Where Are My Predators?

This is one of the "Bishop's Children" dahlias that I grew from seed many years ago. For some reason, this particular plant is producing much redder flowers than the others, which tend toward orange. Maybe because it's in brighter sun. I'm intrigued by that stripe on one of its petals -- an interesting genetic aberration.

I spent most of yesterday reading. I'm about two thirds of the way through "Juice," which I am really enjoying. It's one of those rare books that I get so absorbed in that I'm not conscious of how much progress I'm making or how many pages I've turned. Someone compared it to "Mad Max" and it's very much like that -- a survival and family saga set in a post-apocalyptic Australia. Let me just say, if the future is going to be anything like this, I'm glad I'm living now.

I got a text from Mrs. Kravitz in which she pointed out that we have rats in the garden and we need to do something about them. She's right. We have to take some kind of action. Maybe we can call a nature-friendly exterminator, if there is such a thing. As I mentioned before, we've stopped feeding the birds suet and I think we'll stop the bird food entirely for a while. She suggested putting down peppermint. I'll look into it.

She also suggested trimming the lower leaves of shrubs "so the rats have nowhere to hide," but that's just not feasible in our garden, which is full of ground cover and low-growing plants. I may need some professional advice on how best to handle that. But I recognize we can't let these animals stay -- it's not fair to the neighbors. Dammit, foxes, do your jobs! Cats, where are you?!

Speaking of foxes, I was lying in bed last night (sleepless, for some reason) and kept hearing racing engines. This often happens late at night and I've always suspected that motorbike riders race on the streets around here late at night, perhaps on Finchley Road. Well, last night I got out of bed and took a walk to see if I could tell where all the noise was coming from. Of course by the time I got outside, it had stopped and a couple of police cars went past with lights flashing -- I suspect they broke up whatever party was going on. But out on my nocturnal ramble I came across several scrawny-looking foxes nosing around in people's garbage. This is why they're not hungry enough to catch a rat in my garden.

I also found yet another discarded fiddle-leaf fig tree, set out with the trash on the corner at the top of our street. Of course I adopted it. It needs some TLC but it's in better shape than the last one, which didn't make it.

I'm missing my slide-rescuing project. Here's one of my favorites, an accidental double-exposure that created an interesting effect. It was taken in Bermuda in the mid-'50s. Look at that huge lobster! I'll go in search of more slides once we're back from our trip.