MamaStories

To do this week:

1. plan Spring and Summer garden
2. inventorize left-over and saved seeds
3. read all the gorgeous seed catalogs that arrived while we were gone
4. order new seeds
5. figure out a better seedling “hotbox” – buy seed mats?
6. enroll in bee school, chicken class, and pottery

The plants under row cover in the hoop house have stopped growing, but they are all alive and well, just waiting it out. I am planning to get some fresh horse manure from my neighbor and creating a small “hotbed” in the hoop house for some early spinach. It would be interesting to compare the growth of those plants to the ones under the row cover, and to what extent the decomposing horse manure heats up the hoop house.

I am out there twice a day to clear the snow off and away from the hoop house so light can penetrate and the structure isn’t too stressed. I am happy to report that the hoop house has withstood heaps of snow and  gusts of wind, so our reinforcement of the top connectors seems to be working.

I managed to finish both volumes of Edible Forest Gardens when I was in Belgium and my first project will be to thoroughly re-assess our property. Digging holes and staking out areas will have to wait until the two-foot-thick blanket of snow has gone, but I will have to eyeball some of it and decide on some bushes and small trees.

It’s great to see the juncos play in the fluffy snow and vie for a place at the feeder with the cardinals and the passerines.

Whew, we got the plastic on the hoop house frame right in time, a couple of hours in fact before the snowstorm blew in. We used 6 mil landscape plastic, which turned out more opaque than we thought it would: will it reflect and diffuse the sunlight too much? Well, it will have to do for now. We bought PVC clamps from a greenhouse store – it was the delay in the order that took us so long. All in all, this greenhouse cost us less than $300. The doorway still needs to be fixed.

I also got a lot of wild wood kindling in, in time before the snow covered it all up. Here is about a tenth of what we have, drying on the old soil screen in the shed. It’s good stuff, especially the long dead, already barkless wood that falls out of the trees on a windy day. These sticks dry out in no time, weigh very little, and they light like match sticks (very fat ones).

The last thing we provided for was food for the birds. I have the feeling that there were much less birds during this Fall migration than last year, though I must admit I spent much less time keeping an eye on our feeder. I’ve seen a couple of juncos, but for the rest it’s just us and the woodpeckers.

… baffleth not.

We are seeing lots of new birds at our feeders this Spring: a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and a Catbird are making regular visits, and I’ve seen glimpses of an Oriole – bright flashes of yellow and black.  Perhaps someone advertised the Black Oil Sunflower seed I got for them at the Audubon shop?

And yesterday I was fiddling with my camera when:

Click!

Taking a break from our construction – we were setting tiles till 4 am – and gardening Amie, her grandmother and mself ran off to our favorite place in the US (aside from our own Robin Hill, of course): Drumlin Farm.

There were birds, wild (Eastern phoebe?) and tame:

And farm equipment (defunct):

And strawberry picking – and eating:

And, when we returned, the littlest Robins of Robin hill (not so little anymore):

{Update} They have left the nest…

• Grosbeak

In the early morning I passed by the window without my glasses on and spotted something colorful at the bird feeder. Something very colorful and unfamiliar, though hazy. I rushed to get my glasses: it was a new bird, and I guessed that it was a Grosbeak. I got the camera and the bird obliged, visiting for another ten minutes.

When I sat down in the sofa with my bird book Amie immediately imitated me, getting her animal book, sitting down right next to me, and finding the animals she was spotting. It was incredibly sweet. Turns out it was a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. It’s a summer resident.

• Eggs

A week ago I also found some eggs in the garden where a tree was cut down. One was broken, the other two intact, which I took inside and put into one of my bowls, thinking I might find a way of preserving them. Then I flat forgot about them, until today, when I found one broken (or rather, burst) open: it had a half developed little chick inside.

I threw them in the compost. Anyone know what birds these eggs belong to?

• Robin Hill

You’d have thought the Robins would have chosen a different spot for their nest this Spring – no longer the rafters of our carport, where last year they had to fly off each time someone approached. They did choose a different spot… about a foot away from the old nest! It’s tough to photograph them – I don’t want to use a flash. Here’s a glimpse:

There were four little robins at first, and then there were only three. One fell out of the nest, it was lying dead on the pavement next to the car. I took pictures, of course – dead wild animals afford that rare close look – and then disposed of the body for some lucky fox or cat. It’s part of the great cycle of life, but how sad.

