Ok - This was hysterical......from Ademink:

"dirty little piece of worthless rubber. i curse you. i spit on your nozzle."

In addition to having to HAUL HOSES, I'm really, really, really annoyed by only 3 things......

***voles - which aren't really annoying - when they attack, they pass into a whole 'nother realm of heartbreak. I spit on your nasty pointed little faces

***those nasty bugs that seem to be everywhere that cannot let me walk outside without having to fly INTO MY FACE -- what is that? - they seem to want to become one with my eyes / nose / mouth -- really, really, really annoying. I spit on - well no, I guess I just spit you out

***the view of the across-the-street neighbors' yard - the neighbors who moved in, told me the husband was a gardener, and proceeded to cut down every tree and shrub - including beautiful old dogwoods and mountain laurels - turning a beautifully wooded lot into what looks like the South Bronx - chain link fence rising up and over huge boulders on the side and gravel parking strip in front - to say nothing of their annoying child who drove his 4-wheeler thing in a figure 8 in the front yard, turning grass to mud - and their 'landscaping' including an oh-so-artfully placed rusty wheelbarrow on its side, next to the oh-so-cute black dog statue, next to the pile of 'landscape bricks' that never quite got installed, in front of the porch where styrofoam ice chests get stored, and, and, and.... I spit on your hideous awfulness

Guess I'd better get serious about planting some trees to block that view, huh?

SQUIRRELS (AKA TREE RATS!!!)!!!!

Great thread, J.

George

And, the garden visitor who told me he didn't like rabbits and squirrels, moles, ground hogs then his wife walked about with a stick to shoo snakes away. THEN she turned her nose up when she saw a toad and made it clear she hated birds that might poop on her car that she parked in the sun to keep from being under a tree.

Finally, I mean FINALLY he asked to keep my dog from nosing his hand to be petted. I gently informed him that the dog and all the other creatures lived here in harmony and he didnt. They havent been back and the dog seems to like it that way.

I'm LOL all over this thread...what a great way to vent. Seems like we share the same annoyances.

I'm having visuals of ademink spitting on her hoses and ken hitting the hosta know-it-alls over the head with his shovel...Hilarious!

My main annoyance this year is oxalis! What a chore to keep weeding them out. I HATE them. They spit their seed a million miles and land everywhere there is a speck of space in my gardens. I hate them in the lawn, too, but in the gardens is the worst.

I'm also dealing with, for the first time ever, four lined plant bugs. Why this year? Are the Midwest floods bringing them? For some reason, I haven't had many maple tree seedlings. Usually I yank hundreds...but I'm still yanking the buckthorn seedlings. I've removed probably fifty mature bushes/trees of those since I've moved in eight years ago, but the neighbors still have some. I'm slowly working on those too. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

E_O, I think they need to pave a big chunk of the Sahara, or Mohave Desert and send all the people there who hate birds for pooping on their cars, who hate trees because some critter might live in them, who hate toads because they're ugly, who hate snakes because they're slithery, who hate garden spiders because they're spiders, and on and on.

These people don't need to live in nature, so let's ship them to a gigantic paved-over place and let them live on the concrete and blacktop with no plant or animal life so the rest of us can live in harmony with nature without having to listen to THEM and their phobic complaining.

Neighbors on both sides of me are like that and I feel like knocking their pin-heads together. Or maybe I should invite Ademink to come over and spit on them.

Lainey

who hate garden spiders because they're spiders, and on and on.
lainey

We had a spider that made a web that was so large in our front doorway that we almost had to craw under it, the spider was about an inch across. We named him Spiro the Spider; he lived with us almost all summer.

"so the rest of us can live in harmony with nature"

We are learning what happens when man does not integrate with nature, we will exist only if we find where we fit in.
An old song; "This could be the worst"
This could be the worst,
That man was sent down
Upon the earth
To dominate the land.

