Adventures

Garden mayhem turns into a delightful rescue

Shelley

As luck would have it, on Friday the 13th, Linda completed 13 pages of prompts for her Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Yay – she’s one a lucky gal!! That’s quite the accomplishment.

Was I that lucky?

Perhaps?

Is there any coincidence that I saw a walking stick on that day too?

Maybe…?

Maybe not. But I have proof I did see one. See…

And then on Saturday, when all the other participants of the SoCS group were busy writing their responses to the clever, ‘luck’ prompt Linda shared, I was on a different mission.

I had to seize the most beautiful clear and sunny Wisconsin day we’ve had in a long time by working like a madwoman in my garden bed full of mayhem.

I had to perform my own ransacking on the gopher hotel. Not every yard is that lucky to have one.

Here’s the ground-level entryway into it.

That little rascal has a getaway spot a few feet from the entry. One of these days, I’ll get a photo of him standing in between the two spots. Or on the top of the tower posing in an almighty way. He’s quite arrogant.

He was nowhere in sight as I inspected the lot. It was looking incredibly messy. I wondered how much of the weeds were planted there by the gopher?

I shook my wild hair…I must save the daylilies and the catchfly is all I could think about.

I walked around the rest of the garden beds to inspect them too. All the gardens are looking a bit wild and carefree!

I was wearing my garden boots because the grass was full of dew. I had to tiptoe around the little white planets that have landed everywhere. Actually, they’re puffballs – later in the summer, they’ll turn into smoke puffs when stepped upon. But that’s another story. It might go along with the alien-filled dreams I’ve been having lately? Hmm…yeah, nope, that’s a story for another day.

After my inspection of the gopher hotel and surrounding gardens – which had plenty of visitors of their own by the way.

All of them competing for the luck of the draw on which blossom had the most pollen on it to collect.

Even the inchworm was taking a garden stroll.

I headed into the house to change clothes and shoes. I tried to get my garden boots off, and they were stuck. Seriously stuck. So stuck on my feet even sitting down to yank on them didn’t help. I hadn’t worn any socks so my sweaty feet expanded and stuck to the rubber material all the way up my ankles. STUCK like glue. I either had to wait until my feet dried or cooled off enough to pull them off? Complaining didn’t help. Walking around didn’t help. Swearing didn’t help. I was thinking scissors were going to be needed. I tried pushing on the heels and pulling on the boots. I’ve made that mistake before and kicked my shin which really hurts and leaves bruises. I was being careful not to repeat that mistake. Nothing was working. I was working up a sweat. Who would’ve thunk that rubber boots would be hard to get off sweaty feet? Mr. was in the nearby kitchen chuckling as I complained about the poor luck I was having. A good hour 10 minutes went by and finally I was able to yank the boots off.

Don’t ever let me put those damn boots on without socks ever again!

Me to Mr.

After that, I ate breakfast, got dressed in a summer top and shorts, slipped on garden sneakers with socks on my feet, and headed out to grab my garden tools and a shovel. The garden bed at the top of the gopher hotel was going to be renovated come hell or high weeds.

I began frantically pulling weeds and tossing them into the yard. The purslane had taken hold, along with the wild violets, and the quack grass, and some other weeds I don’t know the name of? Pulling weeds is so rewarding. I was a maniac…

I shoved the little garden shovel into the dirt and heard a croak. Oh, no…WTH was that?

I pulled back the shovel and saw the noisemaker squirming in the dirt. It was a rather large toad. He complained loudly and stomped off (hopped) away quickly into the remaining weeds. He vanished into thin air, or down the gopher hole? I’m not sure, I never saw him again.

Bye, bye, little guy. I hope I didn’t hit you with the shovel…there’s no blood in the dirt…keep on pulling weeds.

Me – thinking to myself – I must not get distracted, must continue on.

I got back to work and then heard the hum of the riding lawnmower. I needed to get the weeds picked up before Mr. got close to the garden bed. I ran to get the garden cart. A new race had begun. Mr. smiled each time he passed me. Perhaps he saw me struggling to yank the stubborn weeds?

Or he was thinking…

Oh, yeah, she’s going to be sore tomorrow…

Mr.

