Today you wouldn’t think it was fall, as the high will be in the low 90s for the next few days, so I’m back to shorts. Remember how I anchored everything down and took a day off on Saturday for the much‑needed rain? Well, we only got a sprinkle at noon — just enough to get our driveway wet. We didn’t get wind either.
That’s okay. I was prepared, and since it was still overcast and we had at least a little rain, I decided the crops were far enough along that they could tough it out for one day.On Saturday I received a text from one of the gardeners saying there was an abandoned dog in the gardens. I gave him the website for the humane society around the corner from us.
I didn’t think any more about the dog until yesterday, when I was turning on the water and fiddling with the exact placement of the sprinkler. All of a sudden I saw the dog — really a puppy, maybe 7–9 months old — come right up to me. He is very skinny, and of course he was hungry.
I quickly took some photos and called my daughter to come help me. I texted the photos to her and to my husband.
I was done at the Learning Plot and decided he needed to stay with me until I heard back from my daughter and husband. I finally got him into the truck and drove to my main plots, and he did fine.
I found a container for water, and he drank and drank. While waiting to hear back, I started gardening. At first he was getting in my way, being nosy, but then he went and laid down in the okra shade or under the bean trellis.
I kept giving him water, and finally my husband arrived with some dog food we had on hand for my daughter’s dog. He gobbled it down.
We looked up the humane society hours and saw it opened at 1 p.m. yesterday. I decided to stay until it opened, since we noticed it would be closed today for Columbus Day.
While waiting, I planted all the holes in Rudy’s Radish Ranch with the two types of cover crops — regular crimson, daikon, and white mustard — and the Peter Rabbit snackum mix of crimson, kohlrabi, and turnips. I also watered everything and then harvested peppers, squash, and some okra. The harvest was for the pantry.
My daughter came, and we took the pup to the humane society, only to be told they were not doing intakes yesterday. We said we could temporarily foster him until he can be intaked. They gave us puppy food, pee pads, a collar, and toys, and told us to email the intake manager.
In the meantime, when feeding him, my daughter tested him for food aggression — and he does have it big time, and not just with his food dish. He nipped both me and my daughter when we had food. This is a big concern, as we can’t prepare food or eat by the TV.
We are still waiting to hear back from the humane society. My daughter decided to spend the night, as she knows more about dogs than we do, and to be honest it was a relief — with her here, I didn’t have to figure out what to do with him while I was at the gardens.
Monday was a much calmer day. The first thing I did was water most of the areas except the quarter plot and fall bed, since I was going to work in the fall plot.
I picked any radishes in the first two squares, as I decided spinach would be better for us. Then in the spinach and lettuce row, I didn’t see any lettuce coming up, so those three squares also got replaced with spinach.
Last year the spinach I planted late actually survived and became a nice spring crop, and I hope the same for these. Also, Bloomsdale is a heartier variety, and mulching helps — that’s what I did last year.
Once that was done, I seeded the regular crop — crimson clover, daikon, and white mustard — around the played‑out Chinese cucumbers. I am letting the cucumbers still on the vine make seeds for next year.
Then life with a puppy turned our house upside down, so to speak. I never had time to write or finish this log, so I want to catch you up on what has been happening with the abandoned puppy.
We were hoping the Humane Society would take him in. At our assessment appointment, he didn’t pass the walk through the kennels. He was too scared, which didn’t surprise me — this is exactly what happened Monday night.
We took him for a walk after dark, and everything was going fine until a golf cart full of kids came by, throwing things onto the curb for pickup, blasting loud music, and making a lot of noise. Puppy got so scared he somehow slipped out of his collar and ran in the direction we came.
I told my husband to walk the short distance back to our house, and I would go the direction Puppy ran. I knew he knew where we lived — after one day he already knew to turn into our driveway.
I must have sounded silly calling “Puppy, Puppy” and whistling. I was about halfway along our original route when I called home, and my husband said Puppy was already there. At first Puppy wasn’t sure of him, but then he must have recognized him in the dark, because he came to him and they went into the house.
Our house is not puppy‑proof, and he jumps on the counters and snipes things off. Last night I had a bag of Fertilome Come and Get It organic ant bait. At midnight my daughter woke me up because it was all over the floor, and she didn’t know if he ate any of it.
I told her it’s not like the chemical stuff — this is supposed to be safe for animals and humans, as it uses a bacteria, spinosad, that is harmful to fire ants but not humans or animals. I vacuumed it all up.
We asked Copilot to make sure, and Copilot gave us things to look out for. Puppy never showed any symptoms.
Friday, my daughter has an appointment with the Humane Society to become the fosterer for Puppy. She has one hurdle — whether her two dogs will get along with him.
This brings me to Wednesday and Thursday in the gardens again, which to me is my safe haven to decompress from all this Puppy commotion. One thing is true: he is like a baby and went right to sleep when we had to do errands.
Not much to say about the gardens for Wednesday and Thursday, as I did watering and reseeding of the tomato, pepper, and Learning Plot beds. Missing watering when there was another leak probably stalled them.
I am cleaning up Rudy’s Radish Ranch so I can give the plot back in good order to Rudy next spring. While I was weed‑whacking, guess who shot out? Yep — Peter Rabbit. He ran to my straw bale covered with plastic.
While watering on Wednesday, I saw a caterpillar on a vine weed near the butternut squash.
I did a Copilot search, as I was thinking it looked like a monarch but wanted to be sure. I checked on the caterpillar today, and he was gone. I am hoping he wasn’t eaten and that he is making his way to the fence to make his chrysalis.
On Wednesday I finally picked my first pound of blue lake pole beans and of course, okra and squash. I am typing fast as the Puppy is in his kennel for his nap time and I need to be getting him up soon. One good thing about the Puppy as he makes us get more exercise. Who is walking whom?
From gardening, puppies, to nature, there is always something going on in the Pickle Patch. Who would have thought I would find an abandoned puppy in the gardens. Maybe the next update the Puppy will have a name — Okra, Mr. Bean, or Pickles. I know whatever we pick will be just right for the Puppy.