It’s not that I chose not to tell Amie, it just didn’t come up. She  climbed on the ladder to see the remaining three chicks and was wowed.

Next year, if they choose to grace us with their presence again, I want to install a live webcam.

I have been looking for a name for our tiny homestead. We’re on a hill and have lots of chipmunks, so I was thinking “Chipmunk Hill”, but in honor of our Robins we’ll call it Robin Hill – I like the Robin Hood connotation!

Just as we’re putting in the fence, up pops another predator: a big wild turkey, right in our front yard! I think it was munching the buckwheat, which is succulent right now. So just a few yards away from the vegetable garden (luckily, at that side, the fence was already up).

It’s bittersweet to spot it: a flutter both of fear and joy, because the turkey is of course another element of wildlife, along with the foxes and the deer. And it was very pretty, a shiny russet brown, and graceful too. The way I figure is that I can afford to be ambivalent about it as long as the fence will keep it from the vegetables, as long as that one lone turkey doesn’t bring its flock to decimate the buckwheat.

Speaking of birds, Saturday morning at 6 am I met one of my neighbors who is an avid birder. He took me around the neighborhood and told me all about the birds that live here. He pointed out their songs, then we stood very still (aargh, forgot the mosquito dope!) and he made a funny whistling, swishing sound, and the birds appeared, sometimes only a few feet away. They were curious what that noise was all about. “What kind of birds are those?” and more importantly, “Are they a threat tom nest”.

And so I saw (* indicates for the first time):

1. 2 Eastern bluebirds*
2. 1 oriole*
3. 2 yellow warblers, Mr. and Mrs.*
4. 1 bobolink*
5. 1 red-tailed hawk*
6. flock of cedar waxwings (7?)*
7. 1 tree swallow*
8. 1 tree sparrow*
9. 1 catbird*
10. flock of cowbirds*
11. several grackles
12. 1 wood duck*
13. Canada geese

And I heard, for the first time consciously:

1. 1 vireo (forgot which)
2. 1 scarlet tanager

He showed me where some of them nest, so I can take Amie there and “call them”. And I got to discover another nature reserve, tucked away right in my backyard!

No pictures. We had binoculars, but since the birds came so close, we hardly needed them. I’m happy I didn’t have a camera on me: I really could enjoy them so much better. I think I’ll keep the camera for the birds who come ot the feeder, and those that “pose”, of course.

I found this little feather on our doorstep the other day. When I showed it to Amie, she said:

- Blue Jay!

That’s my girl!

Amie and I spotted the first Robins of the year on 21 January. One of them was climbing the cranberry bushes underneath our feeders and kept falling off. He looked clumsy, groggy. Our neighbor – who can tell us which bird settled in our gardens in which year, going decades back – told us that when Robins eat fermented berries, they get drunk. I would tell the story to Amie but she has no idea what “drunk” means, and I don’t know if I want to clue her in on that one yet. (having a deep abhorrence for drunkenness)… It was a sight to behold, nevertheless: funny and (for me) worrisome too.

I was looking for more information about the migrations of Robins and found this neat website for children and teachers about seasonal change called Journey North. There are pages about plants and the seasons and migrations of birds, worms, butterflies, frogs, etc. The ultimate goal is to help kids understand that all living systems are driven by the sunlight in a dynamic ecosystem that connects them.

Kids can enter their observations – we did so with our Robins – and then see maps, their own observation included. It’s like the Mass Audubon eBird, only more child-focused.

Friends are saving their egg cartons for us and we’ve been researching what breed and how many chickens we want to get, on the internet, in library books:

And in the field, at Drumlin Farm:

I was checking out their state-of-the-art chicken coop as much as I was the chickens (the photo shows only part of one side of the coop).

I wanted to ask a Drumlin Farm-er for more information and if they sold any hens/chicks/fertile eggs, but none were around. In fact, Amie and I seemed to be the only visitors. It was cold, of course (definitely below freezing) and rather windy, but so beautiful!

But most invaluable of all is the fantastic advice from my readers. THANK YOU! I will keep you informed on our research and decisions.