The only part of this entry that has to do with llamas is the use of the “black gold” composted llama manure that I mixed with native soil to create a new hosta bed. If you only want to read about llama news, then you might want to skip this entry. If you want to know what other life there is on our farm besides raising and showing llamas, then read on…

We skipped the Indiana and Ohio State Fair shows this summer, in order to avoid the inevitable heat that swamps the Midwest in July and August. The humidity can hang like low-lying, stifling fog around the llama barns at these busy events. However this year, by late summer, we have had record cold weather! Several mornings we have even reached for jackets–in August, if you can believe it! So I hope all our friends had fun at the nice, cool, State Fairs! We missed going, but we used those extra weekends and vacation days to catch up on farm chores. I even found time to enjoy my other passion: gardening.

Spring this year was its usual rush job, trying to start a new perennial garden at the farmhouse, and create a spot for my vegetable garden. The tiller that uses the three point hitch on the tractor was big help, and I hope to make use of it again this fall to till in all those rich llama beans to amend the soil. A friend from work stopped by one Saturday to get a pickup truck load of compost. Her compact truck only held two tractor scoops. We might have gotten a third scoop in, but the first scoop was taken from too deep in the rotting manure pile; while the pile was dry on top, it held water like a sponge underneath. I felt pretty bad thinking about Sherri shoveling that huge, heavy wet mass out of her truck once she got home! She’ll probably never come back for more! When I use the compost myself, I forgo using the powerful tractor, and hand shovel from the top, fluffy, dry layers, and select only the older piles of manure. The best stuff has been run through the leaf shredder, and looks and feels like the finest top soil. I know people who sell this prime stuff by the bag; I should probably do the same.

Despite a late start, my vegetable garden is providing us with green beans, loads of peppers (the golden bells are the hands-down favorite this year) and “milk and honey” bicolor sweet corn. The corn got in so late, I am surprised it is producing anything at all. Of course we also had huge cukes with all our rain, and we are waiting on the acorn sqash, new potatoes and mini pumpkins. Fortunately, the llamas are not interested in grazing on the pumpkin and squash vines that are invading their pasture. I guess they don’t like those spiney vines. I will leverage this knowledge next year when I plant again. The only disappointment has been the tomotoes, which are slow to mature, small, and tough. I have picked only a very few nice samples. I really miss having loads of huge, succulant, sun-warmed, Indiana grown tomatoes to eat right off the vine. Those of you who only get tomatoes from the store (when I was a kid we always called those second rate imitations ‘hot house tomatoes’) just don’t know what tomatoes are meant to taste like!

Many thanks go to our neighbors who let us make a dent in their huge hardwood mulch pile. After clearing trees for a new house, their contractor offered them the chance to save a little money if he did not have to haul away residue from the tree chipper. The neighbors thought that sounded like a great idea, and they surely could use the wood chips for mulch. Imagine their surprise when the contractor left them with a mulch pile four feet high and encompassing more square footage than their new house! As good neighbors, we were naturally quite ready, willing and able to help them solve their mulch delimna (is there really such a problem as having too much mulch?) I’ve used the rotting wood chips on the farmhouse perennial garden as well as the new shade garden at our house. It sure beats driving our unlicensed little trailer to Greendell’s in Gasburg to get a load of mulch! And even that beats buying mulch in those little bags!

A year after our remodeling we finished the flower beds around the front of the house. I have enjoyed puttering with hostas and other shade loving plants in these beds. The Japanese ferns are even spreading! Fred took a photo of a swallowtail butterfly enjoying the nectar on our Ligularia. While the photo shows daisy-like flowers, the leaves of this plant are surprising: huge platters of marroon. The flower heads swell into large pods before they open into flowers, leading us to dub the plant the “little shop of horrors” plant. It seems very happy where it is, and is a most unusual addition to the garden.

My summer project was to finish the landscaping in front of the patio. I have agonized over this area, which has a steep slope, full morning sun, and deep afternoon shade. I finally capitulated and purchased one of those three-part plastic ponds with a waterfall. From May until July, every weekend or vacation day that we had provided too much rain to work on the project.

In late July I finally got the pond “planted” with topsoil and rocks, and finished it off with river rock and mulch. A few trips to the garden centers provided shade plants, and I think by next year the pond will look more natural. At any rate, the frogs love it! We regularly see two or more basking on the rocks surrounding the pond, only to dive in as we approach (the frogs, that is, not us.)

