I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
The Porcupine
Friday night I didn’t sleep well at all so I was very tired on Saturday. Plus, it was very hot and humid. It was a day of doing almost nothing. EJ did more than I did. He cooked spaghetti for supper with a delicious sauce. My hero!
I slept better last night.
The temperature was near 90(F) degrees today but the humidity must have been lower because it didn’t feel hellishly hot. After I completed my morning chores, ate breakfast, and drank several cups of coffee, I went out to pick raspberries. We have many, many bushes on our property, but this is the first year that I have picked any. There weren’t a lot of berries ready in the bushes at the edge of the forest near the house. I only got a handful. The bushes near the big rocks have some that aren’t yet ripe. I asked EJ if he wanted to pick berries with me down in our little valley, which we call Deer Valley because the deer bedded there. But first we were going to empty a large crate in the garage so 1. we could gain space from having it gone, and 2. we planned to use it for a raised garden bed. When EJ emptied the crate, we carried it out to the garden and I filled it with old wood and then garden soil that I bought from Meijers last month. We continued working in the garage and ended up working in it all day. We never did make it to the berry bushes. Oh, well. We made great progress at organizing the garage. Little by little, we are getting rid of the clutter. It won’t be too long before EJ will have a wonderful workshop to create in.
If the weather this last week had been like today, we would have accomplished MUCH. But EJ’s vacation is now over and he has to go back to work tomorrow.
After we were finished working, we came inside, ate supper, and then relaxed in our chairs. EJ went out into the kitchen for something or another and suddenly called to me to come look because there was a porcupine in our yard near the fruit trees! I grabbed my camera and took a not-so-good photo through the window. I went outside, intending to sneak up on the porcupine to capture it on video, but Josette was stalking it, and I saw her pounce, so I urgently called for her to come. Keeping our sweet kitty from getting a face full of quills is more important than getting a video of a porcupine. Josette ran up to me. EJ came out and kept her occupied while I walked around the big rocks. If I were a porcupine being stalked by a cat, I would hide in the nearest cover, which was the plants–berry bushes, lilies, etc.–around the big rocks. I walked around the rocks several times, but didn’t see the porcupine. I didn’t want to get too close to the plants because I didn’t want to risk getting hurt. The porcupine could have been hiding in the bushes or it could have scurried off into the woods when I called Josette. It was so awesome seeing the porcupine. I’ve never seen one before–in the wild, I mean. I’ve probably seen them in zoos, but seeing one in the wild–on OUR property–is a totally different experience than seeing them in the zoo.
One day I would like to get some sort of outdoor cameras to capture the wildlife wandering through our property. I bet there are many critters that we never see because they are nocturnal or keep below the hill where we can’t see them from the house.
This morning when I took Hannah out, I noticed a strange-looking bug just to the left of the front door. It stayed there all day. I don’t know what it is, but it was very delicate looking and quite beautiful. There certainly are some interesting critters in the world.
I Love To Go A Gardening 
Do the raspberries grow wild in your area? In Florida, we have hundreds of blackberry plants growing wild
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We found many raspberry bushes on our property when we moved here. I don’t know if someone originally planted them and they spread? They are all over the place. We also have a lot of wild strawberries. They are much smaller than the strawberries we planted in our garden and not worth picking. Our dog Hannah likes to eat them.
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My German Shepherd Beck loves eating blueberries!
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Dogs are so funny and lovable, aren’t they?
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I wonder what that bug is? I’ve never seen a porcupine either – good thing Hannah didn’t encounter it, she might have gotten some spines in her face or on her body!
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Hannah was safe inside. Josette sort of pounced at it. I was really worried about her! And Madeline, of course.
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Glad everyone was okay – I remember when I was younger and read “The Incredible Journey” and a porcupine got riled up and swung its tail around or positioned its body somehow that spines were embedded in the Bull Terrier’s face … painful. Who knew a porcupine would be that close to your home?
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I know! Pretty cool, huh? I mean, as long as none of the pets are hurt by it!
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Maybe it could be taught to eat those big spiders!
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That would be cool. Although, in the huge wolf spiders’ defense they do eat black widow spiders, which we have here. The repair guy that first looked at our geo-thermal heating system found a very large black widow with an egg sack in the unit, which is close to our house. Yikes! He killed it. He said that he’s been seeing a lot more black widows up here. I’ve seen a couple up here since we moved. I never saw any downstate.
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Wow – you were lucky it is gone … something else to worry and have to watch out for. I’ve never seen one, but several people last year or the year before were finding them alive in their packages of grapes. I’d have a heart attack if I opened grapes and saw them. I haven’t bought grapes since and when I buy bananas, I take a cellophane bag at the store, over my hand, to flip through the bananas, one by one, to ensure no banana spiders inside them.
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Yikes! This world is a dangerous place!
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It sure is TJ.
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