Hummingbird garden

I have already written about the bare root stock of native plants that I put back by the creek. At the same time I ordered those, months ago, I also ordered a butterfly/hummingbird garden. And then I forgot all about that until I got an email that it was shipped on May 22. Terry provided a sod shovel, which I didn’t even know existed and was a great help. Even so, it was hard work. I remembered my plan for where I was putting the garden, which was on the south side of the garden shed where I couldn’t get the mower. It was not a large area, but it took a couple of hours to cut the sod off anyway. Terry brought the Gator by several times to move the sod to other places on the property where it was needed.

The plants arrived Wednesday when I was in Glendale Heights getting the one-year, 15,000 mile check up on my car. (I have been to a gas station 8 times in the last year, by the way. I used to fill up once a week!) Thirty-eight plants, fourteen species. I was impressed with their size.

Ready made butterfly/hummingbird garden: 38 plants, 14 species for wet soils

When I read the directions and did some measurements, I realized my cleared area was half the recommended size. Oh well. Being a plant ecologist, I regard plants as being pretty smart. They are perfectly capable of deciding whether or not a site is good for them. I’ll just see what grows and separate them later if I have to. When I got home from a meeting at work on Thursday, I put them in the ground more or less following the suggested layout that came in the box.

Plants in the ground in the corner behind the garden shed where I can't get the mower

Friday morning, again following recommended procedure, I laid down newspapers and put mulch on top. And then it rained, which was perfect. We may never get the rest of the garden in, and the potatoes may be rotting in the ground, but it has been a great year for planting natives. I have virtually never had to water.

Mulched and done for now

That brings up a related question. How did the toads know? In the 5 years I’ve lived here, we have never had such a massive toad breeding event. I remarked at the time that there was no way the puddle would stay long enough for the tadpoles to reach maturity. Last year the chorus frog tadpoles all ended up being hors d’oeuvres for raccoons. But here we are at the end of May, and that puddle is still has 8” of water at its deepest place. We have rain several times a week. By Terry’s measurement, we had 6.6” of rain last month and 5.8” for May so far. Another 0.7” yesterday morning. Many of the tadpoles have leg nubbies now, and odds are good that a fair number will, in fact, become adults.

My three tadpoles are finally showing signs of growing up. The fact that they had leg nubbies when I brought them in made me think that they would be done growing in a few days. Not so! As of Wednesday, they looked about the same.

Tadpole on Wednesday with no visible changes

Yesterday, their legs were bulking up and bending at the knees. One of them is showing angles on its body where the front legs are developing.

Back legs looking more toad-like yesterday, bumps on the front of the body

It was Bird Party Central at the feeder Friday morning. Two male and one female rose-breasted grosbeaks, a male gold finch, and a male oriole were all vying for position.The female grosbeak went down to the jelly feeder while the goldfinch flew away.

Female grosbeak jumps to the jelly while a goldfinch flies away. Two male grosbeaks watch the action

The goldfinch came back, though, and the grosbeak was joined by an oriole. 

There are five birds in this picture...

The orioles don’t usually share the jelly, but this one didn’t seem to know what to make of this other species. Really, the jelly is not for her, but she has not read the book, apparently. I have since seen a male grosbeak eating jelly as well.

Male oriole and female grosbeak sharing the jelly, even though it isn't for the grosbeaks

Close up of the male grosbeak and goldfinch on the sunflower seed feeder where they belong

Saturday morning, this handsome fellow showed up. Terry spotted it first. “There’s a yellow-headed blackbird out there! He’s a long way from home.”

Yellow-headed blackbird

He stayed long enough for me to get several pictures. I had never seen one outside of North Dakota, but Pat and Nancy tell me that they have seen them in Illinois and Wisconsin. We haven’t seen it again, so it may have been just passing through.

Tadpole experiment 2

It is hard to tell what makes a toad tadpole happy. They don’t purr or smile, and tail wagging is strictly for locomotion. What makes them unhappy is clear. They don’t like deep water or currents. In the last update, I had two toad tadpoles still in the mason jar. One of them was dead one morning for no apparent reason. I fished it out. The other was doing well. I saw the tips of legs sticking out of its body last Tuesday, May 16. I had a thought before I went to bed to put the water in a shallow bowl, knowing that toads do not swim as well as frogs. In the end, I counted on it to stay a tadpole for 8 more hours.

In the morning, a perfectly formed toad, about a half inch long, was lying dead on top of the dead leaves in the bottom of the jar. I was sad, not only because it was so cute, but also because if it had lived, I could have released it and been done with my experiment.

But there were a million tadpoles still in the fluddle. 

