UPDATE: Thanks to a clever suggestion from LawSchoolGirl, who is home for the summer, the CanMan (who she maintains looks more like a can monkey - so be it) needed a couple of details. Voila. CanMonkeyGirl! Now, back to the original post:
My impulse to keep taking photos of the morning glory vine babies to chronicle their progress has birthed a new saying here at Gardenista: "As boring as watching the vines grow". Which for me, means not boring at all. For everybody else around here? Meh!
OK - truth be told it is not my taking the photos that is so much the problem as my irritating insistence that others view the photos and express what would apparently be faked enthusiasm for their progress.
Scene: Urban home office. Two adults seated at their desks, backs to each other, facing their computer monitors.
Adult 1: Hey honey! Look at how much the morning glories have grown since yesterday!
Adult 2: (not looking) Ummm hmmmmm.
Adult 1: Seriously honey, take a look at these two photos! Look how much progress they've made! Isn't it something?
Adult 2: (still not looking) That's great.
Adult 1: SWEETHEART. LOOK.
Adult 2: (barely glancing) Yeah. Great. Did you read that Dartmouth study on the lack of association between spending more on health care and getting better results?
And so it goes.
It is a good thing we "decided" to create a wildlife friendly space in our yard. The deer have taken to using the vinca major as a drop in day care for their babies.
Please know this is not a result of anything new we are doing, deer of all ages and stages have been hanging around in there whenever it suited them all along.
This is simply the first time I've been able to capture evidence since my car has been temporarily displaced from its spot in the garage while some 75 year old church pews are in there awaiting their eventual transformation into benches for various family abodes.The deer are totally adorable when babies and I am charmed by the idea of sharing our space with them. Once they are weaned off mother's milk and become mindless grazing machines however, their negative impact on our landscaping efforts and their persistent attraction to certain flower heads I would like to feature in the front yard mean we are destined to clash.
Simultaneous with the morning glory vine success, I had reasonable luck getting some zinnia babies started. I have them in a pot out front. I really appreciate the deep hues of zinnia blooms and tried having them out front before only to have Bambi and company show up to delicately raze all the blooms off the tops of the stalks.
When I grow zinnias I am all about the blooms. Not so much interested in a pot full of zinnia stalks. So this go round I was ready to take certain steps to protect my flower babies.
Enter the Can Man. I keep reading that if browsing deer bump into something that clanks and/or moves around they will startle and move on. So I have fashioned a Can Man - very clanky - moves with even a gentle breeze - and have deployed him to assume Zinnia Protective Maneuvers.
As is typical for my efforts I am smitten with the results. We shall see if anybody else finds my ScareDeer charming or if they rather feel he is a bit, well, junky looking.I made him with a bit of a tongue out attitude, so he's ready for potential critics.
I get that some folks are attracted by formal gardens and well kept borders. I am clearly not one of those people.
I'm not one of those people either, and I love, love, LOVE Can Man!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I can relate to your enthusiasm (apparently considered over-enthusiasm by some, I guess) about seedling growth rates. My latest geeky rave is that I finally spotted my first tiny tomatoes from one (only one) of the plants I grew from seed!
Thanks, Iris! Can Man has morphed into CanMonkey Girl. Hope that doesn't break the spell. I have such tomato envy specifically and really, vegetable garden envy overall for your place. We are working on a permaculture everything grows everywhere premise here currently and while it has its charms, the disarray gets to me now and again.
ReplyDeleteLawSchoolGirl done good! I like CanMonkey Girl as much or more than Can Man.
ReplyDeleteWe have PLENTY of disarray here, too. But this heat is a good excuse to ignore those parts for another four months, right?
This heat! I am not prepared for triple digits so soon. I waited until right before dark to put more water on my tomato and pepper plants and it was still hot enough to work up a sweat hauling buckets from the rain barrels. I will be ignoring a LOT if this keeps up. Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteI love Can Monkey Man/Girl too, TexasDeb, but was too amused at the conversation between the "two adults seated at their desks, backs to each other, facing their computer monitors."
ReplyDeleteIt sounds so much like what happens here where my husband & I share an office and in Illinois where my sister and her husband report the news to each other.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Thanks, Annie. If I can't depend on plants in this dry windy heat at least the cans won't rust as quickly..... Feel free to put your considerable talent to work setting this very familiar scene into song, won't you? It could be called "He Said/She Said". : )
ReplyDelete