Tag: War on Squirrels

Non-Update Update

Wolsey2 Comments

Well, not much is getting done. I might miss this season for gardening. After surgery I had a lot of recovery time, then I had to work on getting my garden cage squirrel-proofed, and that is a lot to do.

I haven’t even tried to plant without these protections in place because the squirrels are literally digging up my beds constantly. It’s never ending.

My garden plan is to finish the hoop house, and see if I can put some late crops in. Then slowly turn to my other beds. I have a new strawberry bed I need to cage up, as well as a sunflower, flower bed and herb beds that needs caged.

I have about 3/4 of my hoop house covered but it’s slow going. I just take a long time to heal, and my recovery from general anesthetic along with my work obligations have been a lot.

I am wrapping 1/2″ hardware cloth over the entire thing. I am using bricks to weigh down the ends of it, so squirrels can’t get in. You can literally see the squirrel holes in this picture.

My wife has been helping me because her 6’2″ height and long arms are very helpful compared to my 5’6″ stature. I am hoping this weekend to get more done. I am out of bricks so maybe I will pick some up on Wednesday afternoon.

I do like that in the picture you can see all the clover coming in. I’ve had a lot of it grow in from last year. I’ve been mowing it just like grass. I love it. I am going to seed the bald spots again and see if that helps. Clover is so nice! I don’t know why folks do grass yards.

We also had our HVAC system changed out a few months back to a heat pump. This is the single best adult purchase in my entire life. Our house is from 1935 and has thin exterior walls, so being able to control the heat and cold in the house to be comfy is a god send.

We spent $26,000 to do have the work done, and some of it was electrical to prep for this. We will see about getting some of that back at tax time, but honestly? I’d rather pay the small low interest home loan we got for it, and be comfortable.

It’s been a few months and we’ve had a few hot days, and it’s amazing. This, combined with the roof vents, and crawl space insulation means that no matter what, our home is the perfect temperature. This is the first time in a year and a half that it’s not over hot or over cold.

I decided I didn’t want to mow around the heat pump unit, so I dug up the grass around it, and laid down landscaping cloth, and put some gravel over that.

This is so tiny, but literally took me two hours, and I was physically wrecked for days!

I wanted to make sure the mowers or weed eaters didn’t come in contact with the important bits below:

Ignore the landscaping cloth peeking through, I am getting another bag of gravel this weekend to cover it.

Now we don’t have to worry about accidentally breaking anything. Honestly, I’d do the whole side of the house that way, because I hate grass lawns.

The other project I have been doing, a window or two at the time, is reflective UV film. I have been putting it on all the windows. it’s just like a giant vinyl sticker you install on the inside of your windows, that keeps out the heat, and is reflective enough you can’t see in.

You can hardly see in at all, and it sure does keep the heat of the sun out.

We have some very busy neighbors and my wife and I didn’t want to have folks being able to see us in our home. We found a product on Amazon, and used the silver version. No affiliate link, this is just what I used.

I was just impressed with how much heat this window film keeps out. It is also damn near impossible to see. In the picture above you can kind of see the back window, but that’s at 2 feet from the window. On the street, you see literally nothing. It’s 10/10 on blocking heat, and 10/10 on blocking folks from seeing in.

I am just trying to get all this infrastructure projects done. I don’t feel it’s the fun projects, but the basic ones to make everything livable. I am more into the decorating and planting, not the insulating and making the house livable.

I think next spring I will have all the garden beds protected with cages. I will have all the big livable projects done, and can start planting and maybe doing cool artsy decorating projects. I look forward to that.

Mostly, I am trying to give myself the grace that I would extend to anyone else. I am partially disabled. I can’t lift, or move the way healthy young folks can, so I am doing a lot. It’s just on my terms. I like to remind myself of that when I feel I am missing my own self imposed deadlines.

It is amazing though, that I have a house, and I can work on projects at my own pace because I will live here next year, and next year and so on. I sometimes forget I get to live here forever because I am so used to renting.

Garden Update 4-17-24

WolseyLeave a comment

My garden is not going to be up to snuff this year. Between having surgery, and finding out the squirrels destroyed every bed I had, I am going to have to reset my expectations.

My big plan is to get the original garden space covered in hardware cloth. I did the back wall last weekend and I’ll be damned if the squirrels will get into that side now. The end walls are the hardest and most fiddly to do, so now I have to do the 20 feet overtop wall and roof, and then the last end with the door.

Hardware cloth is a way better option. I had no idea they could get through chicken wire.

Once I get that done, I will top up my soil, and do some late planting. Then move my attention to building squirrel cages for all the new beds I invested in last fall.

Somewhere in there I have this gazebo on the front deck to build too.

It’s going to be slow, but I own the house, so it’s okay. By next spring I will be on a roll.

I had this incredible panic about failing to meet my self imposed spring deadline. Then I realized it’s because I am not used to owning a home. If I didn’t get it done immediately, I might have to move, and never get to do it.

Home ownership is such a kindness. I can do as much are as little as I can realistically do, and there is no rush. I can do it all year and my garden will eventually be up and running.

9/1/23 Garden Update

Wolsey2 Comments

I had a small surgery on the 24th of August, so I haven’t been as up and around as usual. However, my garden keeps on going.