Still a million tadpoles in the fluddle

I felt the challenge to successfully raise a toad. I went out with my jar and got three new tadpoles. I tried to get some that looked large and had leg nubs. I put them in a large glass bowl along with the grass leaves from the bottom and filamentous algae (I’m guessing spirogyra, but I don’t have a microscope at home. Yet.). I got a rock from the collection that Jane bequeathed to me. I found a nice sized geode that was polished on one side. The water wouldn’t hurt it, and it sat flat on the bottom. Fab and fancy fish bowl decoration.

I thought long and hard about the aeration. Clearly, the tadpoles couldn’t swim well in the current that the airstone kicked up. I took the airstone off and attached the hose to the side of the bowl with a small clothes pin.

The bowl with air hose and clothespin on Wednesday, May 17

The tadpoles didn’t seem happy, but as I said, it’s hard to tell. At the risk of being anthropomorphic, they seemed to cower under the muck with the bubbler on. I turned it off, and they began doing laps around the top, nibbling at the spirogyra and muck on the leaves. I called them happy. They might have been gasping for air. Who’s to know? They didn’t die, anyway, so there’s that. They are also in no hurry to become adults.

Toad tadpoles as they have appeared for the last week

Here’s an interesting observation: the mat of spirogyra does not seem to float on the water because it is naturally buoyant. It seems to float because it traps oxygen bubbles from photosynthesis. The algae starts out under the water when I bring it in from the fluddle. It rises during the day.

Bubbles of oxygen causing the filamentous algae to float

The last time I changed the water, I picked up two more chorus frog tadpoles by mistake. I was able to more closely observe the development of the front legs due to the shallower water. Bumps became increasingly pronounced.

May 20

May 21 in the morning

At this point, I could see the frog moving its arms beneath the skin.

May 20 in the afternoon--I could see the forelimbs moving under the skin

Yesterday morning, the arms were out. Note that the tail is still at least twice as long as the body.

Morning, May 22--very long tail

And then it hid. And I worried, because when the toad tadpoles died, they didn’t float. I figured, though, at some point if it were still alive, it would have to come up for air when it was fully changed. Perhaps this brief adolescence is hazardous in the wild, and the instinct to stay out of sight is strong.

Here it is this morning. Note how short the tail is. I included some of the cheese cloth and a blade of grass for scale. So cute. I released him shortly afterward.

Today, clinging to the glass above the water with a nubby little tail.

After releasing the frog and getting fresh water for the toad tadpoles, I got to work weeding the perennial bed north of the garage. I took out two bushels of dandelions. Huge, multicrowned, Medusa-head dandelions. The growth form is because I have pulled them before, but I can never get the whole root, which grows to China. Once upon a time, I thought that if I just got the shoot apical meristem at the top of the root, all would be well. Not so. Dandelions have an amazing capacity to regenerate from roots, usually coming back with more, larger crowns. As I labored, I could hear the dandelions saying, “I’ll be back. BWAHAHAHA.”

My plan is always to plant aggressive perennials that will eventually crowd out the dandelions. It is working well with the geraniums and ginger (not shown).

Wild geraniums

I was delighted to see that I still had some trillium. I collected this from Camp Pokonokah Hills before it was sold. The ones I planted down by the fifth oak are puny and not blooming this year, so to have these specimens doing well was a great relief.

White trillium

The pink shooting stars are blooming as well.

Shooting stars

When I was done with that, I went down to the fifth oak to weed that for the second time. Last time, there were a number of tiny cotyledons sprouted. Ever hopeful that it was the seeds of the plants that I planted there, I left them. They turned out to be lambs quarters. Sigh. I pulled them today. 

Mystery cotyledons turn out to be lambs quarters

In the process I found more little cotyledons that I left because I thought they might be penstemon. Time will tell.

Planting potatoes

I’m pleased to report that the bare root maidenhair fern that I planted back by the creek has finally sprouted and looks good.

Maidenhair fern sprout

Even though summer break has started, I was at work all day Monday. First, I made an appearance at the groundbreaking of MCC’s new and sorely needed Science Center. I worked on updating course materials for a newer edition of the text book until it was time to make another appearance at a staff meeting to talk about the new Science Center. Tuesday was taken up by a doctor’s appointment in Elgin in the middle of the afternoon. I had lunch with Jane, her brother, and his wife. Jane is recovering nicely from knee replacement surgery; Dave and Mary are staying with her until she can do everything by herself.

Thus, it was not until Wednesday that I got to the garden. Hilda has been concerned about the tomatoes she started in the greenhouse. She started them at the same time she always does, but because we had a warmer spring, they grew much faster. They needed to get into the ground. We worked all morning to make a grid of landscape cloth in which to plant the tomatoes. We couldn’t go ahead with the planting because the forecast was for 50 mph winds and severe storms Wednesday night.

