Mama Bear

Once again - bears came to visit.  When Pete woke up he yelled down to me that there were bear cubs near the deck.  I looked out the sun room and there Mama was with THREE cubs trailing along behind.  At first it looked like just two cubs, but a straggler came along after.  She walked along the front of the garage and over to my peach tree.  She ate a peach, and one of her cubs looked interested and reached up for a sniff.  Then she walked along the front of the barn, turned around, headed back to the peach tree and then went out behind the barn - where the corn is.  She was showing very large teats.  She seemed like she was small  - or my imagination enlarges them when I see them at night.  So now I’m up to 11 bears in 6+ years.

Amazing Insects

It was a really cool night :0) maybe in the 50’s, so this morning when I opened the kitchen door to let Cocoa out, I saw something I have never seen together before - a huge Dobson fly and a luna moth.  The Dobson fly had to be 5″ long, and the luna moth about the same.
The fly is quite a shock to see - all black with lacy wings and very large pincer-like mouth parts.  Apparently not dangerous as adults, but the larva (Helgramite) can nip you.  They are favorites of fishermen as bait.  The luna moth (this is the 2nd one I’ve seen since we’ve moved here) is a pale lime green with dots on the wings.  A huge beautiful moth and well named.  I flicked the Dobson fly off the screen.  Cocoa was very good and obeyed me when I told her NO - she loves to eat insects and chases them.  I’ve had to stop her from eating Monarch butterflies as well (she can eat all the mosquitoes she wants!!!).  Both the luna moth and Dobson fly must have been attracted to the outside light which is automatic on/off at dusk and dawn.  I left the luna moth near the light - when it warms up enough it’ll take off and I hope make more luna moths.  They’re so big, I imagine they don’t last long in flight - tasty treat for birds.

Luna Moth
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/islandcreekes/ecology/Insects/Luna%2520Moth/lunasweetgum.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/luna_moth.htm&h=370&w=500&sz=35&tbnid=Dj3U3schn9cJ::&tbnh=96&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphoto%2Bluna%2Bmoth&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=3&ct=image&cd=1

Dobsonfly larva
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.scientificillustrator.com/art/insects/dobsonfly_larva.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.scientificillustrator.com/illustration/insect/dobsonfly-larva.html&h=500&w=264&sz=68&tbnid=BUTZB7JxhqAJ::&tbnh=130&tbnw=69&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphoto%2Bdobson%2Bfly&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=2&ct=image&cd=1

Male Dobson fly - 4″-5″ long
<http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.unl.edu/agnicpls/slide51.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.unl.edu/agnicpls/dobsonfly.html&h=357&w=533&sz=53&tbnid=SGskOdokyewJ::&tbnh=88&tbnw=132&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphoto%2BDobson%2Bfly&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&cd=1>

Fireflies

‘Tis peak firefly season here on the Brink.  Since moving here I have seen more firefly displays than anywhere I have ever lived and wonder if Mother Nature is trying her best to outdo any Fourth of July celebrations in the area. I turn off all the house lights, let my eyes adjust to the darkness and then Cocoa and I go out in the sun room and watch the razzle dazzle of the mating rituals of these wondrous little critters.  I wonder if Cocoa is at all enthralled with them, but I think her attentions go to fuzzy wabbits rather than blinking insects.  I’ve never seen a glow worm, but I think that’s what the larval form is called, and they also glow in the dark.  I’ve never gone out digging at night so wouldn’t know.  During the day these little lamps have no special qualities but they are not surpassed at night.

As I watch, some of the fireflies fly past horizontally and leave a comet-like glowing tail behind them.  Other lights pass squiggling in the night leaving little commas in the air.  Sometimes I try to follow a single light and I try to guess where it will blink again further away from its last blink. I understand the females are on the ground blinking their hearts delight and males are above signaling their desires.

