Patron Saint of Lost Dogs, Arrant Deer and Errant Mishaps

Hi everyone,

Guess what? Yesterday, two dogs showed up in our yard. One of course, the beagle, wasted no time in making himself at home. The other was a little skittish and I had to coax him out of the woods to feed him. Now they are both sleeping like babies on my porch. Only one dog, the boxer, had tags for his microchip. I called the number and the company traced the dog's ID back to his owner. They hadn't updated their information and they couldn't be reached. They did let me know the dog's name was Jake and he was from Ft. Myer's, Florida. Jake's in rough shape. He's hobbling on his back legs like he's sore and shaking pretty badly and is way too skinny. So we're nursing him back to health. The other dog, temporary name of Buddy, has bad doggy manners and jumps on me when I go outside. I spent the day yesterday training him not to do it--with little effect. However, our dog Boomer, growled and menaced him every time he jumped on me, so today--no jumping. There's something to be said for peer pressure. I had to go into town to buy another giant sized box of dog bones, so now everyone is happy. I don't believe these two will leave any time soon--they're way too comfortable.

We're having a problem with the deer in the orchard. Recently we went up there to switch our water tank over to the full one. (BTW, we have a rain-fed water collection system). We noticed teeth marks on our water valve box, but didn't think too much of it. So yesterday, we pumped water up to the orchard to fill up the empty tank from the one that gathers water from our roof. Since we'd done it thousands of times and had no suspicion the water wouldn't go into the intended tank we took a short cat-nap. When we awoke, turned the water pump off, walked up to the orchard, we found that we'd lost 900 gallons of water. A deer had chewed a hole in our black plastic water pipe. Before anyone gets too excited about our great loss, we have three 1100-gallon water tanks in the orchard and our collection tank holds 1500 gallons. We still had 600 gallons left to pump, so everything's just peachy in the water department. It's been raining quite a bit lately anyway. However, we have no idea what to do about the deer. So if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Guess that's all I can tell you for now. Everyone take care and have a safe and Merry Christmas.

Busy in Tennessee

Hi all, 

A special thanks to all those who sent me kind messages about my book "Unplugged."  I appreciate the support.  You're the best.  

Now that I've settled back in to life after being in Alaska for two months, I've decided on a few things.  First, I need to get my garden cleaned up for next planting season.  If you've been keeping up with my blogs, you'll know that I've mostly lost my battle with weeds, but with each spring brings new determination to win.  Perseverance--that's what it takes.  The snakes have all gone to bed so this is a good time of year to clean.  After that, I'm planning to rebuild all the beds and soil.  Years ago, I built deep beds for my herb garden and filled three-foot boxes, in equal amounts, with clay (which I have quite a lot of), sand (I had to buy) and black dirt (found deep in the woods underneath the layers of leaves).  It was a lot of work, but I had the most fabulous herb garden for years.  It was the perfect combination of soils--in fact it was the only thing I grew well.  So this year, I'm planning to do the same for my vegetable garden. The second thing I plan to do with the long winter months is to declutter my house.  My grandmother always said one fire equals three moves.  I don't plan on either, so I'm going to have to be brutal.  I might even take in some episodes of Hoarders to motivate me.  In any case, I have quite a lot to do.   

Take care,
Hillary B.

hsbergeron@yahoo.com