Happy Saturday!

I hope you are having a lovely fall or spring day, wherever you are.

Me? I’m in a mad scramble of trying to get the garden in order before Tropical Storm Rachel arrives on Sunday. I have never experienced a tropical storm before as I don’t live anywhere near an ocean but this oddity of a storm is making a beeline to my neck of the woods. Being a gardener, I care a lot about the weather so I watch a lot of videos about weather on YouTube but where I live, I’m not usually the recipient of bad weather but as some people say, “We’ve been having some strange weather this year.”

I have been been getting all kinds of advisory and watches from the weather app on my phone and my laptop like Flood Watch and Wind Advisory. While I am used to getting Wind Advisory, Flood watch, not so much and it makes me anxiety, as in the world’s ending kind of way. So I’ve been getting the garden ready – weighing things down with bricks, and covering things that shouldn’t get wet. Basically, I’m preparing for the worst.

Meanwhile, I have been in a battle with a rat, who’s been stealing my figs. I finally wrapped the fig tree in a fine mesh fabric and locked the rat out of its food supply. I’ve even put up bait boxes and trail cameras. Two nights ago, I lured it away from the fig tree and back to its original hideout – my storage box. I put a bait box underneath the storage box and the camera caught it exploring the bait box last night. It was so interesting to watch the footage. It was like I was fighting an invisible enemy before but now, I get to peek behind enemy’s line.

I asked AI why the rat didn’t take the bait and AI asked me to be patient, that this kind of thing take one to two nights. It turned out the rat was just getting acquainted with the bait box that first night. Well, I just hope it’ll be gone soon because I don’t want this thing anywhere near where I grow my food.

In preparation for the storm and battling the rat, I have been neglecting the rest of the garden. While the front raised bed looked fine, the back raised bed had been struggling. This is because I’ve been watering by hand with a watering can and rain water. The front raised bed is still getting 20 minutes of rain water per day through a slow drip. With all the automations put in place this year, I’m afraid I’ve already lost the touch of hand watering. I have a feeling that with the inches of rain coming, everything will bounce back and more in no time.

Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.