Hiatus Redux

After my chastisement in the comments of the previous post I will try to add some content. What’s happened over the past month?

Well we have been sweltering in 90-100 degree temperatures for July and August. That has had several consequences. First I gave up on the garden. I didn’t have time to water it for hours every day, I didn’t want to spend the money on the water for the meager returns, and many of the tomatoes and such were essentially baking on the vine. I picked a few that were hot to the touch and felt like I had boiled them. So I have let it go as it will. I haven’t even been out to it this week.

I haven’t had to mow grass in a month or more. It stopped growing. Now some of it looks like I burned it. I’m hoping it comes back next year.

All the new installation stuff at work that I wanted to do in July I was finally able to start 10 work days before classes started. I installed two classrooms, 2 presentation rooms, rehung 18 projectors, and reinstalled 15 computers. Yesterday I answered 10 work tickets and last Tuesday, the day before classes, I worked a 13 hour day I was not expecting to have to work. And the heat and humidity are not helping in the least.

I started a class for Fall in Ceramics and Materials Engineering which required I buy a $155 book. YAY!

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Sunday Picking

I picked some tomatoes on Sunday Morning. I also picked Saturday morning, but this is by far the largest tomato harvest I have had or will have this year. I supplied the requisite Dr. Pepper can for scale. All the ones on the ground are Brandywine, with the basket containing Better Boy and Century.


This is the biggest Brandywine of the bunch. It was so massive it bruised itself due to it's own weight.


This is not the largest harvest of Roma tomatoes I have gotten, but the harvests look to be tapering off from now on.


This is one of the two Pomegranate seedlings my Dad brought me.


Other than that, there's not much to talk about.

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I don't think I've posted too many pics recently. Well i haven't posted that much at all. Anyway i thought I would put something up. Here is a pic of one of my Dwarf Crepe Myrtles I have anchoring the walkpath to the driveway. They seem to be doing alright considering the late frost and dry hot summer. It's just starting to bloom.


This is the second Brandywine tomato I picked from the vines. That is indeed my hand and that is a pile of Romas i picked in one day from my 4 vines. I gave the Brandywine to one of the guys at work. I've got more coming in now. For some reason the Better Boys have been more susceptible to blossom end rot. I'll have to research and maybe test the soil for next year.


In case you thought it was an optical illusion, this is the same tomato from the side. The scary thing is that this isn't the biggest tomato on the vines.


I'm still getting okra and I've had a few ears of corn come in. Some of the ears are small due to the hot dry weather and my tendency to not thin the ranks enough. But all in all it's not too bad for a first year try.

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Saturday

A few interesting things happened Saturday. For one thing the continuation of the rain storms at some point during the day continued. We got some rain in the evening. I’ve been really happy that I haven’t had to water the garden in the past several days. Watering different parts of it daily was getting to be quite a chore. Now however, the grass is starting to grow. Well you can’t have everything.

I picked okra early in the morning, since I had neglected to pick it Friday. My parents went to Commerce, GA Friday and stopped by my house that morning on the trip. They picked up something I had to exchange for my Dad and a little okra as well. I had way too much for myself to be able to prepare and freeze, so they took it. As a surprise they left something in its place. They left me some corn from my Dad’s garden, and 2 small pomegranate sproutlings they got from a friend’s yard. Now I have them in pots waiting on them to get a little bigger before I decide where to put them. I’m thinking it’ll have to be in the sunnier and drier parts of the yard. Maybe in front of the garden.

I did the requisite dish cleaning and such after some breakfast and a little TV watching. I went outside to receive my self prescribed dose of ultraviolet radiation. It’s my way of fighting the kickin’ farmer’s tan I was building up in the early spring. While outside I heard something moving around and looked up from my book. Lo and behold, what may have been a Gray fox went trotting across the back yard. I’ve been looking up information about them. The animal seemed a little tall and the muzzle was a little long and thick for a Gray fox, so it may have been something else. In fact it looked a little like a young Grey wolf, leading me to believe it may have merely been a wild dog. I’m not sure, but the scat that appeared in the front yard a week ago resembles descriptions of fox scat on the web, and I have seen several dead foxes on the side of the road over the past year. I’ll keep my eyes open and see if I can get a picture if I ever see it again.

