Exhumed and Expired

We pulled up two potato plants, or maybe three, hoping for some larger potatoes than the marble-sized tuber we exhumed several days ago. David wanted to wait, but I am impulsive and impatient (and suggested, "We can just plant more!"), so we did it.

Ignorant in most things potato, we were disgusted to find the sloppy, gooey rot on this plant. (I just shivered writing about the memory.) I was sure our crop was ruined and that the four bugs we had noticed a week ago had demolished our stores.

I instantly thought about those poor Irish people who found every one of their potatoes looking like this. How dreadful.

After some panic, we figured out -- at least enough to satisfy ourselves -- that the rotted potatoes are the ones that we began with, the seed potatoes. The rest of the little buggers seem healthy, albeit small, and we'll cook them up tomorrow. How exciting!

Slowly but surely, more and more of our meals include delicacies from our own garden. It began with lettuce and herbs, but now we have beets and potatoes and peas. We should see some edible cucumbers and squash in the next week or so. I have no clue how long our beans will take (and where the SECOND crop I planted has gone -- are birds stealing them??!) , but garlic will be ready mid-July. The tomatoes -- will the day ever come? -- are blooming (so many different sizes and styles of flowers!), and we are planning a Tomato Harvest Festival in August to celebrate.

In less lively [ha] news, Finley killed a bird yesterday and a chipmunk today. If she would eat them, I wouldn't feel so bad, but then I don't want her to eat them. Eating wildlife is probably how she got worms last year. Ugh.

Anyway, I was on my deck, reading in the sun, and heard a robin shrieking. I glanced up to the left, saw a robin in the branches, and thought, "Poor little thing. He sure is upset." Two seconds later, Poochina runs up the steps with a baby robin and plunks it down right next to me! I am not generally freaked out by such things (except for that pigeon Sawyer brought home through the window in Dorchester), but I absolutely lost it. Maybe it was because I didn't have many clothes on or because I was prone on the lounge chair, both situations providing more skin area that Finley could touch with the dead thing.

I screamed and David ran out and Finley ran in and then Sawyer ran out and then in again. Finley left the scene so quickly, she must've forgotten her proud prize. When David went outside to document the scene, the cats returned and inspected the creature.

I imagine the chipmunks and the birds in our yard talking amongst themselves about this Cat Plague of 2007, when they lost quite a few of their number. I hope this baby's mama doesn't have a long memory.

I hope the coyotes out back aren't making their plans on the cats of 2007.

--Camille