Month: April 2019

I saw this big ball way up in a tree and initially thought it was a turkey, but when I got closer I found it was a porcupine, or my preferred name for them, the archaic porpentine.
One day I saw a car at the end of my drive just sitting. When I walked down there, it turned out to be an older couple who were watching a porcupine trudging along with great perplexity. They were grateful to learn what that waddling spiky large rodent was.

This is a robin’s evening serenade.

The red squirrels are back, sigh. Well, one is. I wasn’t putting out birdseed in Feb when I was in Oregon and they haven’t been around since until now. So far I’ve just seen one, and it was quiet. The only good squirrel is a quiet squirrel! And an outdoor one too. Red squirrels can be very destructive in a house.

I follow Oregon City weather when I check on my own, and although lower, our sineish curve of temp is similar albeit lower over all, but this week we are all wet, and/or cloudy and OC is mostly sunny.  Has summer begun there?  We have forsythia and daffodils blooming but only just.  No magnolia yet or other spring flowers.  The shad bush is one of the earlier bloomers, that and cerulean cherry, necter lovers have nothing to eat before then.  I planted a cerulean cherry a couple of years ago and it’s buds are swollen almost to bursting.  It’s a bit late, I hear, but it grows on a northern slope by the driveway.

Tick season has officially begin, they mentioned it on NPR! I’ll spray my red rubber boots with DEET and slip my feet into them whenever I walk around outside starting now, and I’ve been careful to avoid brushing against leaves or remnants of wildflowers from last fall in my pastures for weeks. No picking up stuff I’ve raked out of the garden, it gets lifted into the cart with tools. My zoysia beacons me with it’s cushiony, dry carpet. I dare not sit on it, even on a blanket, for fear of ticks although I might venture there in late August or September. I often find my first tick crawling up my laptop in spring, I think it’s warmth draws them out of my clothing.
They are worse every year and will be ubiquitous for the next couple of months. Though they never vanish, they are less problematic until fall, when they hang around until things freeze up.

Oh, and black fly season starts in a few days, that will be nonstop for the month of May, until the mosquitos take over. Black flies pupate in the dirt, so gardening becomes noxious without DEET on every exposed skin or a bug suit, looking like a bee keeper with my head and face covered. Mine is a full head covering worn over a brimmed hat to keep it off my face, attached to the mesh shirt and if it’s warm, mesh pants so I can wear shorts. I feel dirty with DEET on my skin and want to shower before I smear it all over my indoor clothing and furniture so I don’t want to put it on all over my skin if I’m not going to be out working for some meaningful time, or I’d shower 3 times a day or more, hence the bug suit.

We’ve only been plagued with deer flies for the past 4-5 years. They start about 4 weeks after the mosquitos, but they live in the shade so if you stick to the sun you’re fine. They are fast though, try running, and they just fly around your head in circles, able to fly more than 3 x your speed with ease (say hi to pi.) And on cloudy days it’s bug suits or DEET from door to door out there.
They won’t bother you if you wear a 6″, sky blue, flowerpot on your head. I know, crazy, right? But true. Researchers have tried all sorts of targets, paper mâché deer heads included!!!!
Really.
And if you stick it on your head while you mow, and cover it with tanglefoot (usually used for apple maggots,) you can eliminate the area of deer flies. Really!!! Other’s will move in, but it takes a week or two so if you use the flower pot every time you mow, I am assured, never having tried it, it works.
I didn’t really want to stick it on my head, I wanted to mount it on the front of my lawn tractor, but it was old and battered and pieces kept falling off. Then I got a new lawn tractor and it was too nice to gloom on a sticky, 6″, blue flowerpot covered with trapped flies.

I remember one bad black fly season some years ago, I was going to working in the garden, digging, which stirs them up viciously, for about an hour so no DEET, and had just suited up, hat, head covering, work gloves, shorts under bug pants and red rubber boots sprayed with DEET, when 2 guys from the electric company drove up to be sure the power outage down the road hadn’t affected me. There they sat in their truck, these 2 Mainers who work outdoors for a living, looking at me in my bug suit. Smiling at me smiling more at each other.
Times like these I try to remind myself to be grateful that I could bring a bit of laughter into another’s heart.
And I remember to be grateful that at least I didn’t also have a blue sticky flowerpot on my head.

Rereading what I wrote, I realize how different this place is in this regard, from when I arrived 20 years ago, and how unchanged. The black flies were exactly as vicious. They actually have teeth and they don’t puncture, they bite, chew. I’ve had a trickle of blood run down my face from one. And itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. The mosquitos are about the same.

