I had mixed feelings about letting Jim, the farmer, clear our fields and plant corn there. He has spent years dealing with the land trying to get it to produce hay – with mixed results. He’s trimmed back tree limbs, and gotten rid of stands of dead trees to open the fields more to the sun. He mowed and mowed for several years hoping to get rid of the pricker bushes and other weeds he didn’t like. Finally after three years of dealing with the fields, he did get hay two seasons ago, but only the mulch type, not the good stuff. So he decided to plant corn this year – cow corn, not human corn. He said that corn would get rid of the thorny bushes that seem to love the area. He came several days digging out the drainage canals, and flattening the fields, and then plowing them. What seemed like weeks later, he planted the corn, and it was really a beautiful sight as it grew and tasseled out, waving in the breezes and then turning golden brown.
As a biologist, however, I knew that it diminished the diversity of the area. It drove critters out of their homes. It made the area less likely to house a community of local wild critters. But I also liked to go down to the river every now and then, and couldn’t if it was all grown over. Those pricker bushes were thick and could grow to several feet tall and were impassable if not dealt with nearly every year. The former owner had a tractor and mowed a path to the river, but Pete tried and got stuck one too many times, and had a heck of a time trying to get back up the hill to the barn. Jim kept the fields mowed so I could go down there. It would have cost us a pretty penny to have access to the river, something we cannot afford.
So being selfish, I let him come and use our fields for corn – and I suppose eventually for hay.
However, all is not lost. The wild wills out after all. We may have lost tons of rabbits, birds, and little fuzzy rodent friends, but we gained in other ways. We saw a black bear mother with her three cubs come through once again after two years of not seeing a black bear. I’m sure the corn fields had something to do with the reappearance of the bear. What a treat that was as she nibble on my peaches and one of her babies stretched to sniff what she was eating. Then the four of them waddled into the corn fields, I’m sure to top off their dessert of peaches with some tasty corn. Deer have been coming through – but that’s nothing new. Turkeys seem to have found a new source of food as there’s little nibblets of corn all over the fields waiting for the birds to find them.
When the fields were finally harvested, the machinery shucked the corn immediately as it was reaped and tossed into the large boxy trailer. It was fun to watch as the ears of corn came flying out of the chute and into the waiting container. From driving by on our road, I could see piles of corn kernels all over the place. Now I’m hearing Canadian geese as they have found a new place to land and catch a quick snack to help them on their way north (yea! spring!). As I was correcting papers this afternoon, I could hear them all gaggling away down in the fields. I got up to watch them (no need to find a reason to procrastinate, I hate grading papers). They were all down by the drainage canals in huge flocks of 50-100 or maybe more. Then with some sort of signal, they would all take off in a chorus of honks, and after a few minutes or an hour another flock (or maybe the same flock returning) would descend and I’d hear them honking again. They could very well be on the river right now – it’s too dark to see them if they are. Some would say that geese are not welcome in their area. I suppose walking down to the river I’ll have to dodge their “leavings” – more fertilizer for the hay.
As soon as the snow melts enough, I’ll be going back down to the river to see it in spring – to watch the trilliums, and the jack-in-the-pulpits, and dig up a May apple or two to add to my garden. Later in the summer, I’ll eat some redcaps or blackberries and take a bunch to my mother-in-law to put on her cereal in the morning. Or maybe I’ll watch as the spring runoff floods the fields (and wonder if that’s good for the hay or not). Last year, the water reached 1/3 of the way up the fields. However, my path is still OK even in the floods – it’s high and dry so I can still go down to see the swollen Plattekill Creek.