Tomato grid

What else could we do? We could plant potatoes! Being completely underground, they could not possibly be harmed by the wind. I asked Terry at lunch if he would be available to help us. Traditionally, he has dug the holes while Hilda cut the potatoes, and I planted them. He said he was too tired, and had too much to do.

“That’s fine,” I said, “I can dig the holes.”

After lunch, Hilda and I got started. I had half a row of holes dug when Terry showed up. “Planting potatoes is more fun that what I was going to do,” he explained.

I put potatoes in the holes and pushed the dirt on top.

Seed potatoes in the holes

When Hilda was done cutting the seed potatoes, she took over placing the potatoes in the holes.

Terry digs while Hilda puts seed potatoes in the holes

We put a row of landscape cloth down between rows and marked the hills as we went along. We don’t need the markers until we harvest because by that time the plants have died back and nearly disappeared. Over the years, however, I have learned that if I don’t do it right off, it doesn’t get done.

Potatoes planted and marked

We did have a truly terrible storm Wednesday night about 10:30. The lightning was furious. The power went off, then on, then off, then on. We found out the next day that a tornado had just missed us to the south east. Mom and Dad probably should have come to the basement.

It was so hot on Wednesday that I thought surely I could put my wool socks away. I got them back out Friday morning. Thursday and Friday were both crappy days for gardening. I slogged away on Unit 1 Thursday and went back to Elgin to visit Jane, et al., and do my grocery shopping. Hilda passed the time making cream of asparagus soup base to freeze. In the warm weather, the asparagus came on like gangbusters. We don’t care for plain frozen asparagus because it gets slimy. Soup, however, would be just fine. We can thaw it and add the cream just before serving.

Before I left the house Friday, I asked Hilda if she needed anything. “If you are going to eat the soup right away, you’ll need cream.”

Meijer had steaks on sale, which was my plan for supper, but there was always Saturday night for soup. “How much should I get?” I asked. “A cup? Two? A quart?”

“You can get some extra,” Hilda replied.

“There’s always chocolate pudding,” I said. We agreed that I should get a quart.

As it turned out, Meijer was sold out of steaks. Good thing I had a backup plan. When I got home with the quart of cream, I asked Hilda how much cream I need to add to a quart of asparagus soup.

“A quarter cup.”

“Is that ALL?”

“That’s what the recipe says.”

So on Saturday, when it was still too wet and cold to garden, I had to make a chocolate cream pie to use up three of the four cups of heavy cream (2 in the pudding and one whipped on top). I made my signature graham cracker and macadamia nut crust.

Chocolate cream pie with graham cracker/macadamia nut crust

Saturday afternoon, the hens decided to roost in one of the apple trees, We'd seen the occasional chicken in an apple tree, but they were having a party! Here's a picture of four of them. 

Four hens in an apple tree

We saw as many as six. "Why are they all up in the tree today?" I wondered out loud.

"Because the ground is too damned wet," Terry suggested, "Plus, they are just like monkeys--monkey see, monkey do. One goes up there, and they all follow."

In spite of the cold, rain, and high winds on Friday, the first hummingbird showed up at the feeder. I was surprised it was a female. The males usually come back first to stake out their territories.

Female hummingbird at the feeder on Friday

It wasn’t until today that I saw a male. Here’s an action shot.

Male hummingbird in action

And here he is feeding.

Male feeding

I saw a rose-breasted grosbeak for the first time today also.

The first rose-breasted grosbeak I've seen at our sunflower feeder, along with a Baltimore oriole at the jelly

I’ll update you on the tadpoles soon.

Metamorphosis

Last Thursday, the oldest chorus frog tadpole started looking a little lumpy on the front. The eyes were moving upwards. The legs were a bit longer, but mostly were noticeably bulking up. Its little belly was so round and tight that it looked about to burst.

Chorus frog tadpole last Thursday, May 11. Its leg is against the glass.

I didn’t notice much change over the next two days. I was, therefore, surprised to find a frog in the jar Sunday morning. It’s possible that it had been hiding in the grasses at the bottom of the jar while it went through its metamorphosis.

It's a frog! And a beautiful one.

It was tiny and very cute. I picked it up so you could see the scale of it compared to my fingers. Its tail was still very long.

With fingers to show the scale

Two other chorus frog tadpoles and on toad tadpole on May 14. The chorus frog at the lower left is looking lumpy on the front and its mouth is widening.

I had to thin the herd again and change the water. Let’s show the side-by-side again:

April 25

April 25

May 6

May 6

May 14: note the mature chorus frog and that most of the toads have legs.

May 14, including one frog and most of the toad tadpoles with legs.