The ticks are much more prevalent along with the potential diseases they carry. I worked with a woman who’s mother was the first in the state to contract, and die, from the Powassum virus for which there is no treatment once and if they even diagnose it. And the deer flies have been bad for about 5-6 years. And now the Lone Star tick is here. That’s the one that makes you allergic to meat. Beef, certainly and probably other red meat, at least for a long (months-years) time.

Now this is NOT, NOT, NOT

the island, where the mosquitoes roam in their hours as we all know. I think it’s far enough from shore so deer flies are unwilling to cross that expanse of sunlight, and ticks don’t seem to swim that far. I do believe that the mosquitos have painted a bulls eye on the underside of the outhouse seat though. In light blue, of course.

April 13th, Mud season is certainly here, dirty white patches of snow are left only in the shaded edges of the pastures and where it was piled.  With thawing of the ground, the risk of any significant basement flooding has receded.

A turning point, the rains of last night have convinced the planet to release my sculpture.  I’ve been going out every day and got part of it to wiggle, but until today the base was firmly frozen in.  Today, all that changed.  With a mighty heave,  I managed to get it up and dragged it a few feet from its internment.  I don’t remember how I ever got it out of my car (a long-ago car) and to its initial placement, but I know I won’t eschew help getting it on and off a truck.

I don’t exactly remember Nathan Nicols’ name for it.  He was in a long code violation dispute with the town about selling his sculptures from his home and the name was from something they accused him of committing.

In Maine, Easter is a herald of what is to come, in southern New England, it is a recognition of the presence of “that Aprille with his shoures soote” as Geoff Chaucer mentioned.
I remember attending a Sunrise Service on more than one Easter with my family atop East Rock.  There is something magic about dawn, and sharing a dawn with others.  My family will gather to share a meal, those who can, if not atop East Rock, then in its environs.  From what I can tell from Wunderground, there was no visible sunrise today anyway, so they could sleep in. Happy Holiday to all who worship, and all who are family.

The turkeys travel through twice a day, heading north, probably to the dairy farm next door where corn grew in recent months but also they range through the woods. In the evenings they head back to my place to spend the night. Coming in from the north they run to the bird feeder and glean what sunflower seeds may have fallen whole from the feeder, then some will go out to the apple tree in the south pasture, then off they go to roost in trees at the edges of my pasture. Amazingly invisible even in deciduous trees in winter. Oh sure, you see them, but you mostly only see them once they move. Big birds with an incredible invisibility shield.
This is the season for mating, I don’t often get a front row seat in the soap opera that is turkey sex, but the early evening migration gave me an idea of how complicated it can be.
I made a great video, but at 2 min it’s too large to put in here so more education on my part is needed to figure out how to share videos and to answer the currently unanswered question, how large is too large? And how long it that anyway in video terms?

I got the front garden raked, earlier than usual.  Nothing peeking above ground yet, the ground is thawing but only just.  I keep thinking about the daffodils showing an inch or two of green leaves when I was in Oregon last Jan, but here and now, they still are safely tucked underground.  Temps for the next 48 hours will be just at freezing, then a few days of freezing nights, then we finally creep above freezing.  Hopefully for a while.

We are expecting 3-5” of snow and it was snowing when I woke up.  It was about 4″ by noon. Tomorrow another 1-3” is predicted.  Maine State Govt. just closed the House and Sent Sessions for tomorrow due to snow. I called my landscaper, Warren to ask him not to plow, the biggest problem is that the ground is melted enough that he can’t help but dig it all up and given we are getting another 1-3″ tomorrow and if need be, he can plow then. I can’t see paying twice to clear snow that will be gone in 2-3 days anyway.

I ran into a woman at Hussey’s (“The largest general store in Maine.”  “If we ain’t got it, you don’t need it.” and “guns, wedding gowns and beer.”) who commented on her (now proven false) believe that spring had finally started and we ended up in a 5 min conversation about Oregon!

I’ve been wandering around in several of the public gardens in Portland OR this morning, what a feast for the senses.  I needed that, while outside the snow is so heavy, it’s had to see distances. And all the while I was feeling snug and warm, in front of my wood stove, a cup of tea at my side.  An exquisite Japanese Garden, the finest, they say, outside of Japan.  They have a tea house, but I don’t know if they present tea ceremonies.  It was started with the idea of building American Japanese relationships in the 60s, part of a movement across the country of such gardens, the idea being we could share the culture without knowing the language. One cool note, a man who spent 4 years working on the garden in the 60s. He had a miserable time and was verbally and physically assaulted the entire time by people because he was Japanese. When he left he vowed he would never return. Sad huh?
But 50 years later he attended the opening of an exhibit there and discovered how much the garden was appreciated and felt “healed.”
I won’t go on now, but I can’t wait to visit them all, and take pictures of all these places for the blog. 
There is The Lan Su Chinese Garden, everything in there is from China.  All those gardens are required to have 5 aspects, stone, water, plants, poetry and architecture (if I remember right) and I do find myself disappointed with the writing on rocks.  I wish the poetry could be expressed in some more natural form.  Still, it’s magnificent.  Then there is a International Rose Test Garden, and an Arboretum and a Portland Garden.  I won’t go on now, but I can’t wait to visit them all, and take pictures of all these places for the blog

