Gulls

Here in the PNW gulls sit on roofs and telephone poles and boats and pickups, etc.. They eat dog food out of bags folks leave in the backs of their pickups while shopping for hardware. It's a sad thing, all that shat, not to mention the owner must buy another bag of dog food. Here at the condo, the gulls wake me early every morning. They sit on the peak of the tennis club, a big green building across the street. Sometimes they just soar in circles over the parking area, perhaps the air currents are good between the three buildings, I don't know, but while circling, down comes the shat. And what happens next is of course ruined paint jobs, especially if you are out of town for awhile, like my neighbor was one exceptionally hot summer week.

Always, I've been a watchdog in my neighborhood and report things that go wrong. Even the gull thing I've reported. Because, it was my belief that the big old birds were making a nests on the roof of the "C" building. This was never confirmed nor denied; however, it improved after my complaint. In Yakima, I called Woody the neighbor frequently, usually because his cows were out or because a hunter was walking the edge of my garden. I had sheep and goats and chickens and ducks, and I had a young child. So he'd say, kick em off and say I said so, so I'd stomp on out to the barbwire and yell, no hunting, blah, blah, blah. The hunter would get defensive and leave. I'd feel all jacked up, sort of proud of my territorial behavior.

Once a calf fell in the stream in the pasture out past the garden and couldn't get back out. Turned out it was sick. Woody had gotten a little tired of my calls, but since I saved his cattle he started to like me. Until one of his cows died leaning up against my fence just on the other side of the sunflowers. I thought she was sleeping there. Didn't have a good view of her, and then it was over. A quick death, I think. Actually many cows died while I lived on that mini farm. Also Mt St. Helen's erupted and there was a small flood. I had a pig run away and return home all fattened up and I sold two goats to a Mexican family who promised me they would eat them. And I sold vegetables out of my garden. It was a good thing, growing all those vegetables. And a good thing eating them too. And a good thing having a mini farm. I'd have one again in a flash. Condo living is for the birds, or gulls, whichever comes first.

Flower

Cats and Cows

I've been a cat owner since I just out of high school. My first cat found me, a stray, sick kitten named Jude. She was a calico, with her colors muted and somewhat blended. Very beautiful, a great hunter—once brought home from the woods at Priest Lake a rabbit her size—and a good friend to me. She died when she was 18. Then along came Ozzie—also a great hunter. Now Ozzie loved the garden and when I'd turn over the soil in the spring, he'd grow excited. Once the new little shoots were an inch high, he trek out there and scratch in the soil—a wondrous potty box-- and scratch up all the plants. No matter how much I shooed him away, it happened.

So I'm passing on this invention to you—and it works—for cats at least. After you cultivate, plant your rows of lettuce or bock choi or whatever, and then break up a mess of sticks, just branches from pruning works, or they could be those little bamboo poles from the garden store, and push them into the ground every few inches along each row. I used the sticks from the pruning because there was no cost involved and I had an abundance of brush, since the wild vegetation grows like gangbusters around here. Now that the sticks are inserted, the garden looks a bit like a pincushion with 8" pins covering it and it works. Ozzie would just sit there looking at it, a disappointed look on his face. Once the plants are 3-5 inches tall you can remove the pins.

Now, cows in the garden isn't an ongoing problem, but if your neighbor grazes cattle right next to your yard, a whole herd can break down the fence and end up munching away in your bountiful garden of tomatoes and cabbage and lettuce and Jerusalem artichokes, and carrots. It happened to me and there they were and when I clapped my hands, they dashed this way and that, their weight just making huge holes in the garden, breaking down the plants, and not heading back to Woody's field. I had a friend who cut cattle and she said, you don't understand, you can't go straight at a cow. It's the way their eyes are, more on the sides of their heads than ours. She hurried over as they continued to romp through the garden, spooking as I waved my arms. I stopped, realizing that shortly they'd be stampeding. So she arrived and walked the perimeter calmly, coming in slowly from the back side. The cows shuffled and mooed and began to meander, walking the fence line toward the driveway and the road. It worked and Woody had them corralled in the field in no time. That was Yakima.

Here in Bellingham, I've only seen one cat in the community garden and it just ran off when I said hello. And the deer, I haven't caught red-handed yet.

Happy Gardening,
Flower