Imagine the conversation The Creator might have had with St. Francis on the subject of lawns:
GOD: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect, no-maintenance garden plan.
Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by
now. But all I see are these green rectangles.
ST. FRANCIS: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.
GOD: Grass? But it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?
ST. FRANCIS: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. Beginning each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.
GOD: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the homeowners happy.
ST. FRANCIS: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it ~ sometimes twice a week.
GOD: They cut it? Do they then bail it like hay?
ST. FRANCIS: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.
GOD: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?
ST. FRANCIS: No Sir. Just the opposite, they pay to throw it away.
GOD: Now let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?
ST. FRANCIS: Yes, Sir.
GOD: These Earthlings must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.
ST. FRANCIS: You aren't going to believe this Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.
GOD: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves form compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle of life.
ST. FRANCIS: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.
GOD: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter and to keep the soil moist and loose?
ST. FRANCIS: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.
GOD: And where do they get this mulch?
ST. FRANCIS: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.
GOD: Enough. I don't want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have they scheduled for us tonight?
ST. CATHERINE: Dumb and Dumber, Lord. It's a real stupid movie about.....
GOD: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis

Oh My....... What a hilarious thread (sort of!)

Yep, there are all sorts of annoyances. My current gripes are wild grapes. There are a TON of wild grape seedlings popping up all over and when you pull them, they dont come out, they snap off at ground level and send out new runners. And the wild Jacobs Ladder. Grrrrrrr! IT is insidious!

I saw the first few Japanese Beetles yesterday, they definitely go on the list. That means an end to the roses for the year. Of course, I didn;t get to see many because right before they should have bloomed, it went to the upper 90's and all the buds either blasted or balled, so can I add too hot too early to the list?

And I can't believe no one has mentioned woodchucks! A female decided to move under my shed to have her pups and it has made the dog completely insane. Fortunately, the dog is big, fast and powerful. She iradicated two of the babies and an adult so far this spring.... I think the other babies have either moved away or expired, although there is no tell-tale smell near the shed, so I think they may have moved to safer ground. The downside is that the dog completely mowed down a couple of hostas and a clump of daylilys in her persuit of the woodchucks, but hopefully they will be back (the plants, not the woodchucks!).

Great way to vent - it really is heartening to know the I am not the only one fighting battles in my own yard.

Alexa

Oh, how could I forget my hosta beds companion plant...POISION IVY

Currently it is light green caterpillars. The smaller version that I've had before does some damage. The larger ones, new this year, are doing heavy damage to my hostas. They roll the leaf edge up like a cigarette, and start eating their way through. When they have eaten enough of one leaf, they drop out onto the leaf below. This continues until I notice and squeeze them to death. It reminds me of the monster in the Alien movie that dripped some kind of corrosive acid that ate through a succesion of floors and ceilings.

Last year's bad problem was red lily beetles (from hell). I've had lilies for 25 years and never seen anything like the destruction that they cause. Alternating Neem oil spray and ammonia spray seems to help a lot.

Voles, Moles, chipmunks, rabbits and their holes and tunnels, of course. SLUGS. They all come to feast in my garden.
Mouse and slug bait is effective, but is a major expense.

Poison ivy, raspberry prickers and some kind of burning rash-causing thistle that comes through the fence from a neighbor's "wild" area. Roundup doesn't do much to this stuff.

One neighbor's kids are finally involved with organized sports ELSEWHERE. For years my yard has been used as the outfield. I am still bitter. Why not face their own house when batting, and hit the balls into their gardens? But no, her gardens never got damaged. That was clearly forbidden. My gardens took heavy damage every year, especially whenever I drove out to go to the market or whatever. For a while I tossed all of the baseballs, tennis balls, golfballs and beach balls back over the fence. Sometimes a dozen or more a day. Bad idea. It seemed to encourage them. So I bagged everything I found after a while and gave the balls to friends with dogs. Took a while to have an effect. I suspect the father got tired of buying new balls eventually. One of my friends thinks I'm mean. I think the neighbors are mean sh**s. They could care less about smashing my iris, peonies, roses, annuals, HOSTAS, etc. This is the first spring that I haven't found a lot of balls in the yard. I'm holding my breath...

I don't know why everyone loves oak tress so much. They drop ugly ragweed-like flowers that decay and stain hostas if not picked off frequently (big chore). This mess also clogs the gutters. The green acorns fall in the spring and summer, the ripe ones in the fall, making holes in hostas or piercing the tough ones like earring studs. The sticks fall during storms and seem to target favorite hostas, not the ones I don't care for. The leaves fall late in the season, sometimes after the snow starts falling, so DPW stops picking up the leaf piles and plows the whole mess back onto everyone's lawns. Big mess.

