Squirrel Appreciation Day

A few days ago it was squirrel appreciation day, but I can't imagine that it is all too popular. We spend some time each morning watching our squirrels -their worst offense is digging up the mix of moss, creeping charlie, and grass that we call lawn in search of something to eat. We cut them some slack since the past two years have produced nearly no acorns.

This guy, above, is a Fox Squirrel. This large, solitary squirrel wakes up every morning to cross the garden, climbing 30 feet up an oak to harass a female snuggled in her drey. She pops her head out, and he prances about the nest, until getting on with the day's business of remembering where he filed his cache.

Findings

I'd like to tell you what kind of Oak this impressive bark belongs to, but in age, among oaks, it is a challenge without leaves. No matter, this old, large oak is anchored near a clearing made by wind of storms and pressure of fungus and disease.

On the bark of a giant that had fallen last summer, I place garlic mustard just pulled. I keep it off the soil so that it properly desiccates, a lesson learned a year ago. Now committed to the project of eradicating the weed, I think of it as gardening, a task with its own time, that I can accomplish while out photographing the woods, searching for mushrooms or ramps, or completing some other woodland project. Away from fallen logs or large stones, I make piles so the mustard remains obvious to me later, as I check on its desiccation or dispose of it. Officially known as Garlic Mustard, Alliaria petiolata, I've pulled enough acreage of it now to refer to it as "skunk mustard," because its garlic-onion odor reminds me more of that mammal's funk. Click here for a concise and useful journal article on all things problematic with garlic mustard in North America.

This upland spot was (still is?) an oak and sedge stronghold for quite some time. Now cleared of its main shade oak, what may grow in these changed conditions? Its slopes are partially covered with Pennsylvania Sedge, Carex pensylvanica, and some Virginia Waterleaf, Hydrophyllum virginianum. I found these native strawberries, Fragaria virginiana growing in patches, too. A straight line trail runs through this location, with plenty of soil disturbance from quadrupedal hooves and nosing through leaves and soil for food. Maybe I could intervene beyond pulling weeds by giving some complementary plant a foothold. We tend to avoid plants consumed by deer and in this way we consume them by exclusion.

While pulling skunk mustard I stumbled upon this snake, a common Eastern Garter, Thamnophis sirtalis. Its reaction to my sudden presence was no reaction at all.

As I continued to hover, pushing my fingers into the dried leaves to pinch-grab below the prostrate brassica stems, concern took over. I let it be, moving on around a tree to grab more mustard.

Then I spotted two more, one with coloration slightly dull compared to the other, sunning themselves near their burrow. My leaf rustling was too much antagonism and the one to the right took off. Minnesota isn't known for its snakes, although I am happy to see them here in our woods. Along with our frogs and salamanders, they are an important indicator of the land's well-being.

It's been very dry so far this spring (and despite constant snow cover, the winter was short on snow). In our new climate reality, we anticipate extended dry periods along with excessive rains from thunderstorms. Because of the lack of runoff from non existant spring rains, I was able to navigate the entire small wetland, plodding across acres of dried, sun-bleached naples yellow grasses. I witnessed the garlic mustard making inroads into the wetland as well as an arm or two of Creeping Charlie, Glechoma hederacea. I also spotted considerable patches of Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica growing among the garlic mustard, but also several feet farther into the wetland. There is a tree, likely an ash, rooted at the edge of the wetland but fallen into it that has continued to send up branches along its trunk. Under the tree's crown there is a muddy circle where only the plants, above, are growing. At first glance I thought "Marsh Marigold?" Maybe not. Thoughts?

I did make a soggy-footed attempt into the great wetland on the south side. I wanted to see the willows -the first pale greening of spring, up close, but I didn't make it far enough in to be truly rewarded. Underneath those grasses were channels and ponds of water still draining from a much larger supply of slopes than the little wetland to the north. I did see evidence of Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, about twenty five feet from the wood's edge. The exploration of the wetlands, our sunny places, compels me to engineer a boardwalk (literally -cut logs, debarked and placed longitudinally, with boards run lengthwise between them). Future projects.

Closer to the house, on the dry slopes bloom Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis. Maybe these can be planted in the clearing among the wild strawberries?

There have been many sightings of hawks, vultures, eagles, sandhill cranes, turkeys of course, and others to make seeing the more common birds seem, well, common. Yet the first robin of spring was worth pausing for, as well as bluejays and cardinals hanging together.

And while squirrels aren't on anyone's favorites list, they have yet to cause us any trouble, likely because their habitat is still largely intact. They do not come toward the house and didn't mess with last year's garden. This bounding fellow has a red head, feet, and tail. I wonder if it this one, from last fall, or a relative.

Autumn Creature Feature

This is the best view we could get of a Wood Duck that inhabited the back pond (I don't know what else to call it now, it's beginning to suggest permanent). About two months ago the ducks began congregating, yet I was so busy I didn't realize what was happening. A few weeks later, while felling trees, we noticed on the ridge a steady stream of walking ducks. It went on for minutes, there must have been one hundred! They are extremely skittish and do not let you get close, but I had been listening to their squeaky swing set sound for weeks. It wasn't until the parade that I understood we had a large congregation. One day, a week or so ago, they began flying over the house, rounding back to land on the lawn. Then they were gone.

