December 8, 2014 by Born To Organize

The Color of the Day is Orange

Winter solstice is just two weeks away. We’ve had a slow descent into fall this year with unseasonably high temps. That said, the colors are finally here.

We’re expecting a storm worthy of a NOAAWatch this Thursday, with high winds and heavy rains. Anything left on the trees now will be long gone by Friday. I’m enjoying the color while it lasts.

We planted this tree 18 years ago specifically for its gorgeous fall colors.

Chinese Pistache

This beautiful Acer grows outside our living room window. It’s a landing-place for hummingbirds, lesser goldfinch and a favorite of squirrels.

Acer aka Japanese Maple

Several Abutilon grow along the fence. Their showy orange flowers are a hummingbird favorite.

Abutilon : Coral Bells

Our oranges don’t taste very good (it’s an ancient tree) but the rats don’t seem to mind. When my boys were young, they enjoyed turning it into orange juice and selling it to passersby. It was the California version of a lemonade stand.

California Oranges

Are you as busy as I am this time of year?

December 4, 2014 by Born To Organize

When Life Gives You Lemons: A Primer

Lemons refreshed after the rain

You’ve heard it before: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It’s an interesting metaphor for this time of year and coincides with the yellowing of lemons on my citrus tree.

The leaves on our deciduous Pistache are turning yellow signally dormancy for the approaching winter. At the same time, once-green lemons are also turning yellow, indicating an approaching harvest.

I appreciate the benefits of lemons and lemonade.

When I grow up, I want to be a lemon

The holidays are a mixed bag for a lot of people. For some, they’re joyful, for others they’re fraught with pain. Is your cup half empty or half full? Our exposure to media can leave us wanting, while the ghosts of Christmas past keep showing up uninvited. What can you do? If you or someone you know is feeling blue, here are a few ideas to lift your spirits while at the same time making someone’s season bright.

Helping Others:

Studies prove that “In general, people who help others stop focusing on their own pains and problems and worries and feel good about themselves.” – Health Day: News for Healthier Living

Hug your furry friend:

According to the American Heart Association “ownership of pets, especially dogs, reduces risk for heart disease and greater longevity.” Studies have also found that:

Pet owners are less likely to suffer from depression than those without pets.
People with pets have lower blood pressure in stressful situations than those without pets.
Playing with a pet can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine, which calm and relax. – HelpGuide.org

Laugh:

Rent a funny movie, call a friend and reminiscence about the crazy things you used to do together or watch a series of funny videos on YouTube. Some people sneer at the number of ‘silly’ cat videos, but we watch them because they make us smile and laugh which in turn helps us feel better.

Give a Little:

Scientifically speaking, giving really is better than receiving. We feel better about ourselves when we give to others. Interestingly, as a percentage of income, some of the poorest people give the most. But giving isn’t just about tangible gifts. You can give of your time or your skills to help others. Reading to the blind, running errands for a shut in or offering your knitting skills to make blankets for people in need.

Sometimes you can double or triple your impact with one gesture. I recently attended a friend’s craft fair at a local church. Some of the proceeds of the sales went to support a scholarship fund. I bought a few hand-made blankets from one of the vendors and then donated them to Sacred Heart Community Services. Sacred Heart never has enough blankets to go around and usually have to limit one blanket per family. I believe this is what business people refer to as a multiplier. I bought blankets to support our community in need. The money spent supported a local, cottage business in addition to the scholarship fund. Carol of Carol’s Creations merges two layers of deliciously soft fleece with a lovely crocheted edge. Her blankets will keep others warm this winter. The icing on the cake: when she learned that the blankets were for a community center, she gave me an entire box of fleece scarves to go with them. Give a little and feel the joy.

Get Moving:

This is one of my favorites. Walking, hiking, and hard-core gardening always lift my spirits. How does exercise relieve depression? “For many years, experts have known that exercise enhances the action of endorphins, chemicals that circulate throughout the body. Endorphins improve natural immunity and reduce the perception of pain. They may also serve to improve mood. Another theory is that exercise stimulates the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which may directly improve mood.

Besides lifting your mood, regular exercise offers other health benefits, such as lowering blood pressure, protecting against heart disease and cancer, and boosting self-esteem. How often or intensely you need to exercise to alleviate depression is not clear, but for general health, experts advise getting half an hour to an hour of moderate exercise, such as brisk walking, on all or most days of the week.” –Harvard Health Publications: Exercise and Depression

Here comes trouble

Resources:

Helping a Depressed Person: Ways to help. What you should and shouldn’t say.