I went the extra mile and began to actually label my favorite plants with those nifty but expensive metal plant tags. This should prevent my usual problem of wondering what I had planted three years later when it either floursihed or died. I have always been an hosta enthusiast, and find that this addiction is every bit as bad a llamas. The nice thing is that it is much cheaper to feed the hosta addiction! A hundred dollars worth of named cultivars can keep me busy for a couple of weekends, and bring enjoyment for years to come. That same hundred dollars only dents the feed bill for the llamas, much less the purchase price for one! I think sometimes Fred wishes I had stuck to hostas in the first place…

Of my favorite hostas, I would recommend Fragrant Bouquet and a new favorite, Paul’s Glory. A similar (and more expensive) plant is Captain Kirk. I like the varigated color and habit, but I suppose I bought it as much for its name as anything. I have used the August Moon in several places, but the Guacamole is replacing it in my list. I bought a nice, big Guacalmole for $12 at a local nursery, and the clerk looked long and hard at the price. She finally said they were not supposed to sell those at that price until after dividing them! Later I found a similar pot on their bench for $30! But she “let” me have it for $12. I could see she struggled with that decision, but I bought a lot of other plants there over the season, as well as dozens of those expensive metal plant tags, so she was well-served to keep a customer happy rather than quibble. And I was very happy to have the large, flourishing specimen.

(Have you ever left your garden center with the back of your SUV packed full of potted plants, and listened carefully? Do you hear anything, or is it just a feeling? Do the plants looks happy, crowding each other for support, and saying, “We’ve been picked! We are going to a new home to be planted in the good earth!” Alas, I wish I could take home every one!)

We have a large pond that is perhaps 1/3 acre, just “down stream” from my new little garden pond. The pond is currently housing a family of muskrats. They are destroying all the vegetation around the pond. We have also noticed fewer bull frogs calling this summer, perhaps due to their habitat being disrupted. These muskrats have to go, but we have not determined how to get rid of them yet. I had a water lily that was almost 15 years old, and had survived being transplanted from our other house. The muskrats ate it. Perhaps they are the reason the frogs are finding a place in the new little garden pond instead.

The big pond also attracts other wildlife, such as blue herrons, foxes, and deer. One summer, I video taped a doe who frequently hung around the pond. She was easy to identify due to her unusally dark reddish color. As summer progressed, she appeared one day with three babies in tow! The third fawn was smaller than the other two, but seemed spry and active, so we wished her the best of luck raising such a large family. I think I may have seen her again this spring, but I cannot say for sure that it was her. Perhaps it was one of her grown babies. We have thousands of acres of virtually impenetrable woods where our ridge descends into a steep ravine, so the deer have plenty of protection and food.

Despite the natural food supply, the deer still forage near the house. Our pear tree is regularly raided, and this year no pears made it to maturity. (Update! ONE pear made it!) I have a bed of Blue Regal hostas under a dying pine tree at the edge of our yard where the woods began to deepen. The bed is a nursery of sorts for the self-seeded hostas that have taken root where I need to mow or dig; I transplant them to this area for safe keeping. Some of the plants were as much as three feet across, until a deer decided to make a taste test. She did not damage more than a couple of plants, and with plenty to spare, I was not too alarmed. That was earlier this summer, and I hoped it was an isolated event.

However, late yesterday afternoon as I returned from feeding the llamas, I was startled by the distinctive white flag of a deer’s tail as it fled the front yard. I thought it must have been investigating the little garden pond, and perhaps took a drink. Upon closer inspection however, I saw that half of my coveted Guacamole had been eaten! I immediately calmed myself, knowing that the season was near an end, and there was still plenty of foliage to support the roots of the plant. I scolded the cats, Gus and Bryant, who were sitting on the porch, for not chasing the deer away. They responded with their typical sleepy-eyed indifference. As I turned back to the pond, my gaze came upon a sight I could not immediately assimilate; a few bare, denuded stems erupted from the mulch, where once a young, regal Captain Kirk had stood in command! Why couldn’t the deer have been satisfied with the more abundant Blue Regals, or at least left some semblance of Captain Kirk to rise from the mulch next year? Captain Kirk is so entirely gone, it as though we was beamed aboard the Enterprise. Of course this was the most expensive hosta I purchased this year, and is not one that is commonly found in your average garden center. I still get sickened when I go out and see the naked stems protruding like skeletal remains.

I am not intent on trying to chase the deer from the yard, despite their destructive culinary habits (though I wonder if the deer read the plant tag for Guacamole, or if that influenced her selection of Captain Kirk?) I have considered installing a “deer scare” as part of the garden pond. This would be a welcome replacement for the frog fountain, which eventually turns from a shooting stream of water to a dribble down its bib, which then empties the small pond. I am not sure the deer scare will be more robust than the spitting frog, nor am I sure it will even work as its namesake indicates. My mother suggested sprinkling the hosta leaves with red pepper, but then, she has no idea how many hostas I now have! If anyone has any good ideas, let me know.

Until later; Beam me up, Scotty!

laura