging in the dirt, but a far as I know there isn't anything there for them to find (aside from more dirt - and that doesn't seem to be what they are looking for).  

It definitely bums me out to look at the plants each morning and find that new damage has been done and a bigger mess made. 

-On Saturday Jeannette and I took a day trip to upstate New York.  In addition to witnessing what appeared to be a glee club sing-off in Potsdam, we also managed to find the world's worst homefries.  These bad boys were undercooked, soggy, cold, poorly seasoned, and over-priced.  Oh, and the same at the same place the 'side of fruit' was canned pears.  While we didn't see to many things that we would recommend, on the up side we have started to create a list of places that don't merit a return visit.

(Oh, and we saw five bros buying a 55 inch TV for their apartment.  Probably a pretty solid investment for your average undergrad student wouldn't you say?)

A Few Quick Notes 589

-It looks as though it is going to be a beautiful Labour Day in Ottawa this year, though maybe a few degrees warmer than ideal.

-Because we don't have the same morning rush to readiness today I'm hoping to crank out a batch of raspberry muffins for breakfast.

-Last night, based on a recommendation from my father, I sprayed our balcony plants with cayenne pepper water.  The idea is that this will deter the squirrel from visiting the plants.  I'm a little curious to see if it worked, or if the squirrel responded vindictively to the new flavour.

-Yesterday Jeannette and I engaged in a multi-hour cleaning and organizing event.  Is there any better way to spend a beautiful Sunday?

-Actually, because it's move-in weekend at the local universities (and one of these universities is only a few blocks away) it was nice not to be outside and in the midst of that craziness.

Caught in the act

Since my flurry of squirrel related posts a few days ago I've intermittently been trying to memorialize our pesky squirrel in a time-lapse film.  Until this morning I've been entirely unsuccessful and was evening starting to think that my recently installed ultrasonic rodent annoyer may have been working.

Of course today I've caught the squirrel out in various plants a few times.  Bummer.

On the upside, I was finally able to get some footage of it doing its thing in a few of the plants.

[Embedded video]

I really have no idea why it keeps digging deep into these pots.  I don't think that there's anything at the bottom of these pots that the squirrel could possibly find useful.  Maybe at this point it's just trying to annoy me?