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Spring Hath Sprung
21 March 2023
Almost without our noticing it, spring arrived yesterday. And in a gracious gesture by the universe, it was a rare sunny day as the 12th atmospheric river of the season bore down on us. Today is another deluge.
Spring Lemons. Nikon D300 with 18-46mm Nikkor at f8, 1/500 second and ISO 200. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
So we ventured out into the garden (where we've made ourself scarce during all this rain) to see what was going on.
Nothing like a little rain to perk up the crops. Lemons, in this case. It's a bit early for the apples and kumquats but those lemons keep coming up all year.
We've had, like the rest of the neighborhood, a scourge of pests raiding lemons. It's intermittent but it can strip a tree.
So we have to take action.
We tried leaving the light on at night to discourage nocturnal visits. And we tried a number of home remedies, including Epson salts.
We suspect the pests are field mice. We once saw one dangling in the tree. And now and then we've seen one dart across the patio.
But raccoons are also suspects.
Whatever it is, it's been devilishly hard to catch them in the act. We take a peek in the middle of the night at various times but never see anything. And we don't notice anything during the day.
Until yesterday when, after shooting the garden, we took a little walk and returned only to find a freshly stripped lemon near the rosemary bush that hadn't been there an hour before.
That speaks of mice.
We have been putting out RatX, a rodent food mix that gradually (and humanely, we're told) kills rats and mice. But the stuff disintegrates in the rain and we've mostly had rain.
Still, as you can see from our spring lemon, we're winning the battle.