Judith Browning

hot, dry....still.
BUT, having a pump on the well is a game changer! https://permies.com/t/179996/Sprinkler-pumps-shallow-pumps-irrigation
We are still letting some annuals go where no amount of water will give them a boost at 100F days....but for the heat loving plants and young trees and shrubs this well water has been lovely....especially as we are low on stored rain water and can save it for the blueberries.

and then there's the woodchuck who cleaned all of the leaves off the big bed of sweet potatoes.  https://permies.com/t/380224/bait-livetrap-woodchuck-sweet-potato
The bed now has wire tunnels and chunks of wire fencing working to prevent more damage ..so far so good and the leaves are growing back quickly.

more figs ripening and fewer ants on them ...this is the tree by the porch that we covered over the winter.

sweet potato greens(close to the house that the woodchuck has not discovered) and moringa are our hot weather greens ..a few dahlia flowers to eat...the long beans are about done, lambs quarters a out to flower, cosmos and tithiniaß getting aome water where usually I have to let them go about now every summer
Broom corn seed is close to mature and my indigo is ready (but I'm not quite) for a dyeing project May has lined me out with😊

here's a couple bugs hanging out in my zinnias....sitting still waiting for their lunch to drop by🫤

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phymatinae

Ambush bugs occupy a similar niche to that of the crab spider, camouflaged with their host plant and lying in wait for pollinators and other invertebrate prey to come within range. These hemipterans often attack prey many times larger than themselves, which they subdue with an immobilizing venom.[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomisidae

 Members of this family of spiders are ambush predators and do not spin webs. The two front legs are usually longer and more robust than the other legs. The back two legs are smaller, and are usually covered in a series of strong spines.[7] Their coloration may be dull with colors such as brown or grey, or very bright green, pink, white or yellow to match their flower. These spiders are quite easy to identify, though can occasionally be confused with the usually larger huntsman spiders.

You cannot prevent
the birds of sorrow
from flying over your head,
but you can prevent
them from building nests
in your hair.

Proverb variously attributed to
Lao Tzu (5th century BCE, Chinese philosopher),
Martin Luther (1483-1546 German priest, theologian),
and Shido Bunan (1603-1676, Japanese Rinzai Zen monk, poet)

The earth is a living, conscious being.
In company with cultures of many different times and places
we name these things as sacred:
air, fire, water, and earth.
Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood,
and the body of the Mother,
or as the blessed gifts of a Creator,
or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life,
we know that nothing can live without them.
All people, all living things, are part of the earth life,
and so are sacred.
No one of us stands higher or lower than any other.
Only justice can assure balance:
only ecological balance can sustain freedom.
Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit
flourish in its full diversity.
To honor the sacred is to create conditions
in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge,
freedom, and beauty can thrive.
To honor the sacred is to make love possible.

Starhawk
(1951 to pres., neopagan, ecofeminist,
shaman, spiritual teacher)

Scott Leonard wrote:My  question is why do you want to live trap a woodchuck?  If you see one there's more. I read somewhere that an empty woodchuck den is repopulated in 10 days or less in areas with a healthy population.  I shoot and bury them in the burrow to keep others out. Anything you eat, they'll eat, a descending order of preference of course but they don't go hungry.

Scott, In the past, before we moved to town, your suggestion might have been the solution although we had a dog then (and no gun) who kept most critters chased off.
Although she killed a wood chuck for me once...a little beagle mutt who got dumped on our dead end road....best dog ever.  She even learned the difference between copperheads and other snakes...she would 'surround' a copperhead and had a special bark just for them until one of us checked on her.

In town now, no dog, still no gun....live trap is our choice at the moment.

thanks for all the ideas folks.

We did try peanut butter with no luck.
cat food would definitely catch wandering cats in this neighborhood and I know we have skunks that would like it so not trying that....

I think we'll pick up some fruit, maybe a melon and give that a try.

We just reheat it slowly in an oiled iron skillet on the gas burner...long grain brown rice.
I don't know anything about white rice.

Who so hath his minde on taking,
hath it no more on what he hath taken.

Montaigne, III. VI

from an NPR story today:

 In a 1998 interview for All Things Considered, Berry was hesitant to provide advice to young people looking to take after him, telling NPR's Noah Adams, "I think advising the young about a life course is probably not a responsible thing to do."

But when pressed, Berry added that, if at all possible, young people should look for opportunities to "stop some place, and stay there. Learn the history of it, and the names of the plants and animals and the neighbors."

Berry's writing is a lesson for the ages on slowing down, noticing, and deeply loving and respecting our surroundings.

 

we're going to miss his voice💜
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry

His anti war stance made me a life long follower of his way of thinking on all things.....

We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to 'win the hearts and minds of the people' by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them in concentration camps; we seek to uphold the 'truth' of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations. . . . I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war.

Berry delivered "A Statement Against the War in Vietnam" during the Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft on February 10, 1968, at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

do you have a favorite quote?
something he said or wrote that inspired you?

this corn is no longer available😊