Feast or famine

For most of the Northwest, it hasn't rained a drop since mid-June.  It's very dry after the wettest winter on record.  The green grass is history, but I'm still trying to keep the surface somewhat moist to "activate" the mole deterrent scent.  So far not working, and they are happily constructing new mounds on top of the ones I shoveled off yesterday.  The container directions say "be patient."

From the Old Farmer's Almanac:

• Moles are often mistaken for rodents, but they are actually insectivores. Their diet includes insect larvae, spiders, earthworms, and lawn pests such as slugs and grubs. They do not intentionally eat plant material.
• To meet their high energy requirements, moles eat just about 24/7. They often consume the equivalent of 60–90% of their body weight in a single day and may tunnel 100 feet in the process.
• Moles are well adapted to the darkness of subterranean living. Nearly blind, they compensate with their keen senses of smell, hearing, and touch.
• As they dig through the earth with their large, shovel-like forepaws, their tiny eyes are protected from dirt by thin membranes. Their nostrils face to the sides of their pointed snouts to avoid being clogged, and they lack external ears.
• They make themselves at home in lawns rich in grubs and insects.  

Anyway, there are worse garden plagues. And a least we're "rich in grubs and insects."

It's going to be another lovely weekend.  Ho Hum. How quickly we take great weather for granted.  The annual West Seattle Street Fair starts today, and I always walk down to the Junction and make the rounds.  I've been doing that since the 1980's, when it was still called a sidewalk sale, and frankly, more fun.  Then on Saturday afternoon we're going to a Gilbert and Sullivan production at the Seattle Center with some friends we haven't seen for a long time.  Sunday-- a day of rest, except perhaps for John, who has a big home "technology" job coming up.  More on that later.

Have a good weekend, dear friends and family.

Scram mole

Night shift

Miss me? It's amazing how much a person can get done in the early morning hours. That is, when they don't have their nose glued to a computer. I cleaned house, did laundry, cooked, washed windows, played my ukulele, watered the garden and took a break from screens, including TV. (OK, I looked at my phone occasionally.)

I was never much of a night owl and after decades of early alarms I suppose it's too late to learn how to sleep in. Even after John retires, we'll probably still eat early-bird dinners and go to bed at 9. But I envy those people who wake up at 4 am, roll over and go blissfully back to sleep.  The sign of a clear conscience. As soon as I open my eyes, my mind starts spinning like a washing machine and after a cup of coffee,  I'm rarin' to go.

These Seattle summer mornings are so brief and beautiful, it seems a shame to waste them sleeping.  Before the sun is even up, the hummingbirds are clicking outside the bedroom window on the crocosima.  The Yellow-faced Bumblebees seem to be multiplying and getting fatter. 

Gosh, this wonderful technology is time-consuming!  I waited around all morning yesterday for the Centurylink repairman to show up. I finally called to ask what's the deal, and the service department said they had already fixed the outage, which was "somewhere else." Indeed, when I picked up the land-line we had a dial tone again. Well, a call would have been a nice courtesy to let me know. On Monday, they claimed there weren't any system outages at Centurylink and the problem was inside our house. Well, it's best not to overthink these things. We're back on the grid.

As you know from reading this blog, I have a soft spot for all the wild and semi-wild creatures just trying get by on this harsh planet. Moles are one exception. For the first time in years, we have an infestation going on and big messy mounds of dirt pop up overnight.  True Value Hardware has an entire shelf section of complicated traps and diabolical poisons, so moles must be a common problem. You could easily spend hundreds of dollars on solutions that might not even work.

I don't wish them a miserable death, I just wish them someplace else.  So I bought a big $16 jug of Mole Scram, an "all natural deterrent" that smells a little like mothballs.  Which would probably work just as well, if you can still buy such an old-fashioned thing.

Centurylink to the rescue

Our home internet service is down this morning, so unless I want to park myself at McDonald's or Starbucks, blogging can only happen on my iPhone. And sorry that isn't going to happen, after taking 10 minutes just to peck out these few lines. Maybe the internet gods are suggesting a short vacation?  Centurylink is coming around tomorrow to rescue us. Until then, we're clinging to our tiny raft of technology: a couple of smartphones and a iPad.

Summer food

The Walla Walla Sweet onions are finally here.  I'm sure you can buy them all over the country now, but act fast. They don't keep like regular onions and they're only available for a few weeks in the summer. 

Walla Walla is located in the southeastern corner of Washington state. The Walla Walla onion was developed in the late 1800's, so it's considered an heirloom vegetable. About 20 growers cultivate the Sweets on around 500 acres.  Their onion website claims they produce "650-50 pound units" per acre. That's 32,500 pounds of onion per acre. Can that be right?  Wow.  

They also claim you can eat them like apples. How about a candied onion at the annual Walla Walla Onion Festival?

There are better things, like braising.  Walla Wallas' are so full of moisture it takes a couple of hours to cook down a big pot, but eventually you're left with something that tastes like onion taffy.  Not to mention a delicious smelling house. 

I love cooking (and eating) summer food.

The girls of summer

Maya and Nova

Twisp Community Pool

Paradise on earth?

Well, sort of... I went outside after dinner yesterday to take some flower pictures in the gorgeous evening light.  As I was enjoying our private little garden sanctuary, I suddenly heard a strange buzzing noise right above my head.   What the?!  It was a drone, just like this one. 

We hear about drones all the time on the news, but that was my first personal encounter.  Cute thing, but I'll tell you, being spied on from the sky on your own property is annoying, to say the least.  I went in the house and told John, who suggested some "anti-drone weaponry" he keeps locked up in the basement.  Too late for that, the drone was long gone.

I hope the remote pilot (wherever he was) enjoyed the aerial views of our garden.  It was a beautiful night for flying drones in the Urban Village.