All this verbiage is way too fancy for such a simple, down-to-earth kind of show.  There are hundreds of them outside my house and its times like these I wish I had grandchildren or youngsters in my life to take outside late at night hunting - or should I say easy pickings - for fireflies to put in a jar for them to watch as they fell asleep.  I did this ritual when I was a child and my children did it once or twice when they were little.  At our previous home the fireflies weren’t quite so plentiful and it seemed the mosquitoes way outnumbered them so hunting fireflies there was an on-going battle which drew blood and resulted in many itches - not worth the battle.  I’m sure mosquitoes are here, too, but the great number of blinking prey would easily fill a bottle.  It’s so exciting as a child to be awakened late at night and to run out in sneakers and PJ’s to capture a night light. It’s so difficult to add another blinker to the bottle when there already are several in the jar without letting any of prisoners get away.  Maybe Cocoa and I will go out tonight and relive my childhood.

Chicken of the Woods

On my way home from a walk with Cocoa and my friend Marjory and her dogs in the fields behind her house, I drove past a tree near my house that was covered with “Chicken of the Woods”.  This is a bracket fungus that grows on dead trees.  It’s beautiful.   Orange above and yellow underneath with edges that are wavy and almost look like oyster shells.  I called Marjory as soon as I got home and she raced over. The two of us drove back down my road and filled two large shopping bags with this wonderful fungus.  I got my share, we gave my neighbor some, and Marjory took the rest of it to share with people she knows who eat them.  I’ll have mine for supper tonight with butter, garlic, onions and whatever I want to throw in the pot.  For dessert, I’ll have coffee ice cream with black-cap raspberries that I picked yesterday. Marjory said - and it speaks for me too - ”I love Mother Nature”!

Chicken of the Woods

Chicken of the Woods

Marjory just called.  She shared with friends already, kept a hefty amount for herself and still had a large bag full so went to a local restaurant - New World - and sold the bag to Rick the owner for $8.00/lb.  I am now $20.00 richer as my half of “the take”.  Since she gave him 5 lb. you can imagine the amount of fungus we had in the first place.

A Day to Garden

I had a horrible night’s sleep.  Woke up every hour and finally gave up the ghost about 4:30 AM. Had breakfast, read the newspaper (when is it delivered at 3:00AM??) did some on-line stuff and then at 6:30 went outside.  A glorious morning - very dry and cool with a nice breeze.  Saw a couple pileated woodpeckers and could hear a turkey up on the ridge.  Cocoa chased our resident bunny rabbit, a wise old Peter Rabbit who knows just how to handle Cocoa.
I planted some Jerusalem artichokes on the hillside, dead headed a lot of things. Watered everything everywhere.  Covered my blueberry bushes and my ONE peach tree with netting and tried to kill Japanese beetles on my cherry trees.  Putting on the netting makes me feel like Larry, Curly and Moe all in one person.  It’s hard to see, hard to handle and hard to put up on a tall peach tree.  Bumbling idiot.  I get especially mad at myself when I step on it b/c my sneaker soles get caught in the mesh and I can’t get it off my feet.  Finally I just looked at Cocoa, plunked down on the wet grass and laughed my head off.  It’s like handling 9 foot x 12 foot plastic wrap.  I got the blueberries covered easily, but the peach tree is still in need of some help, but that’s all I’m doing thankyouverymuch.

I semi-weeded the “woodland garden”.  I’ve been waiting for the REAL weeds to get taller than the ajuga so I could weed it out more easily but leave the ajuga to continue to grow and this morning was the time.  It was easy doing it but I certainly didn’t do it all.  I tried the hoe, but ended up pulling up ajuga as well as the weeds that way, so I just weeded by hand.  Since the sour grass and other weeds were taller than the ajuga, I could pull better than hoe.

I planted some pachysandra under the maple tree - now that I know it can grow there, I transplanted what I had by the road over to the maple.  I finished up the morning with application of some more Dynamulch in my already established gardens.  If it’s this nice again tomorrow, I might very well get to applying it to the newer gardens - and I’ll put thicker amounts of it there.  Lookin’ good.

So nearly 4 hours later, I’m pooped and will eat lunch soon - read my wonderful book - “The Story of Edgar Sawtell”, which I recommend to everyone who has a soft spot in their hearts for a mute boy, dogs, farms and wildlife.

