That's two

Well the heartless human has again captured a poor defenseless raccoon (unless you count sharp teeth and very sharp claws) and transported it away from its home to a strange place.

This one was smaller than yesterday's catch and a little less feisty, though it had pulled more mulch into the trap than yesterday's traveler.



A close-up in the trunk of the car. Don't you just hate me for doing this? Look at those sad eyes.



He or she (You want to check it out?!) was let go at the same spot as yesterday and disappeared just as quickly into the high weeds.

I have visions of them regrouping down there, enlisting others, and making an assault on the house within a week.

Early morning in the neighborhood

After releasing the raccoon this morning I took a few minutes to take in the scenery. Here's some of what I saw.



The sun was just coming up over the hill, shining literally right through a neighbor's trees. These first two pictures were taken from where the raccoon was released.



These last three pictures, taken from the road on our east, and scanning from north to south, show how quiet and humid it was at 7:30 AM. Can you spot one of our four-legged neighbors?

Got 'er!

For the last three or four weeks we have been visited at night by a raccoon (Procyon lotor). In itself, that would not be a concern. But this particular raccoon has not been very neighborly.

She is not particularly afraid of people. One night my sister set up a flood light to see what was eating the bird seed just feet from her "guest room" window. When she heard the small chimes that hang on the same device as the feeder, she turned on the light to see mama raccoon staring back at her. A few nights ago I chased her and two of her youngsters away so I could bring the feeder in for the night.

She climbs the metal poles that hold our bird feeders. She is large enough that she literally bent one of them about 30 degrees from vertical. That's bent over, not pushed over.

She has knocked over our bird bath and pushed it down the hill. She has dragged clay-potted plants down the hillside. She has torn up plant starts.

Well not tonight.

Last night I set a humane trap for her and this morning there she was, trying to hide in a large pile of grass and wood chips she had scraped into the trap with her, waiting to see what would happen next. All I had was some banana peels and a few pieces of gristle from last night's chicken dinner, but that was enough for her to come into the trap.



Based on good advice to keep my distance from the top of the trap, I picked it up with a set of ice tongs. This worked great. I spread a tarp in the trunk of the car and put the trap in while mama hissed at me bravely.



I drove south on our east-side county road to its end and turned east a hundred yards or so to the small bridge over the creek, a little under 2 miles. I put the trap down on the road and slowly rolled it over. The door fell open and, before I could snap a picture, she disappeared into the tall grass at the creek.



I hope the distance will be enough to keep her away from the house. We'll see. Tonight I hope I can trap one or two of the kids and send them along with mom.

Persimmons - Diospyros virginiana

We have been discussing whether or not to keep a few trees that are close to the house. They are not too large and not too straight and, generally, not the best looking trees in the forest.

Last week as we were considering this question, I looked up at the largest of them and saw a few dozen persimmons in it. "Wow," says I, "this must be a persimmon tree!" And I didn't even need one to drop on my head to figure it out.

Here's what it looks like from about 30 feet away. It's maybe 15 feet tall.



On both sides of it you can see the beginnings of narrow terraces created from stump grindings spread on the slope. They should decay into a solid walkway in a few months, especially if it ever rains here again. (By the end of June we had already gotten an average year's rainfall. In August, less than a quarter inch here.)

And here's what we saw when we first discovered the fruits. One can see at least 10 in this picture.



Here's more than the average person wants to know about persimmons, including a few recipes, and here's the Wikipedia entry.

Now that I know what they look like I'm finding dozens of them growing within 50 yards of the house. Many are small because they have been mowed down in the past and sprouted from the stumps.

I'll try to remember to post a picture of them after they ripen, if something doesn't get to them first.

And don't forget the annual Mitchell, Indiana, Persimmon Festival in nearby Lawrence County on September 20-27, 2008.

Papa Oak

We lost one very large tree this spring when a tornado missed us by less than a half mile. Here are two pictures of the large oak tree not far from the spring that was bypassed by the storm. Both show the large horizontal branch that grows to the west. It's about seven feet off the ground at the trunk and reaches out at least 35 feet. I really should measure it someday.

 
Our house will be somewhere not too far below this tree. We are counting on it to live a lot longer.

Curious holes

Yesterday on the trail, about 50 feet north of and about 20 feet higher than the surface of the existing pond, I came across a simple, smooth hole in the ground. Within 100 feet I found two more. Each is less than 2 inches across. They are all alike, and I found even more after taking these pictures:

   

I have seen these before but never took the time to investigate what they are. Today I did. They are burrowing crayfish! They do not live in water, which explains why they were so far away from and above the pond.