That's way too much complaining. I'm starting to get embarrassed. I apologize. (nice to vent, tho')

EO, your conversation between God and St.FRancis is classic! I think I'll post it over on the "lawn" forum.

Really, it is a fine piece of persuasive writing. And hilarious too.

Lainey

What really annoys me is when you are weeding, it is so quiet,you are deep in meditation with nature,and all of a sudden some ones dog starts barking,and does not quit for HOURS!How can a dog owner not hear their dog barking?
Not to even go out to see if the poor dog needs water,shade,food,something,a dog does not bark constantly for no reason does it?It is so darn annoying i have to go in the house and hope it will stop,you can't be mad at the dog,it is the human who needs to be chained up,see how he likes it.

Carol

bunnycat, I had a similar problem with 16-year-old and 18-year-old "neighbors" across the street. We've had a running battle with the brats across the street because they regard my garden as their personal outfield, and think nothing of charging into my FENCED garden to catch and/or retrieve their balls. We started by confiscating every ball we got to before they did. All that did was make the parents whine at us about how we don't know how hard it is to have kids. So one summer, last summer, I got fed up and called the police to have the brats busted for tresspassing. The officer who arrived thought the situation should be handled without arrest, so I let him do that, but a report was duly filed and kept on record.

A few months later, the hellspawn were at it again, so I called and made it perfectly clear that THIS TIME I was not going to be satisfied with anything less than pressing charges. So this time, the officer cited the 16-year-old and 18-year-old who both stupidly and unrepentantly admitted that they had been on my property after being told to stay off, after being cautioned by police, and after a pretty ugly confrontation with me ON MY PROPERTY. The brats responded to being cited by getting in one of the several cars in their driveway and just blasting away on the horn. I just stood back and smiled because I just knew--sure enough--it irritated the equally harassed next door neighbors (they, too, had called the police several times to complain about these "kids")--so the folks next door to the hellspawn called the police and pressed charges for disturbing the peace. I should add that when the officer cited the brats for tresspassing, that they made it perfectly clear that it would be unwise to go anywhere near the psychotic fat redheaded woman with a shovel (me), because I was just itchin' to kill someone with that shovel. Whether it was the threat or the repeated citations that made the hellspawn STOP using my garden as their personal outfield, I'll never know. Nor do I really care. I still wanna just kill someone who deserves it by beating 'em to death with a shovel, though...(ahhh the joys of partially successful psychotropic medications)

As for *plant* annoyances, I can't think of many. Weeds are just volunteer mulch/compost in the making (and I don't have many weeds in this climate). Invasive/Aggressive plants in this climate are valued for their ability to survive at all. And I don't think it would be fair to call the inability to grow Meconopsis spp. due to climate an annoyance, exactly. A bit disappointing and a bit frustrating, perhaps, but not really annoying.

The tradeoffs for the difficult climate here are: 1) NO PET FLEAS 2) No Rose Blackspot 3) Very little Powdery Mildew 4) No poison oak or poison ivy 5) Few weeds and 6) No significant tornados (I've seen one itty bitty one here since 1973--ONE--and all it did was kick up some dirt and stir up the tumbleweeds)

Lisa

Wow--I'm seeing a whole nuther 'side' to our gardening buddies! Whereas we have a love for the garden,
and more specifically--hosta--you don't want to 'mess around' with many of our folk--for sure! LOL

I think I will be much more careful in my approach to people who garden--especially careful not to step
on a planting (which I would anyway) or suggest feeding their squirrels and chipmunks--less I become
'fertilizer' for a really big 'Sum and Substance'!!! Gulp!!!

Maybe I should have titled this thread "Vent your Hosta Hostilities Here!!!" LOL

As I started reading through this thread I thought, "well nothing really annoys me". Then as I got through more and more responses they reminded me of things that get on my nerves.

