Crooked Acres Thursday.
Yeah, yeah – I know I haven’t done one of these in a long time. I’d promise to be more on top of things, but please regard the sidebar, which I haven’t updated since the kittens were like a week old, so I’m not even going to attempt to make that promise. On the up side, I have way more pictures than I want to post in one entry, so I’ll save half of them for next Thursday and that’ll be TWO Crooked Acres Thursdays in the space of two weeks, but don’t get used to it. Is all I’m sayin’.
The catnip in the raised bed before I harvested it and then we removed the raised beds. In case you’ve ever thought about planting catnip, be warned: that stuff will take OVER.
Muscadine vines, growing on the back part of the back yard fence. That’s something else that’ll take over.
Baby muscadines.
Meyer lemon tree. It’s covered in baby Meyer lemons, which won’t be ripe until sometime this winter or early next year.
Baby lemon.
These volunteer tomato plants pop up EVERYWHERE. We never usually harvest tomatoes from them because the chickens get to them, but they’re neat to see.
Romaine lettuce. I’ve planted this in the now-gone raised beds in previous years, but thought I’d try a container this year. It’s Jericho Romaine, which is very heat resistant (and we’ve harvested lettuce well into July in previous years.) Those are more volunteer tomato plants behind the container of lettuce.
I’m also growing dill, just because I love the smell of fresh dill.
This used to be the compost heap, and in previous years it’s been covered in tomato plants. This year, I thinned out the tomato plants so it’s possible to get in and among them, and I also planted a few Sungold cherry tomato plants and a jalapeno plant (my habanero plant didn’t germinate). It’s not the huge garden we’ve had in the past, but it’s easier to keep up with. If we’re lucky, we’ll actually get a few of the tomatoes before the chickens get to them. (And if not, that’s what the farmer’s market is for!)
Wee tomatoes.
Fruits we are growing:
Pears!
Persimmons! (We got two last year – this year, the trees are loaded.)
Apples!
Blueberries! (Maybe we’ll get TWO cups this year!)
Figs!
The Pawpaw trees are doing well, but no fruit again this year.
I think there are some peaches and nectarines, too, but I failed to get pictures of them.
Some of you already saw this on Facebook, but for those of you who didn’t, one day last week Fred waved at me from near the back forty and told me to bring the camera. When I met him out there, camera in hand, we saw this:
Two little raccoons.
We dithered over what to do, but we’d seen a turkey vulture circling the chicken yard a few hours previously, and worried that it would be back with friends to go after the baby raccoons. So Fred got a carrier and some gloves, and we put them in a carrier.
They were not happy about this turn of events.
Luckily, we were able to find someone nearby who does wildlife rehabilitation, and within the hour Fred had delivered them to her.
Speaking of small animals, last fall I got these pictures.
That’s an armadillo.
Fred held the flashlight while I took the pictures. Armadillos are very slow-moving creatures, and it won’t surprise you know that Fred reached out and touched that armadillo more than once.
(Yes, armadillos can carry leprosy. I didn’t say I touched it, did I? Some of us here at Crooked Acres have better self-preservation instincts than others. Those others just can’t help themselves, it seems.)
Next week: chickens, ducks, squirrels and creepy-crawlies!
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Roux has a think.
Beignet readies her Slappin’ Paw.
Breakfast! From the ornj one and going clockwise, we have Andouille, Beignet, Roux, Nola and Praline.
Roux laying with her head in my hand and her body laying along my arm. I wish I’d been able to get a better picture, because it was adorable.
Contrast that with the same hand and the same Roux just 10 weeks ago.
::cues Sunrise Sunset::
::shifty eyes right::
::shifty eyes left::
“What’s that, honey, your packing strap toy? No, I haven’t seen it. Check by the food bowl!”
::evil snicker::
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Video! Andouille and Dewey: Making Friends.
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Newt, lounging. Everyone see the other cat in this picture?
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Previously
2016: This adorable puppy!
2015: They have met the vacuum cleaner, and are not impressed. AT ALL.
2014: No entry.
2013: “We’re trying to sleep, here. Can you make him get his big stupid foot out of my face?”
2012: Cicero acted like he’d known those kittens his entire life, and they acted like he was a pesky little brother.
2011: Complaints? She haz them.
2010: Rough life, boys.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: Which reminds me, last time I had a sit-down with The Lord, The Lord informed me that doing what might lead to business on Sunday is FORBIDDEN, but abandoning as many of His Creatures to fend for themselves and be hit by cars and lay dying on the side of the road is A-OK with Him! It’s in the Bible!
2006: No entry.
2005: Poop Watch v. 2.0, currently in progress.
Ok, I just think your Armadillo was stupid. Because I used to think they were slow. I went to sneak up on one for a better look, and holy cow, he took off like a bullet and scared the tar out of me. Either yours was just begging to be killed off, or Florida dillos are fast and Alabama dillos are missing the required leg muscles. LOL
Andouille cracked me up. He wouldn’t hold still lo0ng enough for Dewey to even get a good look at him! HAHAHHA
You have great fruit trees. I bet you will miss them when you all move.