Even more to my surprise, there is a Burrowing Crayfish Project underway at the Indiana Biological Survey Aquatic Research Center in nearby Bloomington. Their home page even promises: "Coming Soon: Crayfishes of the Ohio River Floodplain."

I'll be checking back every day. Yeh, right!

Joe-Pye Junction

As spring progressed and the "weeds" grew, we soon became aware that many of them were a large plant commonly called Joe-Pye weed. Our variety is Eutrochium fistulosum, Hollow Joe-Pye Weed.

I have been cutting trails down the hill and across the property to the south boundary, and many of them that start near the house have seemed to naturally lead to a common point near where we hope someday to add a larger pond. As time went on it was clear that Joe-Pye weed was the predominant plant at the junction, and I have taken to using this posting's title to describe the area. No one walking down any of the trails needs to be told more than "go to Joe-Pye Junction" to describe the cross-trails point from which they would continue on one trail or another. Here are a few shots of it.

View of the junction from the north... Things are sort of overgrown. There is a trail through this but the plants are very wide now.	View from the west... It's hard to tell without a reference, but some of these plants are 8 feet tall!
A close up of the flower head with a few bees on it	Looking over the junction from the south across the area we hope will be a large pond

Let's get caught up

It's been over 4 months since my last entry. If you've been checking back from time to time and you're still here, thanks for you persistence.

We have been busy...

We got the downstairs room finished. Since then, though, sadly, after a series of episodes - numerous diagnoses, treatments, doctor and hospital visits - Sandy's dad passed away. We were with him and all of his closest family had been to visit him within his last two weeks.

We have been working outside, cutting paths through the fields, clearing potential house sites, cutting grapevines, multiflora roses, autumn olive trees, Japanese honeysuckle, and a nasty sticker-covered vine that can grow to be a terrible nuisance. All of these are "exotic" and "invasive," meaning they are not native to Indiana and they take over large areas with a smothering effect on our native plants. I'll post something about each (or most) of these soon.

We finally installed the last sheets of siding, the angular sheets above the second floor, under the roof overhang, on the ends of the building. And, with help from my sister Judy, we painted the entire outside except for corner and window trim that will be installed before cold weather sets in. Then I installed the hex sign Judy had bought us last Christmas near the top of the west wall.

We purchased a trailer and a heavy duty weed whacker with large wheels. We may have already paid for the trailer in rental savings, using it for material, straw, wood chips, stump grindings (very fine wood chips mixed with soil) and a few things purchased at Dinky's Auction like 20 11-foot trusses from a house trailer that will make a great carport.

We are beginning to improve the paths by covering them with cardboard and then with wood chips. I doubt all the paths will get the full treatment. There are just too many feet of path to cover. I won't be surprised if we eventually have 2 to 3 miles of trail/path on the property. The wood chips are free from the town of Bloomfield, and the guys at their site load them into the trailer for me. There is no practical limit to how much I can get. The limit is how much I can unload, distribute and spread. Trail pictures will be posted soon.

Just outside the large sliding barn door, almost under the kitchen area and bathroom windows, we have been encouraging native plants, moving some from other places on the property, and adding a few that we like that we haven't found here yet. When the driveway was improved earlier in the year, I had a small swale cut above the (then yet to be improved) area to impede the flow of water off the upper hill and across the driveway. The swale holds the water allowing it to seep into the hillside and keep the plot moist as along as possible. Through a FreeCycle offer we got a small formed plastic pond which I have sunk into the middle of the swale. I hope this will encourage some of the toads and tree frogs to stick around.

Tree frogs are the source of another little adventure we've had this spring and summer. I'll add an entry about them, too. The upshot of it is that we have had over 500 tree frog tadpoles living outside the building since mating season.

The second most recent post before this one showed the south side of the building just after the large rocks were moved and covered over with stone. I'll show a current view of this area, complete with flowering plants, sunflowers from the bird feeder seed, bindweed that is taking over everything it can climb, and the home of the last 50 or so tadpoles that I didn't move to the pond, a step I took reluctantly since we have a very healthy snapping turtle in the pond.

Finally, I have been trying to identify all the wildflowers that grow here. I'll take my own pictures over time, but I have links to dozens of them so far from public sites. I hope to put them together on a fixed web page.

Keep tuned in.