Lawn and Murder Bees

Last summer, we (well, mostly I), continued to tend our vegetable garden. After protecting the garden with chickenwire and closing it off like Fort Knox to keep the rabbits out after they decimated my snap peas in 2021, we did manage to keep out most of the yard herbivores and harvest some things. Here, for example, is one of our tomato harvests. (I have many more harvest pictures from 2022 but this post isn't really about that, so imagine radishes and cucumbers too.)

The fact was, however, I didn't really enjoy gardening (at least not after it got about 75 and the mosquitos came out) and the kids did not want to help and, well, it was much easier just to buy those veggies from the store. Things had become a little wild by the end of the summer as I went out less and less to avoid being assaulted by biting insects:

So last fall, we made the rewarding decision to give up on veggie gardening and turn it back into yard:

This summer, it was a lovely patch of grass (and not even the weed-filled grass of the rest of the yard, yet). Though we tried to level it as best we could, it is still a little mounded, but hopefully as the tilled ground compacts, it will mostly be level with the rest of the yard. And really it probably is only noticeable to us.

All was well. We spent our limited gardening time in our flower beds along the front of the house and the back fence line, slowly trying to build out our pollinator-friendly spaces.

Until...the yellow jackets came...D noticed some activity in the lawn while watering the back garden a few weeks ago. He had mildly angered...some buzzing things...and went over to investigate. About 10 feet away from the activity, he got  a stinger to the neck and turned tail and headed indoors. After asking some neighbors and doing some research, he learned that they were most definitely not ground bees, which are solitary (and usually stingless, which these assuredly were not), but likely a yellow jacket nest. Yellow jackets are aggressive and really not something you want to mess with. And while they can excavate their own hole, they will often find space where the ground is looser or even dug out by something like a groundhog. Like the soft earth of our former veggie garden! UGH.

They had moved in right at the edge of that new patch of grass. Here are a few pictures of their nest location, from a safe distance away (including inside through a screened window--I was taking no chances):

The holes can be incredibly small and they can possibly have multiple entrances, but the primary suggestions for how to eradicate them included pesticides and suffocation. D figured out that they were dormant/sleeping at night and that it was possible to attempt to cover up the hole until pest professionals could come and take care of it. He covered up the (main? only?) entrance with a bucket and a brick. Here is a zoomed in video, taken from afar, of the angry yellow jackets the next morning:

That was a lot of NOPE right there. A couple of weeks after D made the painful discovery, professional help arrived. Wearing a bee-keeper hat and thick clothes, he widened the hole that served as the entrance put chemicals in.

He warned us to be on the lookout for holes created by other animals that can serve as a starting point for yellow jackets, and to fill them in and stomp on them. Two days later, we've seen no activity from that nest, thank goodness. 

Edited, one hour after originally posting, to add:

We found another. Fuuuuuuuuddddggggge. Since it's in the median, we're checking to see if it's our municipality's problem or ours. (Further edited to add - the town will take care of it, yay!)

Mouse trap

It seems appropriate as my little fur baby turns 21 today (yes! 21!) to write about the pests I hinted at in my last two posts. We have had mice problems periodically for a long time in this house. It's an older home with a yard, trees, etc. and, try as we might to seal it up, they always find a way in. But it hasn't typically been a problem because:

2012 picture of my mouser

The only time a mouse made it into our house for real (as opposed to our old breezeway which wasn't even sort of sealed off from the outside) was the harrowing 29 days when this little guy went missing in late 2015.

But our little fur baby has put in his time, and his mousing is not quite up to snuff these days, as he's mostly (if not totally) deaf and a little slow and creaky (but still amazingly fit and healthy for his age). And so back in August, grandma was housesitting for us and sent me a note to say she'd seen a mouse run into the living room (this while she was sitting next to her small, perfectly capable dog, but oh well). It wasn't that we didn't believe her, but we were a little skeptical. We had seen no signs of a mouse eating our food, though we did leave cat food out all night and we had recently noticed an uptick in our cat's appetite...The bowl was now empty many mornings. Hm...