Psychology Today: The Social Safe: Giving Really is better than receiving.

How do you get through the holidays? Please share your words of wisdom in the comments section below.

December 3, 2014 by Born To Organize

Raindrops on Noses and Sheet Mulch in Gardens

Sheet Mulching in the Rain

Back to back storms this week lead to the usual traffic mayhem. A common refrain around here is that Californians don’t know how to drive in the rain. In the garden, however, all is well.

Anxious to finish my sheet mulching project, I’ve been gathering additional cardboard wherever I go. With my son’s help, I put down the last of the cardboard yesterday under a light rain.

With the cardboard in place, it was time to add a layer of garden waste.

Serendipity! Today’s storm brought a bundle of leaves to the ground, begging to be scooped into a wheelbarrow. I happily obliged.

It takes a lot of leaves to mulch a large area of lawn, so I gathered leaves in front of three different houses. No one complained! ;-) I started my sheet mulching project over a week ago, and after thirty minutes of digging managed to throw out my neck. It’s been a mess ever since and I worried I wouldn’t be able to finish the project on my own. The better news is I did it. I raked, swept and scooped leaves for over two hours late this afternoon without stressing my neck. Ironically it hurts to stand up straight or lean back, but I’m fine bending over.

Whenever it rains, I find myself humming ‘Raindrops on roses’ from one of my all-time favorite movies, The Sound of Music. With apologies to Oscar Hammerstein I’ve come up with a gardening rendition. In case you’re not familiar with the tune, I’ve included an audio clip below.

Raindrops on noses, this weather I’m smitten
Dark, cloudy skies, stormy weather has bitten
Brown, rotting leaves rainy weather does bring
These are a few of my favorite things.

Waterlogged earthworms are shaped like a noodle
Scooped from the gutter, in oodles and oodles
Soggy wet weather it makes my heart sing
These are a few of my favorite things.

Sweeping the gutters, the rain water splashes
Raindrops that stay on my nose and my glasses
Storm after storm rainy weather it brings
These are a few of my favorite things.

When my gloves tear, and my neck stings
When I’m feeling had
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad.

The incomparable Julie Andrews sings My Favorite Things in the 1965 movie classic The Sound of Music.

December 2, 2014 by Born To Organize

A Rat With a Ph.D.

You thought I was joking, didn’t you? How else can I explain the clever kitchen rat that continues to elude capture?

Two weeks ago today we realized that a cat named Mouse gifted our abode with a living rat. The irony! Mouse likes bringing us unharmed critters from the garden, including lizards and (gulp) rodents. Not only did the rat move in, he broke the dishwasher by chewing through the cord.

Gnashing of teeth

Our earnest attempts at a humane, home-made trap failed. After a bit of research I found a no-kill trap that would do the job, but had to order it online from the store. That turned into a debacle and if interested, you can read about it on my post titled Unwanted Gifts, Ahead by a Whisker. After hours of credit-card, customer service, no-one-answers-the-phone-anymore-hell, I gave up and ordered from another online vendor.

Meanwhile, I called a couple of repair places to no avail.

When my live-in handyman finally returned from an eight-day trip to Argentina and said he could fix it, no problem. One visit to the hardware store and an $8 part later and we were back in business. Mike pulled the dishwasher away from the wall and found the beginnings of a nest but no rat. Further assessment of the cord proved once again that the rat has a Ph.D. He chewed through the ground wire and not the hot wire, which would have led to instant death.

The following Monday, my extra-small, Havahart humane trap arrived in the mail. The box looked battered and bruised, but the trap was in good working order. We set it up that night.

Ha! That’s probably what the rat sounded like when he scoffed at the trap. I’m not falling for that.

And he didn’t.

Night after night, we re-bated the trap with delicious pecans, pecans with peanut butter, peanut butter and pear and, the trap remain untouched. No signs of droppings either. Then we heard him again, chewing under one of the cabinets near the sink. I pressed my ear to the cabinet, straining to hear where the chewing sound was coming from. I opened one of the drawers and then the cabinet, fully expecting an encounter. Nothing.

Exasperated, I set the trap aside for a few days, and went back to putting peanut butter and fruit on a pie tin under the sink.

