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.

Water!

YEA – RAIN!!  AND A GOOD ONE TOO.

Purple Finches

It must be my imagination, but it seems to me that the purple finches around my house are REALLY bright this year – brighter than I ever remember seeing them.  The goldfinches are turning very nicely – and tho’ still a little mottled, are almost all done now – pretty little gold jewels.  I have a red-winged black bird who visits every once in a while and his epaulets are gorgeous, too.  I usually don’t see the red, just the yellow unless they fly, but this one has both colors in full show.  I could never understand why they named the red-bellied woodpecker that name.  It gets a pink underbelly in mating season, and barely noticeable the rest of the year.  How about red striped, or wigged woodpecker since what you see is that red stripe on its head?  I get both a male and a female (the stripe isn’t all the way from beak to nape on her), but I doubt I’ll see them again as I have run out of suet, and I’m almost out of seed.  This weekend I’ll dump the seed on the ground and put my feeders away.  We had a bear the last day of April two years ago, and I don’t want to repeat that event – lost a couple bird feeders and two shepherd’s hooks, and had a mess of garbage to pick up (it was trash pick up the next morning, so he got into the garbage as well).  Once the birds stuff is put away, then I start looking for flutterbys.

Cocoa

Now I know what ‘blowing her coat’ means.  Cocoa looks like a porcupine at times with these short hairs sticking out of her.  When the sun is shining and she shakes, you can literally see a cloud of fur blowing off of her.  She has little tufts of light colored undercoat that comes out every now and then.  I took her out and brushed her 3 times each day this weekend, and let me tell you – we just supplied all the nesting material ALL the birds in the area can use. I used a regular bristle brush and followed that up with the tined brush that gets the undercoat. I couldn’t NOT fill the brush each time.  I finally got tired (and so didn’t Cocoa) of doing it.  I would think it would feel good, but Cocoa seems like she doesn’t enjoy it that much.  I’m careful not to brush too hard, especially with the tined brush.  I would think she’d itch and it would be a relief to get it off of her.  Explosion!