Who Are Your Garden Helpers Part Two

Show off your fuzzy, furry, featherd, and slimy helpers! We came from here:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/961169/

Nice family you have there!

peek a boo!

Thanks for the new thread. This isn't one of MY helpers but since we're on the subject of frogs...

This was taken in Oregon at a public garden.

Ribbit!

Bea, Thanks, I love my furry children! Lexy, Hunter, and Bonnie from the left...first thread was their amazingly posing pic...this one shows their personalities a little better. Your frog pics are soooo good. She has to be a ham to pose so nicely for you!

Kwanjin, Adorable little one! He is so green! Blends right in with the stuff they like to hide in!

Katie and Gourdbeader...in regards to the previous thread..The water pic is Bonnie my pond monster. That was taken almost eight years ago...and she still spends as much time in the water in the summer as she can. She doesn't swim, just wades around. Landscape around that pond is a little more developed now, so I try to keep her out of that one and let her wander around in my big pond when she has a need to cool down.

Ginger, love the squirrel story! My mom has one that is along the same lines that I am going to make her share...her story so I won't do it. Can just imagine the faces on the picnic participants though! Bet the potato salad definitely went the way of the honey by unanimous vote!

Another pic of the pond monster....

So I am heavy in the heart as I am almost certain that I will be losing my Lexy girl this summer. She is somewhere around 15 or 16 (came to me as a used dog, so not certain). She is the best dog I have ever had, and although she is failing dramatically, she is still happy to be in the yard with me. She was helping me plant at my pond last night too...another supervisor, but this one at a distance.

I have decided to get a new fur baby before Lexy is gone, as I want Lex to train her of the yard boundries, where the food and beds are, etc. I will spend a lot of time working with the pup, but they tend to mimic the other dogs too, and like I said, Lexy is pretty much the perfect dog.

So....I met my new child today for the first time. She is almost two weeks old...1/4 Lab and 3/4 German Shorthair. Haven't decided on a name yet (it will be something revolving around my FIL's classic Chevy (very long story)...we have tossed around Chevy and Classy, but are still mulling it over) It was love at first site. This is a pup of a friend's litter, and I have camped and hunted with both of the parents and they are wonderful dogs. I am hoping that she holds the best traits of both mama and daddy!

The friend is also one of my employees, so he had his wife bring the whole litter in long enough for us to see them. Momma is 1/2 and 1/2--looks totally like a Chocolate Lab and is an absolute sweetheart. Papa is pure bred shorthair..white with the spots and a little ticking kind of high strung as shorthairs tend to be, but a very good dog. The pups were split half and half color wise, but they lost two of them in the first day, so the chocolate ones are in short supply. Fortunately, I had an in as that was really what I wanted!

This message was edited Apr 21, 2009 8:57 PM

Ok, so Julie wants me to share my squirrel story......It was several years ago when I still lived in Minnesota......had bird feeders, etc. I also had a buttetrnut tree......I was drying butternuts on the deck just outside of the birdfeeder and a pesky red squirrel was enjoying both the drying butternuts and the seeds on the bird feeder. My DH gave me a 22 pistol to scare him away. So....one morning when the pest was enjoying his "breakfast" I took out the gun! Hoping to just scare him away, I took a shot from the hip.....Oh< oh, The squirrel just laid there. When my DH came home I was in tears,,,,the squirrel was dead lying on the ground. This was the first (and last) time I ever fired something loaded on a creature

This message was edited Apr 21, 2009 9:18 PM

Julie, what adorable puppies. Lexy will be a good mentor for your new baby.
Sharon, did you get tagged with a new nickname from your squirrel incident? I can just hear your family calling you, Hey Quick Draw. (Said in the voice of that cartoon).

Oh, Sharon - that's so sad . . .

Julie, I'm sorry that you're anticipating Lexy's passing, but I think you're smart to add a new little critter to the pack to let Lexy teach him/her the rules. They are so cute when they go from little larvas to puppies!!

Lynn, No nickname that I can remember as Mom was pretty shaken up about it, but Dad, who had hunted from a very early age out of necessity, and then later as a sportsman, was secretly very proud of her good shot. I am sure that the story was altered a bit when he told it to his hunting buddies.

Kathy, There are times when the circle of life is a bummer, and unfortunately when you own and love critters you experience it more often than those who don't. On the other hand, I would never trade a day of the love I have shared with my kids to avoid the pain when they are gone. And getting the puppy soon fills two purposes...Lex can train her while she is still around, and Puppy Breath is one of the best remedies for a fractured heart. Like you said, can't wait to see her when she starts getting to the puppy cute stage!!

Cute puppies. I think Chevy is a cute name. Or Chase(as in Chevy Chase)!

Love and sadness definitly comes into ones life with animals. And it remains forever. And you are right, it is worth every minute.

OK, going back to the slimy helpers for a minute. Finally got one of my (loud) red legged frogs to sit still for a picture. In fact, he sat so stil that I was afraid the dogs might have hurt him. Apparently he was only trying to be invisible though, because after letting me take several pics of him, I poked him with a finger just to make sure he was ok, and he hopped into the pond and swam off. Guess that was his version of playing dead....

I like a nice big frog, I only have the little ones that I scare when I water my pots.

What a cute puppy! So sad that you're getting ready to lose your Lexy, though. It's so hard to go through that with them, but I couldn't imagine living without my furry friends-they add so much to my life and home-and they're all special in their own ways.

Cute frogs, too. I wish I had more of them in my yard. I think I need more water.

Here's my newest garden helper assisting with the spring pruning. Guess I won't have to worry about this getting too big this year. Hope it gets to bloom, though! This is my recent "adoptee"-we call him Dusty or Dusters...(What's gray, fluffy, and frequently covered in dust, or often found under furniture???? A) old fashioned duster , B) dustbunny .....thus....not the perfect name but the best so far, anyway...)

