Infiltrated!

We have had so much snow so far this winter we have already reached our annual seasonal snowfall amount, and are currently sitting at the fourth snowiest winter on record. We are two inches away from the third snowiest winter. Since it is only January and it is not impossible to have snow into early May, I’m sure third place is assured. Second place will require close to eight inches, not inconceivable. First place will require a little more than eleven inches, also possible since we’ve had March and April snowstorms bury us under a foot of fresh snow. No wonder biking this winter has been disconcertingly challenging!

All the snow piled up against fences and around the garden has allowed for rabbit infiltration. Thankfully it is late enough in winter that no smart rabbit will abandon their current burrow to find one under my deck and haunt my garden like Fat Rabbit did last year. However, the invader has already done major damage.

The invasion happened sometime this past week. There are a couple places at the garden perimeter that were so small we only put up chicken wire that was about two feet tall. With the snow so high, the Rabbit Invader was able to go right over the top. 

Friday evening when I went out to put the chickens to bed it was a little lighter than usual. I walked down the deck steps to discover Walter Crabapple had been stripped of quite a lot of bark. I swore. And when I waded through the above my knees snow to inspect the damage, I cried. Because the rabbit had not just eaten the bark down one side of Walter, no, the rabbit ate the bark all the way around, girdling the tree. The Rabbit Invader has killed Walter. We are heartbroken.

I waded around the garden to check on everyone else, following the rabbit prints in the snow. The good news is, since the snow is so deep, only the very tops of the bush cherries, gooseberries, and honeyberries have been eaten. A few of the raspberries were chewed on pretty good, but they will be ok.

The rabbit tracks let me find all three places of coming and going. I immediately scrounged around for blockade materials. Today James is out making the blockade more secure. We have now disturbed the snow enough that we won’t be able to tell if Invader Rabbit finds another way in unless there is more obvious damage or fresh snow (possible Wednesday or Friday). Fingers crossed Invader Rabbit has been thwarted.

I was going to tell you today that after much thinking and consulting with Garden, that we had all agreed on a new sour cherry tree in addition to moving the Juneberry from the Chicken Garden into the main garden. But Walter’s sudden and unexpected demise  means some additional flexibility is now possible. 

The cherry tree could go near Walter’s place, or not. I am planning on removing the second raspberry bed at the back of the garden because James revealed to me last summer that he wasn’t as fond of raspberries as I thought he was, and because we also planted the clove currant and a new honeyberry close to them, and, well, raspberries are unruly creatures. Last summer I had to keep cutting back canes that seemed to spring up like Hydra and crowd into the young berry shrubs.

The berry shrubs when bigger will not take up the entire space engulfed by the raspberries, so I was thinking of possibly making a small dye plant garden there. But now I am thinking of planting a high bush cranberry. It gets a little shady in the corner later in the day and my neighbor’s garage roof dumps roof runoff on the spot, both things a high bush cranberry would like. 

I still want a small dye garden though. This could now happen where Walter lived. Walter lived with a black currant, a gooseberry, rhubarb, and mountain mint. No one will be evicted, the dye plants would share the space with the current residents. There is another spot a dye garden could go near the compost bins in an area we tend to pile up leaves and twigs and other garden stuff that doesn’t fit in the bins at the moment or needs to be cut smaller. Obviously, we’d have to make a plan to manage the compost bins better. 

Since the original plans for everything included Walter, there is space for something else. We are considering a second plum tree. Also an option is building some permanent trellising and planting a couple of hardy kiwis. The ultimate goal is to have some light or late-day shade in the hotter parts of the garden so it isn’t too hot for squash to produce female flowers and/or tomatoes to drop their unpollinated blossoms. But I also have some ideas for using pole beans and other annual vines to provide some shade. So plum and hardy kiwi will wait for at least a year while cherry tree, high bush cranberry, and Juneberry get settled in. And since these are all small and won’t be making much shade for a while, I will have a chance to try out my pole beans and annual vines ideas. 

In spite of all these ideas and plans, I am grieving Walter’s death. We welcomed them to our family in May 2012 when the garden was still mostly grass. James and I, the birds, squirrels, bees and other critters will miss the beautiful, quirky, crooked being they grew to become. When spring arrives and we have to officially say goodbye, there will be a big Walter-sized hole when I look out the sliding glass door into the garden. I am sure we will have a ceremony to say goodbye and express our gratitude for Walter’s being. 

On a side note, thank you for all the thoughtful comments on last week’s post. I will reply as soon as I can. Last week was an exceptionally hectic one.

Reading

• Book: The Other Wind by Ursula K. LeGuin. The final book in the world of Earthsea. I’m going to miss not having more stories about Ged and Tenar.
• Article: North Dakota Anti-LGBTQ Bill Would Imprison Librarians for Not Removing Books. This is bad, very, very bad.
• Article: Florida gives its reasons for rejecting proposed AP African American Studies course. All of their reasons can be translated into, we are racist yahoos who don’t want to face up to the horrible things White people have done, and continue to do, to Black people.
• Article: Top 1% grab twice as much new wealth as everyone else combined. This makes me seethe.
• Article: How gas stoves ignited an American culture war. The absurdity is both funny and sad. An acquaintance who is very conservative got all upset because he thinks the government is going to make him buy a new stove and get rid of his gas fireplace. He posted a Christmas photo of his two kids sitting in front of the fireplace and said he would never deprive them of the joy of their gas-powered fire. It was so hard to not comment, you mean you would rather give your kids the additional joy of asthma and other health problems than give up a gas fireplace and stove? Seriously people, no one is going to break down your door and rip out your gas appliances.

Listening

• Audiobook: The World of Poo by Terry Prachett. A delightful story about Geoffrey who is staying with his grandmother in Ankh-Morpork, and has taken up collecting specimens with the aim of creating the world’s first poo museum.
• Podcast: Crazy Town: An Inconvenient Apocalypse with Bob Jensen
• Podcast: Movement Memos: Building New Worlds in and Era of Collapse. (podcast and transcript at link). The host talks with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson authors of Rehearsals for Living.

Watching

• Three Thousand Years of Longing. Oh y’all! Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, two beautiful people in a beautiful movie. 
• Bros. Did you say gay romcom? Yes please! This was all kinds of wonderful. I laughed, I worried, I got teary at the happy ending.