The weather this week has been really wonderful so Ken and I have been outside in it most days. Our ten year old greenhouse was getting a bit run-down. Well, it isn't any more. We had to replace most of the roof but found the panels at the local home improvement store. Of course they weren't the right size so we had to punt. Then there were the moles and voles that had invaded our growing area last summer. The moles dug up the dirt in huge tunnels, usually around the roots of plants. The voles then used those tunnels to eat their way to a healthy vegetarian diet... the one we had planned to supplement our meals with.
Death to moles and voles. Or something like that. We fixed the outside of the greenhouse, and the inside came next. My friend Carl S from Florida has been making round flower beds in his back yard, and has inspired my husband and I to outclass the little furry creatures. NO, we didn't kill them, just took their fun away. At the home improvement store we found some very fine wire mesh, probably meant for screen doors. It is sturdy and has such small holes that neither little furry creature can get through. We shoveled the dirt from the raised beds out and then turned the raised bed forms upside down and stapled that wire to the bottom of the frames. We lined the sides of the greenhouse with hardware cloth, turned the frames right side up, and refilled them. On the outside of the greenhouse, we dug up a trench and then put used cat litter in it before filling it slightly with sharp gravel. Now to back fill the rest of it with dirt and plant the mole and vole arch enemies, marigolds and daffodils. I have read that voles hate to dig where there is gravel, and neither rodent likes those two plants. Besides, they hate cats. Eat your hearts out Moles and Voles!
I do have to make a sign for the deer. They keep eating the flowers on the heather. The nursery says that heather is deer resistant, but they forgot to tell the deer. I guess the sign will have to read, Please don't eat the heather, it is deer resistant and could cause harm to our relationship.Then I'll have to teach them to read.
As to writing, I do that early in the morning most mornings. This week is still the rough draft of Ashley, Ben's little sister from New York. This week Ashley has discovered that it can be very lonely in an apartment where she has no friends. The job situation isn't what she had envisioned either.She had thought there would be space to work in the architecture office, and there was, under the piles and boxes of old records, in the back room with the filthy bathroom and who knows how many spiders. Was her old boyfriend right: she should not have tried to move completely across the United States? Was it a different planet? I wonder what she will tell me this week.
Until next week, you have a great week.
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