Sycamore No-more

 Yesterday we had a 100 foot Sycamore tree behind the shed removed.  Recently I have started to worry that the top of this tree would break off in the next storm and land on the shed.  10 years ago, the top broke off and fell away from the shed but the tree produced three more large branches at the top with one aiming for the shed.  When the tree guy climbed up to that junction, he found some pretty bad rot so I had the tree removed just in time.  You can see a big difference in these before and after pictures.

Sunflower Patch

 Last year we were surprised with several volunteer Sunflower plants thanks to the birds throwing seeds around.  My wife decided to intentionally plant a bunch of Sunflowers this year and the results is beautiful.  The tallest plant is about 8 feet and a number of them are 6 feet tall.

Squirrels Killing Tomatoes

The squirrels have been decimating our tomato plants.  Most only had small green tomatoes but the squirrels just destroy the plants.  Our biggest plants are now just a pile of shredded green stems.  We fenced two remaining plants in what we thought would be squirrel proof structures.  It seemed to work for a week but then the plants started showing signs of damage.  Finally yesterday the back one in the second picture was totally destroyed.  We don't think the holes in the fencing are big enough to allow a squirrel in but there really isn't another explanation for the destruction.   No thanks to the squirrels, we'll have to find a local farmer for fresh tomatoes this year.