Corner Maple Tree Demise

No more corner maple tree…and no more peach tree.  It fell on the one peach tree I had netting around (wouldn’t you know) - boohoo.  Dan was VERY sorry, but didn’t want it to hit the barn.  As compensation, in addition to thinning out the maple in the front yard, he’ll take down my red bud tree.  I’ll have him do one other little tree near the road, and that’ll be an even trade.  But it had SO many peaches on it - :0(.  I still have the other peach so now I’ll have to get a new peach to cross pollinate with the old one.  Some side branches on the maple also hit the new blueberry bush, but it wasn’t damaged.  The side branches were so rotted they just broke up when the tree came down.  I’m very glad we had it done b/c it would have come down on it’s own in the not too distant future, I’m sure.

It was VERY interesting to see him climb the tree.  However when he got about half way up it was obvious the rest of the trunk was NOT in good shape, so he couldn’t go any further.  He took down some side branches while he was up there - they were the sizes of trees themselves.

There is a young black walnut growing right next to the rotted maple tree, so now it’ll have a chance to take over that corner and 20 years from now it’ll be a nice big tree.

What a change in the lighting there now!  The clump of decorator grass and the agastache will do very well now.  They were in the shade so much they were just pooping along.  Opened everything right up.  They had to take down the large sassafras tree growing there but there are plenty of other little sassafrases (that I’m constantly pulling up!!) and one of them is looking pretty healthy, so I’ll leave that one alone and I’ll have a pretty little sassafras tree back again.

Trilliums and Exercise

Yeah! Finally, I went down to the river and got 4 trilliums.  I got 4 b/c one had a broken cormb, so I figured I’d better get another one just in case.  I also found the May apples and they’re in full bloom.  I got 3 of those that weren’t in bloom, and no sign of anything either, so I hope they’re too young??  They have such gorgeous white flowers, but their leaf is a huge umbrella with the blossom underneath, so you can’t see it.  The blossom becomes an ‘apple’, and I guess they’re quite yummy - to wildlife, anyway, b/c they don’t last long.  I never found out if they’re edible to humans or not.  I’ll have to look that up.  It started spritzing as I trudged up the field and the hill.

One bad note, however, as we were walking up the hill in the field, Cocoa ran off toward the field next door, and I heard a loud ‘yelp’, and a few yips after that.  She came scooting out from under the underbrush very fast with her tail between her legs and ran right up to me, laid down - ears back.  I couldn’t see anything in particular, so I think she ran into the electrified fence.  That would do it!  She stayed pretty close to me, urging me to go home - her eyes saying “faster and faster” - though I couldn’t.  It was quite a bit of exercise lugging a large bucket full of soil, and wildflowers.  I was tempted to also dig up some more ‘honesty’ but I was too pooped - so - another day.

Bear For Sure

Lorrie (former owner of the farm) emailed me back and said she had a mother black bear and her twins come thru’ every year. Pete and I saw the mother and her twins when we first ‘rented’ (b/c we couldn’t sell our apartment in NYC - and to hold on to this place, we “rented” for 2 months) from Lorrie.  Since then, I haven’t seen her and her twins, but I have seen single bears.  I’m wondering if they’re the cubs of the mother?  Pete’s glad he hadn’t put out the garbage yet!!  And he’s wondering if he should do it at all!
Cocoa is a good deterrent b/c the bear takes off whenever he/she hears Cocoa barking.  The barn does seem to be their favorite route up the ridge.  Every time I’ve seen them it’s either in front or behind the barn.  One year - when I was walking Didi (my greyhound) we saw the bear cross the road at the curve and go into the corn fields.  Lorrie says that they are very good corn-eaters - going into the center of the field (hiding, I suppose) and stripping the ears off the whole corn plant before damaging another one - smart bears.

The DEC has come in the past, and using dogs, they’ve treed, tranquilized and moved the bears off into the boonies somewhere.  That happened at least 3 times.  Then there was a lull, but now they’re back again.  There’s no corn yet, so I wonder where they go when they leave here?  I remember Lorrie saying they used to den up on the ridge somewhere, but there are houses all thru’ there now, so I wonder if there’s enough woods to keep them safe?

Bears?

