Synchronicity

I was just answering a comment in the last post about Jeph's bird feeders drawing predators and something caught my eye outside. The picture sucks and you'll have to zoom to barely see what's circled, but in short; a coyote just traipsed through the neighborhood in broad daylight.

Bad news for Piglet who's all of twelve pounds. I was working on a house in Woodside, California about fifteen years ago and my employer's Jack Russell Terrier, Martha was taken by a coyote in about the time it took to let her out the back door. Piglet is going to lose some of her freedom to roam for a while. (she has an electronic fence that circles the property).

I don't want to write any "a dingo et mah baby" posts. *shudder*

I Wish I Were Making This Up

I'm not going to take pictures of this, but it is so damn odd I had to report it. Yes, odder than keeping a falcon's head in the freezer. I know... Hard to imagine.

Those of you who live in climates with four discernible seasons are familiar with snow, the shoveling of snow and what needs shoveling. Some of you will even be versed in the use of a snow blower and will really get a kick out of this.

My neighbor spent the better part of yesterday afternoon running his snow blower over his front and side yards. Not his driveway, walkways etc. His lawn. He cleared the freaking snow from his lawn! This isn't the first time he's done it either. If you've never had to clear snow I can only explain that using a snow blower to clear your lawn makes as much sense as pushing your car to work. The only thing you could do that was more useless than clearing your lawn of snow with a snow blower would be to do the same thing with a shovel.

Not only will you waste a lot of time, make a lot of noise and waste some gasoline, you will also expose your lawn to the elements, drying the soil out and possibly killing the roots. If the ground is still soft, you will tear up turf, put ruts in the lawn and possibly suck yard debris into the snow blower. Worst of all, your mean neighbor will blog about your idiocy and then trade snarky comments about you with his mean blog friends.

The Hunter Becomes The Hunted

I told you things would be back to normal around here. The little dramas that go on in the garden unobserved continue.


I noticed a patch of disturbed snow near one of the feeding stations yesterday. There were feathers laying around and it looked like there was quite a struggle.


The strange thing is most of the feathers were large and striped, something I associate with the various hawks and falcons that harass the sparrows, jays, cardinals, etc. that visit the yard. I neither encourage or discourage the raptors, they just are and everyone has to eat, right?


In this case, one of the larger hawks seems to have caught a smaller falcon off guard and made a meal of it. Further investigation of what was left of the falcon leads me to believe that it was an older bird as one of it's eyes looked to have cataracts.

It sounds a bit creepy, but I'm going to keep the head frozen and lay it on the grass in a safe spot when the weather warms up. The ants and other insects will pick the skull clean and I'll add the skull to my collection of bones, stones and other curios dug up in the garden.

The Reveal

It's a bit anti-climactic, but in short; Dirt Sun Rain is moving South to Johns Creek, Georgia.

I've been puttering around the garden here in Pennsylvania for the past five years in a state of semi-retirement and while satisfying and healthy it's a life I'm meant to be living about fifteen years from now.

I still have some things to prove to myself business-wise and my priorities for what I want when my working life is over have changed. I want to expatriate to Europe at some point and that takes money. Money I can't pull together here in quiet suburban Pennsylvania.

I've signed some agreements, taken meetings and spoken with well over fifty people in the past week and I'm going back into the wine and restaurant business.

I'm not shilling for my business on this blog, it will always be about what I like to do and grow, but I'm going to be forced to find a way to integrate my passion for growing my own food into my business. My living situation will change and I'm on the search for a patch of land where I can grub around in the dirt and let the dogs run amok.

Meanwhile, there's tons of things to do here to get the garden ready for the next season and life goes on as usual