When we got back, and always in the pursuit of hard data, we put up a camera near the cat bowl to see what we could. Many days passed with only the only motion detected being that of our cat. We wondered if grandma had been seeing things. And then:

There were even some videos of a mouse eating some cat food and then scurrying away for a few moments while the cat came in to eat and then coming back to eat more. So I guess our little mouser isn't quite up to the task anymore.

Our first step was to move the cat bowl around and try our best to figure out where the mice were coming in from, but after a couple weeks of this (moving the bowl to the sun room, living room, etc. all while adjusting the camera), we were no closer to figuring out their source.

It was time to start catching them, even if we couldn't figure out how they were getting in. We put out our humane traps, which actually did catch a mouse pretty quickly. 

It also proved to us that he had friends. Another mouse entered video to figure out where his buddy was and how to get him out. Great....

We also realized that they were scurrying out from under the stove/oven and, sure enough, when we moved it out from the wall, we saw a LOT of poo. I had a picture for that but decided it was probably best for you to use your imagination. You're welcome.

We freed that mouse far from our home and then tried again. This time, they were too smart. We never caught anyone else. It was time to call in some professional help and--distressingly--some professional traps. So for a while, we have had to live with a bunch of snap traps, covered at least by a box so no one would accidentally snap them on a finger or toe. Or see something gross when we came down for breakfast in the morning.

And sure enough, these caught some of our visitors. Four in all, so far. Two the very first night that the kill traps went out, then a big one a while later that was maybe living in our walls for a while with all the hoarded food (since we didn't catch him on camera in the interim), then one in the basement.

Our professional pest control expert had one suspicion of how these mice are getting in after looking around the house both inside and out. After all, we've done a lot of work over the years to seal the house up (for energy efficiency as much as for pest control). It turned out that when we had our siding replaced this spring, they did not properly seal the hole where our AC piping goes into the house.

The timing checks out. And we've sealed it up now. So far, so good. But we still have the traps out and set up the camera most nights, after finding basement mouse only 3 weeks ago. We're not quite sure how to know we're done. But however long it takes, our little birthday boy definitely has earned his retirement skritches and getting to keep his food out for whenever he wants to eat.

Flipping the Bird

I was working from home recently, at my sewing table/desk in the guest room. The windows were open and I could hear the birds chirping and the bees buzzing. I love that some volunteer goldenrod has planted itself in this garden bed. It starts growing in late August and really fills in between all the plants that have already died for the year.

Being a late summer/early fall flower, it attracts a lot of bees and other pollinators at a time when there isn't much else for them to eat.

But suddenly, instead of happy chirping, I heard what sounded like a birdy rumble outside. A bluebird and a woodpecker were obviously having a loud argument in the Hawthorne tree just outside the window. There was some kind of turf war going on. The woodpecker eventually flew off in a huff.

Then I heard tapping. Very quiet tapping, at least from my vantage point inside. It went on for at least a minute. We snuck around from the back door to the front to see that same woodpecker, apparently taking out his aggression on our front facade. See him there?

In about two minutes, this little jerk put three sizable holes (two pictured here) in our door! From what I was able to surmise from reading why a woodpecker might have done this, it was likely the conclusion of the turf war, as a way to send a big FU to the bluejay. And a big FU to us too.

We filled the holes quickly to discourage the bird from coming back, but I don't think this woodpecker was trying to build a hole for a nest or find insects, so hopefully he has admitted defeat and moved on. Unfortunately for us, matching the paint is going to be challenging. Apparently I failed to note the color in my 2017 post when we last had our exterior painted. Honestly I may never had known the color. I'm going to scavenge our basement paint collection and hope I can find it. If not, it may require a lot of paint swatches just for a repair no bigger than a quarter.

And this isn't even the biggest pest problem we're experiencing right now. Stay tuned...

Sad Trees

 Late last summer into last fall, we started to realize there was something seriously wrong with some of our trees. The leaves of some of our newer trees, volunteer tulip poplars we planted at the curb and a purchased maple, were all turning black. At first, we thought it was damage related to having a banner cicada year, since we knew that cicadas can temporarily stress trees. Many were also sticky and attracting a lot of insects, and we knew that cicadas poop honeydew (yup, that's an actual thing) So we ignored the problem, thinking it would resolve on its own.

