A mouse and flowers - huh?

Though promises were made not to make book reviews a habit, couldn't resist another recommendation. The book is Sipsworth by Simon van Booy and on the surface is about an old lady living alone in England and a pet mouse she found. I assure you however, that the book is far more complex, has delightfully unexpected reveals, and heart stopping moments to confound and entertain. Not only that, it's a super quick read at only a couple hundred pages. Libraries have hard copies and e-book versions. Read it!

So, what does a mouse have to do with beautiful blossoms in the neighborhood? Nothing. Just wanted to get your attention for the following beauties. What confounds me about nature is that a single plant can have different color blossoms. It takes something already exquisite and adds to it. Add the vibrancy of the colors, and well, you get the following:

 

The blue blossoms to the right are on the same plant. Amazing.

Hope your summer is going well. Stay cool.

Overgrowth solved and order restored

In a previous post about the overgrowth from our abnormally bounteous rainfall for the past two years, the sidewalk was covered, couldn't get past the full blooms to get to the Critter Café, and it generally felt as if Nature was in such high gear it was taking over everything. While I'm all in favor of Nature taking back what's hers, there does come a point where we have to compromise. 

With soaring temperatures, not to mention my soaring age, you'd think that reason would prevail and yard work would wait. Think again. Not only am I a cranky old lady, but obstinacy is one of my more endearing traits, at least when it comes to certain chores. While the aches and pains that come later remind me to slow down a bit, some things just cannot wait. Hence, the big clean up.

The trash can that has it's very own hidey-hole (custom made by yours truly ages ago) is now open and ready for business. The agave and huge weeds are gone so the bin is happily at home. The sidewalk is now actually walkable and the brickwork that took forever to accomplish is back in view.

The path that was blocked with an overgrown pot of sea lavender on one side, and run amok African daisies on the other, is now open for a clear shot to the side yard and the Critter Café. It took two of us to get the huge pot on the dolly, but as it was a short trip to it's new home, it wasn't that difficult. My friend K kindly came and helped with cutting down a large agave that was suffocating a pot of geraniums and the irises trying to live beneath it. The effect of opening the area once again was magic (at least to me who has fretted about this for a year now).

Of course, the Critter Café has always been accessible through other avenues, including the side door to the house, but there are actually two separate bird stations. Without the path, getting to the second area was a brave adventure to squeeze through Firestick and nasty, pokey agave. Not fun. It even made me skip days to avoid being stuck. That didn't make the customers happy.

Station one:

 Station two:

Of course, knowing my customer base (who NEVER tip BTW), they will only become more demanding. Which is fine with me. Anything to please those who choose to grace the yard with their presence. Feathered, furred, and scaled only get to be this entitled. I don't put up with that from humans.

 

More interesting house features

If you have a chimney facing the front of the house, why not make it interesting? In this case, the owners chose to have exposed brick and stucco, which gives it an ancient feel.

This house has a true carpenter's touch. Yes, the man who lives here is actually a carpenter and it shows on some of the details on his house. He made arched (you knew that had to be a draw) window frames over the existing square frames. To be honest, don't know why he didn't remove the original frames, but I suspect it may have created more damage than was worth fixing.

While arches are my thing, in this case it's can-you-spot-the-doggie-in-the-window? Yup, there's a dog looking out and wondering why photos are being taken. Click on the picture to make it bigger to spot the ghost dog.

Though the arch of this gate is nice, it's not why it caught my eye. It is so ornate it should be at the end of a driveway to a mansion. Instead, it belongs to a modest house in the neighborhood, and adds panache.

This is what is so amazing about the 'hood. Always something to catch the eye and either make you think about some choices or admire the creativity.

More architectural oddities (and niceties)

Once again -- guilty of having passed by a place multiple times and not seen the obvious. In this case, there is a brick "patio" in front of these beautiful windows (because arches, duh). Thing is, the patio is only about two feet, or less, wide. Soooo, not good for a nice chair to enjoy the evening breezes, and not a way to get to the driveway or front walk. Just there. The front door is to the left, and there are stairs, etc., but one wonders why that narrow band of brick is in front of the windows.