He was just about ready to drive the mower over to help me when he saw me jump up on the top of the garden bed with the shovel in hand.

Remember, I was a super garden woman with wild hair!! No stopping me today!

I was about to help you when I saw you climb up on the top of the garden and jump on the shovel. I knew you had things under control…

Mr.

3 hours later (I think?…I lost track of time). I had rescued the chives and the daylilies and separated some of them to spread the love around the bed. I had saved some of the catchflies, hopefully, they’ll return next year too.

I only slipped off the shovel once and chopped off one beautiful daylily before I was done. Good thing I took a photo of it before the attempted search and rescue mission. I’m told the daylilies (according to a YouTube video) are hearty and you can move them anytime and they’ll come back.

Anyhoo, we’ll see if my mission accomplished was full of luck or not? Time will tell. I do feel lucky that I didn’t run into the gopher. He’s the next target now that he doesn’t have as many places to hide. I dreamed about that when I took a nap later. And, yes, Mr. was right, I’m might sore today! LOL!

Post Inspiration – Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “luck.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

PS – What did you do for fun this weekend? Any wild hair adventures? I hope you have a great week!

Published by Shelley

Letting my quirk out one post at a time.

31 thoughts on “Garden mayhem turns into a delightful rescue”

  2. Great job! Nothing like a cleaned up flower bed.

    We had groundhogs in our last yard, and they are hard to find. Well, except for the holes they dig. We never did eradicate them…they just ran over the hill to the river when they saw or heard us. Now they’re someone else’s problem. LOL.

    1. Thank you, Laurel. I remember the summer you did lots of yard work prior to selling your house. I don’t know how you did it?! I’m still sore…!
      We have lots of gophers (13 stripe ones) in our yard. Supposedly, according to my brother the hunter, says that once they claim their spot in the yard they become quite territorial? This little guy shares his spot with the toads and no one else. He has a path over to the bird house where there’s another hole claimed by a different gopher. It is kind of entertaining to watch. With 40 acres of land near us not sure why they haven’t found other locations to live. I suppose the hotel has a certain bit of charm now that it’s all cleaned up and tidy? 🤔🤣 Thanks for sharing your thoughts – always great to hear from you!

  3. You did a great job cleaning up the round garden! Try putting a small trap down for the rodent. Gotcha! Pouring cool water into your garden shoes should release your feet but do wear socks. I’ve seen some huge puffballs in Michigan and that gray smoke they let is nasty. My friend would take one home and cook it! Fry it in oil, says it’s tasty. OK, whatever you say!

    1. Thanks, Dan – yes I did. I’m still sore. Apparently, I’m no spring chicken anymore! 🤦‍♀️🤔😉🤣

  5. Every day is a wild hair adventure for me. As for gardening, I’m hoping to get to it this week. Our weekend was too hot for such things, but you tackled it like a pro. Well done.

    1. Thank you, Ally! Yay – gotta love free-spirit wild hair. I don’t know what I’d do without it, or my tangle-free hair ties! I hope the weather provides the opportunity you’re looking for. I couldn’t resist it when our weather got to be perfect for gardening. I’m now quite sore, so I wouldn’t recommend my particular madwoman technique! 🤔😂🤣

  6. A great gardening story Shelley. Are Gophers are real problem or should they be allowed to have a happy life in a place they enjoy like your wonderful garden? I did a bit of gardening but spent most of the time watering. one and a half hours in one quarter of the garden, I do wish it would rain, not like the few sprinkles here this morning. Enjoy your Summer what’s left of it 🙂 🙂

    1. Thank you, Brian. The gophers are only a problem when they eat my flowers. So far this guy just seems to have monopolized on the fancy digs and seems to leave the flowers alone. I do think he carries a bit of bird seed over to the hotel and that may have been what grew in the flower bed?
      WOW – that’s a long time to spend watering. It seems weird to me to hear rain in winter like you have. But, I hope you get rain soon too.
      Thanks – I’m doing my best to spend time outside, I’m not looking forward to a long winter! 😊😁🌞😎🌼🌻😄🌧

      1. It is a long time but I only have gravity fed water so it’s not a blast of water. I get rain from Autumn to Spring in bits and pieces, some months more than others which varies. I basically have two seasons – wet and dry.

