Turtle Pond

As soon as we discovered Wood turtles and Painted turtles on our farm I began planning strategies for expanding their habitat. doubled the size of our turtle pond in 2009.  I'm always impressed with how quickly aquatic plants and pioneer species (and invasives) return when there is water.  Our ponds were designed as vernal ponds, relying only on winter and spring rains, but all hold water all year.  The original turtle pond was a tiny, deeper complement to the frog pond, divided by a 15-foot walkway.  The new pond is over three times larger. Special credit goes to Dale Roberts of the Java Shack in Arlington, who while visiting for a recreational weekend, drove the bobcat for nearly three hours straight and dug much of the shallow end.

July 2009

May 2011

Hollies flowering

Flowers of Ilex opaca

We're at the northern edge of the natural range for American hollies (Ilex opaca), so I pay a lot of attention to our plantings. Those planted in sunlight started blooming this week.

Findings - Turtle eggs and birds nests

While preparing to plant some grapes, I found these turtle eggs.  The only turtles we ever see in this area of the farm are Box turtles (Terrapene carolina).  I haven't been too successful in relocating turtle eggs.  Sooner or later, they're always discovered by a raccoon, fox, skunk, or opossum.  There's only so much you can do to protect them that wouldn't interfere with the young emerging turtles.

Diane found this little nest on the ground.  It seems a little big for a hummingbird.  But what really caught our attention is that on closer inspection you'll see it is made almost entirely of horse hair.  The horse barn is almost 500 meters away, so the little bird that made this must have believed this was the material of choice.  Click on the second picture for a closeup.

First Hemerocallis blooms

The first Asian daylily  (Genus Hemerocallis) blossoms look like they're just a few days away.

Daylily flowers usually last less than 24 hours. They open at sunrise and begin to die off at sunset, but may be replaced by another on the same flower stalk the next day.

Hemerocallis is native to China, Korea, and Japan and elsewhere in Asia, and popular worldwide because of worldwide because of their hardiness. Most  Daylilies grow in clumps, and I've seen them listed on some invasive plants list.  Most of our daylilies came from neighbors who were thinning theirs, so I guess there's some legitimacy to this. I sometimes see them at weird places along the road in the first few weeks of June.

Sad Outcome

They seemed too young to fledge - just two days after the May 21 photo - but both young birds and their parents abandoned the nest.  One died on May 24 on the street (I'll send you the photo if you want).

May 23, 2011

May 24, 2011

Nesting Doves

I've been reluctant to sneak a photo of the doves that nest every year in one of the hanging baskets on our front porch in Arlington, but this year I did.

An adult doves nesting with two squabs on our front porch in the city.

As abundant as our pigeons (Columba livia) and Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura) are, we rarely get to see them nesting.  It's too bad , because members of the Family Columbidae have some of the most altricial young (needy or dependent, opposite of precocial).  For the first few days of life, the young squabs eat only a special milk produced from the crop of both the male and female dove.


Here's a photo I found at A birding blog by Gunnar Engblom.of a pigeon (Rock Dove) feeding youg squabs.

Photo: Susannah A. Lower Fraser of Wanderin' Weeta

Raspberries and Cucurbits

One of the fenced-in raspberry patches.

I weeded the raspberries so my wife could plant her pumpkins and squashes among them. When I prepared these 10 x 30 raised beds I used soil from the river bottom mixed with a large amount of organic matter and both composted and new coffee grounds for extra acidity, but the soil still has a significant clay composition. It doesn't affect the output of our plants from what I can tell. I'll wait to hear when Church View Farms begins harvesting their berries and then I'll compare.

I like the combination of the raspberries and cucurbits because the raspberries outgrow the very large leaves of the cucurbits, and there is little sunshine left for weeds.

Edible Plants Talk

I knew of Leenie Hobbie through mutual friends on Facebook, but I had a chance to listen in on her edible plants talk when my neighbor hosted a "Yoga and Weeds" event at Foxwalk Farm.  I wandered toward the barn, which has a large art studio above the stables, hoping  to have missed the yoga.  I was a little late for the edible plants introduction, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn just how much of the abundant local fauna was indeed edible.  Leenie often mentioned plants that were valued as liver "tonics" or kidney tonics.

In my recent post on Garlic Mustard I mentioned that I like my medicines and their dosages clinically tested.  But I also took a chemical ecology course in graduate school in which the overriding theme was that even when chemicals can be synthesized in the lab, it's rarely more efficient than harvesting the chemicals from their natural sources.  Moreover, having a command of natural medicine can save lives in extraordinary situations where modern medicine is unavailable.  So I paid attention, but I'm not going to get into the business (or liabilities) of listing such things here regularly.

When I returned home I noticed all of the irises next to the boathouse were in bloom.

Irises in bloom along the boathouse driveway.     

Blooming Irises

Normally we see about a week between when the tulip bulbs self destruct and the Irises.  The Genus Iris has over 250 species, but the "type" is Iris germanica.  We have several hundred of them, and they multiply nicely from rhizomes.  

Irises along the smaller turtle pond.

I like them around our Hampshire farm because deer don't seem to try them even once (they're mildly toxic) and our deer will eat right out of the planter boxes on our front patio. They seem to bloom in the first week of May each year in Hampshire County, although the leaves sometimes begin emerging as early as late March.  When we divide them in the Fall I 'll plant a few dozen throughout the farm in surprise places, usually forgetting about them until the greenery becomes noticeable in mid-April.




Our sunnier wetlands (left) are still flooded, and I see that the Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) seeds we spread casually have germinated and thrived.  The wood ducks and frogs seem to prefer the more protected woodland wetlands, and the predatory herons seem to avoid them, so I'm happy to encourage a few Silver Maples, Sycamores (Platanus occidentalis) and River Birches (Betula nigra) in the two smaller, more open ponds.

A female Wood Turtle travelling along our walking trails.

We do leave spots for the Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta).  Our adult turtles seem to be thriving, but we haven't found any youg wood turtles yet this year.  Unlike Box turtles, which close up and park themselves at any sign of danger, the wood turtles will move out of the way.  Hitting a turtle with a mower is a sickening feeling, and fortunately it's only happened once (a Box Turtle).   We made a decision two years ago to mow all the trails along the ponds, creeks and the river  with the mower at it's 4-inch setting, easily high enough to miss a Wood Turtle.

Garlic Mustard and new Swamp White Oaks

I still have not pinned down a date for when Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) first appears.

Garlic Mustard near the old Blue Ford river crossing

The leaves, flowers and fruits are apparently edible, providing a flavor of both garlic and mustard. I've read that it induces swaeting and is helpful for respiratory problems, ulcers and gangrine.  You won't get such recommendations from me - I like my medicines and their dosages clinically tested.  But like many other invasive plants, I do wish someone would declare them to be aphrodisiacs or an ingredient of eternal youth, because trying to clear a woodlot of Garlic Mustard is tiring and boring.  And you need to do it completely for five years in a row to exhaust the seed bank.

Later I'll post a photo of a mature plant with seeds.  They're actually very easy to pull, as the roots come right out without any special pulling technique.  If seeds are present, you'll need to remove them from the woods.  I burn them, although I've read that some believe composting heat kills the seeds of many weeds.

Here's a photo (left) of a remarkably resilient Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) that was able to leaf out and flower even with bird and presumably insect damage to its bark on a broken branch hanging straight down.


The photo below shows a few Swamp White Oaks (Quercus bicolor) germinated from acorns stored haphazardly over the winter.

Diane's successful Swamp White Oak germination.