Oh sure, that he ate! I found cute little teeth marks in the side of a chunk of peanut butter. Sigh.

If you’re looking for a motivational speaker for your next event, our resident rat can share a thing or two about tenacity and spunk. He’s* eluded the jaws of a cat, several humane traps and the temporary relocation of his dishwasher condo.

Check out this link and accompanying video: Rats are Smarter Than you Think.

*Note: I don’t know if the kitchen rat is a he or a she. I prefer to think it’s a he and not a mama about to have babies.

Mouse or rat one summer in our orange tree

Tree rat snacking at the bird feeder once upon a time

November 26, 2014 by Born To Organize

The Case of the Shrinking Lawn

Existing Lawn

My lawn is shrinking, my lawn is shrinking!

Oh happy day.

We’ve been tossing the ‘lawn/no lawn’ ball back and forth for a while. We’ve reached a compromise and split the difference. Half the lawn in our back garden remains. The other half will convert to native perennials. I’m pretty excited. This change will reduce water use and attract native species to the garden.

After trying to dig up the lawn in our sidewalk strip last year, I learned it’s a slow and arduous task. I gratefully hired Nick to finish the job.

Imagine how thrilled I was when I read Diane’s post Undoing Three Years of Procrastination. She explains a method known as sheet mulching, recently implemented in her own vast and beautiful Ontario garden. Instead of digging up the lawn, you apply layers of soil, cardboard,compost and mulch. They gradually decompose, and at the same time kill the grass, leaving rich, organic soil in its place.

Here are the instructions Diane used from Goodbye Grass, Hello Garden

Sheet mulching—a simple technique that involves layering cardboard, compost, and other organic material over the turf—kills the grass and leaves behind beds with rich soil. A considerable amount of organic debris goes into the bed construction, so stockpile plenty of autumn leaves, composted manure, and garden waste before beginning. Beds that are sheet-mulched this fall will be ready to plant next spring.

Sheet mulching ingredients

Last weekend I did a big yard clean up and created two small piles of organic debris. This morning I brought home about a dozen free boxes from a local market and we got to work. We ran out of ‘ingredients’ before finishing, but made a good start.

Half way there

I emptied both of my composting bins as a base layer, then transferred soil from the summer vegetable beds. That was enough to cover about half of the area. We added the layer of cardboard and then covered it with decaying leaves, pine needles and other organic matter. Once I gather additional cardboard and organic material to finish the rest of the area, I’ll buy mulch for the final layer.

Thanks for the inspiration, Diane!

November 25, 2014 by Born To Organize

Five Little Squirrels: Welcome to the Neighborhood

Three of the six baby squirrels, September 2, 2014 Photo courtesy of Jessica B.

A few months ago my friend Jessica rescued half a dozen baby squirrels. Two young boys in her neighborhood found them on the ground and brought them to her for help. The squirrels were small, eyes still closed, and unable to survive in the wild on their own. Jess contacted a rescue group who took them in, but they needed a place to release them once they were old enough to be on their own.

Guess whose arm shot up in the air? Pick me, PICK ME.

I called Connie who works with a few other home-based volunteers the following day. The rescue group, Injured and Orphaned Wildlife, said it would be a few months before the squirrels were ready. They would be in touch when the babies could survive on their own. They want to re-release the squirrels into neighborhoods with established squirrel populations. We definitely qualify.

Last night I got the call. The volunteer asked if she could release them in our garden this morning?

Ann arrived around 10:30 with five young squirrels in tow. They traveled in a wooden nesting box, encased in a larger plastic crate ready to move in to Gardening Nirvana.

The squirrels arrive in the garden

She placed their nesting box under our orange tree and scattered handfuls of fruits and vegetables nearby. After lifting the top of the wooden nest, we stood back and waited.

Placing the nesting box under the orange tree

Ann scatters vegetables nearby, then lifts the lid to the nesting box

They remained huddled together, poor little things, breathing heavily and trying to burrow to the bottom of their cozy box.

Five huddling squirrels

Ann said that once one of squirrels leaves the box, the others usually follow. In our case, two of them shot out within seconds of each other, and raced to the safety of nearby shrubs.

