At the base of the gate, lying in the shade, is our mighty hunter barn cat.
At the top of the gate is a wary chipmunk.
Bottom of the gate, cat.
Top of the gate, chipmunk.
Any questions?
Showing posts with label chipmunk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chipmunk. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Ah, the little dramas of life...
This is our garden gate.
At the base of the gate, lying in the shade, is our mighty hunter barn cat.
At the top of the gate is a wary chipmunk.
Bottom of the gate, cat.
Top of the gate, chipmunk.
Any questions?
At the base of the gate, lying in the shade, is our mighty hunter barn cat.
At the top of the gate is a wary chipmunk.
Bottom of the gate, cat.
Top of the gate, chipmunk.
Any questions?
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Soon. Very soon
Yesterday I went into the garden -- literally for the first time this year. The snow is nearly all gone and the gates are finally freed up. It was nice to walk around and dream of green.
The grapevines sure don't look like much at this stage, do they?
Despite (or maybe because of) being buried under two feet of snow for weeks on end, it almost looks like the rosemary made it through the winter. Usually it dies.
It's time to trim out the raspberry canes.
We're seeing these guys everywhere. Their hibernation is over.
Nothing stirring yet in the garlic boat, but then again it just emerged from the snow blanket.
But I pulled back a corner of the hay mulch and saw this, so it's just a matter of time.
In the orchard, the trees are budding. This is a plum.
The young hazelnut trees have catkins. We haven't gotten any nuts yet, but maybe this year?
The corn tires need cleaning up after last year's harvest.
Nothing in the strawberry beds yet, but as mentioned, they just got free of their snow blanket a few days ago.
The pond is absolutely brim-ful.
There's a still a bit of snow clinging to the north-facing slope by the water.
I scared up a red-winged blackbird from the cattails, where it nests every year.
It's always nice to hear the frogs -- a definite sign of spring.
Soon, very soon, I can get the garden planted and it will stir to life once again. Ah, spring!
The grapevines sure don't look like much at this stage, do they?
Despite (or maybe because of) being buried under two feet of snow for weeks on end, it almost looks like the rosemary made it through the winter. Usually it dies.
It's time to trim out the raspberry canes.
We're seeing these guys everywhere. Their hibernation is over.
Nothing stirring yet in the garlic boat, but then again it just emerged from the snow blanket.
But I pulled back a corner of the hay mulch and saw this, so it's just a matter of time.
In the orchard, the trees are budding. This is a plum.
The young hazelnut trees have catkins. We haven't gotten any nuts yet, but maybe this year?
The corn tires need cleaning up after last year's harvest.
Nothing in the strawberry beds yet, but as mentioned, they just got free of their snow blanket a few days ago.
The pond is absolutely brim-ful.
There's a still a bit of snow clinging to the north-facing slope by the water.
I scared up a red-winged blackbird from the cattails, where it nests every year.
It's always nice to hear the frogs -- a definite sign of spring.
Soon, very soon, I can get the garden planted and it will stir to life once again. Ah, spring!
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Birds and bronchitis, bits and bobs
For the last week and a half, I've been coughing my guts out with a charming case of bronchitis. I've slowly on the mend -- at least I'm not having to get up in the middle of the night to go sleep in Younger Daughter's bed so I don't keep Don awake -- but it's been a slice.
Since my brain isn't functioning at full capacity, here are just a couple homestead snapshots.
One, the other morning robins started going nuts in the yard -- clucks of alarm -- and Mr. Darcy suddenly seemed interested in whatever the birds saw. I dashed out in the yard and saw a fledgling robin flopping around, with Darcy pouncing after it.
Poor Mr. Darcy didn't understand why I dragged him into the house. After all, he was just trying to play.
So I picked up the fledgling. Instantly his beak flopped open, revealing the bright yellow interior: "Feed me!" (Sadly I couldn't get a photo of this.)
I put him down on the ground well outside the yard, and he instantly flopped away, then paused and gave me a saucy look.