I came back in showered and decided I was bored, so I went to see a movie. I freely admit I went to see “Evan Almighty.” I enjoyed the first movie, so I figured why not. As for the review, I give it a big meh. It was ok. Rent it if you want to see it. No need to go to a theater and pay those prices. In the end it’s a sequel that doesn’t live up to its original.

I came home made some dinner and roasted about 3 dozen little Roma tomatoes. I’m trying to make a sauce so I can freeze it for later. Then I decided to do something I haven’t done in many months. I took my blender out to make a “Purple Pomelator,” that’s a “Purple Nurple” with some pomegranate juice in there. Anyway I put the mixin’s inside and the ice and fired up the blender. I heard the normal grinding of the ice and what not and then it went WHEEEEEEEEEE. I wasn’t sure what had happened. I lifted the jar off the motor and my worst fear had happened. The danged gear on the top of the motor housing had shattered. It was ruined. I had always considered that to be my greatest concern as a point of failure, and those fears bore out. Well it did last for over 5 glorious years and lots of ice and frozen beverages. I’m going to see if I can find a way to replace the gear. I hate for a piece of hard plastic to kill an otherwise fantastic piece of equipment. Anyway, so Sunday I took my trusty 20% off coupon to BB&B to get a new one. Well BB&B doesn’t sell that model anymore. They sell a new model that has a design change that specifically fixes the component that failed on my blender. The only problem is that it comes with a polycarbonate jar rather than a glass one. Polycarbonate costs less to make and ship, but it is much noisier when you start throwing ice around inside of it. So I broke down, used the coupon, and bought the blender. It works quite nicely, but it is at least twice as loud as my old one. But I haven’t given up yet. I’m going to look for a way to revive my onyx jewel. Hopefully I can.

Update: I have just placed an order for 2 blender couplings for my little black baby. They should arrive in a couple of weeks. From forum that I have read I now need to make a special wrench to hold the shaft while I take the busted one off. I like a challenge.

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Here I am

I’ve been neglecting this page for a while. So what’s going on? The garden continues to grow. I’ve picked about 3 dozen Roma tomatoes and one Century, but none of the other regular tomatoes are ripening yet. I have lots of fruit, but they are all staying green. Oh well. Oh and several of them have grown out of the tops of the 5 foot cages I made. I’m making cage extensions. My first batch of corn has started to go to tassel and is about 8 feet tall. I’m curious how it might turn out, but two days ago a big wind storm blew half of my second batch of corn over. I had to get out and tie it up like I did the first batch. Note for next year, I live on a hill and must tie my corn up after it gets over 2 feet tall. I’ve been picking squash and zucchini and giving them away. I think the plants may give out in another few weeks. One has traveled almost 3 feet it has grown so much. My bell peppers have finally started to put out a lot, but I’ve only picked one. I have to tie all of the peppers up this evening. I’ve probably picked 2 dozen cucumbers, several around 14 inches long. I’m going to have to change the way I plant them next year, because they overran my cages already. I also may plant a few of the shorter varieties. And Saturday I picked okra for the first time. I planted too much. I’ve only harvested from 35% of the plants, and I estimate I’ll be getting over a gallon of okra each day or two when all the rows start producing. I’m not sure I’m going to have enough time to pick it, much less prepare it for freezing. Oh yeah, my Godparents sent me their stand up freezer. So now I have a place to put extra produce. And last week I made a pizza. I put some of my Ichiban eggplant, roasted Roma tomatoes, mushrooms, black olives, and mozzarella on it. It was pretty darned good if you ask me. I have a few changes I might make for nest time, but overall it was good for my first attempt at a pizza without meat on it. I may make some pictures later to put up. It all depends on how much okra I have to pick.

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And so it begins...

Well this is one of the first pictures of a harvest. I included a Dr Pepper can for scale. I brought this stuff to work and gave quite a bit of it away. In honesty I've already harvested some squash, cukes, and 3 eggplants previously, but this is the first one that really felt like harvesting rather then picking one or two things for a friend. This stuff is growing fast. The squash are about 3-4 days of actual growth. They doubled in size each day. The same goes for the zucchini. It's crazy. And you can see the mutant conjoined squash on the right. It's just strange. I'm going to have to get a basket or something to carry this stuff in. The tomatoes haven't even really started to come in. Lord I'm gonna have my work cut out for me.


Well, now to get ready to go home and mow the grass.