On the niceties side, their mail box is beautiful copper with a lovely bird embossed below POST.

Farther down in the neighborhood, there is a house that has always struck me as utterly out of place in this area of cute Craftsman, Tudor, and Prairie style homes. It is so stark and featureless, made more so by lack of any landscaping to soften it up. Every time I go by, I think of it as an abandoned mini-market or gas station. Maybe a nice mural would perk it up.

But to end on an upbeat note, found at a house far from the above, this bit of cuteness just must be shared.

An artist in a bold medium

They say that art is in the eye of the beholder, and this beholder watched this happen. The finesse, the casual artistry, was awe inspiring. It's not every day a dog using a pee pad creates such a masterpiece. Behold:

This perfect heart formed in one shot. Phenomenal. Nellie congratulated Nick, the artist, on his performance.

Every day with these two is another day of wonder.

Making changes -- reluctantly

Sometimes you just have to realize that though you have nurtured your garden to do well, you just didn't know enough to think it through perfectly. In this case, I've mentioned that the rains have done wonders for our environment and did so much to ameliorate the drought, but they have brought on too much of a good thing in terms of growth in some areas. Had I done my research, some of the foxtail agave would have been planted farther back from the footpath so as not to overwhelm the space. But here's the dilemma -- I hate cutting back beautifully growing plants without having a plan for replanting if possible. Sometimes that's easy to do; sometimes not. If I can foist off cuttings onto neighbors, terrific. Just trashing them makes me feel wicked.

Take the case of the ugly trash bin. It's supposed to be tucked into a specifically designed space so it is accessible but hidden from view. Note the foxtail agave to the right have exploded in their growth so the footpath is hardly visible. Straight ahead where the bin is supposed to go, another plant (don't know the name) has gone crazy as well. Beyond that, what you cannot see, is an absolute mess of weeds and other outsized growth. There's no tucking of the bin possible. Add to the dilemma, the ground cover on the right was supposed to expand into the yard. It has, to a degree, but decided to also cover the footpath. One has to practically tiptoe to get through. So what's the plan? Alas, cutting back is the answer. Things have just gone too far.

Then there's the path from the front yard to the critter café where song birds, squirrels, ravens, crows, banded pigeons, and doves dine on only the finest seeds and nuts. They can also quench their thirst and bathe in the ample bird bath. Though, if you look, all you see is a mass of blooms and greenery that have taken over. What to do? Well, the sea lavender is in a pot that will be moved. The African daisies will be carefully cut back and planted in another area to thrive. That's the idea anyway.

Once the path is open again, it will lead to this open area which is leads to the critter café.

While decisions that I'm not particularly happy with do need to be made and executed, there are areas that the wilder they grow, the happier we are. One such spot is this:

Human hubris has devastating consequences

I'm currently reading Our Kindred Creatures by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy and confess that even though I've always had a dark view of human capacity for cruelty, lack of vision, and utter lack of brains, this book has rattled me to my core. Just getting past the first chapter was true hardship. Yet, I'm encouraging everyone to strap on and read this book. It's not just about animals and our relationship to them, it's also about our relationship to other humans and the very planet we live on. You can be the judge whether we are capable of change or not.

Though I knew that passenger pigeons were extinct by 1914 solely because humans made them so, I had no idea of the extent of the slaughter (five billion birds). It wasn't for survival at all. It was for sport. Just because. Bison would've met the same fate if some reasonable people hadn't stepped up and reined in the the the forces behind their mass killings. And when the reasons for killing millions of bison are explained, you'll truly wonder how people can live with themselves. During the same period, millions of wolves, bears, and other mammals were driven nearly to extinction before conservationists stepped in. And I won't go into the absolute cruelty of livestock like cattle, sheep, chickens, and pigs because that really hasn't changed.

