July 2016 – Scary Yankee Chick

Hemopet

August 1, 2016July 30, 2016 2 Comments by Ruth

I know. Those of you who aren’t dog owners are probably going “WTF is Hemopet???” Heck, an awful lot of dog owners are probably doing the same thing.

Hemopet is a multifunction non-profit:

They run one of the largest canine bloodbanks in the country, filling 40% of the nationwide need for canine blood for transfusions. Yes, dogs need transfusions. Not only because of injury, but because of surgeries, or medical problems. If you’ve ever had a dog require major surgery, eat rat poison, be diagnosed with parvo, be diagnosed with IMHA, or any one of bunch of other issues, its very very likely your dog has received a blood transfusion, and there’s a 40% chance that blood came from Hemopet.

They provide a select list of blood testing, including one of the best thyroid labs you can have your dog’s bloodwork sent to.

They have run a variety of studies in vaccine efficacy, most recently proving that small dogs only need about half a dose of the standard vaccine package, reducing the load on the immune system for tiny dogs. They are also helping with a study to look at the efficiency of the rabies vaccine, to prove that (like the other core vaccines) the rabies vaccine lasts far longer than the 3yrs that the laws allows for. Hoping to reduce the number of dogs put down for rabies exposure just because their rabies vaccine had “expired”.

Unfortunately they’re in trouble. The state of CA audited them, and decided that they owe sales taxes, despite their status as a non-profit. A state Senate bill was created to ensure that non-profit canine blood banks were added to the list of not needing to pay taxes, and the Assembly modified it to state that they still owe BACK taxes, which would still require Hemopet to pay approx $81,000. Since they came in -$90,000 in 2015 anyway, $81,000 is more than can be come up with. Being forced to pay it would result in the shut down of Hemopet.

The country would lose 40% of its canine blood supply. Us owners would lose one of the best places to have a variety of bloodwork done. Not to mention the research they’ve been working on.

If you live in CA please go to the link above, follow the links, and send a letter to the committee that currently has control of the bill that controls Hemopet’s fate.

2016 garden, Gardening

Dammit

July 27, 2016 5 Comments by Ruth

The one plant in the garden that the wild critters REALLY want to munch on this year has been my cantaloupe vines.

As soon as the vines inch past the line of repellent the ends are chomped off. Nothing else has been chewed on this way, just the cantaloupe. I’ve managed to keep the damage at a minimum by religiously spraying the new growth once a week or so, but if I forget……

Apparently the first cantaloupe melon ripened late yesterday, or possibly even overnight. Its my one gripe about this variety, it’ll go from GREEN to RIPE in less than 24hrs.

And apparently the scent of the ripe fruit was to much to resist for whoever was keeping such a close eye on the cantaloupe for me:

Though I grow a small variety, the fruit isn’t THAT small. I can’t see a rabbit carrying it 10 feet the way it was. I suspect deer. Maybe I’ll move a trail camera over to watch the garden……

2016 garden

Garden update

July 25, 2016 3 Comments by Ruth

The garden is coming along nicely for the most part.

The first White Cherry Tomatoes

The first of the Blue Berries Tomatoes

More cucumbers, two Black Icicle tomatoes and a Buena Mulata pepper

The various melons are ripening. I did staggered plantings of the watermelons and cantaloupe this year in an attempt to keep from being overwhelmed with fruit all at once. We’ll see how that actually works.

Anyone know anything about the Golden Crispy Melon? I got a packet of freebie seeds, and went ahead and planted them, but I can’t find alot of info on them, including how to tell when they’re ripe!

Something appears to be killing off my carrots.

Not sure if its a watering issue or what. I guess I’ll go pick some carrots and see what I’ve got.

Overall though the garden is doing quite well!

In other news, I sold this Saturday at work:

I can’t decide if I ought to praise the guy for planning ahead. Or if I ought to be pissed at him for reminding me winter is coming!

Anyone know what this flower is?

It looks REALLY familiar, like I ought to recognize it. But nothing’s jumping at me.

Online Idiots

Shelter renting out dogs to pokemon players: False

July 24, 2016 2 Comments by Ruth

If you’re a dog lover, or a Pokemon Go player, on Facebook you’ve probably seen (or had someone mention to you) this post:

A quick search and it was quickly proved to be false. Snopes link.