Like the left-hand side next door neighbor with the chihuahua...I was out gardening and she stood on the other side of the 6' stockade fence with her "rat dog" on a leash and held it there while it yapped at me. She thought I couldn't see her, but I could, I just ignored her and her miserable little dog. Then there's her idiot husband who moved shrubs from next to his front porch onto our side of the property line...never watered them and the dead bare bones of these bushes remain there. Frankly we try to ignore them, life is too short (besides the tall screen plants I've planted are starting to grow up and they are giving our backyard a "secret garden" feel, which is wonderful).

Across the street there's a couple that has a beagle. Do you know what a beagle sounds like when you're in bed asleep at 3:00 AM? Its a cool quiet night, the windows are open to let the evening breezes in. You'd think they'd hear it after the first loud Oooowwwwww. No, they let it go for 45 minutes! I hated hearing it cry to get in the house, but I honestly felt bad when the poor dog wandered out into the busy street during rush hour last week and was hit by a car. Stupid owners!!

Then there's the neighbors on the right-hand side of us, all he likes is lawn...he cut down all the shrubs around his house and yard. They have one 12 year old, and as she grows up they acquire more yard toys for her. There's the monstrous wooden swing set, huge trampoline, basketball backboard/hoop (that when the ball misses comes over the fence into one of my hosta beds!!!), and the huge grey ugly above the ground pool with a 2' swath of grey stone around it right in the middle of their back yard. Sadly everything was fairly hidden until he decided to trim our beautiful Norway maple tree up 25 feet. The tree is 5' off the property line and the branches weren't low to begin with, he waited until we went to church and then cut all the branches on his side flush with the trunk all the way up. This is the same guy that would wait until we went to church and would come over and go into our tool shop and borrow whatever he wanted. We kindly told him we'd appreciate it if he asked first and started locking the door.

I spit on them all. Sigh, I feel immensly better now, thanks for listening.

Donna

I'm so glad I don't live in the city! I have another problem,and it's happening right now,as I type this. It's my neighbor,who apparently hired someone to deforest his property. Chain saws are screaming and trees are falling. Ordinarily,it is so quiet here,you can sit down on my garden bench and listen to the little stream that runs at the bottom of my garden,and you can even hear birds wings flapping as they fly thru. It isn't the quiet place it was when I moved here. Fortunately for me,the neighbor has 2 lots,and the vacant one is between his house and mine. Then when he has brush,and when he burns it,of course the smoke always goes toward our house,because the wind always blows out of the northwest here. Phil

Try living in a high rise condo for a couple of years. Once you get back to gardening again, hardly anything will ANNOY you.

Whats really annoying is having to go to work on beautifull days...LOL And time slipping away so fast.I mean you walk into your garden and its 10:00 in the morning and the next thing you know its 4:00 in the afternoon.Don't you just love it :)

Several things on here that have been mentioned annoy me too. I guess the thing that annoys me the most garden-wise are the stray cats always pooping in my flower beds. I love cats, but why in my flower beds, digging up my flowers and seedlings or breaking my flowers? Why can't they do their business in the yard at the house next door? They don't care about their yard, it's a rental and don't give a rip about the yard and the house. Which also brings me to my next gripe, these people looove to play their annoying Mexican music loud every single day from their car, particularly in the evening when we want to relax, or want to sleep, at ten o'clock at night. We get up early in the morning to go to work when next thing you know, I'm hearing thump thump thump from the bass and the trumpets blaring and the yodeling that is Mexican music blaring near our bedroom window. I have no problem with these neighbors, other than their music.

Oh, and the neighbor two houses down always screams at her kids, cussing at them and being just a rotten mother, from what I can hear. She had over a dozen kittens and cats there last year, and they had been coming over to our place when she stopped feeding them. Then one day, poof, they all disappeared. Made me sad, cuz I know that without a doubt where they went. There are still two cats left from that herd of cats, they won't come near anybody except us, cuz we feed them and gained their trust. I need to plant a large privacy screen of shrubs on the entire north side of the property to block the view of these two annoying neighbors. I think I'm done venting now....lol!

Karen

Wow! Amazing and funny everyone. It makes me realize a great big, enormous, wonderful thing I'm thankful for and that is that I don't have ANY close neighbors. I can live with the bugs. McT

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Has anyone put a privacy fence in front of there house?? Ineed to live on my own island, of course there would have to be a nursery there!! NEIGHBORS...only god loves them!!

Have you noticed that neighbors are the origin of the problems we're reading about here.

