Rain!

2019/07/23
Climate change
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It’s not official. I’ll get those measurements from URI next month, but the rain gauge in the garden topped 5 inches for a period beginning last night ending this morning. And for the first time ever, water pooled in places on the floor in both the new and the old basements.

The storm that produced this extraordinary amount of rain was itself exceptional. Thunder rolled continuously. Heat lightening — that which does not come with a bolt — flashed every few minutes. Rain obliterated the view from the porch. A friend who lives by the beach said they had a clap of thunder that she thought would break the house into match sticks.  Another friend near URI and therefore the opposite direction from my fiend at the beach also reported on the loud claps — the loudest she could remember.

Kennel House was apparently not in the eye of the storm based on the thunder, but rain overflowed in the birdbath, a watering can and a plastic bucket with some treasures the grandchildren brought home from the beach that I have not yet — despite the passage of a year — added to the gravel beds under the eaves. Of course rain collected in the depressions in the rocks in the garden walls.

Rain in the depression in the stone wall
Rain in the birdbath
Rain in the watering can
Ran in the beach bucket

 

A female Northern cardinal who could not withstand the elements.

The violence of the rain storms this year is worrisome. And this one arrives just a day and a half after 2 days of  nearly record-breaking heat.

It is vaguely satisfying to be able to switch off the irrigation system from time to time. I’m astounded to need a fleece to be comfortable sitting on the porch in July. I am worried about how rapidly and forcefully weather patterns are changing as the planet overheats.

Vegetable garden and the marauder

2019/06/23
Ground hog, Rabbits, Vegetable garden
2 Comments

This post was supposed to be upbeat detailing all the remarkable forms of help the vegetable garden has had this year making it the best ever. That view is apparently shared by an afternoon marauder.

Peas, beans, radishes

Cucumbers and Patty Pan squash in the front box back with extra fencing

Eggplants and tomatoes

Kale and chards

In preparation for writing, I took photos this afternoon. But first to show the garden in all its glory I removed the makeshift covers over a couple of areas where someone has been nibbling on the tender leaves — notably on the Patty Pan squash and four little lettuce plants (not in any of the afternoon photos).

This evening I went out to recover the plants. To my horror, the squash, those 4 lettuces and also the kale had been chomped to within a stem of their lives. In broad daylight! In the space of a few hours! You’ll be able to compare the landscape views of the garden with the close-ups of the decimated plants, if you have the stomach as it were.

Chomped kale

Decimated Patty Pan squash

All that’s left of the 4 little lettuces

Linda is coming on Tuesday and I had planned to harvest some of the kale (she complains but eats what she calls my sticks and twigs diet). Ah, if only I had done that after the photos! Ah if only I had covered the squash and the lettuce back up! It’s early in the season for such regrets. Maybe it’s also early enough for the plants to recover.

But back to the intended post. This year’s garden has brand new, made-to-order, cedar boxes for the raised beds. Those beds have some 3 cubic yards of new raised bed garden soil from Earth Care Farm — the gold standard around here. In between the beds we have new oak wood chips dropped off by Wallace Tree Service, my tree guys as it were. Then Emily has been planting both seedlings and seeds; she’s spent several years managing Casey Farm.

Finally, Scott has added additional fencing to those boxes most popular with the marauder. I sprayed the wood of the boxes with Deer Out but we had a lot of rain since then. I’ll do that again tomorrow, although maybe it doesn’t work for rabbits or groundhogs. I have had good luck with it with the deer.

Add all that help to the wet spring and I have the best vegetable garden ever — for me. Really for me and my marauder.

 

Summer Solstice 2019

2019/06/23
Bees, Monarchs, Seasons
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Summer arrived in a downpour making it hard to distinguish from spring. While I’m still wearing fleece at the dawn and dusk, I have put away my flannel nightgown. It’s warming up.

Sadly, I was not snapping photos in the spring so that season is not represented here. With all the cool — really cold — rain, plants thrived. This was something of a triumph because last year I sent soil samples to the University of Connecticut only to learn that the three areas I have been trying to convert to gardens adjacent to my out buildings were nearly Superfund sites. The other area that did not test well was a corner of the meadow, what I now call the hillside garden, that for at least the three decades had supported Lonicera, Japanese knotweed and Goldenrod. There has been much speculation around here about why the soil next to the sheds and the old barn were so poor. Our favorite thesis based on elevated lead levels in those areas is that there was a good bit of dumping that went on there.

