I have a Gulf Coast toad living in my garage. I went to take out the trash and he was sitting in the middle of the floor, not caring about my movements at all. Usually he hops away from me, but not today.
It turns out that there were grubs under the trash bags. Here is a video of him eating one. I used to think he used the garage as home base and went outside to eat. I guess that isn’t always necessary. Good toad.
One of my hanging plants started leaking from a crack in the bottom. I’m not entirely sure how a hanging pot cracks, but it definitely wasn’t leaking plant water last week. I had a spare pot, but it wasn’t hanging, so I attempted a macrame pot holder. I used cotton macrame cord leftover from a different project, and divided it into six strands. I folded these in half and secured a loop in the middle with a knot. I then used macrame style square knots to make the net part of the hanger. It took a few tries. I found that I need to leave enough room from the loop to the first knot for the pot to slip through. The knots aren’t perfectly spaced, but they are functional, holding the oval shaped pot securely. I finished the bottom by gathering all 12 strands and lashing them together with a separate strand of cord.
The zebrina plant looks sad because I had to cull 90 percent of it to get it into the hanger. I took cuttings from the culled sections to root out. This plant regularly goes from sad and spindly to lush and full, so I’m not worried about it.
My hypothesis that my Thanksgiving cactus blooms due to drops in window temperature that triggers the leaves touching the window was blown away this month. The cactus has bloomed and we haven’t seen any temperatures below 68. Hm.
The cactus mysteries continue.
I’m fairly certain the the gatekeeper in the photo above is Izzy the calico cat. Although Thor the gray tabby is effectively blocking her from coming in, I think she has the preferred spot, so doesn’t care, giving her the advantage.
In August of 2015 I was assembling cube shelves and kept whacking my fingers with the hammer driving in tiny finish nails. “Necessity is the mother of invention” and I came up with a different way to hold the nails to have less swearing. I felt so strongly about it I made graphics and probably shared it on social media. Here the public service announcement is again today: how not to hold a small nail.
In either case, if you completely miss the nail head, your fingers are going to suffer. Another alternative is to use a needle nose pliers to hold the nail, keeping your fingers completely out of the way.
Critters and Craft 