Category: Wildlife

Looking and Seeing

6/7/2022

It's not a fancy camera, but it does allow me to take a very close (if not entirely focused) close-up. It's often a surprise when I put the images onto my laptop to see just what turns up in these photos.

This sweet green plant is a wild garlic (aka "ramp"). I was interested in how the droplet of water holds itself together within the fold of the leaves.

Forget Paris, we'll always have midden.

The Would-Be Farm has at least two separate dump piles full of jetsam. We cleared out a trailor-load this spring, hauling away one and a half broken pot-bellied wood stoves, a white enameled cooking stove (such an eyesore!), miles of metal and wire scrap, and cubic yard after cubic yard of disintegrating plastic junk.

The next layer down revealed a surprising number of unbroken glass items, including this prescient cough medicine bottle.

The former inhabitants of the Would-Be farm were brand loyal to Pepsi and Jim Beam, for long enough for the Pepsi bottles to evolve from one shape to another to another. I suppose they also had diabetes.

It's known as mud season; moving even the 4-wheel-drive mule across a field is a slippery clay adventure in the spring. As each shoe grows its own brick of mud, a person develops a sort of "Big Lick" walking gait. It's part of the inspiration for my rock stepping stones.

Still, looking up, the season also has its crystal-clean moments.

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The Would-Be Farm: Live from the Catwalk

5/10/2022

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It's the Spring 2022 collection! Can you hear to pop-pop-popping of the cameras? Live from the Would-Be Farm, I give you...a fashion show of sorts.

They prowl the stage.

They have cheekbones to die for.

Some trot.

Or caper.

Others preen and strut.

Some amble, even.

Many –– so many! –– are ready for their close-up, Mr. deMille.

Coyote.

Squirrel armpit.

Bear? Mysterious hairy beastie? Deer standing with trotters akimbo?

The mysterious hairy beastie that dragged the game camera away; I worried about thieving neighbors until we found the camera, beat up, 40 yards off the trail. And this our only clue.

Please disregard the off dates on these game-camera photos. The tiny chip's worth of brains that power the camera occasionally lose track. Reminding me, uselessly, of the first rule of time travel: ascertain your temporal location.

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A Balm by Any Other Name...

8/12/2021

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The Would-Be Farm has had a wet 2021 summer. The grass grows like weeds. The weeds grow even faster. But the flowers have been pretty glorious, honestly.

Last year, my long-suffering sister agreed to start some of my eccentric seed choices. In March, when gardeners in the North Country begin to stare longingly at anything green in hopes that it might be alive, grow-table real estate is valuable. It was a generous offer.

So I sent packets of ground cherry seeds, monarda seeds, borage seeds with my hope.

The ground cherries refused en mass to start, and the borage, once started, too closely resembled a weed and in June was twice accidentally whacked and gave in to entropy without fuss.

But monarda –– monarda was the standout: each seed sprouted and refused to be cowed by last summer's drought.

Back in April in that first plague year, under the grow-lights, my sister sister looked at the monarda starts with suspicion. "Are these," she asked me dubiously, "bee-balm?"

Me, consulting the inter webs: Um, yes.

No wonder these seeds had sprouted: the stuff had taken over a whole corner of her flower-garden. I could have as much as I like yanked out of her garden. For crying out loud.

Sure enough. Those wee four-leafed starters from last year turned into thigh-high big bursts of vivid color: clear red, pink, deep fuschia. The scent is a bit like oregano, strong and –– allegedly –– unappealing to some of the hungry natives of the Would-Be.

I don't know if deer and rabbits and porcupine and woodchucks and all will continue to avoid the plantings. It's all one big experiment. I've put tasty fruit trees in the midst of all that color, hiding them among the strong scent and bright color until they are tall enough to avoid the predators themselves.

Meanwhile, call them bee balm or Monarda, them what you will, the flowerbeds are hugely popular with the pollinators

Hawkmoth on Monarda

We'll see if they take over the orchard. We'll see if they protect fruit trees. Knock wood, we'll see.

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The Would-Be Farm Annual Spring Fashion Show

4/23/2021

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Like everybody's Uncle Ernie, I bring you... a slide show.

By our unscientific counting, we are guessing that we have more bobcat and fewer coyote snaps than usual. Only the one bear, but honestly, who needs more than the one? Plus, my personal weakness: a nice-looking free-range peep.

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Shark's Teeth

1/28/2021

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As anyone who knows my fondness for Archie MacPhee will testify, I am liable to announce a propos of nada: “Sharks have no bones!”

It was a catchy tagline from a catalog some years ago. And true.

Shark are all cartilage and attitude. And, as one might discover on a foggy January wander along a beach – teeth.