I think that name fits perfectly. But I think you had better get a few more of those plants!!

The cats we had in CA would make a b-line for this plant everytime they went outdoors. It was so fun to watch them roll around and go crazy in this plant. I have one by my front door now that hopefully will grow nicely as those pesky neighbor's cats have moved away.!

Susybell, I think Dusty is a perfect name! I also agree with Sally that you might need to pick up another catmint or two for a better chance of seeing a bloom!

Sue, Dusty is very pretty. What's the story behind your addition of him?

My SIL puts an inexpensive wire trash container inverted over her catnip. She pushes it into the ground to anchor it. The cats can then eat what pokes out, but the base of the plant is saved to produce another day . . .

That's a great solution Katie. I suppose a wire tomato cage would work as well.

Thanks! Dusty has been enjoying all the extra attention, lol! Yes, we're very happy with him-he's a great cat and even gets along pretty well with my others. But, I've never seen a bigger nip-head in all my years-he even finds cedar shavings interesting.

Kathy, Dusty is a "first" for me. This is the first time I've ever taken in a stray in over 20 years of cat "ownership". He turned up last fall, very young (still willing to attack his own tail), really hungry, super-friendly and neutered. We think he was abandoned when some people in the nieghborhood moved away. We watched for "lost kitty" signs and never saw a single one. He's grown a couple of inches since we've had him, and filled in quite a lot as well.

Lol, I have had a hardware cloth cylinder over the plant, but it's outgrown it. We're considering making a larger one. I am also protecting the lilies just behind it from getting broken off.

That's such a great story. What a treasure they left behind. :-)

I came home the night before last to several emerging Solomon Seal plants that had been broken off. There didn't appear to be footprints or plant trauma from dog-play. Somebody actually bit about 5 of them off in the middle. They're nearly ready to open, so about 12" tall, so I'm not sure who that would have been. Bigger than a cat. My dogs are nibblers, so for now I'm blaming them.

I got some comfrey from balvenie last summer and the dogs have been the culprits who are eating it. I covered it a few months ago to give it a chance to come back and now the dogs are eating the Brunnera that's in the same area. What is it with my dogs?!

Julie,
You are very wise to have Lexi train your new darling. She will be much better at it. Lexi will live on in her. She is adorable.

Ginger

These two are TOO lazy to help a thief!!

Cute! nothing like a nap on a comfy bed! Love the bi-color face on the one! So unusual!

Mortswife, they are adorable! Looks like they are best friends too!

the variegated one is 13 and he's a registered doxi. The brown one, who is mostly brain dead, is 5.

That face is amazing....looks a little phantom of the opera.


Ginger

Beautiful puppies!!

OK, found a new garden helper today. I share my garden with all creatures except slugs and snails (although, I will admit that the sharing is more grudging when it comes to the hooved varieties), but when I find a new creature, sometimes there is a short period of alarm before the enjoyment (in that sentence I am still imagining Susy with the screaming bullfrogs!). I have several large toads and a couple of snakes in my garden, but they are mostly homebodies, so I have a general idea where I may run across them. I don't know who was more startled today, me, or my new friend when I tossed alphalfa pellets on his head as he was drowsing in the sun next to the foot of one of my roses. I had never seen anything but toads in this garden until this year...what a surprise! All good with having a snake in that garden though....snakes eat slugs!!!!

RJ.. I would have had a heart attack! Not crazy about snakes. I know they are good but when I was little my brother chased after me with a snake and pinned me behind a gate and stuck the thing in my face. Your snake is pretty however. It almost looks like it has a needle point skin. Nice shot!

Beahive, I am fond of snakes in my garden, but I think part of that is because we live on the side of the mountains where you know for sure that none of them will do more than leave a set of teeth marks in you if they bite you! If I lived on the other side of the hill, I would be running and screaming each time I saw one! It's funny how childhood memories have such a strong influence on your life, but it is definitely a fact!

At the very first house I owned I found a small baby garder snake in the back yard. During the five years I owned that house I always was thinking about the baby snake being loose in the yard along with his parents and siblings. Never ran across him again..but I am sure they were lerking somewhere.

We had tons of blue bellied lizzards in our yard when I was growing up. They did not bother me one bit. We used to catch them and keep them in shoe boxes with airholes punched in the lid. They would always be returned back to nature at the end of the day.

We used to have two litte racers. They got out once and we found one curled up around the antique milk glass lamp on my mom's nightstand.

After that she would check under her pillow every night. She would lift up the pillow and put her hand on the bed while she was checking the pillow for the snake.

One night we put a rubber snake under there and she put her hand on it....

She chased us down the hall swinging that rubber snake for all she was worth.

Jeeze . That was uhmmm......40 years ago.

It is still FUNNY !!!!!

Ginger

Rarejem, I love your sinuous garden helper. May s/he eat many slugs!

My doggy helper has been slowing way down in his old age, but recently took a turn for the worse. Blood tests indicate cancer of the spleen according to the vet, and he is very anemic due to this. Sadly, this means he is just too tired most of the time to wander out in the yard with me. He prefers to sleep on the rug inside. He is not in pain, which I am grateful for,

Oh, Holly. I'm so sorry. Your poor guy. This must be so hard on you all. I'm glad he's not in any pain, though.

Kathy

My companions are a black lab mix that is 15 blind in one eye and hard of hearing but best dog ever owned, followed by 4 cats, all males, ages are 12, 5, 4, 3 all pills. The 5 year is the mellow fellow. I image the old gal will not last long but we take excellent care of her will try to post pictures of the all. Can not garden the iris without them all.

D

Sorry about your dog Holly, I know how hard that is. So glad he isn't in pain.