What changes did occur were the result of the formation of SPCAs and their like. Though it was slow going and not perfect, Henry Bergh of New York modeled his ASPCA on the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in London. You might think he started out rescuing dogs. You'd be wrong there. It was horses and vivisection of animals for medical research. And when you find out why, it again makes you wonder how human beings can think they are supreme. 

The book gives a very clear and learned history of the forces of change in America, and that is encouraging, but it is far from over. It describes the rise of veterinary colleges and a more scientific approach to animal care. It talks about the very good steps toward laws concerning animal abuse and what actually constitutes abuse. Though it always takes decades to pass laws that seem a slam dunk, like banning steel-jaw leg-hold traps, the US persists in using them in all but six states (and they have exceptions). One hundred countries ban them outright. Why are we so behind? It wasn't until 2006 that California adopted a law which prohibits tying out a dog for more than three hours in a 24 hour period. EXCEPT -- and then they list the ways you can get away with that very thing. The majority of other states have no prohibitions for that at all even in searing heat or blizzards.

Of course, while the focus of the book is the US, worldwide, animal abuse is still prevalent and sickening. We need to focus on changing how we view our relationship with other creatures on the planet, and do it sooner rather than later. In fact, today would be good. 

After that discouraging news, here's a bit of a pick-me-up of two smiling faces:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the prize goes to...

The prize for largest ears and floppiest long tongue goes to Scotty:

 

This is one tired dog after we wore him out playing fetch at the dog park. Good times.

New projects in the works...sort of

Absolutely no one is wondering when new projects (usually of the tile variety) will be announced. The reason there has been no press on the subject is simple. The better than average rains we've had the last two years (hurray!) have created a gargantuan cleanup mess and I'm still trying to get things under control. That's not as easy as it was when I was a young whippersnapper of 50. Back in those halcyon days, the yard maintenance was not only easy, it was a fun challenge. Putting in a 10 hour heavy labor work day was no problem at all. Weekends were all about trying new things, digging out eyesores, and generally creating more work than was necessary.

That said, I do have a big challenge in the works. When the house was stuccoed eons ago, I told the workers to leave the back wall of the house stucco free. The intention at the time was to quickly tile/mosaic it. Welp, just like my front wall which sat around waiting for me to finish it for 15 years, the back wall has been very patient but is wondering when it will be done. The back porch and steps are wondering the same thing. 

There is hope for both those projects. I did start the area around the back door and then got stuck with how to proceed. If you haven't figured it out already, I have a tendency to dive into things without a well thought out plan. Winging it often produced more fun design opportunities and challenges that kept me going. For all you youngsters out there - don't do that! Have a plan. It can change as necessary, but have a plan. OK - enough with the life advice.

So, this is the wall in question and the beginning of the door surround. Yikes, I'm tired just looking at that.

As if that's not enough, the steps and porch without the cool bannister we had installed last year:

Perhaps by making this public, I will get going on it out of shame that it isn't done by now. On the other hand, I'm old, creaky and, at this point, pretty shameless. So there's that.

 

Loose dog rescue and awesome neighbors...again

Again with the amazing neighbors. This sweet Shepherd was running loose and the instant he saw C, N, And H, he ran toward them and cuddled up. Smart dog. They were able to leash him and try to figure out where he belongs. That's where I came in. 

Hearing an enormous barking ruckus from Nellie and Rascal at the front door, I found my neighbors had come across to see if I knew who this gorgeous and incredibly friendly dog is. Apparently there is the belief that I know every single dog within a 100 mile radius. Unfortunately, that is not entirely true, and this one rang no bells. I grabbed the phone, however, and called someone who might recognize the pup, but that too was a no.

As the dog had no collar, another neighbor had already called Animal Rescue from our local shelter. They have a portable device to see if the dog is chipped and the good news is, yes he's chipped. The only catch is whether the chip is current and the dog's guardian answers. The Animal Rescue officer made it clear that though he could not divulge information about the dog's guardian, he would make an attempt to return the dog to his home before taking him to the shelter. And yes, nosy as I am, I checked the Humane Society website to see if he was there. So far so  good, but I'll keep checking just to make sure. 