        1. Wow – only two seasons. Ah, that makes sense then. We had one day last week where we got 5″ of rain. 5 days later we’re dry as a bone again. I spend about 15 minutes a day watering my plants.

          1. That is a lot of rain in a day to be dry so quickly. You must have very porous soils. Some parts of my garden are still moist from the rain in early July. I do have a lot of mulch on the garden though

          5. You’re welcome. One thing I forgot to add was your kick in the shins removing your boots.
            I never do that but mine is wearing a long sleeved jumper with tight sleeves, pulling the sleeves up to wash hands, for example, and giving myself a good punch in the chest 😂😂

          6. Oh, my, Brian, thanks for sharing that I’m not the only one to wound myself while dealing with challenging clothing! 🤣😂😉 Thank you for the smiles this morning!

  7. Love the photo of the bee on the flower. And I’m quite curious to hear more about the puffballs. I’ve never seen such a thing.

    1. Thank you, Lisa, I’m glad you enjoyed the photo. Ah, puffballs, they are quite interesting. I found a huge one in another part of the yard. I’ll have to take a few more pictures and share the life cycle of them in another post. 😉 Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it’s great to hear from you!

    1. Thank you, Janis. You’re right weeding can be so satisfying. So far the plants are ‘surviving’ and it looks as though the toad and the gopher are as well. Although the front door to the gopher hole has been overtaken by a large spider web, so maybe he moved on?! But I did see him in other parts of the yard, so I may be on a mission to capture some photos of him.

  9. You inspired me with your weeding Shelley. I have only weeded on a weekend day when it was cool as it’s been so hot this year. So maybe 3-4 times. I did it last Saturday. I admit that I didn’t do a stellar job in the backyard, but there is only one fence that anyone can see into the yard and that neighbor has a lawn service and NEVER weeds anymore. It looks like a jungle so I have to use the pole cutters to cut his elm “trees” and other nonsense growing over the fence. No wild hair as I’ve got stick straight hair, but I do need a professional haircut as it’s not been cut since October of 2019 and I’ve cut off any of the long layers that I had. I am not the best haircutter and I’ve not done any highlights as it looks better than the way she highlighted it – think “tiger” so I’m fine with it. I did plan to have her cut it this Summer, but I’m rethinking that due to the Delta variant. Soon it will be “hat time” anyway, so what the heck.

    1. I’m glad you found some inspiration. I think it would drive me crazy to have a neighbor that lets their yard overgrown into my yard. Come to think of it, we have those situations at our apartments. It is kind of rewarding to cut off the overgrowth that has reached our yard.
      I haven’t been to a hair dresser since 2016 (WOW) I just realized it’ll be 5 years coming up that I have been fully transitioned to gray. And my hair is very long and needs cutting too. Maybe I’ll treat myself to an appointment some day. Yes, hat weather is coming, maybe I need to look into buying some? Hopefully your hairdresser has found the ‘key’ to safe visits by now? If not, you’re right, the hats on phase will bring you the best plan for the winter.

      1. I can only reach so much Shelley and without going into his yard, I have to live with it, but it’s not good, as I’m less inclined to make my side/back yard look good. The weeds in the mulch are out of control from the heat/humidity/rain. I have to muster some enthusiasm to weed in the heat. I’m into year #2 of trying to get a small painting project done with no luck. I keep thinking I’ll treat myself to Jill one time to get the long layers back as my haircutting skills are not good. Five years for you – wow. It took a while though as your hair was long. Hats work starting October. Jill and Jim have a small shop and I understand from a fellow walker who goes to Jim that they can only have one customer in at a time and one customer to one hour ratio. I’m sure their business has been crushed this past year.

        1. I’m with you on unfinished projects. We’re not counting 2020, so we’re just 9 months behind … LOL. Yes, 5 years and counting on the gray, it’s hard to look back at pictures when I colored my hair.
          I fear that way too many small businesses didn’t make it through this. I feel for them, that’s for sure. Keep your hat handy, fall is near.

          1. I likely won’t make it to Jill’s until next year … I’m NOT handy with my scissors, so the option is plunk on a hat or get scissor happy.

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