Semi-secret garden

In case you’ve not yet noticed, I’m just enjoying the spit out of my patio. I’m hoping that dowsing all my tomato plants with cayenne will keep marauding raccoons out of them. (So far, so good, after one nearly rip cherry tomato disappeared in toto, not just pecked at or nibbled on. So I had to Take Measures.)

But beyond the prospect of summer eats, I’m getting such a kick out of the little critters who come to visit.

Except for the squirrels. I could do without them. And the bully birds.

(Interesting about those: there’s a species of black bird—smaller than crows, but still fairly sizeable as birds go—that just gobbles up the seed. I mix in a lot of safflower seed, which they don’t like, but they still come by. However, they’re very easily frightened—just like human bullies. Yesterday, I was sitting in my chair when one of them landed on a branch at the edge of the patio. I just pointed at it and it flew away. Hand to God, I just raised my arm straight out, with finger pointed, and it scarpered.)

Well, but there are a couple of little chipmunks that like to eat the seed that the birds shovel onto the ground. (Seriously, they thrust their little beaks into the seed and just scatter it all over the place. Don’t even seem to be trying to eat.) I adore watching them.

He was joined by this cardinal:

I hardly need subscription TV.