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Time Sink

Well I'm back at work after my long weekend. I'm hoping it's going to be a slow day, but who knows. I'd better get these posted while I can. Follow the link all ye with broadband connections.


This is a picture of the rows of okra. I planted it in two stages about 2 weeks apart. So far the okra hasn't been growing really fast. I think the first batch went in while it was still a little cold. Hard to believe that given how hot it's been, but really it hasn't been all that hot. It's just been incredibly dry with little wind. We haven't had rain in weeks, and the rain we did get came after weeks of going without. I'm having to water the garden a lot, daily for some things, but I don't water wholesale. I water each plant or down the middle of the row. I think I'm wasting very little water. I also don't water my lawn. I think it's a waste of water and money. My neighbor waters his lawn and uses a sprinkler in his garden. He has grass growing all in it, and his lawn starts wilting if he skips a couple of days watering. Anyway, I think the dryness of the weather and daily doses of cold water on the roots has stunted the okra, but they finally seem to be taking off with some big leaf production. Or maybe okra just takes a while to get situated before it starts growing. This is the first year I've grown anything here after all. The green between the rows is where I thinned the okra during the weekend and a little bit of centipede grass that came up in the pathways. I have mostly centipede in the yard, and it's the best kind of grass to have in the yard and accidentally get in the garden. It's drought tolerant, grows slowly, and stays fairly short. The centipede in my yard is brown; witnessed by the foreground of the picture; but if I put a sprinkler on it it turns green in a matter of 30 minutes. Gotta love it.


This is the corn. It's growing a might faster than the okra. The first two rows I planted are about 2 feet tall now and going strong. I wish I could get some soaker hose to leave between the rows to make watering easier. Oh well. The nozzle on my hose started malfunctioning this weekend and I had to go get a replacement. It'll have to do until later.


These are my cukes. I have them growing on the same cages I made for my tomatoes. Next year I may make larger cages. I don't really care for cukes, but lots of other people do. This garden is primarily for give away produce anyway. So far there are a few small cukes and one that's about 7" long but hooked like a clothes hanger.


The tomatoes are doing pretty good. A few are over 3 feet tall now. They seem to be alright with the weather, but I have been really putting the water to them.


These are of the the same Romas of which I took the first picture exactly one month ago. Given that the plant is now 10 times larger I can assume growth has been the primary goal for the past month. Virtually every blossom on the Roma produces a fruit. These things are enormous producers. I'm going to have Romas coming out my you know what. I'll have to start making sauce or something with them. If they ever start ripening.


This is the first fruit on my Brandywine tomatoes. It's much smaller than the picture makes out. I've mentioned before that the BWs are considered an heirloom variety and considered one of the most flavorful tomatoes. I was curious about them when I got them. Honestly I didn't know what to expect. I figured I would probably lose one and the insects would eat a lot of the others. Well the dadblamed things are the tallest of my tomato plants. Plus they stand up the best. They also don't branch as much as the other tomatoes, nor do they bloom as much. So far the BWs seem to have a pollination problem. I'm afraid the dry weather and the bee die offs may be adversely affecting their reproduction. Or they could just take longer to get busy making babies. I'm really curious about them though.


This gives a good indication of the rows of yellow squash and zucchini. They were doing ok and then all of a sudden about 1 1/2 weeks ago they started growing like crazy. I've got a few small zukes and squash, but the squash are straight with no bulge at the bottom. That happens some with the first fruit, cause the blossom's don't get pollinated properly. I'm just hoping we get enough bees and such to start pollinating them. Next year I may have to follow my Dad's lead and plant some flowers around the garden to attract pollinators.


This is one of my cayenne peppers. two of them have been putting out like no body's business. One still looks like it wants to die and another one is just odd. From the looks of it two will produce all the pepper I need. Oh and those are some of the free-range cantaloupe in the foreground. They aren't bothering anything, so I'm letting them go.


This is my first bell pepper. I don't really care for bell peppers either. And unfortunately cooking doesn't improve their taste to me that much. Usually a plant for which I don't care for the raw taste improves greatly with cooking. I think it might be allergy related. But with bell peppers there's a bitterness or something to them that just turns me off. Raw cukes cause a similar dislike, but at least pickling can make them delicious. Oh well, more stuff to give away.


