2009 has Fall-en

'Tis Fall of '09. The summer is gone. So is most of the garden. I have been eating the Golden Delicious apples for the past week or so (somebody has to know when they are ripe, and I elected myself Chief Ripeness Tester) and tonight I decided to pick the tree clean. The yellowjackets are running out of other things to eat and they were starting to make some serious holes in the apples. Ergo, I picked.

The front basket has apples that the yellowjackets had attacked.
This is the second crop that this dwarf tree has produced. The year before last it had a dozen or so apples, and last year had nary a bloom, but this year it bloomed heavily. I was unable to spray after mid-July due to rains at the wrong time and my long commute eating up over 3 hours of each day, but the apples are relatively bug free.

And they are indeed delicious.

Rooster Tales

Just a quickie before I have to settle down to some serious work.

About two weeks ago, I was verifiying the tax card on a house in Middlefield. As I pulled in the driveway, I could hear a rooster crowing on the adjacent property. Exiting the car, I was taking some notes (vacant house, looked like it was in less than average condition, etc) when I noticed a Barred Rock rooster sneak out of the bushes and begin to circle me. Head held low, it crept around to examine what it had found. Then, like a Jurrasic Park velociraptor, it charged.

As it neared my legs, I flipped down my clipboard and knocked it to the side. This was repeated about a half dozen times.

Finally, I decided that I had to get on with my work, took out the measuring wheel, and ran it on the ground in the direction of the rooster. He fled into the bushes and did not return. People he understood -- my guess is that he had lots of experience with them running in terror at his attacks. The wheel, however, was an unknown, may have represented a predator like a big cat, as it crept along the ground, and was something to avoid.

Two morals to this story. One : bullies only pick on people they are certain to intimidate. Two : roosters are far more effective for area defense than the average dog.

I would hate to face a rooster the size of the average dog.

...

Obstructionist : a lemming who refuses to hurry.