SKIP AHEAD if you don’t want to read soil reports. The clothes line garden had excessive calcium and below optimum Potassium. The outside shower garden had above optimum calcium and below optimum Potassium. The eastern side of the guest house garden, the only piece I tested because the other areas support plants, was below optimum for calcium, Magnesium and Potassium. I am pleased to report it has optimum amounts of Phosphorus. The hillside garden was below optimum for all four elements. Even the Winterberry garden that was planted in largely new soil imported as part of the 2010 renovation was shy of optimum Magnesium and Potassium. Only the clothes line garden was within a range of tolerable acidity and around here, we tolerate a lot of acidity.

The fall and early winter were busy times for soil amendment campaigns. This spring as I planted in the areas that had tested poorly, I kept up the soil augmentation. The process has been taxing. Although I mix my own fertilizers, I could not make one batch for all areas because each area needs a different prescription. Then UCONN gave the rates of application for areas much bigger than mine so I had to do more arithmetic to scale down to my small gardens. Patience is a virtue in gardening but one I don’t always have. I hope I have not put too many plants into unhealthy soil because I spent only a few months making amendments.

Ninebark and Buttonbush

Astillbe, Bloodroot and a non-native Solomon’s seal

Box and Meadow rue

Penstemon and Oakleaf hydrangea

Lamb’s ear and Iris

Rhododendron maximum and Hay scented fern

Douglas fir new growth

Blue spruce new growth

While its too early to tell about the “new” gardens, the old ones thought they were in England and thrived. Not only am I an impatient gardener, I am also untrained when it comes to garden design. The one design idea I do employ is leave shape and color contrasts. If Eskimos need hundreds of words for ice, I could use a larger hue vocabulary for green.

On the fauna front: the honey bees did not make it to the spring but they left me a full box of honey. I was in Holland and Germany at the time when I would have started new hives, so I’m going without this year. First time in a decade. Honey bees are around. Today I saw quite a number by the empty, open boxes stacked beside the mud room porch.

A Monarch returned on the exact day she arrived last year — 3 June. It was sunny and relatively warm that day. She did the first-Monarch-back thing of looking as though she barely had energy to fly, limping from one milkweed to another. Then she seemed to be gone. Another has appeared as of today. This one is full of energy, flitting around the meadow.

The June bugs seemed to come later than usual, although I don’t make note of when they arrive. Maybe I shouldn’t expect them before mid month.

There’s nothing special to report about the birds: all the usual suspects have been here more or less on schedule. No maybe the Hummingbirds were later than usual. There also seem to be fewer of them. Only the Grackles and the Cardinals come to the feeders most days so I have slacked off in keeping them full. The other birds are busy catching bugs to feed their babies. The Orioles liked the new feeder that Charlotte gave me for my birthday. I like it too; it requires half and orange and no syrup.

The Eastern bluebirds who seemed to be taking up residence in the early spring moved on. I culled some 15 eggs from the two House sparrow nests in the nesting boxes. I set the trap when I saw a few juvenile House sparrows but I only ensnared a Cat bird, a male Cardinal, and a Cow bird so I disbanded that activity for the year. Tree swallows have a nest box in the meadow that’s about to fledge. A Wren has the fourth box.

We have a good crop of Downy woodpeckers. A couple of juveniles were squawking from a low branch of the Sugar maple just off the porch as I eat breakfast. They were soon feed some no doubt yummy bugs and then went about trying for themselves to find something in the bark of the tree to eat.

Great horned and Barred owls call at night. Peepers and other amphibians keep the nights noisy until first light when the bird ruckass starts. Yariv was here with his family over Memorial Day weekend. It’s louder here than Second Avenue, he said at breakfast.

A lone deer appears many evenings at dusk. Perhaps I’m sleeping through their calls, but I haven’t heard coyotes or foxes since I returned from Europe in early May.

So on to the shortening days of summer. If past years are a prediction, we’ll soon be in a heat wave accompanied by a drought. We’ll be longing for the cool rains of the spring even if, from time to time, they were torrential.