Please excuse my initial misreading of dillos.
All the armadillos we’ve seen have been really slow-moving. Maybe they’re stunned to be in Alabama – when we first moved here, Fred would always say “I didn’t think they came this far north!” when we’d see one of them dead by the side of the road.
And Kerry, I misread it too!
I believe that’s Sheriff Kara stomping over on the left.
I think I see a Sheriff Mama getting her ticket book out to write up a ticket for loitering.
Andouille and Dewey sound like partner buddy cops in a 70’s TV show… haha
Dewey and The Floof!
In case you’ve ever thought about planting catnip, be warned: that stuff will take OVER.
YES. I do raise catnip and have for years (the strays killed mine last year, WOW GUYS I HOPE IT WAS GOOD), but I always give it a pot of its own for that reason. All mint does this, by the by — catnip is a cousin of spearmint. Invasiveness is a mint thing.
My mother planted catnip in their garden mid-70s, and now it’s everywhere on their property. It even survived the massive flooding from a dam breaking in 1977!
The funny thing is that the catnip I’ve had for the last several years was a replant of a volunteer shoot that migrated from I-have-no-idea-where. I was late getting to the garden that year and was weeding when I found it and eyed it and said “Hmmm, that looks like something in the mint family, not a weed. Is it catnip or spearmint?” So I grabbed a cutting and took it inside to ask my resident fuzzy experts which one it was. Pumpkin was by the door, so I offered it to him. He sniffed, considered, then yanked it out of my hand and rolled on the floor with it.
Asked and answered.
You’d think I’d remember how invasive mint plants are after the Great Chocolate Mint Invasion of 2012!
That’s a story I have to hear.
Eee, the baby raccoons! Yes, I know they’re pests and l, but squee! Likewise with dillos. Yes, they carry disease. Yes, they tear up gardens. But they’re improbably cute.
Andouille and Dewey are so cute together. Maybe this is a good sign that Jessica and Andouille (Andre) will get along fine. Dewey’s moves remind me of Jessie’s when she played with Jasmine. Monday is TOO FAR AWAY! If I wasn’t out of town right now, I don’t think I could stand it.
Just a few more days! 🙂
There was so much fluffy and skittering goodness in the video that I don’t know where to start! But I liked seeing Dewbug play with Andouille. 😀
And I spy with my little eye a Sheriff Mama nearby!!
Ermagerd teeny raccoons!
I touched a squirrel once. It was lying on the ground at the base of a tree in broad daylight so there was a high chance it was diseased/crazy but I was like IT’S MY BIRTHDAY AND I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO PET A SQUIRREL so I did it.
(the squirrel quickly ran back up the tree soon after that so probably it had just fallen out of the tree and was temporarily stunned, and that was 10 years ago and I don’t have rabies or anything so it all turned out fine)
I LOVE Crooked Acres pictures!
Persimmons-I’ve always wondered what they taste like. Any thoughts on a possible comparison?
I love seeing pictures of your garden, but it makes me sad that I live in an apartment. :/
And thanks for rescuing the raccoon babies. They look so scared in that first picture.
Robyn, I wasn’t surprised that you and Fred were looking to move based on the lack of Crooked Acres updates. I can understand why you all would want to scale back the number of farmyard critters, crops to maintain, weeding and apparently worst of all, harvesting endless zucchini, tomatoes, etc.
Hopefully you’ll be able to have some gardening in your new place but won’t require a tractor or seasonal laborers to pick stuff. It would be great if you could train/cajole the permanent residents to climb trees to harvest fruit but I think they’d get distracted playing with okra pods.
BTW, how’s the patient? sore but eating I hope.
You’ve got to give us all the Crooked Acres photos we can get so we can get our fill before you move! Those baby raccoons are soooo cute, but I think I’d be afraid to touch them. And the kittens are adorable; has anybody expressed interest in adopting Nola or either of the other two babies?
Loved seeing the update on the yard and critters! Thanks so much!
There’s Sheriff Mama, looking like she’s about to hand Newt a ticket for loitering and causing a scene after he parkoured his way through the back yard, lol. I probably say this with every PR picture you post, but I just love Kara and Newt. Those two always make me smile.
Lol, Nola’s shifty eyes pictures are so funny! She’s so expressive; I just want to snatch her up and hug her and squeeze her and call her George. No wonder her babies are such little dolls.
Nola isn’t mentioned very much, understandably because her adorable babies get all the attention, which we love, but does she ever seek any loving from you or Fred? She is so beautiful. I hope she has no problem finding her forever home soon!
the lighting on the armadillo is fabulous.. I mean I know it is just a flashlight but it made for some awesome photos.
I have tried to grow catnip several times and failed at it every single time. I feel like even more of a failure now