And finally the item that I am most pleased with. This is a picture of the very Ichiban eggplant I took a picture of before. Yes that we 7 days ago, and you are looking at a week's worth of growth. It's amazing. I would go hit the new okra and corn seed with a little morning water and look at this plant. I would come home from work 9 hours later and the dang thing was visibly longer. In the mornings you can see how much it grew last night because it doesn't turn purple till the sun hits it. And I have 2 more fruit growing on two other plants. I pulled up the logs beside them, because I think insects in the logs were coming out at night to feast upon the yummy eggplant leaves. I was seriously expecting to lose two of the plants or have little production. The early insect damage seemed to confirm that feeling, but removing the logs and a one time sprinkling with Seven dust seems to have fixed that. I love it. And from the looks of it I'm gonna have a lot of these before too long. The guy I bought them from said they love heat and sun. Well they seem to be liking where I have them. Next year I'll move them from behind the asparagus ferns so they can get even more sun.


Well that's about it for right now. There's not much going on in the yard, since we haven't gotten any rain. Hopefully we might get some in a few weeks, but I'm not holding out much hope. So far I'm pretty happy with what's happened. Not bad for a first year attempt, though I did have second hand experience from the garden's my Dad, Godparents, and television allowed me to get close to. And I got a whole lotta sun this weekend too. Come on tan.

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Chlorophylling a Promise

I mentioned last time I had a couple more pics to put up. I'll follow precedent and put them after the link.


Hopefully this yard and garden work will start taking up less time, but not right now. I wanted to post that my Dwarf Crepe Myrtles did survive the frost earlier this year, but not without significant damage. You can see the dead ends of the branches. I'm waiting to see if they put out anything, and then I'll trim them back later in the summer. I do like the way they look though.


My Cukes are coming on. Too bad I don't really like cukes. Maybe I can get a sliced pickle recipe. They have female blossoms that should start growing cukes this week.


And this is my surprise. This is one of my 4 Ichiban eggplant with a small fruit growing on it. I took this at 3:30 PM, and by the time I finished watering at 8:30 the fruit was larger. There are two others growing on the other plants. Have to start thinking about what I can make with these.


I've got a movie review I need to write as well. I may have another soon after too. Well now it's time for bed.

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Whatever my thumb has,...

it's turning the rest of me pink and brown. That's right it's time for another episode of "What You Got Growin' On?" To keep the front page clutter to a minimum I'll post it after my rambling link.

I've been busy in the garden, yard, and house this weekend. I have the pink and browning skin to prove it. I haven't had this much sun in years. After another month, people at work might start confusing me with Dexter. "snort snort" Well I haven't been working in the house as much as I'd like. I have next Monday off for Memorial Day, so maybe I can get some cleaning done. Eh. I'll get to it. Anyway, garden stuff is growing pretty well. The corn is coming along. The okra is getting there, but a couple of cold days stunted it. Now that it's warm again I'm watering the first batch of okra to get it going again. I've already planted the second batch of corn and okra i soaked the seeds for a few hours before planting and dadblamit if they didn't germinate a couple days faster than the first batch. Here's my oldest corn.


This is a shot of general tomatoes. They are growing pretty good, and I've been busy tying them up in the cages. They seem to like it here. The holes in that mesh are 6" square, for scale.


This is a batch of my Romas. I've got about 3 clusters like this on my plants with more clusters forming. I'm gonna be up to my neck in tomatoes.


This is in fact the first producer in my garden. The friggin cayenne pepper plants started producing not too long after I got them in the ground. I think I'm gonna lose one plant, and one has been kinda wimpy. The other two both look like this. they are making peppers like no one's business. This one has at least 8 peppers on it and it's only about 12 inches tall.


This is one of my largest yellow squash plants. I was worried because after I planted them they started yellowing some. I thought I might be watering them too much, so I cut back and they seem to be doing much better. If you look down inside you can see the very first squash growing. There is a smaller one on this plant and at least two more on other plants. Time to start looking for recipes. The zucchinis seem to be coming right on the heels of the squash, as always.


Last year when i bought the house the owners hadn't done anything with the garden that year. I did find 2 cantaloupe plants growing out there though. They made several fruit, but the overhanging grass prevented them from making a lot of sugar. They didn't taste that good. so I left them and didn't think anything about it. I plowed the garden and began planting. After a heavy rain a couple weeks ago I came out to a surprise. I have dozens of "volunteer," as my neighnor calls them, cantaloupes growing up and down the garden. I haven't decided what to do with them yet, so I'm just leaving them.