I'm with McT, I'm thankful that I don't have any close neighbors.
My closest is at least 500' away from my house and I can't see their house or a car anywhere until the leaves fall.

I guess I'm considered anti-social by most people because
we have a 6' fence surrounding our 5 acres and an electric gate to get in.

Only my family has a remote to the gate.

I have sucurity cameras in all directions, just incase someone gets thru my "fortress".

After reading all of these vents about neighbors it makes
me remember why we live here like we do.

But, I still think watching Icyveins drunk neighbor walk into walls, trees, fences, etc. might be entertaining for maybe a day or two, then back to my fortress.

Hi, It's me again. This whole neigbor issue has taken on a more personal note. My sister called last night and was about ready to have a breakdown. As some of you know I spent six weeks down at her house this Feb/Mar helping her with her garden. One of the things we did was try to disguise where her inconsiderate neighbors had cut down a big tree in their back yard. This opened their ugly backyard to full view from her garden and house. They had also "trimed" in the front yard so that she could clearly see their garbage cans behind her beautiful plants. After I left she had a fence built in this section which did help a lot. She came home yesterday to see that they had continued clearing from the fence all the way to the road. The lush backdrop behind her sitting area in the front yard and the rest of her front yard garden was gone! Now she is able to see their driveway and cars and mutilation of anyting green. She is going to continue the fence and put on lattice as high as is allowed. Persnally I think she should have poision darts aimed at the neighbors. This kind of stuff just tears at you.

Sassy, I'm with you. I always felt I'd be perfectly happy living on a rock taking care of a lighthouse. Below are some pictures taken this morning of my neighbor. I like him a lot better than the human kind. I looked out the window when I sat down at my computer this morning and there he was - in my garden walking up one of the narrow, newly paved cement paths. He got to the end and climbed up on the wall and nibbled on the roses. I tried to take a picture then but he was gone. He only went a short way and cut back down through the woods. I got a picture of him coming through, the first one not very clear. He was just beyond the new "woods garden" I posted pictures of on the gallery the other day. (An aside, I think he must still be out there because Brody is barking again). He passed through the woods to the west just below the pool deck. It's probably him that is coming through at night and smashing my dahlias. Still, better than a human with clippers.

Hostafreak I'm about to feel your pain. I live in a valley. Sun doesn't hit my yard until 10am and it is shaded over by 5 pm.

My front yard only sees maybe 4 hours of sun a day. So I have planted plants that don't require a lot of sun, Hostas and ferns. Well they just sold the hill across the road and will be clear cutting before fall. My quiet country home is not going to be so quiet pretty soon. Oh... and I hate to think of the unsightly mess that they will leave.

I need some fast growing trees to line my property with, so my poor Hostas and ferns don't fry next year, when there are no trees on that hill to shade them. Wish I had the money to purchase that land when it sold last month, the trees would never be cut.

So I guess what really annoys me is people buying land, clear cutting it to make a profit then leaving it barren. Not planting anything to replace what they have taken.

Anybody that cuts down a tree for no good reason.

Good reasons:

it's about to fall down

and....

um....

that's it.

Snails, slugs, mosquitoes, Japanese Knotweed, Bittersweet, dog poo.

Mosquitos & what 'inlimbo' said---knowing we will no doubt be taking a tree down to appease a good neighbor (otherwise)!

I have to say, we do have very good neighbors right now! In fact, the young couple to the one side of us are just the nicest people
and we love their kids! I've infected her with my love of hosta and often say she is more like me, in her yard interests, than my own
daughters!!

I know the Cottonwood cotton is a real pain--I hate it, too! We just had no idea what we were in for when we allowed that tree to
grow to maturity!!

Did I mention voles before?

So, my wonderful neighbors moved away 3 years ago and a young woman moved in.

Let me pause to say I like spending a lot of time in my private, quiet backyard.

So, when I heard a horrid screeching it was really, really annoying, but I was busy and it took a number of episodes 'til I figured out my new neighbor was not alone...

Yes, her companion was a parrot.

Now, you may love parrots, and maybe I would, too...

but NOT a screecher that ruins the peace & quiet I've loved for years.

It was an annoying summer.

The next summer, we both installed central air, she closed her windows, & all's quite on the CT front...

