Dog, Cats and Chickens, Oh My.

The dogs have a new thing, where they'll scramble down a steep bank of the irrigation canal and graze on a patch of wild grass, and drink from the canal. Pogi found a dead squirrel, almost squirrel jerky, and carried it for a half-mile, occasionally crunching it's little bones. He finally dropped it, but I suppose that it was road kill that kept him alive before I found him. I can't control the strange things they find and eat when off leash, but I do give them worm meds every month.

The cat/chicken lady came by and borrowed a little money for food, and I also gave her a quart of lemon marmalade and a sack of red onions. She's an animal hoarder with an ecosystem where her cats eat her chickens, but she cannot kill chickens herself. She gathers eggs, and is trying to catch ten birds to sell to somebody for $1 each.

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I sprayed the eggplant again with neem oil, next week I might try horticultural oil, which is harsher, but possibly more effective. I still have more eggplant plants than last year, and next year, with a little more experience, I could get a bumper crop. I'm nurturing the lavender starters, moving them in and out of the sun, and watering judiciously, but I'm down to maybe 9 out of 20. The new grass is suffering, but it still looks better than weedy earth. At some point, the bermuda grass will move in and take over.

I suspect the cute little songbirds are now feeding on my almonds. I see them hanging around, but haven't actually caught them in the act. As the almond fruit splits open, these little birds may finally have a easy time getting at the nut. If the crows and magpies were decent birds, they would have told these little guys what I'm capable of.