 

 

Worm moon and the vernal equinox

2019/03/21
American Robin, Great-horned owl, Red-winged Blackbird, Seasons
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I started my walk down the road an hour and 15 minutes after the solstice. An eighth of a mile along the moon was high enough to see. It was as big as I remember seeing a moon (it’s supposed to be 15% bigger). It’s intense glow (it’s supposed to be 30% brighter) made it seem even bigger. A Great horned owl might have spotted it too; unless he was just calling from the tree with the Osprey nest because it was dusk. In fact, lots of birds were calling with their final messages of the day and maybe their bellies full of worms.

This has been a super year for viewing super moons right from my stoop. I reported here on the super moon eclipse in January that took a path that conveniently allowed me to follow it from the mud room landing. I managed only to notice how white the meadow was in February so awash with moon light that I had to go to go outside to make sure it had not snowed. Tonight’s moon followed me up and down the road as it climbed, lost some of it’s yellow and, ironically, both filled out to its fullest and shrank.

My photos will show you that you had to be here to fully experience this and that I don’t know how to take photographs of glowing objects in low light.

Not surprisingly, the National Geographic has better photos than mine — though they aren’t of this Worm moon — and a clear explanation of the moon’s orbit. Two facts about this moon struck me. First, the moon is only 223,309 miles away. I have easily flown that many miles just as an adult. Maybe people are not crazy to think that soon we’ll be invading. Second, the next time a super moon will rise this close to the equinox, 19 years from now, I might not be around to see it just as I hope not to be around for non-astronauts landing on the moon.

The full moon of March apparently is called the Worm moon because the sun has warmed the earth enough for worms to begin moving around, feeding birds including American robins, who dutifully have begun to return. The Farmer’s Almanac says that native Americans called the March full moon the Crow moon. They were on the something: the crows came back about a week ago along with the FOY Red-winged black birds, a New Englander’s real harbinger of spring.

The crocuses and the daffodils also attest to the warming earth and the longer day. These popped out of the ground earlier this month. The skunk cabbage appeared on the 1st. Who needs iCal. Certainly not our orb or the flora and fauna.

 

 

 

 

Animal tracks

2019/03/17
Animal tracks, Bluebirds, White-tailed deer
1 Comment

Since I can’t manage to mount a little hunting camera I bought over a year ago, I have to use fresh snow to record traffic through the yard at night. It works pretty well when the tracks clearly resemble the mud prints in the Animal Tracks of New England book I use, and when I apply Occam’s razor.

We nearly got through the winter without snow, but on 13 February, we had enough to find tracks.

Raccoon tracks

Deer tracks

See the clear tracks of a raccoon and deer in the photos.

The raccoon tracks appeared around the house before heading into the field; the deer tracks were down at the bottom of the field near the blueberry bushes.

Deer tracks, of course, are unmistakable, but I was also catching sightings of a family of three deer nearer the house and even in daylight. They would hang out grazing in the early morning beyond the guest house and around the compost pile before cutting across the field.

I got a photo of each of them but only post two. Not wanting the area around the guest house to become part of their regular route, I sprayed there with Deer Out. That seems to have worked well. I have not seen them there or anywhere of late.

 

Parent deer

Baby deer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 28 February we had more snow. Before I could get out to check for new tracks, I saw what looked like a fisher cat or maybe a mink. He came out of the woods by the pond at the bottom of the field. I grabbed my bins for a closer look and, after a safe interval of time, my boots and camera. This snow was very wet and I did not get a good impression. I also could not match the footprint to either fisher or mink. For one thing, the impression this animal left was smaller.

Fisher really Oscar

Fisher in mud from Animal Tracks

Mid afternoon today, 17 March, I looked out the kitchen window and saw what I realized was the same animal. But this was Oscar, the neighbor’s cat. He not been around for months maybe because his master and mistress have put their house on the market and even, I thought, moved away. Certainly Oscar had retreated from my concerns. Yet today there was no denying that Oscar was back. I could see his white paws even if I could not see his white bib. And yes, he must have been my fisher or mink. Think horses, not zebras.