The turkeys are also about, and snow or no snow, the males and females are hanging together. These pics were taken a few years ago when they were spending time near the house and I could shoot through the window, hence the limited quality. I am always so impressed with the shining glory of turkeys in the sun. Burnished metals of all sorts, copper, brass, bronze with greens and blue iridescence as well.

Taken through screening, a couple of young males doing no better than their older brothers. I always wonder when the males get a chance to eat during these weeks, which is all the females seem to do. They will put down their plumage and nibble a bit, but the drive to puff up and show off, is too strong to let them get more than a swallow or two. You can tell these are young males because they both have central tail feathers that are longer than the rest of them.

Heads are turning blue.

Same thing, but this one doesn’t change colors. I read dating advice in the Sunday paper and the one thing I keep reading over and over again is, guys, when you want to attract females, keep your clothes on. Maybe they should disseminate pictures of how excited the female turkeys get with such displays.

I will say I finally did see one pair of turkeys couple last year. She plopped to the ground and he walked over, kneaded her back until he got a good footing, sat down and after a moment, got off and walked away, as did she, after shaking her feathers back in place. You just can’t beat the romance of such an act.

There’s a late 12 inch April icicle handing at the bird feeder which a chickadee was clinging to for a few seconds. I’ve never seen a bird clinging to an icicle.  They do make lovely icicles around here.  There is often a warm spell going into or out of a snow storm in Maine.  Last night the snow ended with light rain and icicles abound.  I failed to replace part of the roof of the feeder and it hangs above the feeder making a lovely frame for some of the visitors.

The robins are looking particularly disgruntled, they had really been enjoying a return to their summertime meat diet rather than those darn sour sumac berries which is where they spent today.  A snow day for worms.  Rejoice in your reprieve all you northern worms!  I will be grateful for wormfolk today. 

I saw a particularly vivid yellow goldfinch and reaching for the phone to take a picture, I frightened the whole flock away but I’m hopeful that they will check in again.  I was grateful for the bird, for it’s color and for having a flock of finches which is an entertaining cheerful thing.

I’m grateful for the treat of watching a crow take a sauna, well a crowish sauna.  I have a small rivulet of melting snow running down the hill that attracts the birds.  One crow after bathing in it, stepped up into the snow, spread its wings and took another snow bath as if drying off.  Then a short period of preening each feather back in place and that bird was strutting it’s stuff!

I’m grateful the goldfinches are here, although not that many.  The males are mostly still blotchy, even their bills which change color in spring from brown/black to orange.  That’s the same change the females go through although they keep their plumage.

I’m grateful this late snow isn’t late enough to bother any tender buds since we don’t have any buds yet, tender or otherwise. 

I’m grateful either that I remembered to cut back the forsythia after it went dormant and throw it on the ground last fall so my landscaper didn’t get his truck scratched.  I’m grateful I found some flower branches sticking out of the plowed snow a week or two ago and brought them in and vased ‘em.  I really wasn’t sure if they’d bloom since they sure did look dried out but they’ve needed more water every day.  Yesterday I had 2 blooms and today, several.  

Here comes the sun, and I say, 

IT’S ALRIGHT!

One of my top 10 songs.

I’ve started collecting music from my nearest neighbors. This is a nice recording of backyard birds with a loud cardinal, a rooster, my clock and some unidentifiable machinery

And this is a short clip of mostly chickadees, robins and a red winged blackbird. It’s hard to hear the start of the three blackbird calls, but it starts with a lower plunking sound then that “conker geeeee” with the last drawn out.

I am truly excited about finding an auctioneer who will sell my stuff for me instead of having to sell them all myself. Goodby Nordic Track, goodby snow shoes and poles, farewell fireplace tools and gas generator. And this guy, Ed, will get as much money as he can for my things! He’s my new BFF.

And last, a minute of coyote recorded last August, I expect they will be less frequent in Oregon.

6-10″ of snow predicted for the next 2 days.

sigh