Saturday, February 4, 2012

Are You There, Blog? It's Me.....Ribbit.

Apathy is a powerful beast.

Peer pressure is its nemisis.

Granny emailed me a while back to remind me I haven't blogged in ages and gently nudged me with an electric cattle prod. It has been awhile, hasn't it.

Not much has been going on in the gardening world after the garlic went in during the fall. New Year's came around and I went outside on the deck just to take a gander at the garden and my breath was sucked out of me. Down in the corner were two of the most beautiful heads of broccoli I had ever seen. They made for a lovely dish for the occasion. I had no idea they were out there. That, my friends, was how long it had been since I was down to the garden.

Garden apathy set in so deeply that I didn't even remember to order seeds for this year until last week and I never started my lettuce seeds indoors. I may still do that, but the girl and I attempted to direct sow some today. Those never seem to work out for me, but we'll see. The onions also went in today and the potatoes are chitting on the counter.

Our new problem for this gardening year is going to be those feral cats from last year that the neighbor is continuing to feed and not fix and they are multiplying at the rate of rabbits. We've got one male that keeps coming around, howling at all hours on our front porch and spraying the house indeterminately like the bug man.

It comes around to the back porch and yowles for the kids to come play, which they do. He doesn't hesitate to spray them as well.

They're mine, you flee bitten son of a motherless cockroach. Mine I tell you.

Of course, the children are enamoured. The girl keeps calling him 'Lucky.' They boy is intent on calling him 'Puss-y.' We will not be hypenating the name.

Anyway, said rodent masquerading as a cat and its harem has no shame and they have taken to my boxes as their own, personal litter boxes and Ican see they've been chewing the leaves of my garlic. I firmly believe they're the ones that took down the cabbage and, I thought, all of the broccoli from last fall. This is one of the reasons I am trying to direct sow the lettuce. Anything new, big, and yummy looking will be snatched up by them directly. If they grow there slowly, they may get used to them and not eat them.

Such is the nature of my delusion.

Anyway, I know it's tedious to read a long blog post with no pictures that says nothing in particular except for spew vitriol regarding rogue, unsolicited, insufferable felines, but such it is with a gardener who is lacking the finess of regular blogging etiquette.

It's Saturday. The man and boy are off at another's house and the girl is watching Tangled....again. The laundry is done and the house is clean as long as I fall prey to a Jedi Mind Trick. Therefore, I'm thinking it's time for a nip and a good book.

Until next time...and I promise it won't be months.
Yours Truly,
Ribbit.

11 comments:

  1. We have cat troubles here also. I took a roll of wire fencing and cut off pieces that were the same size as the planting area. I planted my seeds and put the wire over the top, it was a little domed. When the plants started getting close to the top of the wire I removed it. It worked to keep the cats out. This winter I put my tomato cages on top of the beds. The wire worked better than the cages. Need more wire fencing for this year.

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  2. We have a slew of cats that come to the garden. I keep chicken wire, birdnetting, stakes, tomato cages, or anything on the beds to keep them from leaving their gifts in the bed. I even give them a nice dry spot to use that I regularly clean out for them. So far it almost works. I still find occasionally misplaced gifts. Sigh. I'm glad to hear from you though. It has been quite some time.

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  3. Thanks, guys! I wondered if anyone would hang around.

    I considered chicken wire when we had dogs and that I understood for my own pets, but these ridiculous cats have gotten under my craw being that we've never had a problem until they started getting fed. Seems like it's the only way to go, however. Rotten, unsolicited miscreants.

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  4. Laughed out loud several times during this post. My neighbor, too, has an "outdoor" cat. My strawberry bed was also a litter box until I put up my bird netting cage. You are also not alone in your garden apathy. I ordered seeds yesterday, but I can't say that I look forward to any of the photographing or uploading of any of it this year. Hope that goes away for the both of us! I enjoy your blog!

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  5. Hubby has been hunting a Tom that has been spraying my back door for the past year. As you can see by that time frame, hubby is not a good hunter. It gets dragged (drug?) into the house on shoes and smells up the carpet in the entry hall. I'm tired of grey skies and no snow and smelly cats myself. May I join you for a "nip" at the wine?
    :D

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  6. 'bout damned time. I missed you so....now I can do my happy dance. While I'm at it, I'll do a "Cats Out of the Garden" dance for ya. I'm just a dancing fool for my Ribbit!

    The verification word is "drityroc", which I read as "dirtyrock". I'm NOT doing that dance ;-)

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  7. Megan, I have some bird netting. Seems like that may be the way to go even if it irks me.

    Sue, the nip turned into....well, I digress.

    Granny, where's your sense of adventure? Thanks for getting me back on track.

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  8. There you are. Glad you're back :-)

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  9. Good to have you back in the saddle Ribbit. I hope you are ready for spring, we have had a mild winter in Georgia for sure.

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  10. Welcome back to blogging Ribbit!! You know just the mention of the word "cat" will get me going- they are now the #1 cause of bird declines in the United States (and they dig up my seedlings and crap on them...). Its illegal to have your pet outside of your yard in most counties/states- some animal shelters will loan out live traps so you can trap them and take them to animal control. That is what I will be doing as soon as my crops go in. Good luck everyone!

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  11. I feel you this winter, I have had the worst time keeping up and finding time to blog about anything other than endless boring stuff... none of the fun crafts or recipes or anything that I wanted to blog about ever transpired! Hopefully this will pass and we will be motivated with the start of spring again. Glad you checked in!

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