Sharks continually shed teeth and grow more. Row after row of them.

Having no tooth-fairy to look after them, these teeth sink to the bottom of the sea.

Once the chompers hit mud or sand, chemistry does its magic.

Minerals from the mud (or sand) shimmy into the teeth, making the once-pearly whites, dear, into something rich and chestnut-colored, or black.

Or, according to the lore, blue.

Of course everyone wants a 5-inch-long megladon tooth, but these are pretty cool too.,

Walk down the right beach and tune your attention to the y-shape, and dozens of teeth will appear.

Which makes sense, because sharks have been swimming about for millions of years. And some grow up to 35,000 teeth in a lifetime.

I suppose someone has done the math, but it’s a lot of teeth underfoot. One might say, the opposite of hen's teeth, even.

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Hysterical Weather

12/29/2020

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I snapped a photo of the television while awaiting landfall of Hurricane Eta. It's not unsurprising that local newscasters, who should certainly know better, position themselves near a body of water and start casting news.

If it's not a weather person suited head to toe in Goretex, announcing that the waves are throwing the yachts around violently (in the background, a tranquil day at a marina, the boats bobbing languidly under an overcast sky), it's some would-be Jim Cantore shouting about the force of the winds when it's, you know, breezy –– but not brutal.

In this photo, I love the cognitive dissonance: this newscaster was talking about how Tampa Bay residents were battening down their hatches and frantically preparing for the storm, while in the background, the usual cast of fishing characters are lounging on the pier, baiting their hooks and hoping for a good bite.

Come on, man.

P.S. This is not to say we don't have anything to worry about. People die from hurricanes, and houses are washed into the sea. But hyperbole is flat out unnecessary.

Tell the story that is, not the story that sounds more exciting. And that's my wish for the new year.

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Writing Prompt: Tree lives

10/25/2020

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Putting words on the screen and trying not to be too judgy-judgy about whatever my creativity chucks out...

Like sunburned beachgoers storming an ice-cream parlor, the tiny leaf-shaped fires spread a conflagration of color across the woodlot.

Inside the wood, under the bright canopy, the leaf-strewn floor shines brighter yet. Rafts of bronze-backed turkey drift through this orange world. Devilish tuft-eared black squirrels add a Halloween accent, digging with only the barest pause to glare at an intruder.

A pair of leggy yearling deer skitter around a doe. She rarely stops moving, nosing through the leaves for beechnuts, for tender branch-ends, for windfall apples.

Prey animals are changing color from spring chestnut to ashy brown. In a week they will disappear into a stand of dead grass simply by standing still, but just now, in this pumpkin-spice week of peak color, they pop.

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Watching from the trees

9/10/2020

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So much happened over the summer on the Would-Be Farm, and so little of it has anything to do with us humans.

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The Would-Be Farm: Spring Again

7/26/2020

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One of our sailing+camping friends recently described his dilemma as that of a squirrel trying to decide whether or not to cross the road.

Chali had planned a road-trip adventure, but was debating whether to go or not.

You want to keep you family safe. You don't want to be that guy who brings the plague.

But you also want to get to the other side.

Back in April, as our upcoming summer events were dominoing into a pile of red x's on the calendar, and boat projects were getting thin on the ground, we were right there with Chali.

Spring was springing: we had plants to put into the ground and a half-done cottage (the Woodbee!) to finish.

And frankly, the North Country wasn't interested in germy outsiders coming around.

But ––

And ––

But ––

My favorite skipper eventually called it: mad dash.

It will seem quaint someday how we drove north in a self-contained little world of snacks and Lysol wipes with a U-Haul full of Would-Be Farm equipment and furniture.

It will be just another page in the Quarantine Chronicles how we isolated and monitored.

Perhaps we'll remember how we could only hope our precautions and cheerful masks will have made a difference.

But it seems instead that this is the year we are reminded that Mamma Nature not only holds all the cards, but that she has sharp teeth, and claws at the end of a long reach...

If it wasn't the black bear emptying the bird feeder (effortlessly snagging it with a claw and pouring the contents –– like the crumbs from the bottom of a potato chip bag –– right down the old pie hole), it was porcupine eating the gazebo. Or birds flying down the chimney.

Jeff trying to reach the bird feeder.

Bear successfully reaching the same bird feeder.

And how does one deal with a 300-lb black bear with a penchant for black oil safflower seed? One puts a decorative cow-bell –– an inexplicable tourist purchase finally coming into use –– onto the formerly lovely red metal feeder.

Pavlov's crazy dog at the midnight clank, one dashes onto the screened porch closest to the feeder, shouting and clashing together an aluminum saucepan and lid. The noise was like nothing I have ever made before. It worked.

