Toads

A few weeks ago, on Freecycle, a woman nearby offered a small formed pool liner. We went by to look at it and tossed it on the trailer on top of a load of wood chips we had gotten from the county recycle facility. I dug a hole for it in the swale above the driveway. Here's what it looks like in the ground. There's still some dirt to be moved to smooth it all out.



Because the hole was dug in nearly pure clay, I realized that if it rains before I got any water in it, the pond form would likely float up in whatever water seeped down the sides on the outside and accumulated under the form. You can see a gap in the surrounding soil on the right side near the middle. I shot a little water into it with a hose and sort of forgot about it. A day or so later I went up to spread some more soil and clay around the rim and found this critter.



There are two levels to the form and the sides of each are very steep so this little fellow/gal was stuck in the mud, so to speak. I added the length of 2"X4" to see if it would provide an escape.



When I looked in a few fours later, the toad was gone. This won't be a problem when the pond is full, but for now I'll leave the wood ramp in there.

I find toads like this in the wildflower garden all the time. They seem to like the taller plants and I'm sure the swale has helped keep the garden moist longer after rains.

Our roses are dying...

... and that's a good thing!     ...at least in this case.

This picture shows a fairly large multiflora rose bush that is dying because of some blight that seems to be spreading. Multiflora roses are invasive, exotic shrubs. They were introduced from eastern Asia - China, Japan and Korea. In some places it is even classified as a "noxious weed."



Wikipedia has a nice picture of it blooming.

I have been cutting it off at the base, but it's hard (and sticky) work. The district forester says I should be sure to NOT clean my pruners between plants to encourage the blight to spread. It doesn't seem to affect any other plants.

I tried to take a picture of an area, about 20 feet in diameter, from which I had removed just one rose. But it's hard to show what isn't there in a picture. Next time I'll take both a before and an after shot.

Another neighbor takes a ride

Last night Sandy and I tented out to enjoy the night sounds and the cooler air. It actually rained, but not enough to completely wet the platform.

This morning I looked over to see that the trap had been sprung. Here's who I found:



I've seen bigger opossums (Didelphinae Didelphis virginiana). This one didn't weigh much either but it was as feisty as a larger one.

I don't know if opossums have been responsible for any of the pranks and destruction outside, but he or she got the same ride as the raccoons. Even if opossums haven't been trouble makers yet, I expect they will be happy to chomp down on our tomatoes and melons when they can. A quick check on the web shows their "natural" diet to be between 10 and 18 percent fruits, with the rest being a mix of almost everything you can find outside.

Our plan to make it rain

We have had less than a half inch of rain since the first of August. So we decided to take matters into our own hands. We set up a tent so we can sleep under the stars tonight. We will peel back the tent fly if it's not raining.



As you can see I have begun dismantling the platform we used last fall to tent with some of the grandkids. Since last fall it has been used to keep some outdoor furniture off the ground during the winter.

I left about 8' X 8' of it to use for now. The rest of it will be moved down the hill somewhere for tenting the rest of this fall.

And, no, the large Joe-Pye weed isn't growing out of the tent. It just got bent over a bit.

Three-peat foiled!

The trap was sprung this morning, but it was empty and about 15 feet from where I had set it. Not much more to say about it. I'll continue trying to trap any more of the raccoon family for a few more days.



For this picture I've put the trap back where it was placed. Notice the smaller trap was also sprung, but no one was inside.



One can also see the beginnings of our terraces and (in the top picture) the end of a short, wood-chip path from the driveway to the place we make campfires with the grandkids. It has been enhanced with the fireplace grate that used to be in the house I grew up in, though we haven't used it there yet.

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.

Birds

It's pretty foggy today but that doesn't seem to bother the birds. For the last few days mostly smaller birds have been feeding. This picture from Matthew's window shows lots of birds on the three feeders. There are often more than this.


As always, you can click on the picture for a larger view. Notice birds in the small trees awaiting their turn. I've also placed four wrought iron plant holders nearby for landing spots for the queue.

You can also see where the earth has been pushed toward the building. We have been cutting and digging grape vines, wild roses and other brambles in the disturbed area also.

What a wake up call!

Just after 5:30 this morning we awoke to the sound of the building rumbling and furniture shaking. It was a strong earthquake centered in southern Illinois, just under 100 miles from us. Here's a link to the details.

This isn't my first earthquake. I've felt a few in the San Francisco area. The only other one I've felt in Indiana was at a little league baseball game about 30 years ago while coaching third base. This one was quite a bit stronger at 5.2 on the Richter scale. That is in the "moderate" category.

There are lots of earthquakes in the Midwest, more than 1 a week, but most are sensed only by seismographs. You can have a notice of each one sent to you by the USGS. To sign up, go to https://sslearthquake.usgs.gov/ens/.