Turf wars

 Roger in the rain

We have at our house a very feisty hummingbird. I've named him Roger and he has attached himself to our yard and in his mind it is his, all his.

Last year I noticed a very aggressive hummingbird, dive bombing all the other hummingbirds and there were a lot of them. I got a good look at him as he hovered in front of my face and at first thought that it was a female except I noticed that I could see a bit of red glinting in the sun and speckles like a baby robin. Pretty cheeky baby! He stuck around until October, about a month after the rest of the gang had left and I was worried that he would hang around all winter. I didn't really want to be feeding a hummingbird during the winter here as we get a lot of snow and it is too cold for a little bird. I was very relieved when he left although I did miss him.

In March again came a very early male hummingbird and I like to think that it is the same one. There were no leaves on the trees and it was easy to spot his favorite perches in the yard. He looked like a little red leaf. He was the king of the castle.

Right now he is beside himself. The rest of the flock have returned with a vengeance and he is trying hard to keep the feeder all to himself. I would watch him and he would swoop down from wherever he was and attack. His favorite spot is to sit right on top of the feeder and spread his tail if anyone comes close. Today, however I think it is finally getting too much for him and he can't keep up. He is finally outnumbered. It probably won't stop him but I just hope nobody gets hurt.

Salad Days

One of the challenges is always to cook with the lovely fresh produce that you grow. I get so busy it is hard to come up with good recipes, especially when you are tired after gardening. You want to use it while it is fresh.

Right now the only thing that is really ready to eat is lettuce & kale. My spinach didn't do anything for some reason which is a shame but you move on. Kale as I have said before I am still trying to like. I made a sauteed kale the other night with garlic and balsamic vinegar and yup, still don't care for it. I think the best thing for me to do is to continue to make kale chips and then blanch and freeze the rest if I can't use it right away. I don't mind it in spaghetti sauce because, yes I don't notice it!

Lettuce is a funny one. When it is at it's best there are no garden cucumbers or tomatoes to go with it. I had a wonderful salad at Whole Foods once that I have been recreating ever since and I love, love it! You have to be a fan of blue cheese though. I guess too it is an acquired taste because if you told me 20 years ago that I would love blue cheese this much I would have thought you were nuts. I especially love it in salads and I usually sneak it in caesar salad as well.

Here is the recipe:

Butter and assorted greens
Handful of dried cranberries
Candied Pecans (recipe to follow)
Blue Cheese

Basically the amounts are up to you depending on how much you love each of the ingredients. First I crumble the blue cheese in a salad bowl and crush it up. Then I add a handful of dried cranberries and a handful of candied pecans. Add your washed lettuce and toss with a basic salad dressing.

Again, I'm not much for amounts but I mix up a batch of the dressing and use it for a few days.

Dressing:
Crushed fresh garlic
A few dashes of worchestershire sauce
A good glob of dijon mustard
Freshly ground pepper
Balsamic vinegar and then twice the amount of olive oil and whisk or shake in a bottle.

Candied Pecans:
melt three tbsp olive oil with
three tbsp balsamic vinegar &
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1 cup of pecans

When melted add the pecans and stir to coat watching carefully and turning every few minutes.
After about 7 minutes pour onto a piece of foil to cool.

One of the best things I have eaten lately was a butternut squash ravioli at Cactus Club. OMG it was lovely. I am growing butternut squash this year (at least I hope it grows) and I would love to try to make my own ravioli. I still remember how good it was. It was complimented by cooked sage leaves. YUM. The prawn on top didn't hurt either!

Oh to dream!

Short and Sweet

This will be short and sweet. I'm trying to go through my millions of photos and getting organized while I'm off work. I can't believe some of the things I have just never tossed. My office is still a mess and I feel that I haven't gotten anywhere.

I'm going through my old gardening pictures from last year and am amazed at how much things have changed. Looking back I'm wishing that I had put in sunflowers again this year and I totally forgot to put in sweet peas. What happened! I meant to, but I guess with putting up the fence and tomato hoop house and doing things in the back yard at home I totally forgot! Sometimes life just gets too complicated.

I know, I know next year!

More pics from yesterday

 Lovely little sign

I'm feeling like this guy

 A nice bright rooster

 Ready to go!

Not early enough for this early bird

Love this little sign! 

I was thinking how lucky I was that I had this week off especially when I got the email notice Tuesday that the wood chips would be arriving shortly.

Well, Thursday morning I headed out and hoped that they would have arrived which they had and apparently scooped up immediately by all the eager gardeners who happened to be lucky enough to be there at the time. Rats!!

Fingers crossed that I can get some this season. My pathway needs a touch up and that straw isn't doing me any favours. Other than that the plot is looking good except for my teeny tiny zucchini plant. It doesn't seem to be growing too quickly. I might have to take drastic measures and buy a plant!

I watered my tomatoes, said goodby and headed out the long way to shoot some snaps on the way to my car.

 

Listen to the critters

Saturday morning I heard the crows causing a commotion outside. I looked out but didn't see anything but they pretty smart so I knew something was going on. A little while later I was just going to go out the back when I saw big cat feet walking along the chain link fence in amongst the bushes at the back. At first I thought it might be a cougar because there have been some in the area. I ran upstairs not wanting to venture outside and from the deck I could see that it was a bobcat. His head popped up a couple of times and then he disappeared. I hoped that little squirrel that visits would be smart enough to stay away. It is always a good idea to listen to the animals when you are outside, especially those crows!

After all that excitement I decided to forgo working in the back yard for a while and head to the community plot. Honestly my intention was to go for 15 minutes, water my tomatoes and leave. An hour later I was still there trying to do a little weeding and to make some kind of order out of all that straw that I so quickly tossed on my compost pile. It is bursting at the seams. I have no place to put my kitchen scraps until I organize it. Am I sure this was a good idea?? Not so sure but time will tell. I'm quickly running out of room. I think I had better bring some home for my tomatoes and potatoes. I'm just afraid I might get mice or something not so desirable as we do seem to get a lot more critters up the mountain. I know in the long run it will be good for the soil so I have to keep that in mind.

Maybe some straw stuffed into these babies?

 
After picking some more lettuce, baby kale and some radishes for a couple of salads I headed home.

At home I had another surprise, a fish in the pond. He must have been there since we moved in almost a year ago but I've never seen him. He must have been hibernating through the winter poor thing. I guess if he has managed to survive this long I'm not going to worry about him. He must be getting food from somewhere. Kind of strange though. That pond is a bit of a mystery to me. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing with it. I did ask at a pond place and was told to add some natural stuff to it which I did in the fall and spring and I do rinse out the filter every week but the water still looks a bit mirky and quite frankly I feel a little lost. I might have to have somebody come out sometime and perhaps teach me what to do and give some advice. I love the sound of it and last year the water lilies were beautiful. They are a little sad at the moment but I'm hoping they perk up.

Hard to believe they were so beautiful last year.

I'm still having a war with a few areas of the back yard. The little trees have found good homes and I was pretty ruthless with a bunch of stuff that was pretty boring. I always feel so guilty getting rid of things but it had to be done. Then there is the matter of the goutweed. Why do people plant this stuff? I have been trying to smother it but to no avail. The whole bed had to be dug as much as possible. It is pretty hard to dig so I smothered it in newspaper, wet it and covered it in bark mulch. There it will sit until next year when it might be safe to plant. It is doubtful that it will be entirely eradicated but at least this way I can keep picking the little bits. Hopefully it will get the hint and go away. Those roots are pretty impossible to dig up.

Sunday Snaps

Just a few from today....