Next time I'll put a couple of other plants pictures up.

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I Think My thumb is Infected

Or something. Cause I'm thinking it may be turning green. Only time will tell. Since I don't have much of anything else using up my time, I decided to post more pics of my yard and garden. I swear I feel like on of those new Dads that always shows everyone pictures of their child. Maybe it'll wear off in a year or so, since I still haven't been in the house for a year yet. So you have the freedom to look at the pics or not, and since there are already way too many pics on the front page, you have to follow my rambling link to see them.


This is one of two lilies my Mother gave me last year for my birthday. She planted them, and they seem to be liking it. I had to move the other one to plant my dwarf crepe myrtle. It hasn't quire forgiven me for that yet, so I'll just show the big one.


Behind my property was a dead and rotting pine tree leaning against another tree at about a 70 degree angle. I knew it was only a matter of time before it fell. I wasn't looking forward to it, because it was tall enough to land on my fence at the back and break it. Well i stepped into the back yard the other day and as I was walking I heard this crack. I turned in time to see the tree falling. I winced and went to look at the damage. The thing broke in two, folded back on itself, and missed the fence by 2 feet. Nice.


I tied several of my tomatoes up on Thursday evening. I went home Saturday, for Mother's day, and came back Sunday evening. Dog gonnit if some of them hadn't grown and flopped over again. Some of the plants had grown over 3 inches in 2 days. I can go in the garden in the evening and see a noticeable change int the plant size. The stakes were a temporary support until i got the cages built and set in place.


Well that rate of growth made me move up my timeline. I went and bought 150' of concrete reinforcing mesh. It's not terribly expensive, and it works much better than those $4 tomato cages. I didn't need 150' but I didn need more than the 50' on the smaller roll. It's kinda rusty, but the galvanized fencing with the same mesh size came in 330' rolls. This is one of my 'Sweet 100' tomato plants. I even has one little tomato on it already. Those mesh holes are 6" square, so yeah, that plant is almost 2 feet tall. I've got to finish up the cages tonight.


This is one of my Romas that i need to put a cage on. It's starting to collapse under it's own weight. That big tomato is the same one I photographed earlier. On my 4 Roma plants I probably have a dozen tomatoes growing.


These are my two rows of corn.The green in the walk paths is from some weeding and thinning of the corn plants. I probably need to pull another 1/3 out. The two wet rows behind these two are freshly planted corn. I wanted to spread out the harvest.


These are my little okra plants. I need to thin them desperately. Hopefully I can do some of that today. Again the two wet rows behind it are two more rows of okra.


The sad thing is that I still have space in the garden. Maybe I'll plant some green beans, carrots, or something else. Do you guys have any suggestions?

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Giddiness?

For some reason this has made me far happier that is should make a normal person. I was out putting pine needles around my plants in the garden when I found this:


This is the first Roma tomato to appear on my plants. The thing probably started growing before I put the plants in the ground. Now I'm gonna have to figure out how I want to stake the plants up

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Cheaper but not easier by

I had some family come by the house yesterday to help in the yard. If I lived closer to my place of birth this might be a weekly occurrence , but as it is it only happens occasionally. I'll take any help I can get. They brought some additional garden plants by, and they helped mow and trim the yard. then they helped put out mulch in some of the beds. I'm glad they could come by, cause Lord knows I couldn't have gotten it done by myself. I've got some updated pics following in my rambling way.

This is that Painted Maple I bought last year. I's doing pretty good, and I expect it to grow a lot this year. We put some mulch around it, and I plan on watering it some. It has only been in the ground a few months.



This is what the front walk looks like now. I sprayed weed killer on the grass in the enclosed area. It was a Bermuda grass I think, and the rest of the yard is Centipede. That means it always grew three times faster that the rest of the yard, and it was never the same color. It was a pain to mow, and didn't do much for the yard's appearance. So I killed it, cut it short, put newspaper down as a weed stop, and put mulch on top of it. I think it looks a lot better. later I may put in a ground cover or something.


This is the evergreen shrub that was on the house side of the walk. Someone had planted it too close to the walk and the driveway. My bet is that there were two at one time and one died. However, if there had been two of that size there, it would have been quite difficult to get between them. I was thinking of moving it, but the root system was too extensive to expect it to survive the attempt. So I cut it down and ripped the stump out. This is the remains.


