Dreaming of Spring Gardening in the Middle of a Wisconsin winter part 2

[ShrekDawg]

Hi

 

[Callender Girl]

Is your pear tree in the ground yet, Jim? Who's winning at your place, you or the red squirrels?

And, Lisa, is the cat patrol at least keeping mouse invaders at a minimum? The mouse I evicted from the feed can appears to be attacking the wooden front of the coop now, eating enough to slip inside under the door. I have left a peanut butter surprise for him.

The Work Crew will begin arriving Friday afternoon, and I am very happy that Renee, who was initially not going to be able to come, will, indeed, be here.

I always enjoy spending time with Renee, but when she cancelled, I began eating the big jar of sauerkraut I know she loves (and that her husband strongly dislikes). She rarely gets to eat sauerkraut at home, so I was planning to fix it for Renee with fried potatoes. At this point, I've eaten it for 4 days in a row, and even if there was enough to serve this weekend (doubtful), I think I've enjoyed enough fermented cabbage for a while.

I was cleaning coops yesterday when one of the hens ran inside where she hoped to eat the small toad (okay, maybe it was a frog, hard to tell from what was left) in peace. Instead, Josephine ran inside, Alice literally flew the coop, and Josephine, convinced that I had given Alice a treat, began loudly squawking at me. I finally had to lift up the floor board and let her look for live mealworms. Oh, good times with the girls!!

How's the weather in Wisconsin? It alternates almost daily between feeling like summer and feeling like fall. It's predicted to hit 32 degrees Friday night. One of the things I just can't say enough: I HATE winter!!!

 

[Cebarmlds]

I'm with you on the winter opine

 

[jvls1942]

I know we have to have winter. I just do not like the extreme cold.,
Barb, the squirrels are winning. set two live traps .
soft shelled taco shells with peanut butter. almost makes me feel like crawling into the trap.
I got the stairway wall insulated. wasn't too bad timewise. work, rest, work, rest, about 2 hours.
even had time to smooth out the parking area., there were a few high spots to trip over.
hard to see them from high up on the tractor. I didn't do the walk around check, yet.
if it gets warm enough today, I will experiment with the 2x2 ceiling tile wall covering. I have a concept of a plan in my head. lol
to answer your question, Barb.
so far the weather has been tolerable. anything over 60F and under 70F is acceptable.
we had a couple of mornings of 27F.
that is when the sun comes up and the black walnut trees shed all of their leaves by noon. quite a spectacle to watch.,

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Barb the cats are keeping the rodents under control. So far I haven't seen any signs of rats digging in my big shed, and the traps in the basement haven't caught anything for a week now.

I like cold weather. I don't mind winter. It's a nice time to take it easy, and it's pretty. I always hope we get a good old fashioned blizzard at least once.

 

[jvls1942]

I like a blizzard, too. as long as I am snug in my house and not out in it.
only 46F . I hope bro Dave doesn't come to plant the pear tree today. but if he does show up, I will do it.
it is a rather tall tree. I have no idea of what the roots will be. it has been in a half of a 55 gal barrel planter since spring.

 

[jvls1942]

well, Dave did show right when I sat down for lunch
after I ate we went to plant the pear tree.
the root ball filled the planter completely. all the dirt hung onto the roots. I pushed the dirt back into the trench and we were done.
on Friday I will haul a lot of water down there .
will find some tree wrap to foil the rabbits.

 

[Callender Girl]

Best wishes with defeating rabbits. Last year, my vet questioned why I wanted to buy three E-collars -- especially since I only have two dogs and neither needed one. But, along with putting on tree wrap and making a cage out of hardware cloth, I put the E-collars on the trees as a baffle so that when the snow piled up, the bunnies couldn't just stand on a drift to chew up my young trees.

I'm glad you're not seeing more mice, Lisa. I hope you get your wished-for blizzard -- and that it skips over me completely. Being cold and shoveling for hours is just not my idea of a good time. I'd hibernate except that I have to take care of all those darn critters and make sure eggs aren't freezing.

I tried to convince myself that it was a mouse destroying the bottom of my chicken coop door. But, I hedged my bets and after two nights of nibbling at the kibble I hot glued to a Bigfoot trap, some alluring peanut butter was more than the RAT could ignore. I removed its corpse yesterday. I know if you see one, you'll probably see more. So, I put out the trap again last night. No new tunnels, no one took the bait, so fingers crossed, this guy was a loner.

 

[jvls1942]

good morning.
last night we had a nice rain. .25". just what the newly planted tree needed. more rain is in the forecast for next week.
I started getting tools ready for installing the ceiling tiles to the walls in the stairway. I did a trial cut and it fit perfectly. I think Annie is coming around.
Barb, I hope you have nipped the rat problem in the bud.
years ago, after a house near us burned down and the junky yard got cleaned up, we had a great infestation of rats. we were feeding them 10 pounds of poison each day. it took a couple of months to clean them out.
they even killed a couple of chickens in the coop

 

[ShrekDawg]

Hi