The Would-Be Farm: Spring Again

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.