Just this afternoon I caught a glimpse of an Eastern bluebird and his mate. When they are here in March, there is a chance that they have chosen one of my bird houses as a nesting spot. But they were in the part of the field that Oscar had just been prowling. Please find a buyer for Oscar’s house! The bluebirds join me in this fervent hope.

 

Feeding the birds under a polar vortex and after an eclipse

2019/01/21
Birds, Lunar eclipse
2 Comments

Each type of bird feeder had a different way of becoming frozen shut after the heavy rains of yesterday and the single digit (that’s right 1) degree of temperature this morning.

Rhode Island birders have reported sightings of the Baltimore Oriole in the past few days. I will put out a new feeder Charlotte gave me for my birthday that dangles a piece of fruit to see whether any are around here after we get back to higher temperatures.

The Evening Grosbeak never honored my feeders this fall with a visit — at least not that I spied. in other places this fall, they were almost common. This would be a life bird for me, so I am disappointed.

More disappointment may be in store if the Eastern bluebirds again decide not to nest in my boxes. January is the month when a male will venture by on a house hunting expedition. Scott hung a nesting box on each of the poles in the meadow, so our houses are open. They won’t go empty: Tree Swallows, Carolina Wrens and the dreaded House Sparrows will use them no matter what.

My only disappointment with the lunar eclipse last night was my inability to capture it in a photo. It was spectacular and easy to monitor from the mud room deck. Despite the rapidly falling temperature, I could step outside in my nightgown and slippers every 15 minutes till the Earth’s shadow turned it red at 23;45, and coppery at 00:15. The speck about in the middle of the photo is the moon. You can see how good my viewing spot was.

lunar eclipse

Super Blood Wolf Moon from the mud room deck. A prize to anyone who can find it

 

 

Showering in drinking water

2018/09/09
Uncategorized
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So far this season has been hurricane free. But a week ago Saturday at the grocery store I thought I must have missed the warning about an advancing storm. The checkout lanes were uncustomarily long; people’s shopping carts were pilled with containers of water.

The water buying was not in advance of a storm but to counter a water crisis: much of the community’s public water system had become compromised by the presence of E. Coli.

I bought my few groceries but no water. I still have several gallons of water from last year that I’d love to use up. It was also possible I would not be afflicted since I draw water from my own well.

In the early days of this nuisance, information about the extent and instructions on the required reaction was hard to find. An emergency robo call from some authority garbled the name of the  website to check. Nothing was mentioned about private wells. The internet was more helpful. It offered 2 suggestions:  boil water for one minute before drinking, and take a shower without ingesting any water.

I boiled some water. But soon it was clear my well was not implicated. A week and a day later, I poured the boiled water on the plants.

The messages of subsequent robo calls, of which there have been at least 2, have been audibly clearer. The boiling of water for those on the public water system is to continue until further notice. And we are advised not to take water into our mouths when showering.

A notice that the Y posted about showering.

The showering practice reminded me of traveling in developing countries and of Georgiana.

Georgiana was a regular in the commuters’ locker room in the main complex building of the World Bank. We commuter locker room users were a traipse of globe trotters familiar with the practice of showering with one’s mouth closed.

Georgiana’s participation in the locker room community was interrupted at one point when she was assigned to the country office in New Delhi for a multi-month stint. Upon her return she called out from a shower stall: “Remember you’re showering in drinking water.” Her message became a rallying cry in the locker room even for the shortest showers.

I often think of Georgiana when I shower, especially when I stay in for too long. And I’ve told plenty of people beyond that Bank locker room to consider the quality of the water they’re using when showering.

Of course, I hope my fellow citizens on the public water system get potable water again very soon. But I also wish Georgiana could call out so everyone in America could hear. It’s a message we need: natural disasters such as big storms aren’t the only events that threaten our access to what we’ve come to see as basic entitlements.

 

 

 

Opening day of the cruelest month

2018/04/01
American Robin, Bee hive management, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Towhee, Ground hog, House Sparrow, Northern Cardinals, PV infrastructure, Red-winged Blackbird, White-throated Sparrow
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It’s a busy day today — the second full day of Passover, Easter and April Fool’s Day — to start the first full month of spring. Looking ahead, on the 4th, Martin Luther King will have been dead 50 years. On the 15th, Abe Lincoln will have been dead 153 years. And on the 11th, Edward Wightman will have been dead 406 years. Not one of them died of natural causes. Assassins bullets, I need not say, took the first two. The last burning at the stake in England for heresy took the last, my ancestor.