Meanwhile the parent birds fluttered around in agitation. The fledgling portion of their offspring's development must give birds gray hair. Gray feathers. Whatever.
I've also been keeping an eye on the blackbird nest I found the other day. On June 11, it had one egg.
On June 13, they were up to three -- one of which seemed much smaller than the others.
The parent birds, of course, flutter and fuss at me whenever I invade their privacy. Here's the mother:
Here's the father:
On June 17, there were five eggs -- one of which was definitely smaller than the others. I'm assuming it's a dud, though time will tell.
This is probably as many as the female will lay. Hatching takes 12 to 14 days, after which I'll get photos of the developing nestlings.
On another note, while weeding in the garden a few days ago, I came across the iridescent remains of a dragonfly -- namely, the wings.
These wings are really incredible marvels of construction and engineering when viewed close up.
It wasn't until I picked up one of the wing pieces that I realized the wings were slowly being harvested by some tiny, tiny ants, which couldn't have been over a millimeter in size.
When I checked back a couple hours later (hoping to photograph the wings in the sunlight), they were gone -- either they had blown away, or they were buried by the ants.
As a final piece of bits and bobs around the farmstead, behold the busy chipmunk, eating a not-quite-ripe strawberry.
And a cedar waxwing, also harvesting strawberries.
Harvesting strawberries is a very popular activity among the wildlife this time of year.
UPDATE: Readers have pointed out how the "dud" egg in the blackbird nest actually belongs to a cowbird, which nests parasitically (dumping its eggs in other birds' nests). They were absolutely correct -- it's a cowbird egg. However some articles suggested not removing a cowbird egg because cowbirds can actually act vengefully: If they find their egg missing, they'll ransack the nest and destroy the other eggs.
So, I compromised. I removed the cowbird egg...
...and popped it in the freezer overnight. Then I let it come back to room temperature and slipped it back into the blackbird nest. Hopefully this will work to everyone's benefit (except the baby cowbird's, of course).
Since my brain isn't functioning at full capacity, here are just a couple homestead snapshots.
One, the other morning robins started going nuts in the yard -- clucks of alarm -- and Mr. Darcy suddenly seemed interested in whatever the birds saw. I dashed out in the yard and saw a fledgling robin flopping around, with Darcy pouncing after it.
Poor Mr. Darcy didn't understand why I dragged him into the house. After all, he was just trying to play.
So I picked up the fledgling. Instantly his beak flopped open, revealing the bright yellow interior: "Feed me!" (Sadly I couldn't get a photo of this.)
I put him down on the ground well outside the yard, and he instantly flopped away, then paused and gave me a saucy look.
Meanwhile the parent birds fluttered around in agitation. The fledgling portion of their offspring's development must give birds gray hair. Gray feathers. Whatever.
I've also been keeping an eye on the blackbird nest I found the other day. On June 11, it had one egg.
On June 13, they were up to three -- one of which seemed much smaller than the others.
The parent birds, of course, flutter and fuss at me whenever I invade their privacy. Here's the mother:
Here's the father:
On June 17, there were five eggs -- one of which was definitely smaller than the others. I'm assuming it's a dud, though time will tell.
This is probably as many as the female will lay. Hatching takes 12 to 14 days, after which I'll get photos of the developing nestlings.
On another note, while weeding in the garden a few days ago, I came across the iridescent remains of a dragonfly -- namely, the wings.
These wings are really incredible marvels of construction and engineering when viewed close up.
It wasn't until I picked up one of the wing pieces that I realized the wings were slowly being harvested by some tiny, tiny ants, which couldn't have been over a millimeter in size.
When I checked back a couple hours later (hoping to photograph the wings in the sunlight), they were gone -- either they had blown away, or they were buried by the ants.
As a final piece of bits and bobs around the farmstead, behold the busy chipmunk, eating a not-quite-ripe strawberry.
And a cedar waxwing, also harvesting strawberries.
Harvesting strawberries is a very popular activity among the wildlife this time of year.
