It certainly puts a new twist on sunflower lanyards.
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Try going through airport security like that!
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This year’s gardening theme appears to have been “Rodent Damage”
Sunflowers, tomatoes, cabbage, squash.
Not shown are all the seedlings wiped out early in the year, nor the beans that were destroyed by voles in the summer.
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It’s a mole, but still…
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I’ve had serious critter intrusions all summer. Something, probably a groundhog, ate every cucumber seedling I planted, all the zucchini plants and sampled large tomatoes just before they were ripe. 
I’ve resorted to picking tomatoes as they first blush and ripening them on a window sill inside the house. 
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Una lumaca ha mangiata la mia…
I hate snails/slugs 
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Highlights of the past few months…
Nicotiana in the new shade garden with hostas. They send out a nice perfume in the evening.
Aside from flowers, I did get quite a lot of cherry tomatoes, and the birds and I enjoyed the wild blackberries for awhile.
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Picked up a compost tumbler recently. Allegedly rodent proof… but in a rat haven part of town.
In your collective wisdom, if I balance out the greens and browns, is it worth composting cooked chicken bones or is that best to keep separate in garbage?
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I’d say not worth it. Anything-proof is really just resistant. See bears and racoons. They weigh the effort against the reward. I suspect cooked chicken bones would be high reward for rats. Even if they didn’t get in, they’ll chew the outer parts to bits
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Not worth it. Not only guaranteed to draw critters and stink to high heaven, they take forever to break down unless you crush them up first.
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I had raccoons trying to get into my composter when I put in eggshells. And they also take forever to break down. No smell, though.
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Concur. Raccoons are not bear proof.
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This isn’t exactly a lot, but considering the critter challenges this year, I consider this a huge win - ladies snd gentlemen, I present to you ‘stained glass’ popcorn, grown organically:
For context, I got one 4" ear last year because squirrels. The shortest one in the picture is a smidge bigger than 4".
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So pretty! 
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The one in the middle on the right-hand row is what I was expecting based on last year, but once all ears are dried out and kernels combined, it probably will be a darn pretty mix. 
I guess we’ll know by spring! These are going into individual paper lunch bags, hung from the basement joists within the next few days.
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Really damn tired of rodents
I was going to make red cabbage sauerkraut today and had been eying this monster cabbage. Its about sven inches wide. The hole is about 1.5 inches wide
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