Should I Change the Name?

January 20th, 2010

I’m wondering if I should change the name of our gardens from “Chiot’s Run” to “Cats Overrun”. I think we’ve got a reputation for being feline friendly, kind of like the folks over at Our Little Acre, maybe it’s an Ohio thing?

We’ve lived here at Chiot’s Run for 8 years. We used to see a cat every now and then, generally one of the neighbor’s cats. We’d always hoped for a feral cat to move in since we have quite a chipmunk problem. Recently we’ve been seeing more and more cats around. If you remember, last year, Dexter showed up on our doorstep. He wasn’t a feral cat, we think he was a pet someone dropped off down the road. We ended up bringing him in and he’s become a member of the family.

As you can tell he’s quite domesticated. He’d definitely been brought up around people and wasn’t wild in the least bit. He really enjoys life inside the Chiot’s Run cottage! As you can tell he really loves the kind of cat food we buy.

Around the beginning of winter we started seeing a small feral cat in the gardens. We’d see him just about every night, hunting for food. One night we spotted him eating birdseed from under the bird feeder. We figured he must be hungry so we started putting some food out for him. He’s a beautiful little cat, with lovely stripes and bright green eyes. He’s very wild, so we don’t see him very often. I managed to snap this photo while standing on a table, kind of looking through the curtains, far enough away that he couldn’t see me.

We’ve also been seeing a few other feral cats around the gardens during the fall and winter months. We have a big orange one and a big gray one. I suppose if this little guy survives the winter and sticks around he’ll help with the chipmunk overpopulation we have here. Although keeping him around will mean trapping him and getting him fixed. Just maybe he’ll have a cozy little home built into the garage as well. It’ll be nice seeing him around the gardens this summer.

Do you notice feral cats in your gardens? Do you welcome them or run them off?

Ballerina Chiots

October 31st, 2009

Lucy’s costume was finished today on the way over to my mom’s. She loved it of course since she likes the attention she gets while wearing costumes. Our nieces & nephew thought it was the greatest thing and had a blast playing with ballerina Lucy.
dog_in_tutu
Her ballerina costume was complete with ties around her feet, sans the shoes of course.
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Lucy doesn’t like to have her photo taken and always looks away, but I got this one that was pretty cute.
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Happy Halloween from Chiot’s Run, we hope your autumn weekend was a wonderful affair filled with lots of candy and dog biscuits.

Head on over to my Flickr stream to see more photos.

Happy Halloween from Chiot’s Run

October 31st, 2009

I love towns that celebrate Halloween on the actual holiday, not the Sunday before on Wednesday afternoon. My mom’s town celebrates on Halloween and we always head over there to go trick-or-treating with our nieces & nephew. Lucy usually has a costume as well and she walks around with us. Last year she was Wendy from the Wendy’s restaurant. This year she has a costume as well, I’ll post a photo later today so check back.
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Until then here’s a photo that really shows the season, fresh apples and black cats. As someone commented on this photo over at Flickr: This photo is like everything I expect from an American Autumn and more!

How do you celebrate Halloween? any fun costumes this year?

Throw Open the Windows

October 27th, 2009

Yesterday we had a nice warm sunny day, it was in the mid 60’s. When we have weather this warm I always open all the windows to get some fresh air in the house.
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two_cats_in_window
The cats are in heaven on days like today, and so am I. One of the things I really miss in winter is open windows and being able to hear the sounds of nature.

What are you going to miss this winter?

Enjoying the Last of Summer

September 18th, 2009

I realized I haven’t given you an update on Lucy in a while (if you don’t know what happened read about the original injury here and here’s another one a month later). She’s been progressing quite well this summer and is now able to go on 20 minutes walks with us in the evening. We’re going to start adding another short walk in the morning soon. She is only limping a little, and occasionally she even jogs a little bit. Her injury hasn’t stopped her from enjoying the summer, she’s been sunning herself every afternoon and chasing bees whenever she gets a chance, although chasing deer, rabbits and the UPS man is still off-limits.
Dog_eating_watermelon
One of Lucy’s favorite summertime treats; watermelon ends. She gets very excited when she sees me bring one home from the farmer’s market, and as soon as she hears me cut it, she’s by my side in the kitchen waiting for the end. Out to the porch she goes with her watermelon end and you’ve never seen such a cleaned out rind when shes through!
Watermelon_rind
There’s just something about watermelons that say “summer”. I’m truly sad that summer is coming to and end, the chill in the air and the twinge of color on the trees lets me know that it won’t be around much longer. I’ll be sad that watermelon season is over, but I’m also looking forward to fresh bread and soup season!

What foods you associate with each season?

Recent Comments
  • Pampered Mom: Usually we take the opportunity to get outside. This year I had to chuckle a little bit because when my...
  • Debbie: Won’t be long and spring will be in full swing there and the gardens will be thawed out and growing...
  • melissa: I mowed my lawn. Then again it’s 70 degrees here today (supposed to be near 80 tomorrow so I thought...
  • Amy: I walk around like an anxious mother checking to see if everything made it and get crazy giddy when I see that...
  • Brittany Noel: I desperately need to find a way to hang my laundry this summer! My backyard is so small,...
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This is a journal of my small organic gardens in north eastern Ohio, zone 5(a). Our gardens are named after our dog Lucy, a big brown/black lab mix from the local pound. We started calling her “Chiots” when she was a puppy and the name stuck. She thinks the yard and gardens belong to her, she chases away all squirrels & rabbits and the UPS man.

Our yard is very small and fairly shady, we are surrounded by woods all 3 sides. The soil is made up of rocks and clay, not the best, but I’ve spent 7 years adding chicken manure & compost. When we first moved in 8 years ago, the gardens were in terrible shape from years of neglect and too many chemical pesticides and fertilizers. It has taken years to reset the balance of nature and we're finally starting to see the fruit of our efforts. We unearth worms when we dig and we are seeing more and more birds and beneficial insects in the gardens. The soil is also starting to improve after years and years of hard work amending it with all kinds of organic compost.

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