UPDATE: Readers have pointed out how the "dud" egg in the blackbird nest actually belongs to a cowbird, which nests parasitically (dumping its eggs in other birds' nests). They were absolutely correct -- it's a cowbird egg. However some articles suggested not removing a cowbird egg because cowbirds can actually act vengefully: If they find their egg missing, they'll ransack the nest and destroy the other eggs.
So, I compromised. I removed the cowbird egg...
...and popped it in the freezer overnight. Then I let it come back to room temperature and slipped it back into the blackbird nest. Hopefully this will work to everyone's benefit (except the baby cowbird's, of course).
Friday, April 27, 2018
Little opportunist
As you well know, our cow Amy has been nursing two calves (as well as providing us with an odd quart of milk a couple times a week). Little orphaned Anna is doing fine and everyone's settling into a routine.
As a reward for Amy's patience as well as to supplement her nutrition, we purchased a couple bags of COB (corn-oats-barley) with molasses.
Needless to say, Amy thinks this is a spiffy idea.
But she's not the only one who likes COB. This morning I noticed a little opportunist enjoying the bounty.
Granted, at the moment the bags of COB are just leaning against the porch, so I can't blame the chipmunk for taking advantage of the opportunity.
But yeah, time to put the COB out of reach.
As a reward for Amy's patience as well as to supplement her nutrition, we purchased a couple bags of COB (corn-oats-barley) with molasses.
Needless to say, Amy thinks this is a spiffy idea.
But she's not the only one who likes COB. This morning I noticed a little opportunist enjoying the bounty.
Granted, at the moment the bags of COB are just leaning against the porch, so I can't blame the chipmunk for taking advantage of the opportunity.
But yeah, time to put the COB out of reach.
Monday, September 18, 2017
Fall FELL hard
There has been a great reversing of the celestial weather machine. A week ago we were sweltering in 90F temps and bone-dry. Now it's windy, rainy, and cold. Fall has fallen.
Knowing we had a change in season coming, we've been embarking on a variety of projects with an aim toward buttoning up our farm for the winter.
Last week I harvested the peaches. These are the first fruits from our young newly planted orchard, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be picking my hands-down all-time favorite fruit from our own trees at last.
Altogether I got about 20 lbs. of fruit.
I won't bother canning them -- I have plenty of canned peaches -- but will instead happily eat them fresh. For a few days, I let them finish ripening on top our cookstove...
...until the fruit flies discovered them. Then I covered them with mosquito netting.
You can see the flies, pounding their little fists on the netting, wanting in. Tough patooties, guys.
Meanwhile Don embarked on cleaning out the bull pen sheds. Right now we don't have a bull, so we're going to get two piglets from a neighbor and raise our own pork. The sheds are the perfect place to put them (with a few modifications, of course) and the bull pen is spacious and well-fenced (I'll be aproning the perimeter to sabotage their rooting efforts).
He's also been transporting our enormous manure compost pile into the pasture where we'll be growing wheat next spring. The manure will be tilled into the soil this fall so it can decompose over winter.
The chickens think this is just a spiffy plan. There is nothing better for chickens than a manure pile.
I also started cleaning out the back of the barn. We have plans for this area -- moving the old chest freezer in place for grain storage, and putting in a new milking stall. But first, the mess. Before:
And after. The milking stall will go in the section where the florescent-orange reflector is; and we manhandled the chest freezer into position.
By the way, this will be my milking stall. We got this squeeze chute back in 2013 for an incredibly good price, but never used it. I have some cows I'd like to train to milk (notably Amy and Pixie, both half-Jerseys), and a squeeze chute will work perfectly for this purpose.
Next, the chest freezer.
It was filthy inside. But it's also mouse-proof, moisture-proof, and holds 25 cubic feet of material. In short, the perfect place to store bulk chicken feed.
So I scrubbed it out as best I could (without actually climbing inside) with a mop, then gave it a washover with bleach water. It will do for grain storage.
A couple mornings ago, the temperature dropped to 29F.
First frost on the windshield. Oh well, there goes the garden.
We also had rain moving in, the first appreciable rain in almost three months.