The cruelest month opened with a brief shower that finished before I could get through the Times. My Easter bonnet for my daily walk down the road was not a rain hood but a grey fleece ear warmer. It may be 50 degrees, however a wind was lowering the feels-like factor quite a bit. The general direction of the wind has shifted, as is appropriate for the season, to originate in the south(west) causing a pattern of cold out, warm home that is the reverse of winter walks — a harbinger of hot out, hot home.

But before leapfrogging to summer, here’s some record keeping of late winter. On 5 March, the Red-winged Blackbirds announced their return with their welcome but harsh gurgle. Two weeks later, migratory American Robins were doing their run-run-run-stop-cock the head-peck the ground routine all over the yard. About the same time I had my first conversation of the year with a White-throated Sparrow:”Oh Sam pee peebody peebody” we took turns saying to each other several times. Down the road at 800 in a stand of spruces with an understory of green briar bramble, an Eastern Towhee scolds me whenever I pass to “drink my tea, tea, tea.” I trust my Towhee will return soon.

The Eastern Phoebes should be back, but I haven’t heard or seen them yet. The male will arrive first. When his mate gets here, they’ll take up residence somewhere in the electricity-producing infrastructure, either between the rafters and the PV panels in the folly or between the meter-that-runs-backwards and the north wall of the guest house. I don’t remove the nest I can reach because they seem willing to reuse it. The House Sparrows are here again. Is that why the Eastern Bluebird has not taken up residence in a nest box? Bluebirds have been reported elsewhere nearby for several weeks so I fear they just don’t find Kennel House homey enough.

Phoebe nest between the meter and the guest house
Phoebe nest in the folly

Last season I had five pairs of Northern Cardinals but a female died (was eaten maybe but was not burned at the stake) in the fall. I have seen four males together at the feeders but not five. I might be down a pair going into the mating season.

The spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) are chirping from the pond as of Wednesday. (Is crucifer related to crucifixion?) The ground hog seems to have moved house from under the canoe to under the large brush compost pile. The entrance to the new house is easily accessible for a have-a-heart trap. But suppose I caught him, what then (the assassin’s bullet)?

Ground Hog hole

The crocuses and the daffodils in the lee of the house are in bloom. An Italian honey bee was taking pollen from the crocuses as I was trying to take a photo only to realize that my battery had just died. That’s likely a honey bee of mine from a generation that escaped my careless beekeeping. I popped the inner cover off one of my hives (no tool needed); the smell of honey wafted up. Clearly my hives didn’t starve, but no bees emerged to check on what I was doing. Maybe they could not rotate to the honey in the long cold.

Daffodils
Crocuses

For the record, I pruned the blueberry bushes — the cultivars — today before it SNOWS later this evening! Historical records say it can snow here until the 10th.

We abide by the laws of nature around here so come May Day, there will be other deaths, timely and otherwise, more first-of-year (FOY) bird sightings and early season plant awakenings to recount from this first full month of spring. There is the fate of the ground hog to consider as well. But if past years predict, I’ll be counting how many pups were in the litter and survived the first moth of spring.

1918 – 2018

2018/03/22
Invasives, Meadow restoration
3 Comments

Dear Da,

Happy one hundredth birthday! I know I’m late, but the actual day did not go unnoticed. I was birding in Colombia with 3 others. We were in an expansive wetlands watching waterbirds. “Today would have been my father’s 100th birthday had he not died at 95,” I told them — maybe somewhat out of the blue!

Last summer when preparing for a public walk through the Kennel House meadow, I came upon this picture of us. Too bad, I thought then, that it does not show the plants in the meadow except as a haze of greenery. I wanted a before-and-after kind of photo so people could see the progress in restoring the meadow. You will remember how ruthlessly we tore up the bittersweet by its roots, how relentlessly we hacked away at the stems of Japanese bamboo. We look pretty clean and relaxed in the photo. It must have been snapped as we were on our way into the field. We’d be wringing wet by the time we finished.

