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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14300 is a reply to message #14297 ] |
Sun, 05 April 2009 19:13   |
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So I gather that Robin hates watering. Anyone else get that impression? Anyone? ;) (I know, I'm too uppity for my own good. But I have chocolate, and I'm willing to share.)
Glad Darkness can get in the car by himself now. That means he's doing better, right?
The way you describe training them to get in on their own reminds me a lot of what I've been going through with the ferrets lately. Part of my effort to get them to use the litter boxes all the time (rather than the floor next to the litter box -- got to keep the litter clean! -- sigh) has been giving them treats every time they successfully use it. So at first I'd put them in there when they started assuming the position, then give them a treat when it's done. I've mostly worked my way up to only giving them a treat when they get in on their own, but STEWIE seems to have decided that he gets a treat every time he steps foot in the box. Not so, mister! Not so! And at this point, he knows better. But he still tries. He hops in the box, does nothing, then hops out and stares at me. Then he started *faking* using the box so I'd give him a treat.
*facepalm*
The hellhounds seem to be a bit wiser than Stewie here. He still hasn't learned. (Though the treat thing has overall improved the situation, so I don't want to complain too much.)
Smooshes!
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14315 is a reply to message #14297 ] |
Sun, 05 April 2009 19:39 |
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 Maren
Messages: 1332
Registered: October 2008
Location: Louisiana |
Senior Member
[Moderator] |
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I spent yesterday morning getting all those plants that I bought at the university plant sale last weekend, as well as some seeds, into their various new pots, boxes, and one hanging basket, and now guess what? YES! A HARD FREEZE is predicted tomorrow night. It's supposed to be 29, in Louisiana, in April. It's generally been in the 60s and 70s for weeks; our average last frost date is mid-March.
I don't do the indoor jungle thing, not since I had some tulips that started coming up in December 2007 and I spent the next several months dragging them inside most nights. After the bulbs rotted anyway due to the balcony sometimes imitating a swamp, I decided I was a "sink or swim" gardener. I will bring the newbies in for ONE NIGHT but that's all they get. >:(
ETA more italics.
[Updated on: Sun, 05 April 2009 19:40]
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14323 is a reply to message #14319 ] |
Sun, 05 April 2009 19:54 |
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| Robin wrote on Sun, 05 April 2009 19:50 |
I am not actually seeing any difference in the way Darkness moves. It's just the physio said 'three days'. And I'm not going to let him jump on the bed till we go in again. (If I have another lying-down afternoon I will LIFT him on the bed. Sigh . . . )
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Ah, right. Three days. Well, ear skritches to him. I hope he feels better! I will be interested to find out what the physio says when you go back...
Smooshes!
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14327 is a reply to message #14297 ] |
Sun, 05 April 2009 20:12 |
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I don’t know about the rest of the dog-crap-picking-up world, but I find I have to stare at said crap fixedly while I grope in my pocket for a bag–and then curse furiously, more or less under my breath, while I try to peel the little bleeder open and ready for action–or the object of my intent will have become Invisibly One with the Landscape. Until someone steps in it, of course.
Every time. Invisible. And there should be a mathematical equation, that the busier the pathway, the more urgent the need to find the pile*, thus the greater the chance of either a) losing it completely, b) treading in some other far more disgusting poo (what DO people feed their dogs?) or c) finding your "own" poo by sliding in it...
I used to recycle carrier bags as poo bags until the day that I picked up some particularly squishy substance only to find that, yes, it was squishy, between my fingers squishy, because the bag had a rip in just the wrong place - yeeeukkkk!
*in cold weather steam helps 
Someone says "pie" and we all go on alert, like meercats. "Pie? Where?" - Blackbear
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14336 is a reply to message #14297 ] |
Sun, 05 April 2009 21:42 |
 skating librarian
Messages: 570
Registered: October 2008
Location: Vermont |
Senior Member |
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The rain finally melted the last of the snow (apologies to those in the upper midwest who are still blanketed). The lower lawn and garden are somewhere between sopping and underwater.
I'd love to be able to share with Australia. Every day it looks as if the brook will overflow and then, thank goodness, it recedes.
Since we have started the hydration routine puss seems much more energetic ... and because I use treats to prepare her for the ordeal, and then reward her, she is using her newly recovered taste for leaping and climbing to hunt for the treats once I've put them away.
I have had a computer triumph this evening! I managed to recover dozens of missing photographs. Where they came from, I don't know, but I do know that tomorrow I'm going to burning CDs of my various "albums". The weird thing is that not all the missing images allowed themselves to be recovered ... yet if I scrolled through the library fast enough their thumbnails would very briefly show up over their captions and then fade away.
"Winning a war is like winning an earthquake" Jeanette Rankin
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14338 is a reply to message #14302 ] |
Sun, 05 April 2009 22:50 |
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Black Bear, one understands your frustration at there being a watering system everywhere except where it seemed to be needed most. And of course I don't know what sorts of planting you were watering. But personally, I consider automatic sprinkler systems an invention of the devil (corporate moneymaking variety). They are really only good for maintaining water-guzzling, fertilizer-gobbling non-native emerald lawns, around here at least. They encourage shallow root systems so that the plants are unable to survive the slightest drought. They are programmed and then left to themselves, leading to the sight of sprinklers going full blast in a rain storm. The sprinkler heads get broken so that a stream of wasted water geysers into the sky and then down the street for hours, while the city water supply is being diminished. And our native post oak trees, which live to several hundred years in our normal native 33"/year rainfall environment, DIE when subjected to them.