Time to harvest -- fast -- the garden. Everything got nipped by the frost. Tomatoes...
Red bell peppers...
Watermelons...
And beans, among much else.
The chipmunks are voracious this year. Sometimes, standing still among the corn tires, I could see as many as a dozen, diligently harvesting my harvest.
This past weekend was a frantic couple of days of harvest, trying to get things under cover before the rain hit. Potatoes:
Beans (the corn is pretty much done). Here's a "before" photo:
And an "after" shot.
Lots of beans.
I ended up piling them in the wheelbarrow...
...and dumping them in the barn.
I'll have to hasten and pick the pods off the plants, but that will happen after the rain starts when I can't work outside.
The chickens enjoyed the stripped-out beds...
...and ate any leftover corn they could find.
I saw an occasional tiny frog.
Chipmunks were everywhere, harvesting whatever they could.
Not just chipmunks. We've had chickarees around here too. This one was in an old bird's nest in the pear tree, munching on a pear.
The weather was definitely thickening up as we worked.
Younger Daughter started in on the green tomatoes.
We didn't have a whole lot of ripe tomatoes, but we had lots of green ones. I'll put these in a box with apples and bananas to supply ethylene, and run them through the food strainer as they come ripe.
The red bell peppers were still green, so I picked them all and will ripen them in the house.
The chickens got most of my watermelons, but this baby was growing so well I netted it so they couldn't eat it. With the vine dead after the frost, I went ahead and picked it.
It weighed in at 20 lbs.
The pear trees are massively loaded with fruit.
I started by picking the low-hanging fruit...
...which nearly filled the wheelbarrow.
But I still have two or three times as much fruit in the upper branches. Holy cow, the Magic Pear Fairy is soon gonna have to wax up her wings and once again fly around the neighborhood, bestowing the blessings of pears on anyone she can catch.
But I had to put aside the rest of the pears until later. We had other stuff to do.
Don cut up a bunch of rounds of firewood, which I split.
Then we stacked it on the porch. First firewood of the year!
The last step of the day was to bring in the cattle from the neighboring property we lease for grazing each year. The beasties were all peacefully browsing...
...until they heard the universal cattle call: "Bossy bossy bossy bossy BOSSY!!!!!"
Instant response! They all threw up their heads and came galloping.
Here comes Brit, always first through the gate.
The rest thundered after her.
Except Matilda, of course. Matilda doesn't "thunder." She walks. Sedately.
Don had little Mr. Darcy on a leash to watch this twice-a-year "two-minute cattle roundup," as we call it.
The cattle came through the gate in no time...
...with elderly Matilda bringing up the rear in a stately fashion.
The cattle will stay on the wooded side of the pasture for the winter, where they have shelter under the barn awning when they need it.
It's a good thing we did all this harvesting and battening down, because today has been windy, rainy, and cold.
The fire in the cookstove feels good.
Winter is on its way. You can never forget that in north Idaho
Knowing we had a change in season coming, we've been embarking on a variety of projects with an aim toward buttoning up our farm for the winter.
Last week I harvested the peaches. These are the first fruits from our young newly planted orchard, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be picking my hands-down all-time favorite fruit from our own trees at last.
Altogether I got about 20 lbs. of fruit.
I won't bother canning them -- I have plenty of canned peaches -- but will instead happily eat them fresh. For a few days, I let them finish ripening on top our cookstove...
...until the fruit flies discovered them. Then I covered them with mosquito netting.
You can see the flies, pounding their little fists on the netting, wanting in. Tough patooties, guys.
Meanwhile Don embarked on cleaning out the bull pen sheds. Right now we don't have a bull, so we're going to get two piglets from a neighbor and raise our own pork. The sheds are the perfect place to put them (with a few modifications, of course) and the bull pen is spacious and well-fenced (I'll be aproning the perimeter to sabotage their rooting efforts).
He's also been transporting our enormous manure compost pile into the pasture where we'll be growing wheat next spring. The manure will be tilled into the soil this fall so it can decompose over winter.
