I knew going into the growing season that it would be somewhat of a trial and error year, as it has been probably a dozen years since I last maintained a vegetable garden. Ridding the plot of vines, weeds, and trees and trying to establish non-native vegetable species had no guarantee of success. I did expect, though, to have certain types do well, most likely those early crops with which I have had great luck in the past, such as peas, beans, spinach, radishes, carrots and beets.
Oddly, most of those, aside from the beans have been less productive than I expected. On the other hand, some that I have not done as well with, such as Romaine lettuce and broccoli, did well this year. We're still getting lots -- and I do mean lots -- of lettuce. Although I didn't get as many pea plants as expected, those that we do have have been quite productive. We are having nearly as much trouble keeping up with them as with the lettuce.
The beans are really starting to come on now, too. The green pole beans are on a tear, outgrowing their poles by quite a bit, and the yellow wax bush beans are starting. I'll be harvesting my first pepper quite soon, and it looks like plenty more will follow. Tomatoes, of course, are doing fine. And this looks like it will be a banner year for cucumbers. My acorn squash plants are getting huge. Even the corn stalks, at least those that weren't dug up by some little monster, look to be doing well.
With me being who I am, I am never satisfied with anything under 100% success, but I can't complain about the level of success I have thus far achieved in my first year back in the backyard vegetable garden business. I have been keeping some pretty detailed notes, and will look to make some adjustments before next year's planting begins.
In other news, we took Pumpkin to the veterinarian on Tuesday. She is doing very well, and has adapted to life in the music room quite well in the little over a week since we tricked her into capture. She likes to be petted now, and enjoys a good back rub, too. We didn't try picking her up before we went to the vet; we figured we'd leave that experiment to the professionals. She cried a bit in the car on the way, but our vet is in Oakdale, a little more than five minutes away, so the stress of the ride was short.
The stress in the waiting room was probably worse -- at least it was for Diane and me. A woman was in the cat waiting room with two dogs and, worse yet, two undisciplined children. The kids, between pulling tissues from a box and throwing them up into the air, kept wanting to see Pumpkin. Unfortunately, I am pretty good with kids and explained that Pumpkin was scared and needed to be left alone (I say "unfortunately" because if I had been mean or scary, I probably would have only had to tell them once). We kept a towel over the carrier for the whole ride and waiting period, in order to reduce Pumpkin's stress (this is one of the oldest tricks in the animal rescue book).
Pumpkin handled the exam pretty well, squirming only a few times -- when getting her nails clipped, her ears cleaned, and a tick pulled off her butt. She showed no aggression, which was a great sign. The vet said that Pumpkin is definitely pregnant (we pretty much knew that), and thinks she probably has a few more weeks to go before giving birth. She also said that it looks like Pumpkin has had litters before, and is at least a few years old (you can hazard a general guess about age based on the condition of the teeth, which I was not willing to check by force prior to this vet visit).
She was happy to get it all over with and went back into the carrier quite willingly. She went right back into her cage when we got home, and has been quite content since. Here, I'll take a photo of her right now:
I leave the cage open when I am down here (I am keeping her in the music room so she dopes not interact with our animals until we get all her bloodwork done and make sure she is fully disease-free, which we won't do until after she gives birth). She never comes out of the cage, and is content to hang out on the big platform, nap and purr.
She's a great cat, and I don't expect any problems with her allowing us to handle the kittens early on. We want the kittens to be well-adapted to people so they will be more adoptable, so we'll be working with them a lot and making sure they are physically, intellectually, and emotionally healthy. If you are interested in kittens, let me know (expect to be asked lots of questions). We'd prefer to adopt them out in pairs (kitten/kitten or Mama/kitten), but we don't yet know how many there will be.
We have her nest box set, and she has already checked it out a few times. We have her on a diet of moist food and dry kitten food, and are avoiding everything the vet said to avoid in her diet (beef, dairy, fish, wheat, and plastic bowls). We are working to get her used to being handled and picked up (she's not big on that one yet).
So now we wait.
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