Tulip Poplar Leaf

Maple Leaf

But it got so sticky and gross looking that we did eventually decide to consult a tree expert. And it's good we did, since it turned out cicadas were not to blame. The real culprit was a pest called scale. Leucanium scale, to be specific, which feeds on the sap from shade trees, and tuliptree scale, which feeds on--yup, tulip poplars. We had not one variety of scale, but TWO. Once an expert pointed them out to us, we couldn't NOT see them. They are the bumpy knobby things on the bark, which we had just thought WAS bark. Nope--they are gross little pests that suck at the bark. And they also poop honeydew.

They aren't very firmly attached--they can be scraped off with a finger nail (ew!). We were advised that one way to remove the scales was to pick them off and dump them in a bucket of soapy water. But of course they were ALL over the trees, out of reach in many instances. So that wasn't a realistic option. The other option, according to the tree experts, was to apply a "horticultural oil" to the tree at the "dormant rate" once the trees had dropped their leaves. This meant we should apply more of the liquid, since the tree was dormant for winter. 

As the bottle says, it "kills insects by smothering." More ew. But the point is that it is thick and oily and basically stops airflow to whatever it touches (thus why you would not want to apply a heavy coat to the tree when it was still relying on its leaves for photosynthesis).

This post is a long time coming because I wanted to wait and be able to say whether it worked. Over the winter, it was hard to guess. One problem with killing through smothering is that the scale remained on the tree, but were desiccated and dead. Much easier to scrape off and, hopefully no longer a threat. There it is on my fingernail.

As spring buds emerged, there were clearly fewer scale on the tree--many probably fell off on their own or washed off with rain/snow. I could still see some, but they were obviously flattened and dead.

Now as we enter into late spring, I think it's safe to say that we stopped the scale damage--from last year, at least. It doesn't seem like scale can be prevented, just treated. So we'll have to hope they don't come back but at least we can be ready if they do. But at least the trees seem healthy and happy (judging by all the new growth) so far! 

Happy Maple Leaves

Happy Poplar Leaves

Bunnies!

With a title like that, this post could really go in a couple different directions. So I'll warn you now, rather than get your hopes up, that this post is not about how adorable these fluffy little angels are. Oh no. These evil jerks, after being allowed to nibble clover in our "pollinator lawn," have gone full Peter Rabbit and are destroying my garden and even some tree saplings. This family is out to get us and clearly does not feel threatened by our sad attempts to chase them away. Let's look at some of the damage and how we are (ineffectively) combating it.

This year's garden started out well in the spring:

We got some beautiful Royal Purple radishes that I will most definitely plant again. It was a bumper crop, coming up just as the snap peas were starting to flower.

And then, suddenly, we started noticing the tops of some radishes getting chewed. Which was weird because we have a fence. Then the radishes themselves. And then, horror of horrors, the bottoms of some of our snap pea plants got snipped right at the base! We were puzzled until one day when I stepped outside and saw the cutest baby bunny. IN OUR GARDEN. It was small enough to hop through our fence (as I watched when it saw me) and had been feasting in there on our greens!

We cleared the dead snap peas and I planted some pumpkins in their place (the dark circle at the front of the garden). After a trip to Home Depot, we were ready to turn our garden into Fort Knox for bunnies. No one gets in here. 

Or so we thought. Until the following week when we saw a very tiny bunny INSIDE the wire-coated garden. And almost all our snap peas murdered. (You can't really see it in this picture, but almost everything tall in this picture is actually no longer attached to their roots.)

We have no idea if someone left the door open the tiniest bit or if the bunny was able to slip under or between wires. However it got in, the bunny was so scared that it had a lot of trouble escaping as I approached, and I did have a pang of sympathy watching it panic as I tried to flush it from the garden. I'm not actually heartless. But all those snap peas ruined! 

