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| Ripe small sugar pumpkin |
You know, the hummingbirds leave in late summer. Sister Harriet said they leave when the yellowjackets come, but strictly speaking, I haven’t found that to be true. Most of them did leave several weeks ago, perhaps wisely so, but a couple of diehards keep visiting my feeders.
Every day I think I’ll take the feeders down and put them away.
“I
see the hummers are already flitting around out there,” said son Clint on
Saturday. So, I left the feeders in place.
Sunday
morning, it rained. “I’ll take those feeders down today,” I announced to Mike.
“The
hummers are still out there,” he responded.
A neighbor confirms that she also sees just two hummingbirds. I wonder if it’s the same two. Perhaps it’s so good here that they just can’t leave.
A couple of weeks ago in town, I heard a rustling in the kitchen, bringing to mind the sound a mouse might make while cavorting in plastic sacks. I was momentarily concerned, but I was busy at the time and forgot about it. A day later, Mike happened to look up from the newspaper he was reading to see a mouse scamper across the carpet and into the bedroom. We haven’t been troubled by mice in town for several years, so most of our traps are at the farmhouse. However, we found two and set them out with no results. I wondered if said mouse had found its way out of the house, but then I spied “sign” at the kitchen sink.
“We’ll bring back more traps from the farm,” Mike said.
“Oh
no! We just can’t let the mice cavort in this house for days without at least
trying to trap them,” I responded.
So,
Mike dutifully made a trip to town to buy a set of mousetraps.
Valid
reasons exist to keep the mice out of your home, chief among them that they
aren’t clean and carry diseases. They also gnaw on afghans and blankets and love
to build nests with the fluffy stuff I keep in my sewing room. Much is stored
in bins with lids, thank goodness!
So, the traps were set as we left on Thursday. On Tuesday, when we returned to the town house, I was pleased to see that we had trapped one mouse. Hopefully, that’s all it was – just one random mouse. (Dream on!) When we left again, we reloaded the successful trap and left the others in place.
The
hottest days of summer are surely over now. My gardens look a little stressed after the last hot spell. The plants also read the signs and know
that the season is ending. I wonder how many tomatoes will ripen and if the zucchini
will set on again. It’s time to harvest the small sugar pumpkin.
Some gardening websites promote fall gardens, but that never seems to work for me. KW
3 comments:
Still warm, but not overly so. Fall is creeping in and I love it. Our squash plants are still producing. I made a double batch (4 loaves) of zucchini bread yesterday and it tastes so good. We tried growing those cute little pumpkins again this year, but they've not done anything. We got quite a few last year which was so fun and Dan and Daniel enjoyed harvesting them.
Some years the plants just don't produce. This year I bought seeds from Burpee's and started my squash plants in the windowsill. The production hasn't been wonderful, but I have had more zucchini, crookneck, and mini squashes than in past years. When I asked my dad if we could grow pumpkins on the farm, he thought a minute and said the growing season was too short. So, I'm grateful for my three little pumpkins, and I consider it an indication of how much things have changed in 40 years.
I can just see Dan and Daniel harvesting the little pumpkins. How did you use them?
We used them to decorate around the house and Daniel shared his with his family for decorations. Nothing says fall like little pumpkins scattered around the house. (:
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