Apparently there IS a shelter, who is attempting to get people who are playing Pokemon Go to walk their dogs. Very cool concept. It gets dogs out of the shelter for a bit, gets them exercise, and gets them out in public.

However they aren’t RENTING the dogs out. They haven’t made a fortune on the scheme. They haven’t sold off all their dogs.

Folks, Google (or the search engine of your choice) is your friend when it comes to this sort of thing. Before you share that too good to be true post do a quick search and make sure its not fake…..k?

Nothing Much

Neighbors

July 21, 2016July 20, 2016 3 Comments by Ruth

We’ve not gotten to know most of our neighbors well. We have non-standard schedules, especially in comparison to most of our neighbors who work more traditional 9-5 type schedules. Plus we’re both introverts. Add in the large lot size that means that actually interacting with someone means going out of your way, and we mostly know our neighbors well enough to wave at, and thats about it.

The one exception is the couple in the property on our north side. Older than my parents (I never asked ages, but they both retired a couple years after we bought the house, and I’m pretty sure they were past retirement age at that point and had been working part time to keep busy), but when we moved in, back in 2010, I’d have not called them elderly. That has changed unfortunately. One has had both knees replaced, the other both hips. He’s had heart problems, and back problems, and kidney problems. This summer their daughter has been doing most of the yard work for them, and roundly telling off her dad when she catches him doing something to strenuous. Neither moves very well any more.

Sunday their house was quiet. Not unusual, they have a trailer at a camp a few hours away and frequently go there for weekends, and the occasional weeks.

Monday it was still quiet, I wasn’t overly worried, though she usually lets me know when they’re going to be gone for a longer period so we can keep an eye on the house for them.

But Tuesday the driveway was full of cars, all day.

The kids’ cars. All three of them.

Though all three kids, and families, are by frequently, having more than one on a weekday is unusual. Combined with the oddly quiet house the day before I started to worry. I hadn’t seen an ambulance, but that could just mean they hadn’t used sirens……

Tuesday evening she called me.

Saturday evening he’d been admitted to the hospital, for fluid in his lungs and kidney shut down, plus some additional symptoms.

Monday he’d had a massive stroke that basically destroyed his brain.

The funeral is Friday.

2016 garden, Gardening

Garden Update

July 19, 2016 2 Comments by Ruth

Blue Berries tomatoes are ripening

Black Icicles are getting there too, plus the tallest one just topped the 7foot tall cages:

There’s at least two more that’ll definitely make the 7foot mark, and a couple more that may or may not.

Sugar Baby Watermelon:

Cantaloupe:

Melon Pear fruit:

Note-I didn’t realize till it was to late, but quite a few places recommend caging these plants, like tomatoes, and for much the same reason. The weight of the fruit flattens the plants out. Something to keep in mind if we decide to grow them again.

Paprika peppers:

I’ve pulled two zucchini out of the garden, and made a batch of zucchini bread, just cause.

Oh, and this is Friday’s cucumber harvest:

JUST Friday’s harvest. Of course I’ve had at least a few almost every day for the last week-plus, which I’ve mostly been eating, cause these are seriously good eating cukes. So I made two quarts of refrigerator pickles. Which used up less than half of Friday’s harvest. Gave away 8 or so to a friend. Harvested another pile at least that big on Sunday. Gave away another handful to a neighbor. Gave away the whole pile to a former co-worker who planned to do a serious batch of pickles. And between yesterday and today (Tuesday) I refilled the strainer with cucumbers. I think my cucumber plants are happy. Time to play around with a wider variety of pickles I think.

Birds

Baby House Wren

July 18, 2016 2 Comments by Ruth

I think I mentioned before that there was a crazy House Wren building a nest inside the (functional) well pump head. Thankfully we don’t NEED that pump, but we try to keep it functional as a backup water source, and to get water from for watering needs around the yard to help cut the water bill. So I wasn’t thrilled to see the Wren building his nest in it. But until he’s done with the nest there wasn’t much to be done.

There is at least one baby in the nest:

And the parents are busting their butts to keep it fed:

Not looking forward to cleaning that one out……

Nothing Much

We have a new neighborhood cat

July 16, 2016 2 Comments by Ruth

Got home from work yesterday, after stopping at the grocery store, and as I unpacked the car I left the back hatch open for easy access to the groceries. This is pretty normal for me. About the only thing I usually have to worry about is mosquitos.

After all the groceries were in the house I took a minute to unpack the cold stuff and get it into the fridge so that I could then take my little collapsable cooler back out to the car where I leave it.

