Life in Cowtown

 We had a wild and beautiful dog visit us from BC, (lucky dog!), and the girl cats did a very impressive disappearing act. They have a healthy self-preservation instinct that would permit no less, even though the dog is totally cat friendly.

Happy puppy

Tweaks in particular was chillaxin’ on the chair near the patio door when the puppy unfortunately snuck up on her (with all the stealth of a tank on gravel) and she did one of those cartoon bolts that was impressive in execution. Feet scrambling for all they’re worth she flew down the hall and didn’t stop until the crash landed into the trunk in the foyer. We didn’t see her any more that night.

When I wiped the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard, I took survey of the house and saw the sole brave soldier ready to face any danger – Cheney. His particular mix of dumb and brave must be seen to be believed, but he loves people, dogs, cats, velociraptors and there’s no one better suited for shattering stereotypes about cat behavior.

He followed the poor dog around all night long – squawking at the top of his lungs and he sure had a great deal of things to say.

Where you do, I go

He engaged the dog in a fist fight – he lost.

I'll eat you

And when the dog was totally worn out from this insane cat chasing him all night – he passed out too.  It was more excitement than he gets in a month, after all.

Can I sleep now?

Who sleeps like that?

P.S.  Please forgive the crappy photography, but did you know animals move? Non-stop? And it takes way more skill than I have to snap them good photos. This camera hides a lot of sins, but it can only do so much.

Quick, name that book!

Kidding, but it’s an appropriate quote for the day, because I had a severe setback on my hands and it’s got to be shared, it’s not all roses and sunshine and snow around here.

When I moved the tomatoes outside, I reflected on the fact that they’re not properly hardened, since it’s hard to get a week off work just for that. They were semi-hardened, having seen at least three days of life outside, but not the night time lows of 6 that we’ve been blessed with. That’s 43 for y’all down south.

None of the other plants like cukes, peppers, and zucchini were any better off, so in a stroke of genius I bought a little three tier greenhouse for only thirty bucks from Home Depot, thinking it’d be perfect to harden off tender plants in – unzip by day, and zip up by night.

Exhibit A

Well it was perfect all right, right up until the gale force winds we’re blessed with (gosh, all the blessings!) tipped the greenhouse right over. And it was up against the house people, on a stable concrete pad, as sheltered as can be. It tipped spilling and crushing the life out of all the tender plants inside. Just about. I could not take a photo of disaster recovery, as I was at work when it happened, but I do know that it took place in the rain, with the gusting wind, and it was very messy indeed.

The cukes are a total write off. The last insult added to the injury of their weird leaf disease tipped them over into the land of no recovery. Little yellow flowers and all. The pepper (which is flowering a beautiful white flower!) survived with some broken leaves, but the stem intact. I figured it’s less damage than a slug would do, and counted a survivor. The zucchini also lived, as did some of the strawberries, but the basil is also destined for a hard place between life and death. It doesn’t look good at all.

See the broken pepper leaf?

Another dead cucumber

So I came home, surveyed the damage, had a few choice words with the weather, and started more seeds. I gots some 45 day cukes going, some more zucchini – just in case, and the basil I’ll probably buy from the garden centre at this point. Only this time I’m smarter – I’m going to chit the cucumbers (which means place them in a wet paper towel just until the root emerges), and then direct seed them in another maxi-kap container. That way there will simply be no more trauma to deal with – no transplant shock, no delicate handling, no hardening off in a treacherous greenhouse… they will be on their own right from the get go. Then they might have a fighting chance.

And the greenhouse? I’m thinking some bricks on the bottom shelf might do the trick.

While learning to take care of my yard, (and I use ‘take care’ very loosely, it’s much more try not to kill), I read an excellent bit of advice by a local Calgary blogger on top dressing your beds with compost. The idea is not to rake the topsoil which loosens up weed seeds and brings them up to germinate, but to simply pile a thick layer on, like mulch. The compost will break down over time, feed the soil and you get a nice thick weed suppressing layer.

When we were building the raised beds we ordered some garden soil and compost, which we subsequently proceeded to spread all over the lawn, in the bed, in all the flower beds, and in general shared the bounty over several hours of back breaking labor.

Heavily composted bed

Since I’m still a beginner enough gardener and yard care-taker that I get excited every time we cut the grass and pull some weeds, I wanted to share with you the fact that top dressing with compost is a phenomenal way to control weeds, a fact that I discovered this weekend, and that delights me to no end. Since we piled on the compost like it’s going out of style, the weeds that grow through it pull out with a phenomenal ease. Remember that we have clay soil and typically pulling weeds is like wrestling an alligator, requiring some upper body strength and stamina. But the weeds in the beds just slide right out, tap root intact. It’s like pulling candles out of cake. It’s magic.

Clean exit

If anyone else has nifty techniques for fighting weeds, please share. I’ll need all the help I can get.