OK, rant over.
Fortunately our city council has passed an ordinance against automatic systems that are not adjusted to allow for rainstorms, or which water pavement instead of grass, so now I can gleefully call in complaints when I observe such situations.
Now I'm done 
Maybe the same cold front threatening Louisiana is forecast to give us two night of 34°. The baby wild plums on the trees survived the 33° last week, so I guess we'll make it.
Abigail
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14349 is a reply to message #14297 ] |
Mon, 06 April 2009 05:42 |
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AJLR
Messages: 2565
Registered: September 2008
Location: England, UK |
Senior Member
[Moderator] |
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wrestling with the on-off switch, which is to say twist, whereby it either squirts out the nozzle backwards and soaks you, or it rockets out frontwards like a cannonball and splinters anything it comes in contact with.
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Yes, they're the devil's own work, those things. The connector where our hose goes onto the outside tap is possessed of malevolent demons and lies in wait until until one is dressed in going-out clothes for its most forceful squirts.
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The garden is now wet.‡‡ It will rain tonight. It’s not supposed to‡‡‡. But it will now.
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Oh it will rain very soon, and consistently, believe me. And why? Because I've taken the next three days this week off, that's why.... *grumbles*
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But the moment I–and a lot of other people who are having exactly this same conversation with themselves–start planting out our dahlias, we’ll have a late frost.
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Yup, absolutely. My conversation involves when to take the little olive and fig trees out of the greenhouse. The olive is currently flowering profusely and the fig is burgeoning with fruit - I want this state of affairs to continue!
"Never let a computer know you're in a hurry."
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14353 is a reply to message #14338 ] |
Mon, 06 April 2009 07:26 |
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Black Bear
Messages: 3216
Registered: September 2008
Location: Indianapolis, IN USA |
Senior Member
[Moderator] |
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Rant all you like, Abigail! There's always room for difference of opinion. I worked in a botanic garden with all types of native and non-native species, with beds of annuals and perennials, shrubs, lawns, and (huzzah!) rosebushes. Having an in-ground irrigation system (as most of the rest of our zoo did) which could be turned on for a set amount of time every morning, or timed to go on overnight when evaporation loss is less and watering is more efficient, would have been better for both plants and us. I agree wholeheartedly that a sprinkler system which is not being monitored or maintained is a huge waste of water! But working in a place where the whole point is both environmental stewardship AND having amazing, healthy looking plants and lawns (coz otherwise, who'd pay to come see them?) it's a pretty sensible solution.
"The time is always right to do what's right."--MLK Jr.
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14366 is a reply to message #14297 ] |
Mon, 06 April 2009 11:30 |
Karayna
Messages: 28
Registered: April 2009
Location: Boston |
Junior Member |
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"Yesterday there was a certain ‘raise me, slave’ air about him as we approached Wolfgang."
ahahaha that's so funny! Your dogs are so cool!! Hopefully this doesn't sound dumb but, what breed are they? they look part greyhound.... They are very cute!
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14376 is a reply to message #14297 ] |
Mon, 06 April 2009 16:22 |
Catlady
Messages: 230
Registered: December 2008
Location: Aurora, Colorado |
Senior Member |
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Ah, I understand now, how anyone might love gardening. I swear, until this moment, I thought all it WAS was watering.
I live near Denver. We had 4% humidity the other day. And we're up high, so even high humidity is much dryer than it is for other places. (I go to LA and complain about the wetness in the air and they look at me like I'm crazy.) My sister has a garden that I'm supposed to take care of, which is to say, WATER. Every day. All the TIME. It almost never rains here. Ever. So I've never really understood how people could enjoy gardening.
But maybe, if the sky does some of the watering for you... and you got to dig in the dirt... and some of your flowers occasionally grew (frosts, of course, aside)... hmm. Maybe there'd be something to THAT...
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14386 is a reply to message #14385 ] |
Mon, 06 April 2009 19:54 |
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| Robin wrote on Mon, 06 April 2009 19:51 |
What an *uplifting* thread this is . . . :)
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Animal people are clearly freaks. *g*
Smooshes!
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14391 is a reply to message #14297 ] |
Mon, 06 April 2009 20:01 |
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boy,i am glad the japenese spaniels i work with are small.they don't weigh more than 1o pounds and some are 2 pounds.
[Updated on: Mon, 06 April 2009 20:02]
Bonnie Holmes the faster ahead I go, the more behind I get
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| Re: Watering the Garden [message #14419 is a reply to message #14412 ] |
Tue, 07 April 2009 05:07 |
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| Diane in MN wrote on Tue, 07 April 2009 06:40 |
Nothing obvious or orthopedic showed up at Teddy's vet exam today, so it's onward to alternative approaches. There's a vet near me who does reiki, qi gong, and Bowen massage, so I will talk to her before heading right off for acupuncture.
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Good luck, and I hope it's just a temporary thing - do Danes get "growing pains"?
Someone says "pie" and we all go on alert, like meercats. "Pie? Where?" - Blackbear
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