Another victim, beginning last year, seems to be our Black-eyed Susans, which have stopped coming up in our front garden and seem to keep being snipped. We thought it was a deer but I've since become convinced that this is also the fault of bunnies:

The few that are coming up are buried in other plants, so our thinking is that those are more protected from bunny predators:

And the latest victim, from earlier this week, of this willow oak that we planted in April. It went from being a stick to a hearty, leafy little tree. We were excited that it was thriving and that we might end up, one day, with a giant oak tree in the middle of our yard. Here it is in April, a little twig:

And in July, just a few mornings ago, when I walked out of my house, I saw it leaning on the tomato cage we'd installed around it to discourage animals (and make it easier not to mow over). Here it is, propped on the cage. See how happy it was? As if to rub salt in the wound, the bunny who almost certainly committed the crime was right there nibbling, inches away. So if nothing else, it proved that the bunnies are to blame.

And despite all this, we can't resist follow the ins and outs of the bunny family, which numbers at least four members, but likely more, including an adorable baby (probably a second litter? since the one that got into our garden over a month ago is probably bigger by now)

One of the adults, up close:

This is not our house but it is nearby and where I managed to grab a picture of baby bun:

So what do we do? Generally I'm fine with yard wildlife but they really do seem to be decimating everything we plant. A quick search online suggests things like bone meal and black pepper. I'm curious if anyone has experience with something that works.

We're still here

Suddenly finding ourselves balancing work, childcare, and all the yard work, and house cleaning has left us no time for blog posts. Or house projects, for that matter. We're doing some things as far as home improvements go, but nothing too intense. I hoped, for example, to use this time to re-caulk the sinks and tub, but we're also home all the time and using them, making it hard to find a time where they can remain dry for 24-hours to cure.

One thing we definitely are doing thanks to a huge increase in supplies? Tick tubes. No shortage of toilet paper or paper towel tubes here, these days. Lots of laundry creating lots of lint, too (I usually hand wash a bunch of delicate stuff, but why wear delicates when I'm at home crafting and baking with small children? Easy-care items only for the moment, resulting in lots of laundry). And since we're out in the yard more than ever now, hopefully they work to keep the ticks away.

So we're still around, looking forward to happier times perusing gardening stores, IKEA, and Home Depot for new inspirations.

Groundhog's Day

It may be Leap Day, but today's post is for February's other claim to fame, in honor of Punxsutawney Phil. Last week, I was out in the backyard and saw this:

To be fair, we don't actually know what made the hole, or if anyone is living in there at the moment. We figured it was so broad and deep that it might even have another exit, though we haven't seen signs of any other such holes around the yard. For scale, here's a branch that we found laying nearby:

And here's the same branch, twisted around a corner until its entire length was underground. The hole clearly kept going after that, but switched back in a way that made it hard to find anything that would go through and give us an estimate of how long it went.

Hoping that we weren't going to trap anyone inside, we used a large portion of a bag of compost sitting in the shed to fill it in, trying to press it as much as possible. One week later, the hole hasn't come back.

I wonder who was setting up a home in our yard. I hope they're ok, but I also hope they go elsewhere. Heck, right next door is a giant empty lot just begging for a network of groundhogs/moles/bunnies.

Dead wood

Last fall, we noticed that our one-year-old maple trees were being ripped apart by rutting deer. We took action quickly by wrapping them in plastic tubing. Well, sadly, we were too late, at least for the one in the back yard. After 18 months in its new home, it is dead as a doornail. Or a dead tree. We looked up about a week and a half ago and realized that it was not well:

 Yeah...that doesn't look right.

Here's another picture of the bark - I guess despite covering it up at this stage, too much of the infrastructure had been damaged. We are so bummed. That tree had such beautiful red fall foliage and was one we planted in the hopes of one day re-developing our tree canopy, after losing so many trees in our back yard.

It isn't helping that nearly every time the kids play outside, they find another pile of deer poop that we have to shovel up.

Fortunately the other maple in the front seems to have recovered:

And rather than dwell on our sad dead tree, here's our lovely summer garden at the moment. We have black-eyed susans (though sparser than last year on one side of the yard for some reason),  some echinacea/coneflowers and Russian sage.

Here are some surprisingly happy red and pink roses, despite my utter lack of effort:

And new this year, a hibiscus plant we bought last summer, probably as an impulse purchase at Home Depot or something. The flowers are huge - toddler hand for scale:

One tree, all things considered, is not too bad. But I'm still beginning to hate the deer fouling our yard.