The chickens think this is just a spiffy plan. There is nothing better for chickens than a manure pile.
I also started cleaning out the back of the barn. We have plans for this area -- moving the old chest freezer in place for grain storage, and putting in a new milking stall. But first, the mess. Before:
And after. The milking stall will go in the section where the florescent-orange reflector is; and we manhandled the chest freezer into position.
By the way, this will be my milking stall. We got this squeeze chute back in 2013 for an incredibly good price, but never used it. I have some cows I'd like to train to milk (notably Amy and Pixie, both half-Jerseys), and a squeeze chute will work perfectly for this purpose.
Next, the chest freezer.
It was filthy inside. But it's also mouse-proof, moisture-proof, and holds 25 cubic feet of material. In short, the perfect place to store bulk chicken feed.
So I scrubbed it out as best I could (without actually climbing inside) with a mop, then gave it a washover with bleach water. It will do for grain storage.
A couple mornings ago, the temperature dropped to 29F.
First frost on the windshield. Oh well, there goes the garden.
We also had rain moving in, the first appreciable rain in almost three months.
Time to harvest -- fast -- the garden. Everything got nipped by the frost. Tomatoes...
Red bell peppers...
Watermelons...
And beans, among much else.
The chipmunks are voracious this year. Sometimes, standing still among the corn tires, I could see as many as a dozen, diligently harvesting my harvest.
This past weekend was a frantic couple of days of harvest, trying to get things under cover before the rain hit. Potatoes:
Beans (the corn is pretty much done). Here's a "before" photo:
And an "after" shot.
Lots of beans.
I ended up piling them in the wheelbarrow...
...and dumping them in the barn.
I'll have to hasten and pick the pods off the plants, but that will happen after the rain starts when I can't work outside.
The chickens enjoyed the stripped-out beds...
...and ate any leftover corn they could find.
I saw an occasional tiny frog.
Chipmunks were everywhere, harvesting whatever they could.
Not just chipmunks. We've had chickarees around here too. This one was in an old bird's nest in the pear tree, munching on a pear.
The weather was definitely thickening up as we worked.
Younger Daughter started in on the green tomatoes.
We didn't have a whole lot of ripe tomatoes, but we had lots of green ones. I'll put these in a box with apples and bananas to supply ethylene, and run them through the food strainer as they come ripe.
The red bell peppers were still green, so I picked them all and will ripen them in the house.
The chickens got most of my watermelons, but this baby was growing so well I netted it so they couldn't eat it. With the vine dead after the frost, I went ahead and picked it.
It weighed in at 20 lbs.
The pear trees are massively loaded with fruit.
I started by picking the low-hanging fruit...
...which nearly filled the wheelbarrow.
But I still have two or three times as much fruit in the upper branches. Holy cow, the Magic Pear Fairy is soon gonna have to wax up her wings and once again fly around the neighborhood, bestowing the blessings of pears on anyone she can catch.
But I had to put aside the rest of the pears until later. We had other stuff to do.
Don cut up a bunch of rounds of firewood, which I split.
Then we stacked it on the porch. First firewood of the year!
The last step of the day was to bring in the cattle from the neighboring property we lease for grazing each year. The beasties were all peacefully browsing...
...until they heard the universal cattle call: "Bossy bossy bossy bossy BOSSY!!!!!"
Instant response! They all threw up their heads and came galloping.
Here comes Brit, always first through the gate.
The rest thundered after her.
Except Matilda, of course. Matilda doesn't "thunder." She walks. Sedately.
Don had little Mr. Darcy on a leash to watch this twice-a-year "two-minute cattle roundup," as we call it.
The cattle came through the gate in no time...
...with elderly Matilda bringing up the rear in a stately fashion.
The cattle will stay on the wooded side of the pasture for the winter, where they have shelter under the barn awning when they need it.
It's a good thing we did all this harvesting and battening down, because today has been windy, rainy, and cold.
The fire in the cookstove feels good.
Winter is on its way. You can never forget that in north Idaho
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