Screeching parrot......annoying.

and voles -- always, always annoying....

THE CAT LADY NEXT DOOR. Im sure every1 has 1 or knows of 1.

LOL Jerseygarden I think I am that lady. But, I live in the country. My closest neigbor is over 500 ft away and they could care less about their yard. Oh by the way the correct term is "Crazy Cat Lady". :)

Tip for keeping neighborhood kids out of your yard. I did this and it works. Part of the reason I'm known as they "Crazy cat Lady" As I said I live in the country. Surrounded by 500 acres of State Forest. Not much for kids to do around here except walk the roads and annoy neighbors.

One morning I heard them outside. They decided to stand out in front of my house to have an argument at 7am. I calmly, hair not brushed still in my PJ's and looking like a mad woman picked up a shot gun opened the front door and just stood there leaning against the shot gun, cup of coffee in the other hand. (I had no intentions of using the shot gun just wanted to make sure the teenagers saw it.) I didn't say a word, just stood there. I no longer have a problem with the neighbors kids.

MOSQUITOS.....They are the size of bees. OUCH!

MC
OMG YOU HAVE A BEAR IN YOUR YARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When i started reading your post, i thought as i scrolled down i was gong to see a DEER,then,to my surprise, i saw a BEAR.

Ok, what kind of bear is it?

I am not up on my bears, but i have this awful Fear of them , i don't know why,but i do.I even have dreams about them, and although i live in the woods, there are no bear around us in Illinois,ha ha, so, no reason for me to fear them.

He is awfully close to your house.You have a really nice re-treat.Thanks for sharing your morning picture with us.

Carol

Just to answer your question, Carol, that's a black bear.

Karen

Aren't they the ones that EAT people?

No, I think that is a Grizzly Bear, right?

There was a bear in the news last year that actuly broke into a ladys house looking for food, her daughter saved her by taking some meat out of the frid.and throwing it at the bear,she got hurt pretty bad.Not common i know,but still, ,,scary.

I will stay with my sweet little deer.

Carol

My future plans include becoming the Crazy Cat Lady who Lives in the Scary House on the Hill. One of my plans is to take all balls that are hit into my yard by the neighborhood kids, saw them in half, and return them to their rightful owners... then bake all the neighborhood kids cookies and see who is brave enough to accept one. I sit awake at night making plans in order to come across as THE AUTHENTIC Crazy Cat Lady.

McTavish, my first thought upon seeing your pics was, "and the number one threat to America: BEARS!" Stephen Colbert, for those of you who are unfamiliar... he has a bit of an aversion to bears.

This black bear was quite the gentleman bear. He walked down a very narrow path and climbed onto the new solid cement wall. I'd just put a garden against the inside of this wall. It is built in my usual made up fashion of rocks, wood and ignorance and denial regarding the laws of physics and gravity. I want the stuff to stay up so it usually does. The point is that he could have easily knocked the whole thing down but there was not a crushed leaf. I'm not sure how that even happened. We had a grizzly cub (mother must have been hiding) the week before over in the field but not that far away really. I talked about that one on some other thread that eludes me now. As soon as Photobucket recognizes me again (not sure what's going on) I'll post a separate thread on "my bears" for anyone who is interested. It is pretty odd for bears to be so close at this time of the year and in the daylight.

ps. I think I qualify as a crazy cat lady already. I have five now. The thought of thirty or so with cats everywhere is appealing to me.

Yes, but you must wear a shawl that drags on the ground. It's a requirement... I realized this around 4:30 am while perfecting my plans one night.

nothing
i don't let anyting bug me when i am out in the garden

Mc,

Are you a she-or a he?

All alone out there in the quiet?

I am assuming a (she), as you have a desire to become a (crazy cat lady.)
One with a long black shawl and dirty gloves with the fingers cut out.

Aside from that,I,for one,would love to read about your 'bears',let us know when and where it will be posted.

Carol

Well, the bear doesn't really scare me--especially since I'm in the 'burbs' in Ohio, but 'icyveins' sure does!

Are you really that scary 'icy' or are you just having fun with this thread? :o)

GREENGUY what about bugs mosquitos?