In place of that I planted two dwarf Crepe Myrtles that I got at the SC Botanical Garden sale last weekend. They were bitten by the frost, but are starting to put back out again. They will have the nice bronze looking leaves and in late summer they will have the nice red blossoms. I got my Godmother a few a couple years back and they make a nice showing.


Being lazy I had left my fall wreath up for far too long. Well someone took advantage of it and decided to build a nest on it. I've got another nest on a shelf in my garage, and a nuthatch is using a birdhouse next to the driveway. There're babies all over the place over here.


Last Fall I started a fern garden in my back yard. The previous owner had planted some hanging basket ferns in the ground and they appeared to be doing well. I picked up three ferns at the Botanical Garden sale and planted them in the same area. This one is an Eastern Wood Fern I believe. It's an evergreen native. You can see the old foliage under the new fronds. It's doing pretty good.


This is the second fern I got in the Fall. It's a Lady in Red. The stems of the fronds are a scarlet color. It's deciduous, so all this is this year's growth. It's a real beauty.


This is the last fern I got in the Fall, a Cinnamon Fern. It's deciduous as well, and the reproductive stalks are similar in color to cinnamon sticks. You can see one of the hanging basket ferns in the ground behind it.


This is one of this year's purchases. It's a Royal Fern. I put it at the back, because it's fronds can get 5 feet long or longer. I'm anxious for this one to grow.


This one i got at Lowe's of all places. It's a Japanese Painted Fern. I was struck by the coloration, but upon reading up on it, it's a pretty good fern. The only qualm is that it loses some of it's attractiveness in drought. Eh. I'll just have to give it a drink occasionally.


Now I'm off to do more things. A home owner's work is never done.

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A plantin' I did go

Well this week I've been spending a great deal of time working in the garden. In fact several last weekend I spent most of Saturday in there. I finished tilling it on Monday after work. I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from about 6 to 8:30 or later in there planting. I was watering by moon light on more than one occasion. Anyway, I thought I'd put up some pics of all my labors up after the rambling link.

This is a picture from the back of the garden. You can see the asparagus ferns on the left side. You also get a good view of the depth of the garden. It's 25' by 70'. It took me almost 3 gallons of gas to till it. On the bottom left you can just see a couple of the pine logs that were around the garden. I pulled most of them up, because they made t really tough to get the tiller through the garden.


This is a pic of the last 4 rows in the garden. These rows host 4 zucchini, 4 yellow squash, 4 cayenne peppers, 4 green bell peppers, and 4 Brandywine (Heirloom variety) tomatoes. I'm waiting to see how those go.


These are the next 4 rows forward. This has 4 Roma tomatoes, 4 Better Boy tomatoes, 2 Sweet 100 tomatoes, a tomato my dad sent me without telling me what it was, 4 Ichiban eggplants on the far side,4 cucumbers, 3 Banana peppers (sweet), two other sproutlings that Dad didn't know what they were, and some Blue Lake Bush Bean seeds. You can see the asparagus ferns on the far left and the bales of pine needles I'm going to put around the plants to help slow water evaporation. I'm not going to show the other 8 rows; yeah, there are 16 total. Those are going to be 4 rows of corn and 4 rows of okra. I'm staggering the planting with planting half a week or so apart. It spreads out the corn harvest a little. I have so much stuff because 1 I have space and 2 I got this stuff from a place in Union. The guy runs his own greenhouse and sells the plants for like $2 a pack of 4. I went a little overboard.


This is one of the grape vines my Dad sent to me. I think this is the muscidine grape, but I can't remember for sure. He's going to root a few more of the scuppernong grape to bring over. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to start harvesting.


The horticulture students were having a plant sale last week. I usually stop by and see what they have. It's a good place for Mother's day presents. Anyway, they had some spearmint and peppermint on sale for like $1.25 a container. I decided to get one of each. I have space, and mint is usually a plant it and forget it kind of thing. This is the spearmint.


And of course, this is the pepermint.


I'll probably post more stuff as the garden grows or dies. While I was planting Saturday a rabbit came running up and skidded to a halt about 12 feet from me. We stared at each other for a while and then I made a foot stomp to get him to run off. I hope he doesn't eat too much.

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