![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lolaraincoat#1 Mystery: Yesterday morning there was a huge monarch butterfly perched on the tallest of the echinachea flowers. What was it doing there? Aren't they supposed to be much further south this time of year?
~~~~~~
#2 Mystery: Last year we had a whole bunch of surprising Cape Gooseberry plants pop up all over the back yard. We have a few of them this year too, which is delightful, but the real head-scratcher is the tomato plant that sprouted, seemingly overnight, among the Michealmas daisies and Japanese anemone in the front flower bed by the gate. It's not too big and it's blossoming happily, so I'll leave it there, but it's a bit unsettling all the same.
~~~~~
#3 Mystery:
There's a plant at the edge between the area of the garden that's partially shaded by the grape arbor (where annual and perennial flowers grow) and the part of the garden that gets full sunlight almost all day (where vegetables and herbs grow.) Early this spring I thought it must be a weed, and a dead weed at that, so I tried digging it out, but it was pretty stubbornly rooted so I cut it down to the dirt and left the roots to rot. Or so I thought. By May it was sprouting large, elegant leaves and by June they were upheld on two thickish meter-high green stalks. It looked good and it was substantially healthier than the poppies I was trying to grow nearby, so I left it until my gardening-guru friend got back from the Shetland Islands and I could ask her about it.
"Oh, what a lovely fig tree!" she said.
So hey, we have a fig tree. Where did it come from? I know I didn't plant it, and it wasn't there last year. But maybe in another few years we will have figs.
~~~~~
Special bonus cat mystery: I thanked my gardening guru with a grocery bag full of beets, beet greens and kale. She brought it inside the house and placed it on the floor while we had a drink. Our very shyest cat, the one who never goes near strangers normally and is kind of a picky eater, came right up to the bag and started pulling out the beet greens and purring. I shooed him away. He looked at me reproachfully and -- this is the truly strange bit -- came right back and did it some more. (Normally shooing away can lead to him hiding under a couch for days, you understand.)
He really, really wanted those beet greens. The other two cats -- including our cat who likes to eat houseplants and grass outside, because his hobby is puking -- ignored them. Why would a cat become obsessed with beet greens? What is going on in his little kitty head?
~~~~~~
#2 Mystery: Last year we had a whole bunch of surprising Cape Gooseberry plants pop up all over the back yard. We have a few of them this year too, which is delightful, but the real head-scratcher is the tomato plant that sprouted, seemingly overnight, among the Michealmas daisies and Japanese anemone in the front flower bed by the gate. It's not too big and it's blossoming happily, so I'll leave it there, but it's a bit unsettling all the same.
~~~~~
#3 Mystery:
There's a plant at the edge between the area of the garden that's partially shaded by the grape arbor (where annual and perennial flowers grow) and the part of the garden that gets full sunlight almost all day (where vegetables and herbs grow.) Early this spring I thought it must be a weed, and a dead weed at that, so I tried digging it out, but it was pretty stubbornly rooted so I cut it down to the dirt and left the roots to rot. Or so I thought. By May it was sprouting large, elegant leaves and by June they were upheld on two thickish meter-high green stalks. It looked good and it was substantially healthier than the poppies I was trying to grow nearby, so I left it until my gardening-guru friend got back from the Shetland Islands and I could ask her about it.
"Oh, what a lovely fig tree!" she said.
So hey, we have a fig tree. Where did it come from? I know I didn't plant it, and it wasn't there last year. But maybe in another few years we will have figs.
~~~~~
Special bonus cat mystery: I thanked my gardening guru with a grocery bag full of beets, beet greens and kale. She brought it inside the house and placed it on the floor while we had a drink. Our very shyest cat, the one who never goes near strangers normally and is kind of a picky eater, came right up to the bag and started pulling out the beet greens and purring. I shooed him away. He looked at me reproachfully and -- this is the truly strange bit -- came right back and did it some more. (Normally shooing away can lead to him hiding under a couch for days, you understand.)
He really, really wanted those beet greens. The other two cats -- including our cat who likes to eat houseplants and grass outside, because his hobby is puking -- ignored them. Why would a cat become obsessed with beet greens? What is going on in his little kitty head?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-24 05:10 pm (UTC)BTW, I'm going to make another mess o'greens for supper tonight, including beet and kale.
Considering that all cats are devoted to voguing anyway, your bulimic cat is well on the way to Supermodel status. I don't think ze would be a very good spokescat for "I'd rather go naked than wear fur," though.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-24 05:22 pm (UTC)About the monarch, I suspect it's hiding from Monsanto's genetically engineered corn. Poor thing doesn't want to be sterile.
Can you post a picture of the fig tree? I would like to see it.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-24 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-24 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-25 02:25 pm (UTC)My cat Bean has developed a sudden love for pound cake.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-25 02:45 pm (UTC)I don't know about the monarch, but I have an educated guess on the other two mysteries - the answer to many of life's (or at least gardening's) mysteries, bird poop. If you or anyone nearby had tomatoes last year, a bird probably ate some and pooped out a seed in a handy location. Ditto figs - it could have just been a seed from an actual figment of fig which someone dropped during a picnic, and then a bird ate and redeposited.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-25 07:45 pm (UTC)I know we've had lots of polination going this year because we've had so many bees, which is great. I'm pleased to be making a happy environment for them in the face of the continent-wide bee crisis (did you know there was a bee crisis? There is, apparently.) And I know we've had a lot of bats, which is also great because more bats = less mosquitoes. But I've not been keeping watch on the birds in and around and over our garden, so it didn't occur to me that they would be the ones to thank for our unexpected bounty.