I’m out of here. One of the first two squirrels to leave the nest

The remaining three hunkered down. I watched for half an hour, but reluctantly had to leave for appointments. Ann asked me to call her if they were still in the box at nightfall. If so, she would return and secure the nesting box to a tree. By mid-afternoon, they had vacated the box. We’ve watched from inside as they explore the garden. What joy!

Three trembling squirrels

I’m grateful for all the caring hearts that brought this to fruition: the two young boys who knew the tiny squirrels needed help, and my friend Jess for taking them in and contacting a rescue group. Special thanks to Connie who takes in these rescues and Ann who delivered the nesting box, with the care and wisdom of someone that’s rescued critters for over 30 years.

November 24, 2014 by Born To Organize

Monarch Butterflies and the Butterfly Effect

Monarch visiting a Zinnia flower

My friend Candace shared an article this weekend from the New York Times on the shocking decline of the Monarch Butterfly. I’ve been following their plight, and blogged about it earlier this year.

Here’s a bit of background:

Unlike most migrating species, monarch butterflies employ an improbable strategy that splits their round-trip migration between generations. Their life cycles must be intricately synchronized with those of the milkweed on which they lay their eggs.

Monarchs returning from Mexico reach the Southeast soon after native milkweeds appear in spring, producing the first of up to three generations that breed on new milkweed through summer. When the perennials start dying back in the fall, a final generation of butterflies typically emerges in a sexually immature state. Rather than reproduce when food is scarce and caterpillars might freeze, they fly to Mexico, to wait out the winter.

In the Midwest, which produces half of Mexico’s wintering monarchs, the scores of wild milkweed species among grasslands and farms are fast disappearing.

Nearly 60 percent of native Midwestern milkweeds vanished between 1999 and 2009, the biologists Karen Oberhauser and John Pleasants reported in 2012 in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity. The loss coincided with increased applications of the weed killer Roundup on expanded plantings of corn and soybeans genetically altered to tolerate the herbicide. Meanwhile, monarch reproduction in the Midwest dropped more than 80 percent, as did populations in Mexico. Source: New York Times

Like many backyard gardeners, I wanted to do something to help, so I bought a packet of Milkweed seeds advertised as Butterfly Flowers. They are the genus Asclepias incarnata. What I didn’t know is that Swamp Milkweed continues to grow past the time the butterflies should be heading south.

Monarch sipping nectar from Statice

According to the article, our good intentions could be backfiring. Here’s an excerpt:

There’s this huge groundswell of people planting tropical milkweed, and we don’t know what it’s doing to the butterflies,” said Francis X. Villablanca, a biology professor at California Polytechnic University. “We’re all in a rush to figure it out.”

Dr. Altizer fears that when monarchs encounter lush foliage in the fall, they may become confused, start breeding and stop migrating.

“It’s sad, because people think planting milkweed will help,” she said. “But when milkweed is available during the winter, it changes the butterfly’s behavior.”

The times article linked to additional reading including ways to create habitat for Monarchs. I also learned at The Exerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation that its important to plant Milkweed native to our area. I found a site called Larner Seeds and ordered a species of Milkweed better suited to San Jose.

The Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect is a scientific theory put forth by Edward Lorenz. It’s described this way:

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a hurricane (exact time of formation, exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier.

Ray Bradbury’s uses the butterfly effect in his chilling short story, A Sound of Thunder. Wealthy hunters pay a large sum of money to travel back in time to kill a dinosaur. They must stay on the approved path, and shoot the dinosaur, seconds before the animal dies from a falling tree. The hunter steps off the path and irrevocably alters time. When he returns to the present his reality is permanently altered. Devastated, he looks down at his boot and sees a crushed butterfly.

Could we be witnessing our own ‘butterfly effect’? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Additional Resources on the Monarch’s plight include:

Butterfly Chrysalis

Butterfly habitat: My son raised and released five Monarchs several years ago

November 20, 2014 by Born To Organize

The Unexpected

One of the best things about gardening is the unexpected. Like the weed growing through the crack of an urban sidewalk, nature lets us know that she’s got things under control. So while I till the soil with great expectations, and smile when things I plant grow, I also delight at what I didn’t see coming.

Here are a few:

Orange Cosmos

Orange Cosmos burst on the scene

I’ve grown pink and white cosmos, from seed and from starters. One summer a volunteer crop grew as tall as me , producing flowers all summer long. That same year I gave away seeds at Christmas. They’re such an easy-breezy flower to grow. Imagine my surprise though to discover this mystery plant was orange. Isn’t it stunning? This plant is a meter tall and started blooming this week.

