Toadfish Monastery

A proper garden isn't always a must. A good portion of my 'garden' is in large storage totes or 20L plastic buckets, in a rough-and-ready greenhouse. Soil is still required (I line the bottom with charcoal and drill drainage holes a couple of cm above the bottom).  After losing 10 lbs of tomatoes in 24 hours to a whitetail doe last September, I've had to keep them barricaded. The cucumbers are very happy with the situation, and with 3 bins containing 8 plants each, I am starting to eat my fill of small (pickling) cukes every day.  One of my tomatillo plants is over 7 feet tall. I suppose the gardening habit is not exactly a lazy pursuit, but it's rather sedate most of the time. It only occasionally involves firearms. 

I was away for the weekend and the deer have moved in early this year due to drought; they got into my admittedly weak fence around one garden plot (it's just sharpened stakes crossed along the front, and stakes with string along the back - also forgot to place stakes across the entrance) and started nibbling the zucchini plants in another mostly undefended bed. Spent the evening after work putting up some proper fencing mesh with rather temporary posts (fresh cut young aspen trunks) around that zucchini bed. If the chain link doesn't fall down and flatten my plants they should be safe.

I am not too upset about them nibbling the peas in the first bed (I've eaten at least 1000 pea pods already), but they completely wiped out several heads of radicchio and severely pruned some lettuce stalks that I was letting go to seed for next year's supply. Those lettuces survived a bear attack earlier in the season, so I hope they will bounce back enough to put out a few seeds. If they're simply jumping the fence, I expect a return visit, but I didn't see any evidence of them on the game camera today.

Last _{forget produce, boar is edible. So is deer, and bear.} Post

I was unaware that bears eat lettuce. I know that they eat plants too but assumed it was mainly high calory stuff like berries.

Last _{What has nature come too, if even bears turn into woke treehuggers? Are they just winter conservatives now?} Post

Last _{Imagine bears sitting down and enjoying a nice Caesar salad} Post

Difficult. Most bears prefer to go undressed.

Last _{and do cows shake in fear enough when the bear approaches to deliver the cheese in time?} Post

I can confirm this. When they run away, I've definitely seen a bear ass.

They eat greens mostly in the spring, and love dandelions especially. High calorie foods are important pre-hibernation, but after exiting the den it's important to get the system moving again....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_plug

My guess is that the bear thought the lettuce was a particularly fancy dandelion, but found it not to its taste.

I follow a bear-like pattern of seasonal eating, lots of greens (including dandelions) in the spring, berries and fish in the fall (I do not hibernate and do not suffer from fecal plugs, thankfully). Lately I have been battling small rodents (voles and mice) over tomatoes and zucchini, and trying to come up with ever more elaborate and inevitably  inadequate defenses to keep the deer out of my stake-fenced garden. They were back over the weekend (I was driving across the entire province and back to pick up a couch) and seem not to be bothered by the beer cans with rocks in the bottom strung from fishing line around the inside of that garden, which was intended to startle them. There was a bear walking past the garden in a few pictures, but it didn't bother coming in.  The proper(ish) fence around the zucchini seems to be keeping the larger animals out. My 17 zucchini plants are so productive that I can't really be bothered to set mouse traps to kill the little nibblers (they mostly just damage the outer skin of the squash, which can be peeled away), but I killed an unfortunate amount in the greenhouse, which were subsequently added to the compost pile for extra nitrogen.

Last _{fires are getting worse around here... my sister's house was in the main battle zone in Kelowna and nearly burned down} Post

We had enough rain in the recent days to decrease the immediate fire hazard.
No bears were spotted in the neighbourhood but one was shot in a neighbouring country for going after cows.
A recently reported lion in town is now belived to have been a wild boar instead. How BOARING!!!!

Last _{will it be laid bare that the bear can't bear to bare it all?} Post

My close friend in Yellowknife had to evacuate to Calgary due to the fires.

As for the boars, sure, those can be tasty but be mindful of parasites as many are properly infested with them.

Last _{no worms in my diet, please} Post

The hail- and thunderstorms announced for yesterday around here did not come to pass.
Well, they did not come or they must have passed us by, so why did I use that mor(m)on phrasing? Actually, no idea.

Last _{a biz fuzzy in the head this morning after a night of low sleeping quality} Post

No noteworthy animals in my outer city vicinity. We do have magpies chasing foxies, quite interesting to watch, the magpie swoops making a huge amount of noise, apparently trying to peck the fox, meanwhile the fox moochingly change direction but does not attempt to run away, this action repeats until they are out of sight.

Last _{Awake all night again} Post

We have foxes around here too but it has been quite some time since I last saw one.

Last _{looking mostly on the screen not through the windows} Post

Btw, nice to receive a sign of life from you, Griffin!

Trouble at mill. System will be down for a while. Email Griffinit@gmail.com

System fully upgraded.  Now on our new server and hosting package. Latest SMF/php.

Sneaking in while everyone else locked out, to grab the last post.

I am trying to find the avatars. They go missing every time a major upgrade occurs.

Aha! Found some of them. I've amended the system to include them. To see/choose them -> profile -> select choose avatar from gallery -> choose "Siblings".

Last _{sorry about the avatars} Post

It's back!!!!

Last _{I missed you} Post

I somehow can't change my profile to reactivate my avatar (number 50 on the list). I always get the error message "no HTML tags are allowed" despite none of those anyhwere in sight.

And somehow I got logged out despite specifying to stay logged in forever when logging in.

So I have to take the Last Post for Grand Moravia without my bronze head.

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on October 13, 2023, 10:24:13 PMIt's back!!!!

Last _{I missed you} Post

Can you see your avatar in the list? (see migration thread in "Forum Stuff"). Swato gets a message he can't save his into his profile as it finds html which is a mystery so would be good to know if you do too. And yes, I missed you too.

Swato, I'll look at forever another time. Quite busy, but sometime. I always do forever, I'm sure we didn't have to set it every login before. These software upgrades always seem to make things worse not better.

Quote from: Swatopluk on October 13, 2023, 10:35:26 PMI have to take the Last Post for Grand Moravia without my bronze head.

Last _{But you can't keep it without your bronze head} Post