Though of course the raccoons followed the bear in the violation of my bird feeder. They are less shy of human attention. After some weeks of interrupted sleep, I decided the easier –– though not unproblematic solution was to take the feeder inside at night. Now I only rouse myself to chase things off the unscreened porch. Which happens a lot.

And how to address the ongoing porcupine issue? Porcupines eat bark and tree parts...unless of course they develop a taste for pressure-treated lumber.

Fair's fair. The porcupines were here first. I tried putting rows of hardware cloth around the perimeter, but Mr. Linton took the reins. We call the gazebo The USS Monitor now. The damage has stopped.

Sidebar fact: tom turkeys sometimes get really worked up by the sound of a carborundum blade working through metal roofing sheets. I guess it sounds like a big sweet gal of a hen.

A porcupine ate my building...

Porcupine do not chew metal (or anyway, not much).

And as for the bird, we were sitting on the couch in front of the cold wood stove when we heard a gentle tapping on the glass window on the stove door.

A youthful house-wren politely requesting a hand.

Of course it panicked. All birds do, when confronted with the inside of a house. It flapped into a window, and then briefly fainted in Jeff's hands. But it eventually regained its senses and flew off, rewarding us for a few weeks –– possibly –– with extra noisy morning songs.

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The Would-Be Farm...Spring Thoughts

4/19/2020

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We started on this Would-Be Farm adventure with the idea of novelty: new experiences are meant to keep our brains nimble and what-not. The effort of tackling a fresh set of challenges would be good for us.

Such as driving a tractor and putting fruit trees into the ground and helping them grow roots.

Such as returning to the North Country where I grew up and re-learning that country environment. Plus introducing Jeff to some exotic charms: a bullhead fry, turkey hunting, snow.

Knowing that, unlike actual farmers, our livelihood and future is not on the line when the dam busts and the crops fail.

So, round about January of each of the past five years, seed catalogs begin to sprout in my mailbox. Deals from on-line nurseries pop up like weeds. Calls to branch out into new crops... I won't belabor the metaphor any more than I can...bear. Muah ha ha.

My ambitions surpass my skills in general, and the Would-Be Farm is no exception.

Since we are intermittently present, only the hardiest and most independent of plantings have survived. The brightest of shining stars have thrived and multiplied.

The aronia and apparatus have flourished. A few of the pear-trees look perky.

And though they toil not nor do they spin, day-lillies and other decorative bulbs have been impressively productive. The walking onions are unstoppable.

The 20 or so new apple trees we planted aren't happy. The existing apple trees (100+ scraggly old trees, mostly likely Empires, Macintosh, and a yellow-skinned number that might be a Golden Russet), have their bad years and their not-as-bad years.

We've attempted to rehabilitate the old groves, but a few superannuated fellers have simply dropped their leaves and given up the ghost after our kindest of intentions...if not kindest cuts.

That's some asparagus. And the elderberries look good too.

The old orchard and some former apple trees.

Round about April, it's become our happy habit to make our ways North. I try to get there in time for my sister's birthday early in the month, and Jeff generally follows after sailing Charleston Race Week. We usually get a snowstorm or two, maybe an ice-storm, just to remind us that we are mere tourists in the North Country.

It's too early for planting in early April, and it's more than a bit nippy –– though we do have a WOOD STOVE this year!

Still, even with a crochet throw of snow, you can see the rocky bones of the land early in early spring. And it's an exciting few weeks while plants wake up out of the cold clay and yawn hope into the landscape.

We're not sure when we'll get there this year. What with the Pandemic and all. Of course I ordered plants before COVID-19 was no more than a small cloud on the horizon.

I can't resist those colorful packets of optimism that promise poppies, lupins, chamomile. Plus garlic and seed-potatoes (thrifty hint: if your potatoes sprout in the fridge, put them in the ground -- you'll generally get a smallish bonus harvest a few months later instead of adding to the landfill).

And, because the larger fruit have not flourished under our neglectful stewardship, I have ambitions for Chinese chestnut trees, red currents, bush-cherries, and yet more elderberries. Although elderberries are not a favored deer browse according to experts, empirical evidence suggests that some deer will "sample" an elderberry bush to within inches of its life.

As with so much recently, we'll just have to wait and see. We'll shelter in place and I'll let my farming daydreams slide me along a little longer. I'm not complaining.

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<<Previous

Looking and Seeing

The Would-Be Farm: Live from the Catwalk

A Balm by Any Other Name...

The Would-Be Farm Annual Spring Fashion Show

Shark's Teeth

Hysterical Weather

Writing Prompt: Tree lives

Watching from the trees

The Would-Be Farm: Spring Again

The Would-Be Farm...Spring Thoughts

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