Summer interlude: Terrible tenants, biting bugs, and floral frippery

It's 90+ degrees Out There.  I've stopped counting.  The humidity matches the numbers.  My last foray into garden tending got me bit by something that now has antibiotic ointment covering it.  Once again, I'm cowering in the house. 

Yes, I've spent the requisite amount of Ravelry time.  And I've been taking pictures in the garden.  I'll sample from some shots in Z00mBr0wser.  It will be short, sweet, fiber and garden amusement.

Mr. Cardinal was caught in the act at the feeder.  This satisfies the Cute Critter Quotient for the post today. 

I have, against my will, become an Evil Landlord.  Several weeks ago, indignant chirps made it clear that a chipmunk had set up housekeeping in the garage.  I caught him once in the Hav-a-heart trap.  Ever the optimist, I let him out on the lawn, hoping he would find less traumatic lodgings.  He was back within a day.  Two weeks later, I managed to chase him out.  He is very stupid.  I stood quietly for seconds.  He reappeared.  I herded his terrified self out, closed the door, dusted off my hands, and thought, "Problem solved.  Clever human."  A week later, I was standing behind the car with Rolf the Tree Guy.  The chipmunk made a strafing run on the driveway past the garage door opening.  You could see the momentary hesitation at the midpoint.  "AB0RT MISSION!  Predator at 9 o'clock! "  Minutes later, he scurried in the opposite direction, same battle plan.  You could see his mini-chipmunk mind running its few program modules.  He had not forgotten that lovely home, complete with a lifetime supply of sunflower seeds.  (Yes, he chewed into the bag twice, despite the tape and the plastic covering his previous successes.)

I did miss his chirrupy presence.  Mr. Etherknitter came home yesterday.  "Good news and bad news," he teased me.  "He's back.  But now there are two."  Oh.  I am very stupid.  I will leave them for now.  The sunflower seed bag has been transferred to the mudroom.  I'm sure they have enough stored for weeks.

I have joined the Unholy Coven of Woolcombers.  Chris lent me her combs, Marcy made sure I didn't injure myself.  Alpaca on the left, Leicester Longwool on the right.  The residual fiber left on the combs bothers me.  Marcy adamantly rejects the term "waste".  That has not decreased the peculiar satisfaction of learning a new, arcane skill.

Four flowers currently in bloom:   Cerise:  Hemerocallis 'Rhinestone Kid' (daylily), pale yellow flower, name lost to foliage-covering tags, Adenophora confusa (Ladybells), and Hemerocallis 'Double Old Ivory'.   

Comments

[Barbara-Kay]

Your weather sounds just like home - her in South Louisiana, that is. Only difference is that 90's with 90% is normal. Sigh.

[Mary Lou]

yellow looks like scabiosa - and those ladybells are my garden equivalent of chipmunks. They invade everything in my yard. Nice cardinal shot.

[Kim]

Thankfully we seemed to have escaped the heat that everyone is experiencing. Humid yes, but it has not been overly hot, thankfully.

Your flowers are so pretty and Mr. Cardinal is stunning!

[Carole]

At least they are in the garage and not the house.

[Cheryl]

has it bee that hot just an hour south of me? Amazing. It's been terribly humid here, but not hot. Cool and humid is a very strange combination though.

I do love looking at that picture of the Leicester longwool.

[Cathy]

Ahhh chipmunks. And soon there will be a dozen. The little ones will enchant you. Of course I am gnashing my envious teeth over the Double Old Ivory. Gorgeous.
A comb addict. Fun, huh?

[--Deb]

Cowering in a cool, bug-free house sounds pretty much ideal to me . . . Your flowers look gorgeous, though!

[Marcia Cooke]

I'll trade you two chipmunks for a skunk and a woodchuck who have taken up residence in the stone wall! Your flowers are gorgeous, as usual, but I'm most excited about your woolcombing! I finally blew a considerable chunk of change for a clamp for my wonderful Forsyth mini combs, which makes the process so much easier. I'm ashamed to say that I've never even had my Forsyth 4-pitch combs (which will dehair stuff that has two coats!) out of the box. Oh, and a news flash: Halcyon Yarn's equipment catalogue claims that Kromski bobbins ($15 per) will fit on Schacht wheels. Just saying.

[Juno]

This is like the conversation of wool processing. How much will you lose? Does it matter - if it is losable, then DO YOU WANT IT?
Quality baby.

