Mary

Little Lizard

I went out on the bedroom deck to take some photos of the garden looking down from the second floor.  However, before I was out the door I found a more interesting subject.  On the deck wall was a tiny lizard.  He wasn’t completely cooperative about getting his picture taken and ducked over the side.  It wasn’t the best angle for getting his portrait, but at least he stood still while I took a few more photos.

There are a few lizards — much larger ones — hanging out around the garden area.  I am hoping that they will be effective at keeping insect pests under control. 

Years ago when we lived in Saratoga there was a large lizard who lived in the garden.  At one point he almost ended up at the dump since he was hiding in a pile of debris when cleanup time came.  Fortunately my spouse saw him and made sure he was returned home to our backyard garden. I know that particular lizard was doing his part for my veggies.  The only tomato hornworm I ever saw there was hanging out of his mouth.

To Be or not Two Bees

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was pollinating the zucchini because of lack of pollinizers and pollinators.  The zucchini seems to be opening only one flower a day, so there is a lack of pollen for the the female flowers.  And even if there were loads of open flowers, the pollen would not get from one flower to the other unless there were bees visiting the flowers. 

The lack of bees is a bigger  problem than the lack of zucchini flowers since that effects other plants as well as the zucchini.  Thus, I tend to notice any bees that are around now. 

One place I have seen bees is at the bottom of the hill, in some small yellow (weed) flowers.  I walked in that area with the camera and decided to take a picture of the only bee I found working a strip which was perhaps fifteen feet wide and eighty feet long.  Besides, I should identify the weed and the photo would be useful for that exercise. 

First Zucchini for Dinner

At least we had our first zucchini make it to the dinner table.  It looks like helping mother nature a bit with the pollination has made a difference.  Most of the female flowers were just rotting away after the flower faded.  A couple almost happened like the one pictured on the right side. Collecting pollen from the male flowers and saving in the fridge for a day or so to use when the female flower opened has gotten us a couple nice zucchinis with perhaps another one or two that will be ready soon.

The peas and green beans are still not cooperating.  We have harvested enough lettuce leaves for a few salads.  Our weather has been pretty cool with the morning fog sticking around a long time.  Perhaps the warmer temperatures promised for the coming week will make a difference.

 

Country critters

We returned from an outing this afternoon and found the king snake next to the front of the house.  Hopefully he will continue to hang around and help reduce the gopher population. It only took a couple days after I got the one invading the garden area before new gopher mounds popped up. This week it was behind the kitchen near the valves for the drip system. As usual, I had no luck finding the runway. He had popped up in spots which had been dug up for the irrigation pipes.
I wonder if the invasion of mice in our attic last week was field mice fleeing the snake or if the fact that we have not seen any for a few days means that he has been eating well.

He can fly

Yesterday our red rump chick made his inaugural flight.  When I brought the chick out of the cage for his lunch, he slipped out of my hands to explore.  Instead of running around the table, he took a couple steps and took off.  He fluttered against the window a couple feet away, then did a U-turn and was almost to the door when I did a mid-air catch.

Getting him to eat is now a challenge.  He has pretty much rejected the feeding syringe but is only starting to feed himself. He did not like the spoon much better than the syringe.  It seems his current preferred method is to lick the goo off my fingers. It is a messy process.  Hopefully this phase does not last too long.

In the past week he has also learned to get up on the perch and sit on a finger.  But he is still having issues when it comes to turning around on the perch or getting off it gracefully.