June Garden and Critters

The swallowtail butterfly caterpillars are back on the lovage.  I did see one of the actual butterflies for a change.  As usual, the caterpillars were gone a few days later.   Next year, the plant gets a chickenwire cover to be sure that they are not being removed by hungry birds.

One of the grape vines decided it liked being in the ground enough to produce lots of clusters of grapes.

The excavation in the hill was the work of the ground squirrel.  The critter who has been eating the tender sprouts that the veggies are putting out.  Needless to say, this is war.

End of May

The raspberries that were transplanted from the fence last summer finally decided to perk up. While the crop wasn’t amazing, there was a constant supply of berries for many weeks.

The bird netting worked with the corn, and other bird net frames were created with PVC as the wooden one weathered poorly.

Like the raspberries, the transplanted blackberries finally seemed happy in their new location and grapes either finally out of pots and in the ground or new bare root took off.

The hillside needed additional layers of retaining walls to keep it reasonable.  And more upright blackberries were planted in the area next to the paths.

Unfortunately all was not well.  Something was eating many of the young veggies faster than they could grow.

Critter

This little guy showed up in the mulched bed.

Spring Garden Improvements

As the garden space was finally set up, this year it was time to work in making it look more like we wanted.  For the deck,  decorative boxes were located online that seemed to match well and could provide a nice edging to the deck.

Now that the berries were relocated, along the bed along the driveway fence had a few more herbs and drought resistant plants added.  Also, a retaining wall border was installed and some nice shredded cedar mulch topping it off.

The path to the back gate was evened out and another retaining border wall installed there as well.

Experiment with photos

Photographing faceted gems has continued to frustrate me. I find it hard to get the camera to see what I see, especially the sparkle of the stones. Perhaps the only way to do that is with video where the reflections of the light change as the stone turns.

Anyway, yesterday, I conducted an experiment with my fairly new Pixel 6 cell phone. Most of the photos were pretty poor. I didn’t have the phone set in a tripod and would need more time than allotted to figure out the best positioning of stone, phone and lighting. But a couple of shots did surprise me with nice detailing of the facets and color.

First is a 2.58 carat peridot, cut in an 8 mm. octagon shape. The characteristic black disc shaped inclusion shows clearly in the photo. When the stone is held in hand it has such great sparkle that the inclusion is hard to find.

The second photo is of a 1.89 carat orange garnet. The color is very close to that of some “Madeira” citrines I had just cut as well.