Data about staying fit.

This has been a fun summer so far.
First, the garden.

I had a ground hog. It ate all of my cucumber buds. It dug up my radishes and my turnips. It nibbled on the cabbages and the collards.
The creature covered up the strawberry patch with its digging and dirt relocation  to create a home under my house. It is much to hot to bother with all of this.
Much, much to hot.
I had to protect my garden.

I used the bird netting from the strawberry patch to cover my turnip greens and radishes.

The netting protected the cabbages and the collards. I figured that lazy ground hog would not want to bother with the netting to nibble on my plants.
For the cucumber I took a more creative approach.

I purchased fence poles and more netting. The ground hog will have to dig his way under the netting in order to eat my cucumbers. The nerve of this animal to take advantage of my plants. I have not been able to grow an adequate cucumber in two years. I will not permit this hungry pest to take away my cucumbers.
I am protecting the okra plants with the remaining tomato cages.
I planted more marigolds.
My roommate laughed at me. She thought the ground hog would just dig under the fencing and knock over the tomato cages.

Now, two weeks later, I have seen no sign of the ground hog. Indeed, I have seen evidence of cat poo. Meaning that the ground hog is gone and the cat has returned to poo in my yard. I am both delighted and disgusted. I hate finding cat poo in my garden.
I swear if it isn't the slugs, it is the ground hog, if not the ground hog then the cats.
I think that the groundhog met its maker. There are a lot of dogs in my neighborhood.
Summer also means  wildlife.
Every summer we have families of ducks in and around the river that runs through campus.They are hard to ignore waddling around on campus all week.
They don't seem to be bothered by the heat.
They are not even bothered by wading in the creek-like river bed. The lack of rainfall has dried the Ottawa river almost completely to muddy bottom.



Finally, summer means I can count on the neighbors to entertain us all.
My eastside neighbors tried to show us how to beat the  summer heat last week. (click the tag for eastsideneighbors for listings of their previous shenanigans)
The electricity failed us for about 4 hours on one of the hottest days of the summer. I traveled home to pick up my roommate. The garage door would not open without electricity and I had stacked crap in front of the access door. She was going no where but on the porch along with most of the neighbors.
Which is why on my way home I receive a text from the VanDammes.

Omg. Wish you were here... Eastsiders put tarp in bed of truck and r filling it w water

So when I got home, I called the Leza and we took pictures like real paparazzi from our porches.


As you can see, the tarp idea did not work. I commend them for trying to stay cool and laugh at them for thinking this would work.

Just a few more weeks of summer to go.