Cat with a Lion Cut – Update

Back in June, our cat got a ‘lion cut’ to rid him of matted hair that was pulling his skin and making him uncomfortable. He was not happy about the process, but he quickly began to enjoy how much easier it was to move about. He started spending a lot of time out on the screened deck and started playing with his toys more…and demanding attention. He started acting like a younger cat!

It’s been about 7 weeks since the cut and the fur is growing back. His head does not look as different from the rest of his body and the color/pattern looks more like it did before. The tail is still a bit of fluff. Overall, he is beginning to look more rounded even though we know it is fur! My husband has started brushing him to prevent the matts from forming again. If they do return, we’ll follow the same process as soon as it gets warm again next spring.

Overwhelmed with Tomatoes

The tomato season is in full swing at our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). There are different kinds and some weeks there are choices. This week we had a choice between yellow and red small tomatoes; I picked the yellow…and then 2 large heirloom tomatoes. I eat all of them in salads.

The two pounds of red tomatoes that were also part of this week’s share are more challenging. I used some of them in a soup yesterday…but may have some left next Wednesday when there will be more tomatoes coming (in the next CSA share).

I’m freezing the red cherry tomatoes I had left from last week. I just rinse them and put them in a Ziploc. It’s easy to take them out a handful at a time after tomato season for soups if it is cool outside or veggie smoothies if it is a hot day.

The important thing – no wonderful tomato is wasted!

Yard Work – August 2017

I am not a gardener. My husband keeps the yard mowed but leaves the trimming of bushes and weeding (and planting) to me…but I am always a little behind. The bushes seem to grow faster every year. There was a time when the invasive vines almost took over!

Recently, I’ve set a goal to work outdoors for an hour every morning I am at home and it’s not raining. It’s surprising how much can get done in an hour. One hour I cut the day lily leaves that has started to look ragged (the deer ate the flowers earlier in the season).

There was a pile of the leaves cut from around the oak to carry back to the brush pile at the edge of the forest.

I found a small plant that looks like a little evergreen at the base of the oak tree. It had been protected by the day lily leaves. Maybe it will survive the browsing deer.

The milkweed in our front flowerbed has new sprouts. The plants come up from roots left behind when we cut or pull the large plants. I will let the young plants stay to accommodate any egg laying Monarch butterflies.

In a second hour this week, I pulled weeds in another bed since it was too wet to use the electric hedge trimmer. I carried two loads to the brush pile. I uncovered some very wet and colorful shelf fungus growing on a weed covered log.

There was a fallen sycamore leaf that had grass poking up through the lacey holes probably made by an insect while the leaf was still on the tree.

I noticed that the spicebush growing at the back of our yard (in the forest) is a different color green than the trees around it.

Sunflower Pictures to Brighten a Rainy Day

As I begin to write this post, it has been raining all day. I need something that brightens up the wet! What could be better than sunflowers! I looked back at pictures I’ve taken since mid August and come up with some cheer. There is the big sunflower that I got as a volunteer at Brookside Gardens.  The goldfinches are already stopping by for snacks.

Then there are sunflowers that came up from seed that shed into the pots from last year’s plants. The flowers aren’t as big but they are still cheerful.

When they are toward the end of their blooming the petals droop like limp hair around the ‘face’ of the flower.

Up close, one observed the texture of the petals causes water droplets to align when there is a heavy dew.

And that brings us back to a very wet day that needed some sunflowers to brighten my mood!

Jelly Fungus

Our deck is over 20 years and has tiny stands of jelly fungus fruiting bodies in the knots of its railing after a heavy rain. I photographed on knot in late July just after they appeared

And then a day later. They expanded very rapidly.

The jelly dried up but after a heavy rain last Thursday they were back and even bigger.  They have a blobby beauty.

This means that the deck railings are rotting...and will have to be replaced at some point. Fortunately, the other parts of the deck have no yellow blobs!

Our Neighborhood Streets

The first indication that something was going to happen to our neighborhood streets, were he signs that appeared in late June…and then the big equipment at the front of the neighborhood. The neighborhood is about 25 years old; the streets did not seem that problematic but I was glad the work was being done proactively….and interested in how it would proceeed.

Markings were made on the street around the utility covers and the connections of cul-de-sacs to the primary street into the neighborhood. They started at the front of the neighborhood and scraped off the top few inches of asphalt from a few cul-de-sacs.

The increased heavy equipment traffic caused some break up of asphalt – a sign that it was old enough to be easily damaged.

The big equipment finally removed the asphalt from in front of our house in mid-July. A dump truck moved slowly in front of the big machine to collect the asphalt that was scrapped up. Smaller equipment (Bobcat size) came along and removed chunks of asphalt that the bigger equipment didn’t. And then there were street sweepers. Every night when the work was done for the day, the neighborhood was left tidy.

Ten days later, the asphalting was done in front of our house. The dump truck carrying the surfacing material links with the equipment and then the two pieces move forward and the layer is put on top of the road bed. Big rollers come along behind and compress the material. By the time all that happens – the new layer is flush with the concrete curb.

Our neighborhood looks spruced up with the new street - and the earlier work to replace buckling segments of sidewalk and clear out the clogged water retention pond. 2017 has been a busy year for infrastructure maintenance in our neighborhood!