Invasion on the Waning Cucumber

After a long hot summer, the cuke plant is fading away. Most respectable gardening books recommend getting rid of waning plants that no longer produce, but I like watching the cycle of life in the garden. Call me peri-menopausal, but it seems rude to feast on the bounty of my one-cucumber harvest and then yank the plant simply because it can no longer produce.

So I'm still watering the wilting plant and today it responded by squirming. Closer investigation revealed a colony of bugs. Bugs hatching, bugs in neat little egg cases under the elephant-ear like cucumber leaves, bugs bound together in end-to-end bug lust. Books recommend killing bugs-that-eat-plants (pests) and letting bugs-that-kill-pests (beneficials) live. I don't know if these are pests or beneficial bugs, but it also seems rude to kill a creature in the middle of sex (theirs not mine), so I left them to continue colonizing the cuke plant. But not before I snapped a few pictures.

When a Door Closes. . .

Q: Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
A: A person lacking a handful of treats.

This is the new dog door my husband installed last night after I cried (a lot) about how broken the patio door had become (note the duct tape). At first our big fat chocolate lab was skeptical, her being big and fat and the door seeming ever so much less so. All it took was for me to fling a handful of treats through the door into the back yard. Problem solved. At least until the extra diet of treats widens her girth beyond the door's dimensions. It's rated for 100 pounds, so I figure we have a ten pound margin before we need to develop a new plan. My husband weighed her yesterday (yes, he can actually lift her into his arms like a baby and step on the bathroom scale. He is a stud.).

And so the patio door is retired as a form of human egress. I should feel sentimental, but after lifting it with both hands (not like a baby) for the past few years to get it to open, I feel only relief. And besides, I can go through the new door in my bedroom and my son can scamper though the dog door any time. He has more poundage leeway than the chocolate and is infinitely more agile. He doesn't even need the lure of a handful of treats.