Late afternoon bloom

Tomato, Tomato

Out of step: Tomato plant grows from the patio steps

After clearing away the last of the Anemones, I found a tomato plant growing out of the bottom of the patio steps. It was probably staying warm from the plant cover and didn’t know it was fall. I can’t bare to pull it out, so I’ll leave it for now and see what the plant has in store. It makes me smile

Passionate Pink

Tomorrow’s Zinnia

This self-sown Zinnia took the place of the Bachelor Buttons in my triangle garden. It offers a pretty pop of pink as the rest of the annuals go to sleep, an unexpected color on this gray day.

Another Pumpkin?

The little pumpkin that tried

Look at this little pumpkin trying to grow. It even flowered.

Nature’s Ribbon

Have you ever curled ribbon with the edge of your scissors? If you scrape the wrong edge, you end up straightening the ribbon instead. That’s why I’m particularly impressed with this self-curled edge of a fern. This plant makes it look easy.

Garden ribbon

Wishing you a weekend of the beautifully unexpected*

*Rats and broken appliances do not apply

November 18, 2014 by Born To Organize

Unwanted Gifts, Ahead by a Whisker

Slinky lounging on my desk

I’m ready to pull my hair out, but I’m having a hot cup of tea instead. I’m trying to sooth my nerves. A curled up Slinky sits next to me on the desk and the leaves outside my window are finally turning orange. Breathe, Alys, breathe.

We have a standing joke that when my husband travels on long business trips, something in the house breaks. I think of myself as capable in a crisis, but computers and home appliances are generally outside of my purview. He left town late Thursday, and on Friday the dishwasher stopped working. Initially, I refused to believe it. It was one of those weeks. I played with the buttons, hoping it was just the light. Next I went outside and checked the fuse box. All appeared to be in order, but I reset it anyway and came back inside. No luck. I got down on my knees to see if the machine came unplugged. Isn’t it nice when it’s something that obvious? That’s when I saw the frayed cord. Chewed, actually. Did I mention the unwanted gift?

Mouse doing his Butterball turkey impression

Mouse (a cat) likes to catch rats (alive and well) and bring them in the house. The cat flap is now firmly closed and any open door carefully monitored. You know what they say about hindsight. Mouse brought us a gift anyway, and it’s alive and well, living in a little condo formerly known as my under-sink cabinet. There is a small hole to allow the hose and plug to the dishwasher to pass under the sink. The other side of the cabinet has a similar opening for a water pipe. For a week now, the rat has been passing between the two holes, but firmly out of reach. My oldest son made a humane rat trap based on internet research, but the rat apparently has a Ph.D. and refused to fall for it. We tried two different containers, baited with delicious peanut butter and crackers but to no avail. We put down a ‘test cracker’ to be sure he was still coming around and that cracker disappeared. Clever rodent.

Last night I found a small, humane trap online at Home Depot. I stopped by the local store this morning, but it isn’t in stock. The smaller size is only available online. The store clerk, a kind and helpful man, tried to order it for me three times using my credit card. The system kept sending a message that the account number and address didn’t match. Of course they did, but we reentered it again and again to no avail. After several more attempts using two different credit cards and finally PayPal, the annoying message persisted.

Back home I called around, still hoping to get my hands on a small, humane trap in town. The Humane Society doesn’t sell them, and the traps available at Lowe’s and Home Depot are for larger animals. Desperate to get my hands on a trap, I called the Home Depot 800 number and explained the problem. She said I would have to call my financial institution to clear the hold on my account.

I called my credit union and they told me I didn’t have a hold on my account. I logged on to see if there was a problem with the first credit card I tried using and found four separate charges to Home Depot, each for one dollar.

Pending transactions?

Don’t worry, the tea is helping and I still have most of my hair. I’m trying to breathe in and out with the rhythm of the cat. Breathe…breathe…breathe.

I made a note of Target’s 800 number and gave them a call. I pushed numbers and pound signs and cycled through the proffered choices. A recorded voice told me my balance, the date of my last payment, my recent charges…pretty much everything but what to do about those charges and how to make my card work again.

The game’s not over yet, but I’m sitting on the bench for a spell. I don’t know the current score, but I’m pretty sure the rat is ahead by more than a whisker.