This saga is becoming too frequent with loose dogs. The good news is that our neighborhood is very alert and willing to leap in to help. Without that spirit, too many of these animals would be left to wander, be injured, or killed. I just hope this is a one off for this beautiful boy and his people will be more vigilant in future.

An unexpected gift is the best kind

The other day I received a text telling me that flowers had been left on my porch but they weren't in water. I went out and this beautiful, carefully curated bouquet beckoned. E and C were the kind souls who were so thoughtful, even though I have yet to figure out what I've done to deserve it.

And while we're on the subject of flowers, here are two exquisite rose blossoms that insisted on having their picture taken:

Bricks and stones may break my...oh wait

Nellie and I decided to meander down a street we haven't been to in a good while. Nothing against the street, mind you, it's just not a direct route to see her friend Nick so we normally skip it. Today, however, we were on a different quest as we were trying to mix up our morning walk a bit. We never made it to our designated destination, but it was sooo worth it. 

As we rounded the corner, this fence captured me once again. I've often admired it and since everyone knows how much arches fascinate me, this fence doesn't disappoint - even though the arches are upside down. There's something about the brick and then the XXXX in between that is almost medieval. Add the iron railings on top and that is one elegant and unusual fence.

But here's what kept us from exploring as far as we were expecting. A couple of houses down, we came upon what looks like an overgrown mess in front of a house that has seen better days. I noticed work being done on the roof and thought, hurray, this is being resurrected. How nice. The owner happened to be out, and as often happens, commented on how cute Nellie is and we started chatting. In addition to the new roof, the entire chimney has been rebuilt. Now, usually chimneys are of no great interest. Mostly they are pretty blah. This is the exception. In fact, it reminds me of Rubel Castle with its random stone and brick. After admiring the chimney, the owner offered to let me see the fireplace inside (no picture) and it has a 700 pound rock for the lintel. That's scary heavy. The rocks in the surround are HUGE. It is by far the most unusual interior fireplace ever outside a castle. Imagine something akin to this chimney, but on the inside:

Walking on, it seemed that brick and stone walls were popping up all over.  This particular fence is somewhat unique in that the rocks almost seem polished and consist of carefully chosen colors. The brick surround simply highlights the stone beautifully and the iron railing has that best of all shapes (the arch, duh!). I'm also wondering if our neighborhood has multiple people who are descendants of French or English royalty, because putting regal lions on fences seems to be a thing.

While a straight, plain stone wall may lack the storybook charm of brick and stone combinations, this particular wall provides a good counterpoint to the lush greenery it supports.

The variety of house and yard styles in this area continues to delight and amaze.

Elephant language and other revelations

! Lecture alert !

Can't say this enough -- what we DON'T know about other species is destroying them. Our egocentric thinking has allowed us to dismiss how other animals think, feel, and behave, which has led to their exploitation and the detriment of their well-being. Given that even our own cultural and gender biases have shaped our misinformation about how humans behave, this is not unexpected.

I'm sure you've heard about the alpha wolf.  This became a trope for many animals, including humans (anybody recognize the alpha male silliness?). This idea came about because the researchers at the time were studying random captive wolves in zoo settings. By now, thank goodness, this myth has been exposed for what it is -- shoddy research. Farley Mowat wrote a fictional account of his actual studies of Arctic wolves in the wild and opened the eyes of those who wish to see the truth (or nearer to). His book Never Cry Wolf debunked so many tropes about wolf packs and their hunting practices, that for a time, people actually realized their benefit to the ecosystem. Then, of course, people being people, they started decimating wolf populations and created a whole new environmental mess in national parks and other areas. 

Jane Goodall led the way for more researchers actually going out into the field to study their subjects. Her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees and gorillas broke so many stereotypes and misconceptions about their family groups and interactions with others of their kind. She also opened the floodgates for examining the very inaccurate notion that only humans know how to fashion and use tools. From her groundbreaking work, we now know that multiple species use tools, including (gasp) birds. 

