My wild garden

My garden is desperately overgrown. The grasses have invaded the beds and the vegetables need picking. I might add that is is had been over 100 degrees for weeks now and the only time to be doing yard work is in the early morning or evening.

The wildlife seems to like it though. This morning two cardinals were playing among the weeds. I wonder what they are finding to eat but it looked like they were chasing bugs. They are fun to watch as they dart in and out of the overgrown roses.

The rabbits snack in the evening and early morning too. They venture in to the yard when they know the dogs are in the house. We have such fat bunnies. I can't help but think it is too bad that we don't eat them. I can't imagine skinning them but I am sure I would not mind trying them.

Come Fall I will take my tiller and stir up the earth. I will add horse manure to try and enrich the clay based soil. I will wait until the rains come again to pull the weeds. They will be huge by that time and I hope they do not seed. My plan will be to forget the plants I love. I will try to be more practical and put more natives in. My rock rose is doing so well I should put more of that in. I will keep my antique roses but I am going to try and fill the garden with natives so the weeds cannot sneak in again. Functional and beautiful. That is my aim. I wish in these past three weeks I had been able to weed or do yard work. I feel so very useless.

Some planet must be in retrograde

This has been a tough summer for most of my friends. Injuries to humans and pets, money troubles, not getting "sure-thing" jobs, break-ups and fights. Something powerful be in retrograde. I thought perhaps Saturn but on further inspection, I saw that is is actually Neptune and Pluto. But Saturn is the big nasty planet according to astrological sources. I do wish I had an idea.

Who knows? I am an Aries with a Cancer moon. That give me my domestic edge. Rising sign is Leo which I would think would give me strength and self confidence. My other match-ups are Venus/Aries, Mercury/Aries, Mars/Virgo, Jupiter/Taurus, Saturn/Pisces, Uranus/Virgo, Neptune/Scorpio and Pluto/Virgo. Now really, I have no idea what any of that means. If anyone has a clue, I would love enlightenment.

View from the couch...squash bug is finally off the screen on the porch. No grasshoppers either. I think our fat lizards are getting some good eats. The lemon trees are thriving on the porch since I remember to water them there and the grasshoppers cannot eat the leaves. I had to wipe all the scale off the lime tree. That seems to have revived it a little bit. Someday I would like to plant them outside but for now I htink the pots are best.

I did see one of our roadrunners with a snake in his mouth yesterday morning. I hope it was a copperhead baby not a simple garden snake. I have not seen any deer lately. Wonder if the neighborhood cougar has been eating them or if they simply at staying closer to the river.

The grass is crunchy. I am having my sister move the sprinkler around the trees so they can have a drink. I am worried that the foundation of the house is going to crack with how dry it has been, especially the new addition. Even the sprinklers don't seem to be putting out as much water as I thought would keep the lawn green. I wish I could check them all but that is a bit too much mobility for me at this point, our garage where the controls are is like an obstacle course. More on the garage later....I shudder thinking about it.