Tossed the cooler into the trunk area, and slammed the hatch.

And immediately something started ping-ponging against the insides of the doors. It was moving so fast I couldn’t even get a solid look at it and my first thought was that a squirrel had climbed into the car.

It finally stopped moving long enough for me to get a good look and I realized I was looking at a dark blue and white patterned cat. Husband saw it wandering through the back yard a few days ago, but neither of us had seen it up close.

It was so freaked out that there was no way I was catching it. I opened the back driver side door and it completely ignored the door to continue to ping-pong off every other surface.

I eventually had to open BOTH back doors and the hatch before the completely freaked out cat could find an exit.

Looks reasonably well cared for.

I really wish the local folks would stop it with the “outdoor kitty” thing. I’ve had to listen to more than one cat scream as its killed by the local wildlife. Its really not my idea of fun. We rarely see these outdoor cats for more than a couple months. Then they disappear and we stop seeing them. Not only do we have a fairly large amount of traffic in the area, we also have outdoor dogs in various yards, not to mention giant coyotes, foxes, fisher cats, mink, all of whom are capable of taking down your average cat. These aren’t barn cats, who generally stay pretty close to their home turf. These are someone’s pet who’s allowed to roam, and I really wish my neighbors would stop, essentially, feeding them to the coyotes.

2016 garden, Gardening

Garden update

July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 2 Comments by Ruth

My four rain barrels have come in handy this summer. I keep saying that I know, but its so true. Our water bill would be SO HIGHER this summer without them. I’m planning on how to add 4 more. It won’t happen this year, or likely next year unless I’m lucky, but it will happen.

My mystery squash plant is thriving:

I originally assume the vine was cantaloupe, but it clearly isn’t. The giant leaves look like zucchini leaves, but the zucchini variety I grow doesn’t vine like this clearly is. The squash itself is marked much like the baby pumpkins (well, the Long Pie Pumpkins I grow anyway), and that would explain the vining habit. But the insanely quick growth (it was still a baby with bloom attached when I took a picture on the 26th, and is now a good foot long) is more zucchini style. The Long Pie Pumpkins grow quickly, but not THAT quickly. So do I treat it like a zucchini? Or like a pumpkin? I’m kinda tempted to let it keep growing and see what happens……

For comparison, a zucchini (which I’ll be picking this week, its a good size for it):

And a baby pumpkin:

Anyway, the rest of the garden.

The Melon Pears are THRIVING. And to think I was worried about them. There’re even baby fruit forming! And yes, another mystery squash, this one looks straight forward Long Pie Pumpkin though.

Tomatoes: it turns out the Black Icicle Tomatoes may have had a magnesium deficiency. They’ve been awfully pale and droopy in comparison to the rest of the tomatoes. I had a couple people try to assure me that paste tomatoes are always “kinda droopy”, but they just didn’t look right. After doing some digging around the internet I mixed up a couple gallons of water with some epsom salts and sprayed down the leaves and drenched the soil with it. About a week and a half later the plants are much more normally colored and far less droopy. In addition, I was worried that they had blight, they had almost all the symptoms (and so do several other tomato plants), and now almost all those symptoms (on the Black Icicles) are gone. I’m still going to treat the entire garden with Actinovate, just to be safe (cause I don’t have the space to do proper rotations and I refuse to stop growing tomatoes), but I’m also going to treat all the tomato tires with epsom salts too (and seriously considering doing the entire garden). A magnesium deficiency wouldn’t be a huge surprise in retrospect. I’ll have to see if I can arrange some soil testing either this fall or next spring.

Black Icicle tomatoes before epsom salt treatments (and one a few days after treatment):

And yesterday:

The difference in color is NOT a trick of the light, I promise! In addition the tallest plants are pushing 6ft tall now!

All of the tomato plants have baby fruit on them, well, except for the volunteer plants that appeared in two tires, but thats not a surprise since they didn’t get the headstart the rest did. For that matter, pretty much everything has baby fruit on it! Possible exception is the habaneros, but they do that to me every year, get thinking I’m not going to get anything and then POOF, hot peppers!

I’ve picked enough cucumbers to do up a good sized batch of refrigerator pickles. Putting them on a trellis DOES make a difference in how easy it is to find and pick fruit. But I swear the plants are VERY HAPPY being allowed to sprawl on the ground: