Something's Gonna Pay For This

I was minding my own business tonight after work.  I wasn't looking for a fight.  I was just taking a bag of garbage out when I saw something unusual.  Back by the compost bin I noticed something dark brown on the ground where it was usually light brown.  That light brown is what we drought-stricken Californians call "the new green".  

The picture below is almost too embarrassing for me to share.  It looks so splotchy and gross.  But this is what happens when you can't water your lawn.  The little bit of green you do see is probably just from the veggie garden's drip irrigation.  

At any rate, the dirt you see on the ground just to the right of the fence shouldn't be there.  A closer inspection was necessary.

And this is what I found.  Around the base of my active compost bin, something had been digging.  I have been composting for years and all this time I've been adding kitchen scraps, rotten fruit, and even the occasional dead bug and I've never had anything go after my compost bin other than worms.  

The back side of the compost bin

The front side

A somewhat closer view of the front.

I tried to get a picture of the claw marks I saw.  They looked fairly large but because they were up inside
I couldn't get a clear picture.  

Now I've been having issues with squirrels lately (more on that in the near future) but this doesn't seem like the work of the evil nuisance and bane of my gardening life.  While scratching my head (literally) I happened to notice a hole by the fence line not three or four feet away from the scene of the crime.

Gophers?  Moles?  Voles?  Squirrels?  What do you think this is?  I didn't see any telltale mounds or tunnels because this opening is right at my fence so it's possible that their are mounds or tunnels on the other side.

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Maybe I'm overreacting but I'm suddenly worried that two mysterious plant deaths in my garden weren't just unfortunate and untimely demises.  Perhaps they were sped along their way by some underground spawn of evil?

Monomaniacal

Last month I mentioned that I was reading “Moby Dick” and I tried to draw a comparison between Captain Ahab’s desire to seek out and kill the white whale that had maliciously devoured his leg and my personal issues with the grey squirrels that maliciously devour my seeds.    

Common flowers? Yes.  But colorful? Aye!

Well, I have now finished Moby Dick (finally) and in so doing, my head has been filled with a couple things: a nearly-encyclopedic and worthless knowledge of the anatomy of a sperm whale and a new lexicon of nautical and American romantic terms like “avast”,“hast”, and “doubloon.”  But the word that really got stuck in the riggings of my mind is “monomaniacal”.  It was the one adjective that Melville used to describe Ahab.      

My new Acer palmatum 'Murasaki Kiyohime' under
planted with dwarf mondo grass and a fern. 
The fern might have to be removed if it gets much bigger.

Now, monomaniacal is not a word you hear every day but it’s pretty easy to figure out what it means.  We don’t hear it every day because it is “no longer in technical use” as a way to describe a “psychosis characterized by thoughts confined to one idea or group of ideas.”

Close up of the Murasaki Kiyohime's spring leaves.  It's a dainty dwarf that does not take afternoon sun at all.

These days we probably just hear the word “obsessed.”  Obsessed is fine, but monomaniacal is more fun to say out loud.  Go ahead and say it. 

I’ll wait.  See?

Mexican Feather Grass, or Stipa tenuissima if you speak botanical.

Anyhow, given that it has been raining here in Sacramento all week and the gutters are filling up like it was the fourth day of Noah’s flood, a little fun is what I needed since I have not been able to do anything related to my monomaniacal desire to putter around the garden.    

The peach blossoms are getting ready to paddle off into memory.

I don't have a lot of pinks or reds in the yard.  These blossoms always make me second guess that decision.

Until today.  There was a brief reprieve in the typhoon this afternoon, okay, it's really just a light rain, so I went out and took these pictures in my back yard.  It might just have been enough to tide me over (nautical pun intended) until the next time the sun breaks through.  And when it does, I might have to fight back the urge to hail the sun with a hearty “Thar she glows!”  

I'm leaving the bird feeder empty for now.  It attracts too many of those damn squirrels.

Same picture but with a different focal point.

If you hate bad puns, I’m very very sorry for this post.  Please don’t make me walk the plank.    



I purchased these columbines this weekend.  I've never grown them before. 

Call Me Starbuck

“‘Vengeance on a dumb brute!’ cried Starbuck, 'that simply smote thee from blindest instinct!  Madness!  To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.’” 

-Herman Melville, Moby Dick; or The Whale

Hanging on with just one leg!

If you are paying attention, many of us garden bloggers are focusing on the squirrels in our lives.  The attention they are receiving from garden bloggers must have something to do with the leafless trees and how the nakedness of those trees reveals the dastardly deeds of the cute but annoying rodents in our yards. 

My issues with squirrels are nothing out of the ordinary.  Well, except this one squirrel that looked to be pregnant or cancerous.  For the most part, the squirrels in my yard are little more than bird feed stealing acrobats.  They are annoying in that regard but watching them try amuses me in spite of the frustrating consequences. 

I have another critter that has caused me more problems in the garden than any squirrel ever has: my beloved dog.

Recently, I went out to check my newly seeded containers.  I was hoping for signs of sprouting and instead discovered that an entire wine barrel had been ransacked.  Potting soil had been piled up with chaotic abandon on one side of the barrel, burrowed into on another . . . and I immediately blamed my dog. 

But the telltale evidence wasn't there.  There were no bones buried.  There were no stolen socks hidden for later.  I did not hear Ray LaMontagne singing "Trouble". 

 
Maybe it was those villanous squirrels!  Could they have been stealing my seeds?  Or were they burying their nuts in my potting soil?  Or do I fault birds looking for seeds?  I didn’t know who to blame or what to do about it.  I certainly wanted revenge though; swift, thoughtless, and unflinching revenge.

Revenge for what though, exactly?   

I am currently halfway through reading Moby Dick for my “Finer Things Club”.  I’m ashamed to admit that I somehow got through high school plus four years of college (where I earned a degree in English) and never managed to read this American classic.  While some of the book’s questions and answers still await me, I’ve read enough of it to know that one of its central themes is dealing with our desire for vengeance.  The quoted passage above reflects ship mate Starbuck's reaction to Captain Ahab when he finally tells the crew that they will travel to the ends of the earth to make the white whale pay for taking Ahab’s leg off without prior written consent to do so.  What is the point in seeking revenge against creatures who are simply acting according to blind instinct?  It really is madness.

Loitering with Intent to Harass, I'm sure.

So there will be no BB gun vigils and no scarecrows erected - not this year anyway.  There will only be hardware cloth, some heavy duty staples, some crossed fingers, and lots of hoping that some of those seeds will sprout and that my patience with life’s little challenges will grow as quickly as whatever lettuce is left to me. 

(P.S. For those of you with inquiring minds, the coffee company, Starbucks, was, in fact, named after the character in Moby Dick.  They thought it made a better name than the original suggestion of naming it after the ship in the book: the Pequod.  That's pronounced "Pee-quod" so they made the right decision, methinks.)