Perhaps my favorite author and researcher is Peter Wohlleben, a German forester who has written several books on the natural world. The Inner Life of Animals is a great place to start thinking about our interactions in a new way. The Hidden Life of Trees: what they feel and how they communicate makes a compelling case for plant sentience. I mention the idea that trees must have intelligence and feelings to only a select number of people because I know the reaction is usually that I am looney tunes. Happy to wear that hat because there is increasing evidence to support that. And as if that's not enough to shake you up, yes, fish can feel pain, and insects have feelings too.

The latest in animal research is something that should surprise absolutely no one. In fact, I've never understood how this was even a question. We have known for a while that whales and dolphins can communicate with complete sentences (of clicks and songs), so why would it be surprising that elephants are able to communicate in sentences as well. Or for that matter, flies - who knows? Anyway, as a foster mama of an elephant, my eye caught this article and for anyone interested, here's the link:

https://www.salon.com/2024/05/27/researchers-decode-how-elephants-form-sentences-lending-insight-to-their-complex-communication/

And so I'll leave you with this thought for those of us who have dogs. Humans always think they're so smart, but how many of us are bi-lingual? Well, think about it. Dogs not only know how to talk to other dogs, but they also understand the language of their guardians. They understand verbal instructions like sit, down, stay. They also understand when you ask about their day and if they are ready to go for a walk. And while they aren't able to reply in human language, they do make themselves understood. Like Rascal, who is currently barking his head off with the command to feed him and feed him NOW. Gotta go.

Twin houses, yet not the same

Believe it or not, the two houses you are about to see are twins. I have been walking down this street and have glanced at these two for thousands of times over the years, and it never registered that they were identical in design, just flipped. So, the chimney of the blue house is to the left; the chimney of the beige house is to the right. Perhaps the reason it isn't so apparent is the difference in how they are maintained. 

The first house has a sad lawn, little greenery, and a perplexing walk leading to the front door that doesn't reach the public sidewalk. It's a road to nowhere. Frankly, the house has an almost abandoned feel to it, which is probably why I never paid much attention.

The house right next door is a totally different story. Exact same design and an entirely different vibe. While I'm not a huge fan of expansive lawns, at least theirs is well maintained and vibrant green. The bushes and trees at the front soften the rather stark design of the house itself. The pathway to the front door makes sense because it reaches the front sidewalk. They even have roses lining the edge of the yard. It's amazing how even a few well-placed plantings can make such a difference in the overall feel and look of a place.

 

And now, just for fun, and because I couldn't resist, another cool door which is a garden gate with decorative iron attached:

Win some, lose some

I've done multiple bottle borders in the garden. The first I did was a very long drawn out endeavor because I actually cut the bottles before creating the border (described in previous posts - 2015 if you want to peek). I've since learned to cheat and use the whole bottle. The bottle border in the front yard went in fairly smoothly and is holding up well, so that's a win. Before I put that in, however, I wanted to border the Oleander off the porch of my side door. Two reasons: helps (a bit) to keep the water where it needs to be at the base of the plant; and it keeps the leaves used as mulch in the same area. It is definitely a win.

Soooo, looking over at the Crepe Myrtle that is in front of the same door, I had the bright idea of bordering it too. Couple of problems from the get go: roots of the tree precluded going around the whole base or very deep; the ground itself is made up of a different soil type, which is more like concrete than dirt. OK - we can do this. Just do the side that leaks water the most and make it more decorative than seriously functional. By decorative, I mean I used two sizes of bottles. Well, it wasn't the most amazing design ever, but it provided a hint of pizazz - at least for about a year. Then, not so much. My fault entirely. My Critter Café is right near there, and I've attracted so many squirrels and Ravens who tussle with each other (nicely) over who gets the most peanuts, they have started running over and knocking down my bottles. So today, I said goodbye to this mess and pulled the bottles out to be used in some other fashion elsewhere. Or put in the recycling bin. One or the other.

Squirrels are very cute and all, but they aren't the neatest creatures.