Last night, while watching TV with Pete, Cocoa wanted to go out for the umpteenth time, so let her out, grumbling all the way.  Soon after, she started barking like crazy.  Grumbling again, I went to see what it was - nothing visible.  However, a car was coming by and it slowed and then stopped and backed up.  It stayed there for a few minutes, then drove off.  While it was doing that, I saw a figure in its headlights that looked like a large dog (I thought it was about the size of the giant schnauzer, and all black, but it was across from the barn, so hard to see) climbing up the ridge just beyond our barn.  I put on a coat and took a flash light thinking it was a stray dog, and walked down the road.  It didn’t look big enough to be a bear.  Cocoa’s barking and barking (dumb me).  She followed me, but wasn’t barking any more as I walked down the road - Cocoa in the woods behind the barn - she won’t go on the road (:0)) even if I’m on it.  I could hear something thrashing around up high on the ridge, but couldn’t see anything.  I tried calling and whistling, but no luck, so went back in.

This morning, I let Cocoa out first thing, and after a few minutes of furiously sniffing around, she went by the garage and started barking furiously again.  I went out, and she had her hackles up looking at something behind the house.  I went over to see what it was (stoopid!) and one of the bird feeders that I haven’t put away yet (although it’s empty) was laying on the ground and the other one was hanging lopsided. So, I’ll bet it was a bear.  This happened two Aprils ago when I lost bird feeders b/c the bear trashed them getting at the seed.  This time, they were empty, just not put away yet, so there might have been a few seeds left the birds couldn’t reach.

So, I’ll count that as #8, even though it’s not verified.  Eight in 5 years - not a bad count!  We must be on the black bear highway, or something.  I’m not complaining, even if I have lost bird feeders.  It’s exciting to have them on the property.

Walk in the Woods

I decided I needed to get off my butt, and take a break from being on my butt forever over the last three weeks - correcting, making up finals, and outlines, etc.  So today, Cocoa and I went down to the river.

Several trees that have been debarked by beavers - BIG trees, too - are ready to fall.  I’m surprised they haven’t already - I got a little peak of adrenalin standing under one before I realized it was really, really dead and I’d better move.  Moved away pretty fast. 

Mainly, I went down to see the spring flowers.  Wake Robins (Trilliums) are all over the place - hundreds of them with nodding deep red flowers.  I also have May Apples all over as well - the flowers aren’t up yet, but they’re a pretty off white-pink and hide under their umbrella of a leaf.  There’s another three-leaved something-or-other that I don’t know, and one had a bud on it. Skunk cabbage is huge, but I didn’t see any of their “jack-in-the-pulpit on steroids” flowers - maybe too early or too late.  Poison ivy galore with it’s pretty red leaves poking their heads up as if to say “touch me, please” - HA!  A lot of violets and forget-me-nots. Some pretty nice things are popping up, but I don’t know what they are or will be, so I want to go back down tomorrow, weather permitting, to scout around and bring back a few trilliums.  I have to find out if it’s too early to transplant trilliums - I’ll look on line.

I saw lots of deer tracks (some are pretty big!), and coyote tracks.  I also saw what looked like a big paw print.  It wasn’t Cocoa’s b/c she hadn’t been there with me, yet, and she never goes that far away from the house.  It was a paw print with pads - I didn’t see claw marks, just pads, and it was as large as the palm of my hand. My palm is 3″ wide, and my book says coyotes are 2.5″ wide, so I suppose it was a coyote print I saw.  In the mud, they tend to be bigger than on dry dirt.  I also saw lots of little deep holes.  At first I thought they were deer prints that had sunk deeply into the mud - now dried out and hard, but I wonder - it looked to little and too deep.  Snake? Amphibian?  I Do Not Know - and have no idea.  It’s a bit early for snakes, but we had lots of warm, wet weather, so maybe.

The old apple tree is in bloom - so more apples this fall - I’ll have to remember this time, and gather a few for our enjoyment - if I can get by the poison ivy to reach the fruit.  There were three barn swallows zooming over the fields, and having no problem with the fact that Cocoa and I were there.  They flew very close to me, and I got to see how really gorgeous their bright blue backs and creamy white breasts were.  Other than that I only saw many robins and heard woodpeckers, and other normal birds I see every day.  We have a cardinal nesting in the euonymus (fire) bush, and he or she rushed off both times I went by.

I’ll be going down every day for about an hour or two scouting around for things I can bring up to my woodland garden - trying not to take anything there’s only a few of - leaving them there.  I also won’t take anything I don’t know since I know a lot of things are endangered or need to be left alone in this beautiful woodland area we are so lucky to own.