Top looks good.

[elizabeth]

I second the scabiosa vote, and I MUST get some combs! Or a carder. Why start small?

[margene]

No wonder you cower in the house...chipmunks may be taking over soon;-)
Your fiber processing is beautiful. Anne loaned her combs to me and I'm trying to find time to practice.
The flowers are amazingly beautiful as is the cardinal. Nature always awes.

[Marcy]

Lovely lovely photos.

Not waste, by-product. :D

I believe chippies cannot chew through metal cans.

[Carrie]

People always exclaim when I tell them I live in Arizona, and say, "How can you stand the heat?!" Well, it was about 100 yesterday, with 25% humidity (50% during an actual rainstorm). I think your muggy almost 100 trumps my dry 100, personally. But I don't have those pretty pretty flowers...

[Caroline M]

The waste isn't waste, you could card it for a soft fluffy yarn or felt it or stuff something with it. If it makes you feel better, stick it in a bag marked "combing fluff" and let it mature in a heap for a few years. I will buy combs at some point but not until my own chipmunk grows up a bit.

My mother had a china cardinal, I've never seen a real one.

[Beth S.]

Metal cans should solve your problem--I believe my father (who is a great lover of birds, and hater of small thieving rodents) swears by them for birdseed storage.

Whatever bit you, I hope you got your revenge on it. Ugh!

[maryse]

i have a family of bunnies who eat all of my attempts at growing anything.

wanna trade?

[naomi]

Lovely pictures (and subjects) all. Good luck getting rid of your unwelcome tenants.

[Chris]

Ooooooo, pretty combed stuff. Did you try any blending? Or color work? Good practice: find something in stash with colors that do not please as much as they did on the spur of the moment, then comb together with white to mute the color, black to darken, or something complementary to perhaps bring out more of the color you like.

[kmkat]

Ha, chipmunks! We have varying numbers of them living behind a rock retaining wall. Their angry chirping when one of the cats is outside drives me up batty. #2 son goes after them with an airsoft gun. He never seems to hit them but does scare them back into their burrows. Problem solved, except now we have a bazillion little 1/8" plastic pellets scattered around outside.

Definitely a scabiosa. They are only marginally hardy here, but I love 'em anyway. I covet your daylilies -- by all that is green and flowery, next year I shall have some of my own.

Get all that sunflower seed into metal cans, even if it is in the house. All things rodential love it and will chew through anything except sturdy steel to get at it. Ask me how I know...

[claudia]

I like combing. Thats the only fiber prep for which I have kept the implements.

[Lucia]

You're reminding me of my grandmother's garden.

You don't have any wool stored out there, do you? Remember Stephanie's cautionary tale. (Rodents are rodents are rodents, as Gertrude Stein might have said.)

[Cassie]

*Holy* coven of woolcombers, dude.

So, when're you going to get your own set?

[June]

I have recombed waste to recover more good fiber - when pressed, I get about 90% yield. However, I separate the recombed top from the virgin combed stuff because the quality is remarkably different. If I have a lot of fiber but didn't pay a whole lot for it, I chuck the waste (or save it for doll stuffing, I guess).

[Ruth]

We have a whole colony of chipmunks living in and underneath our barn. Perhaps they've sent pioneers to your house?

[julia fc]

Isn't that a scabiosa?
And Ladybells! dammit, I was doing a mentor walk through a friend's garden today and couldn't remember the common name for adenophora. I felt like such a asshole.

[Anne]

I do NOT miss the humidity. The heat is bad enough. I think there was a good Rita Buchanan article from Spin-Off a while back about good things (spinable) to do with the extras left on the combs. You want me to look for it?

[minnie]

ooooooo, pretty pictures!

funny story!

thought you'd like to know i finally found a project for that alpaca laceweight we split oh so long ago (i'm thinking atleast 2 years!). what is it, you may ask? guess! the most popular project out there rightnow!

[Cindy D]

Cardinals always make my day!!! When will we learn that animals own the earth and that we are just their audience.

[vanessa]

evil human!

[Romi]

What a gorgeous bird! I am so jealous - we have none in California. Cardinals, that is. :)

[Melissa G]

Great photography! I had an interesting gardening conversation about day lilies vs asiatic lilies--is the admiration mutually exclusive?

[Spinneret]

Wow, where did you get that day lily? And Congrats! This means that the Camera is back from surgery?