Last year I did my best to save the frogs from what I thought was a frog trap. But now I'm beginning to think they want to be in this pit -the soil cut and retained around our basement, code required, egress window. I count at least thirteen in this portion of the pit, but there are more. You may also see the blue-spotted salamander to the left of the blue, roofer's trash. Next summer this pit will be excavated, probably retained with a galvanized steel, and a new, rot-proof, egress window installed. What will happen to this amphibian paradise?

Apparently, in autumn, the best house painting days are also the best days for lady bugs to seek out their death chamber. By the thousands on a warm, breezy day, a couple of weeks back, they swarmed the house. On their backs, stuck to the paint I eagerly applied, they became such a nuisance I had to quit. Several left defensive trails, "reflex bleeding" as it is known, on the paint that had dried. Once in the house they strive for light, which tends to be the light fixtures on at night. Look up at the plastic lens to see all the dark splotches of recently passed Coccinellidae. Don't bother cleaning it until winter sets in. They are stubborn too. When you try to coax them into your hand or onto a piece of paper they hunker down or, just as frequently, as they climb walls and windows, they simply drop to the floor, sometimes spreading wings to fly to another location. While gardeners love ladybugs, I have entered a new relationship to them that is, well, a little bit more complicated, and I well-learned not to paint the house after labor day.

Squirrels. This one had no idea I was standing there, silently waiting for Wood Ducks to come by. They didn't. Look at how auburn it is -for a gray squirrel. The posture resembles a man in a Godzilla suit, and by most people's reactions to them, squirrels may as well be Godzilla. Me? I still like them, they do not bother us or the house, we don't feed birds so I have no self-interested reason to despise them, and I'm pretty sure they're having more fun in the woods than any other animal. There is one thing I have learned. I always thought it was squirrels dropping all those acorns in the back yard. It's not. Bluejays. Autumn is the season of bluejays. They knock the acorns down and then do their level best to stuff them in their mouths, then fly away to stash them. Even though I grew up in an oak forested area where gray squirrels and bluejays were the most common animals, I never recognized this behavior until this autumn.

No Respect

No one respects squirrels, except for the oaks, maybe, if that's possible. Certainly the hawk does not. The sound of a thousand paper shufflers dominate the woods through the golden hours. So much work before quitting time for the poor, lowly squirrel, but no one respects paper shufflers. Like a boss, the hawk swoops in below the treetops, gliding above the wetland, and issues its battle screech. Every busy body freezes into a terrific silence. No intention of coming in for the kill, it then climbs out of the basin, heading for preferred hunting grounds, snickering likely.

Brown Out

 I woke up to find it completely brown outside. From minus eleven to sixty two in five days. As the day wore on, into the late afternoon, it felt distinctly like late September in warmth, quality of light, and brown-ness.

Except for the squirrels, they're still gray, to match their favorite tree trunks.

The Backwoods

At the western edge of the land, just before it rises up toward the old gravel pit slash horse farm, there is a topographical depression, what I will call the swale. Although its origin may be artificial, it is one of the more interesting features of the land.

I walked out to the swale to investigate bark-stripping that, as far as I can tell, is only happening here.

Stripped clean from the base well up the tree, with no broken branches, so it isn't deer rubbing or eating the bark.

Several feet away I spotted this mess and a hodgepodge of prints.

Above it, more stripped bark. An animal that climbs, or flies. Hmm, I'm going with climbs as birds at the base of a tree seems to put them at risk of predators. Probably a rodent, maybe a squirrel.

I see hanging material, which at a distance I took for lichen, on many of the upright twigs. On closer inspection I recognize it as the dried remains of duckweed. Ah, an excellent indicator of the depth of the past summer's vernal pool, which looks to have been nearly two feet in places.

Trees fall easily here, succumbing to the wind and saturated soil, a soil made visible by the exposed root mound of a fallen tree. I wonder how it is that it holds much water at all, as it feels crumbly and porous. This, and the spring which emerges from the base of a tree about two hundred feet from here, reveal a complex hydrology that I've yet to fully understand.

Toward the back and upslope lay an assortment of aggregations; what looks to be concrete, dumped by the gravel mining operation that long ago operated just over the property line.

The aggregations have weathered, moss clings to it now, and one day I may make aesthetic use of this waste. 

An old, plastic six-pack in the swale.

Beyond the swale, up and quickly down again to the edge of the large wetland, a sign painted and hung by Rex. It read "American Trash Museum."

This neck of the woods, at the bottom land of a ravine just beyond our property, is full of cast-off appliances. Some go back fifty or more years. The dump exists at an intersection of what farmers would consider three "wastes" -a ravine, a wetland, and a woods. Well, the woods held some value as a woodlot, and the cows could roam them for munching on all kinds of under-growth (which probably helped the buckthorn get a foothold), but the other two were rarely looked upon kindly by farmers and country men. 

Looking southeast you see the wetland. Where there is little to no grasses there's visible snow, revealing where water is most likely to stand in wetter periods. Here the ravine drains its steep-sided slopes.

Up the ravine, littered mostly with old washing machines, but also empty fifty-five gallon drums and five gallon pails of mostly unknown chemicals. If you live in a second-growth forest that once was part of a farm, on or near a farm, you can probably find this kind of dump, or what remains of it. 

At the top of the ravine, a two hundred feet or so off our land, looking toward the adjacent horse farm and the steep incline of the old gravel pit. 

Trash comes in many forms.

And offers its warnings.

Heading back, one of Rex's many brush piles, consisting mostly of fallen branches. There are ten or twelve of these around the woods, and more could be made, should one choose to.