Here’s some update thoughts on where we are at with it.

Glacier Bush Tomatoes from Botanical Interests.

The tomatoes have gone wild. Like I have more tomatoes than I can handle for two of us, especially since my wife has GERD. So it’s really like one of us, and occasional she has a bite. I got these Glacier Bush Tomato seeds from Botanical Interests, and they are a 55 day semi-determinate. They grew strong, fast, and blew up in my 8b area.

I definitely will be using some of these for next year, but less of them.

My cucumbers? Not so much. I just never got them off and running? I got a few cucumbers, but nothing to really brag about. I made a few refrigerator pickle jars, but it just was never enough to fully can them. I only got 2 or 3 at a time.

I got the Homemade Pickles Cucumber Seeds from Botanical Interests. I just don’t know if I know what to do with them much? The ones I did get, were amazing. Like I made some cucumber and tomato and feta salad with rice vinegar and olive oil and I could eat that for days.

I might have to figure it out this cucumber situation for next year. Some of my plants never really took off at all and I don’t know why.

Strawberry plants.

My strawberries also went crazy. I need to research how to manage them because they went wild. My plans for them is to transplant them into the front yard into another blue raised bed. I have the bed, but I have not put it together because my health was not super great that last couple weeks.

I am wondering if I can combine one of these raised blue beds with a raised bed situation and have the strawberries cascade down from above into the bed below? It would look cool, and remove an entire grassy area. I hate lawn grass.

Beets.

I got a misc beet mix from Botanical Interests, and planted that recently. I love beets, and I plan to make pickled refrigerator beets and some borscht with them. I should have enough for roasted veggies as well.

I’ve never grown beets, so I am just watching and waiting.

In all, for my first year here? This garden has done so damn well. I have not really ever had this kind of space and I am shocked at how easy it was, once I got the beds and green house set up.

The only downside, is I have had a squirrel incursion into my garden cage. I am not sure how they are getting in, but I plan to really go over the area once I am done for the season and patch up any holes in my perimeter.

More Garden Work

WolseyLeave a comment

-Originally published on Tumblr

Slowly but surely, I am working in the garden. It is definitely a bit frustrating taking so long on things because my body can’t keep up. I miss my 20s and 30s where my joint issues and pain were not as severe, and I could do all this in probably a solid weekend.

Anyway, I am proud of what I have going on.

I got both walls up, and all the long beds in. I ran out of chicken wire though. I won’t have that until Monday. Which is annoying!

My plan is to get the last two circle planters done, and the PVC door frame. I can chicken wire the damn thing when the wire comes in.

I have some dirt, but I don’t think it’s enough. I probably need like another $300ish dollars worth. I wish I had good dirt here, but nope. I don’t even have tree branches or wood to put in the bottom of the raised beds.

But wait. . . Whats’ the pile of dirt in the below picture?

I can’t use that lump of dirt in my beds. I pulled that out of my lawn, and it’s sod, dirt, rocks, glass, plastic, roofing shingles, oyster shells, playing cards, beer cans, and god knows what else. I don’t feel it’s safe to have it in with my vegetables.

Instead, since I don’t have a truck, I have been packing it into amazon boxes, and putting it in the garbage one box at a time.

This is besides feeding an entire disassembled TV console into the garbage, one or two boards at a time.

Who knew homeownership would also include patiently disposing of items you had no ability to get rid of any other way because you drive a KIA, and do not have a truck.

As always, work is dependent on my body’s ability to keep up.

I guess it’s good that spring just sort of started up this week, and was so late, because I had nothing done in time anyway. However, at least it will all be set up for next year, and all I’ll have to do is to amend the soil and plant.

Garden Progress & Operation Squirrel Interdiction is a go

WolseyLeave a comment

Well, I got the chicken wire up on Operation Squirrel Interdiction.

I am going to use PVC pipes on the front there, and make a door that is all chicken wired.

I am thinking of covering the ground with gravel, but I can’t seem to figure out how much gravel I need, and I had sticker shock when I looked at Lowes.

It occurred to me my cat can come out with me to the garden when it’s done because it will be inclosed. She may like that.

I also used some of the surplus dirt to fill holes in my front yard. Oliver the big black main coon stray cat that was re-homed and his incredibly feral littermate were using my entire front yard like a free roaming litter box. I had thought it was a dog because the leavings were so damn big. These cats are bigger than some dogs.

The result is my lawn looking like it is going through chemo because of the tufts of grass and big dug out holes.

So with the holes filled, we seeded the lawn with clover seed. We prefer clover to grass. We will see how that works out.

What I have learned is the lawn looks like it was landscaped with some sort of garbage rock fill dirt. There is literally garbage all over. Glass, roofing shingles, plastic, kids toys, and so damn many rocks. It’s bad. I am glad I am going with raised beds and expensive new dirt.

I mean, the city I live in is notorious for superfund sites anyways, and you have to get the soil checked if you want to grow in the ground. I don’t even want to try, and now with all the rocks and crap? Yeah, no. I’m not in a specifically known site, but I’m not taking chances.

I had to order more T fittings for the PVC and it won’t get here until Thursday. That and a couple bails of straw are the last items I need to start an actual garden.

It may be late in the seasons, but honestly the last frost date just happened so we are all late this season.