Rainy day, but two firsts

May apples have cropped up all over the place. The first bloom appeared in a clump that came up right in the path between the pole barn and the proposed house site.


















Today has been wet and mostly cloudy, but we've had a few new birds come to visit. Here's one, a rose-breasted grosbeak, on one of our suet feeders.

Save the Frogs Day

Today is Save the Frogs Day. They don't seem to be disappearing here at Greene View Springs, but we are worried about them world wide.

The folks at Save the Frogs are working to educate people about the problem, and their site has some great background "music."

Our frogs have been active since late February this year. Each night we can hear them, sometimes even with the windows closed. I saw some at the pond yesterday while I was planting some bald cypress trees and water irises.

They include gray tree frogs but we haven't seen one yet this year, just heard them. The University of Michigan's Museum of Zoology has a page of pictures. Note how different they can be.

I'm trying to get the small pond finished before the tree frogs come looking for a site to lay their eggs like they did last June when they laid them in a 3-ft tall, tarp-lined trough.

They don't get any closer

Unless, of course, they come through the front door!

Today Sandy called me to the window to see what was outside. I took a handful of pictures which speak for themselves.




Then a dog barked across the highway and off she flew, out of camera view.

Three more pictures

Here are few miscellaneous pictures from yesterday's walkabout.



The first is a crayfish mound. This is what they build when it rains a lot, apparently to keep the water from running down their holes. This one is about 6 inches tall.





This is just one multiflora rose bush. It is about 9 feet across. Nothing grows under it. You can see why we are trying to get rid of them.







Another invasive I've been cutting out is autumn olive. I cut this one last summer. You can see the stumps at the top of the picture. In the foreground is what used to be a very large pile of trunks and branches from it. All but the thickest branches were consumed in the accidental fire a month ago. This is another benefit of the fire that I wasn't expecting.

Early spring walkabout

Though it was a drizmal day, it wasn't a bad time for a few pictures of spring trying to catch on. Instead of a big long post with each picture described, I thought I'd let Picasa create a collage.

I haven't had time to look up the names of these plants, but I'm going to start an on-line album with plants we've found and I'll be sure they're all named before I put them into it. In the mean time, if you recognize any of these, let me know.



Beginning with the upper left corner and going clockwise, ending in the center, the pictures are a small red bud tree, May apples, mint plants in the creek, flowers farther down stream, new leaves on a young tree, field pussy-toes, more, but different yellow flowers, small shamrock-like leaves, and a large grouping of spreading lichens.

Well that didn't take long

It's been two hours since the previous picture and it rained for about an hour during that time. Here's the hole now.


It looks as though there will be enough water running this way to make a pretty decent pond. It has already overflowed the original level on the downhill side. When the water goes down I'll work on it some more.

Notice how much clay is in the soil there. It may take a few days for the water to seep into the ground.

The slope of the hill can be seen on the far side of the pond compared with the level water. It's not steep, but a lot of area drains through this spot from the highway on down. By expanding the pond and the diverting swales a very large amount of water can be captured here. This can help a lot with watering the fruit trees since our emerging orchard is at least fifty yards from any other water source.

Holes

Over the last week a lot of holes were made. The easiest two were for two bluebird boxes. These are attached to 1/2" electric conduit pipe. The pipe was pounded into the ground with about 6' sticking out. The boxes are mounted as high as possible on these without being too high to open and clean out. This should keep squirrels, raccoons and snakes out of them. Both are oriented so they can be seen from the apartment windows. One can be seen in the first picture below.

On Friday night we went to the weekly auction at Dinkys. I picked up five more apple trees to go with the three from the FFA auction the previous week end. Each of the eight trees is a different variety. Let's hope they each have at least one tree to pollinate them.


We have piled dead rose bush trimmings and cut off grape vines around most of the trees. Soon they will all have their own deer-deterrent brush piles. These will be maintained until the trees are tall enough, and have enough leafing branches, that a few deer munchings won't be a catastrophe.

While I was moving soil from the large pile the county left me to the apple trees I noticed that there was a very large wet area below the driveway. Water was actually seeping from the ground, and it's been more than 2 days since it has rained.

Well if there's that much water running down the hill, thinks I, why not try to catch some of it above the apple trees? So I started digging a depression. I'm not calling it a pond yet, because I may quit digging at any time. It's not much to look at so far, but you can get the idea.


The berm will hold the water and I'll extend it east and west forming a swale that will direct water toward the hole. Maybe our neighborhood tree frogs will find it a better place to lay eggs than they chose last year. If it gets enough water, and I won't know until after a nice rainfall, I may line it with a piece of billboard tarp so it will hold water longer.