TIMBEROHIO if only everybodies neighbors were 500 feet away!! well at least i would be in heaven and not have to invite them over for a beer or bbq (when they are out of meet and drink!! or drunk!!)

Hey J, I teach History to teenagers and plant hostas in a yard full of Maple Trees. I have to be scary.

By the way, all of the neighbor posts got me to thinking... most of my neighbors are great, even the drunk guy provides entertainment. I'll count myself lucky in the neighbor department!

'mosquitos'- nope, thick skin lol

Whew---I bet you're very entertaining as a history teacher, as well, Icy!!!

I'm glad you have some good neighbors, afterall! Not all awash, in your neighborhood!!! LOL

I really don't MEAN to be a crazy cat lady (We had 4, one died of old age, now we have 3). I really don't try to be a crazy cat lady at all. But the cats have other plans. They put up little invisible kitty hobo signs at the edges of my yard and by all doors that say "Cat-worshiping fools live here", so we get "visitors" on a regular basis, trying to become one of the family. In spite of the 3 resident cats broadcasting their sweet lives to all and sundry, they don't any OTHER cats to horn in on the deal, so they run them off. Go figure.

Those of you who don't own cats, may not understand. But once you take in a stray, orphaned, or homeless cat word goes out along the cat grapevine. Pretty soon they start showing up in pairs and packs. You look at them and they look at you with the question in their eyes, "Well you took in Scooter, and Velvet Elvis, and One-Eyed Josephine. Why not me?" And you have no good answer. That's how one becomes a crazy cat lady.

Lainey

Lainey, I once walked into my kitchen at my previous home to see a one-eyed, pure-bred persian cat eating my cat's food. To this day, we still don't know how it got in.

The food belonged to a cat that showed up in our basement one day while I was doing laundry and decided it lived with us... It was only the first of many to show up in the basement. I used to have a fairly popular local blog about the basement cats. People liked to see what they were killing on any given day.

The first night we were in this house, we were out on the porch and I heard a faint meow, looked at the boyfriend and said, "Did you hear a cat?" He replied, "I heard nothing." I could tell by his body language that he was lying. Later we heard it again and he said, "Oh God, how do they already know you're HERE?" He calls me the Cat Whisperer.

I don't currently have a cat and haven't for 2 years. Oddly enough, no strays have sought me out during that time. I'm going to the pound and getting one next Friday so you can be sure that my roof will be lined with stray cats by Saturday morning.

I stumbled on this decade old thread searching for empathy about the things that frustrate me while gardening last year.

This is an oldie- but a goodie. I laughed so hard that I cried. And then I laughed some more and could not stop giggling- it was cathartic! I had to bump this to share- in case anyone missed it. :)

My 2016 Garden Vexations:

1. Slugs and black vine weevils.

Trying to find a balance between killing them and not harming the wildlife and beneficial insects. The slugs did not give some hostas a chance to get it's roots into the ground before the leaves were eaten off (Cherry Berry and Dancing Queen were gone in days, a few others took about a month). I used the late night and early morning picking off method along with Diatomaceous Earth dusted around ground and base .

2. Feral and house cats roaming free around the neighborhood.

Very destructive to the environment by killing the wild birds, marking territory on my porch and deck (ugh, that stinks!), and using my landscape and garden beds as their litter box.

3. Digging out volunteer trash/weedy/invasive tree saplings whose roots seem to go down to the core of the Earth. Cutting it down only encourages more stems to grow.

4. The garden hose- same exact problem as stated earlier in the thread... I spit on your nozzle. :)

This year will be considering the possibility of drip irrigation systems (but will it work with only one spigot?).

5. Temperature fluctuations and the high stakes of gardening and container gardening.

Is it spring or winter? Last year I asked is it Summer or Fall? Should I bring the pots in or leave them out and risk a black frost? Do I have to guts to see if they will be OK?

It seems like with some temperature dips and frosts there is just one one shot... should I risk it because I am tired of dragging the many containers in and out of the wintering space that gets too warm in the day or should I play it safe, suck it up and make the many trips back and forth to protect the tender plant greens each evening?

So far I have played it safe after reading about "dogwood winters".

I have not been gardening as long to have discovered the humor in annoying things as the others... but it is good to know that many have the same frustrations. Please share yours, too!