Rhododendron dilemma

We have two rhododendrons about the same size as each other outside the kitchen window. They both have healthy green leaves and I have watered and fertilized the two plants exactly the same.

However, the rhododendron on the left has many luscious blooms while the other has none. Zero. Zip. Nada.

If there are any horticulturists out there, is this a question of gender or is Ma Nature just messing with me again?

Believe it or not, BLUEBERRIES

For the record, we have a few blueberries on our first-year blueberry bushes. From the seven bushes I might could harvest a half-cup of berries, but I thought I might not have any for the first year.

I'm sure the deer will be dining soon.

The Ballad of Three Feet

We have a raccoon with just three feet who keeps raiding our bird feeders each night. His short left rear leg is without a foot. We see him in the mornings hanging off the feeder outside the kitchen window.

I try to get a photo, but he's too quick for me. As soon as I open the kitchen door, he's gone. (Note: Accompanying photo is a regular four-footed coon from last year's crop.)

I've penned these lines for our three-footed friend:

A coon is quick on all fours
And not too bad on just three.
It fills its belly with birdseed
And grins at us from a tree.

Another day, another project

The reason I can't finish projects is that I find myself starting a new one every day. My latest undertaking is a covered woodshed at the side of the garage.

I've been storing firewood during the winter months at various places on the porches and decks. Betty says that termites love to see me coming.

My new woodshed will be a 4 X 16 foot shed made of treated lumber with a metal roof matching the garage roof. Projects seem so simple at first, but then come calculations for roof trusses, angle of hill incline and other construction techniques about which I know too little. But I hammer on.

I need to get the shed finished and filled with firewood so it can dry before winter. It takes a good six months to season firewood.

I should have the shed finished in a couple of weeks depending on how many other projects I start in the interim.

You don't miss your water until . . .

At the real estate closing for our Deerfield property in 2006, the former owner told me of a waterline and an underground faucet that ran along the gravel driveway on the lower level. The access to the faucet was marked with a pile of old bricks.

I didn't pay much attention to the line since there was nothing to water on the lower level. Though we have had plenty of rain, the summer drought is not far away.

Today I installed a frost-proof faucet on the water line. It works nicely and will not freeze in the winter because the two-foot pipe has a plunger that cuts the water off below the frost line. The faucet is about 50 feet from the vegetable garden (still under construction) and the same distance from the berry patch.

An instant well is a good thing.

A walk on the wild side

My blackberries are coddled like no blackberries before. I fertilize, weed, water and give them hemp twine so they can run up the trellis. They just sit there, unappreciative.

Then I walk down the road and I see wild blackberry bushes cascading over banks, trees and fence posts. If I stood still long enough I think they would entangle me.

As I've said before, Ma Nature does what she wants and when she wants, and those with grand plans need to be mindful of her fickle nature.

A poor man's rain barrel

Our son gave us a nice 55-gallon rain barrel for Christmas 2006. Sitting at the corner of the garage, it fills up in about 15 minutes of steady rain. It helped us survive the droughts of 2007 and 2008.

I was thinking it would be nice to have another barrel this summer, but we don't have any more downspouts that are accessible since the ones for our house run inside the porch columns. While I was putting away my 5-gallon cans which I use for various tasks, I came upon the idea of lining them up along the drip edge of the red barn at the garden.

Presto, a 50-gallon rain catchment.