Now I look at the picture and I see something else: we are both wearing second-hand gardening clothes. Well, you’re hat is a Dunes Club — i.e., first hand — item. Everything else is sourced from the Jonny Cake Shop or other second-hand store. Do you remember those pink pants of mine? I had a matching pair in an equally as WASPy-golf-club-color of green. I don’t know what happened to the green pants, but after 20 or 25 years, the pink ones disintegrated.

Thank you for passing on to me that practice of buying second-hand clothes. I don’t use it for all my clothing (as Mother will be glad to hear), but it is handy for gardening wear. Since the pink pants — which more or less fit — and an awareness of the hazards of Lyme-disease-bearing ticks, I’ve been buying second-hand garden wear that pulls over regular clothing so that I can shed a top layer when I come out of the field.

I know that at age 90 or so you wanted to live to 100 You should be glad you did not. You would be horrified with the state of American politics. You often told me that the Senate was not worthy of the respectable image it tried to project. Brawling, even fist fights, were not unusual at least in the 19th century you said. Today a fist fight would look civilized next to the unfathomable cruelty and callousness of Senators. And that’s just that start of the despicable behavior of our elected officials.

You would be pleased, however, with the state of the old field. It would be folly to say that the bittersweet (note the piece wrapping it’s way along the rail of the fence) is gone. But it is no longer the dominant plant species. The same can be said of the Japanese bamboo. The two hedgerows of evergreens that I planted from pencil-sized seedlings — one along the driveway to the houses behind and the other up the rise to the road — have grown in. They work well to choke out invasives and establish the boundaries of the field. The fence I lean on in the photo rotted away years ago. The edge between the field and the lawn is now defined by garden beds and the vegetable garden fence. A rose of Sharon that Winkie dug up for me from the Great House garden serves as a post between the lawn and the meadow in the south western corner.

Thank you for your gardening tutelage while I was growing up not to mention your physical labor at the Kennel House. Shed #1 is still stocked with your tools, by the way. You live on around here.

Happy birthday! usnan salguod

March blizzard

2018/03/13
Seasons
1 Comment

It’s the 13th of March, and it’s snowing. The snow started at 1:00 am. The forecast says it will stop around dark. I’ll be ready. The weather forecast on my phone calls for 2 more days of snow next week. Imagine that I had a date with a new garden hand to start pulling bittersweet and digging multiflora rose out of the meadow tomorrow.

To while away this unseasonable  snow storm, I’ve been reading Weatherland: Writers and Artists Under English Skies. I just reached a section called “A Pause: On Freezeland Street” where the pages turned a light blue. It starts: “Sometimes, in deep winter, life seems to pause. Snow falls silently, and it muffles the usual sounds.”

This is not quite my situation as a northwest wind has been blowing tree detritus against the northern windows making a jarring clatter. And snow plows have been up and down the street way too frequently for the volume of traffic (none). I looked up from the dining room table to see a crew member of a National Grid climbing over the front wall. He was checking my meter to see whether I had power. Apparently at least some of my neighbors are without.

Back in my reading nook with Weatherland, the author, Alexandra Harris, is about to describe several Frost Fairs on the Thames from the 1600s till 1814. The many piers of the Old London Bridge impeded the river’s flow creating “a very pavement of glass” supporting an alternative world on the ice. Harris writes that visitors came in the thousands. Booths were set up in double rows from Temple Stairs to the South Bank. Since I’m about to be right there next month, this “pause” in the Weatherland tale is particularly compelling.

In 1684, poet-playwright John Dryden started work on the libretto for an opera, King Arthur, by Henry Purcell that according to Harris “would contain one of the most brilliant renderings of frost in musical history.” You can hear  a modern interpretation of “The Chorus of Cold People” here. The stuttering staccato mimics their shivering, writes Harris. (Purcell’s version is here.)

I have missed most of the storms in Rhode Island this winter. I have not lost power. i should not complain. But I saw a pair of mourning doves huddled together on the back of a wrought iron chair under the enclosed but not screened section of the porch. They were whispering “we’ve had it” to one another. I’d concur.

Feeders
Winterscape
Evergreen hedgerow
Sheds