We began the month of June with a barnyard tragedy. Monday morning when I looked out the window I saw feathers on the front lawn. I went out to investigate and found that something had killed one of our hens, Ginger. Ginger was a very pretty hen, but she liked to escape the chicken pen and wander. It was her undoing. A possum killed her. The possum has also been raiding the turkey nests and eating eggs. We haven’t actually seen it, but I’m sure that’s who the culprit is. We’ve set the live trap, but have had no success yet.
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| The end of Ginger. |
School is out for the summer. Wednesday was our last day. Graduation was on Friday. As a junior and a member of the National Honor Society, Josiah had to participate in the commencement exercises. Next year we will all have to go since it will be Josiah graduating.
Now that school is out, I’ve begun working on my list of things to do at home – a list that never stops growing. I cross one thing off and there are two more to take its place. I love doing it though. Work in the garden and the orchard and barn and around the house is the most satisfying work for me. Orders for barn quilts have also picked up, as they always do in the summer, and that keeps me busy most mornings and on rainy days.
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| My workroom at present. |
I was finally able to assess the damage done to the orchard by that last freeze on May 23rd. It looks like all the pears were lost and most of the apples. There will be a few apples, at least that’s how it looks now, but not many. So the trees will rest this year. If the weather cooperates, after a year of resting, we will have a bumper crop in 2016. We shall see.
My solitary bees arrived last week. I ordered a kit for establishing solitary bee colonies. In the early spring there are mason bees and in the summer when it’s warmer there are leaf cutter bees. The kit consists of a bee house and a bundle of hollow reeds the bees use as nests. They are truly solitary – one bee per nest. They don’t make honey. They gather pollen which makes them great pollinators, much better than honeybees. It was too late for me to get mason bees. The bees that arrived are leaf cutter bees (Megachile rotundata). They are gentle bees and don’t sting unless very provoked. I mounted the bee house out on the grape arbor and put the leaf cutter bee cocoons in it. So far I haven’t seen any activity, but I’m watching and hoping they establish themselves. They are fascinating insects.
Saturday in the early evening I took a walk up the road along the edge of the beaver pond. I’ve heard wood ducks calling from there the past few days and I wanted to see if I could see them. Wood ducks don’t quack like mallards and most other ducks. Their calls are more like peeping or high pitched clucking. They are very shy. I took my camera with me and chose a spot on the side of the road and stood still and watched. I saw a male wood duck right away, but he saw me and flew away. After about ten minutes, I saw a female sitting in a small channel of the Genesee stream, calling. Then I saw a duckling and in another moment, more ducklings. The mother duck, calling constantly, swam up the channel with her ducklings in tow. Then as I was standing there, a beaver swam right in front of me carrying a branch in its mouth. I didn’t realize I was standing so close to its lodge. It climbed out of the water onto the side of lodge, dragging the branch with it. Then it chewed the branch into several pieces and arranged them on the lodge. Then it was joined by a second beaver. I took pictures, but they are not clear. At that point I went back to the house and got Hannah and Josiah to come and watch. They saw the wood ducks, but we frightened the beavers when we approached the pond and they slapped the water and disappeared.
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| The wood duck drake just before takeoff. |
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| The wood duck hen. |
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| The ducklings headed upstream. |
I am amazed at how much life there is at the beaver pond. In the half hour I spent there yesterday I saw at least ten species of birds – several kinds of ducks, blackbirds, grackles, three different kinds of swallows, yellow warblers, green herons, and several kinds of sparrows and finches. I saw fish jumping from the water catching insects. I heard bullfrogs drumming. I can’t begin to count the diversity of plant life there. All of this because a pair of beavers dammed a stream and filled a swamp with water.
Josiah leaves tomorrow to go camping with his scout troop for the week. They go every year right after school lets out. This year they are going to Washington D.C. They will camp near the city and go to various sites during the days. Their scout master is great at setting up events like this. We’ll miss Josiah while he’s gone, but he’ll have a great time and will have lots to tell us when he gets back.
This is Fast Sunday. Yesterday when we began our fast, knowing it was supposed to get cold, I decided to fast and pray for protection from the cold for my garden. I got up at 3:30 this morning to check the temperature and it was 37°. When I woke up at 6:00 it was 39° and there was a silvery sheen on the lawn. I thought it was frost, but when I went out to check I found it was heavy dew. I made an inspection of the garden and found no evidence of frost damage. We had an early meeting at church this morning and Kurt picked me up. The first thing he said to me was, “What about that frost last night?” I said, “There was no frost.” He then told me that according to his thermometer it dropped to 29° and they had frost in their yard. It wiped out their tomatoes, again. They only live next door, a few feet away. I guess I should have prayed that their yard would be protected too. I feel blessed.
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| My lupines are in full bloom now. |
This being Fast Sunday, the smell of dinner cooking is making me very hungry. It sounds like it’s almost time to eat and I don’t want to keep them waiting. Have a great week.
