Mortal Combat….hmmmmm, not exactly
Sunday afternoon was set aside to work in the garden. However, on my way to the garden I encountered a couple of lizards. It was a pair of those usually cute little green lizards that look somewhat like the Geico gecko – but they were obviously in a major turf dispute and had morphed into something that resembled tiny little dragons. They each had a raised ridge along their head and back, had turned a fierce brownish-black, and had puffed up to the point that their head and neck appeared larger than their body. They were on the hand rail leading to the garden walk – so I stopped for a while just to see what would happen (after I ran in to get the camera). 
When I came back they were still there circling one another – kind of sizing each other up before the attack. This went on for a minute or so and then it got ugly. They were snapping at each other trying to get a hold on the other’s head, jaw or tail. It was amazing to see how wide they could open their mouth – in fact at one point the more aggressive lizard had his opponents whole head in his mouth!! Whether he was planning on eating him ( not likely) or trying to smother him??? (maybe) I don’t know – but I’d had enough – threw my glove at them and they took off in different directions to fight another day. David said I should have left them alone – but I hate violence – of any kind.
Did manage to get my garden almost totally weeded. I’ll be ready to start planting in a couple of weeks. I learned long time ago – don’t plant until after Easter. Had to do a little damage control on the pear trees – the deer got to them and ate all the leaves off! 
One was pretty much just a stick – the other lucked out and had a few leaves on top. Guess the deer were too short to reach them. So David and I put up wire fencing around them to keep the deer from gnawing them down to the ground – like we did for the raspberries. While I was working in the garden, David was working on putting some piping underground. Putting a water line out to the orchard and another one to the back porch so I can water my plants. When he gets that finished, he’s going to extend the piping outside the fence to the car port so we can wash the cars a little more easily. Lots of work!!! 
I did a little reading in a book I bought when we first moved up here and found a couple of ‘tricks’ for keeping deer from eating on the trees
- Hang a bar of Irish Spring bath soap in the tree (this works, I’ve used it before)
- Hand a fine mesh bag of blood meal in the tree or dust the leaves with it (works but smells bad)
Also had a couple of hints I’d forgotten about for fighting the moles:
- Plant daffodils around the areas you want to protect, moles don’t like daffodils.
- Place small portions of a limb/branch of a thorny plant in the tunnel – they don’t like getting scratched. Roses, barberry or anything with thorns would work. I’m definitely going to try this one.
We’re supposed to have a nice week – so maybe I’ll have time to get out there and finish up my garden. The potatoes and sweet peas I planted are coming up – so I’ve got my fingers crossed that everything else will do well too!