I took the jar outside before I removed the cheese cloth. I counted a dozen mosquitoes clinging to the cloth. Still, the size of the swarm that emerged amazed me. I kept the little frog and two of the larger toad tadpoles. I walked with the jar and the other 9 tadpoles out to the fluddle. And I was in for another surprise. Two weeks ago, when I was gone (of course) on a rainy day, Terry saw four sandhill cranes in the fluddle. The next day we both saw a great blue heron. Why, we wondered, would such large birds fool with such tiny tadpoles?

Answer: because there are millions of them, and they congregate in huge numbers.

The black at the left is solid, roiling tadpoles

I released the extra tadpoles and filled the jar with fresh water. I also got some filamentous algae that had started to grow on the top of the water. The more photosynthesis, the better, I thought.

I put the keepers back in the jar and started up the air pump. I got two sticks to float on top in case the frog wanted to climb out.

This morning, Two more mosquitoes had hatched out. I saw with alarm that the frog was struggling against the current from the air stone. It had to be close to needing to breathe air. I didn’t want it to drown. Good thing I had the algae to add oxygen to the water. The next time I checked, the frog was climbing on the air stone. Shortly after that, it was on a stick. Just before I left for work, it was clinging to the glass above the water, and the mosquitoes were gone.

On the stick

A good view of the shrinking tail

I really had to let it go. I could count on the mosquitoes to hatch out fast enough to keep the frog fed. When I got home, the tail was markedly shorter, less than half what it had been just the day before. I put it in a little container with a little water and walked out to his birthplace. It didn’t hop out readily. I had to flood the cup so it would work its way to the lip as it followed the air and avoided the water. Once free, it graciously sat motionless so I could get one more picture. Good luck, little guy! 

Back in the wild

Greener pastures

Because it is time to plant the onions, and the chickens had been free-ranging in the part of the garden where the onions had to go, we moved the chickens to the apple orchard. The grass in the permanent run is just sprouting. We don’t need Coop 2 until the new chicks arrive at the end of June. I thought that Terry would have more resistance to running the chickens among his apples, but when I explained that they were supposed to be good at eating all the bugs, he readily acquiesced.

As usual, we made use of the fact that chickens can’t see in the dark. On Friday night, we waited until they had gone to roost. I went down an hour early to take out the food and water so there would be no spillage. At 8:15, I shut the door. Terry pulled the Gator around and hooked up the hitch. He pulled the coop into the apple orchard. I put the food and water back in. The chickens spent, we assume, a peaceful night.

At 6:15 Saturday morning, I went out to configure the new run. The orchard is completely enclosed with deer netting, but we couldn’t be sure the rabbits had not chewed a hen-sized hole in it. The plan was to put the poultry netting inside of the deer netting. I started by pulling up the posts to the poultry netting in the garden. Hilda came out shortly to help. We moved both lengths of fence into the orchard and then, under the false assumption that we would be enclosing most of the orchard, I let the chickens out of the coop.

Oh my gosh. The mulch under the apple trees is the Best Thing Ever! The hens ran to the base of one tree after another, scattering mulch from here to Kingdom Come, and eating up the goodies that lay underneath. I can only hope said goodies included larvae of apple pests.

Mulch! Best Thing Ever!

Hilda and I started laying out the poultry netting, soon discovering that it was going to be nowhere near long enough to enclose the entire orchard. Dang. We put up all the fence just to see where we could get with it. The hens were, of course, all under a tree that was distinctly outside the fence. We opened one section of the fence, and Hilda threw some scratch grains (Best Thing Ever!) on the ground inside the fence. And all the hens came a-running except Blanche, who was loathe to leave the mulch. I chased her around the tree a few times. When I finally managed to separate her from the coveted mulch, she ran to her comrades at the scratch grains. Mission accomplished.

I don’t know how the hens feel, but I am very glad to have them all out of the mud. We did not anticipate that much rain when we put them in the garden.

Terry got the rest of the garden tilled yesterday. Hilda and I planted one row of mail-order Copra onions this afternoon. It is so hard to believe that anything will come of these pathetic, shriveled, poor excuses for plants, but every year, they snap out if it and do just fine. Hilda raised the other varieties from seed. Those are in the greenhouse waiting to be hardened off. It’s supposed to frost again tonight, so maybe we can move them out tomorrow.

Pathetic, curled dormant onions in the ground.

Update on the tadpoles: they are getting really big, relatively speaking. Last weekend, I got this picture of a chorus frog tadpole smiling. These tadpoles have transparent skin. I can see their hearts beating and the coil of their intestines.

Zoom in if you must--the chorus frog tadpole on the right is smiling

The largest of the chorus frog tadpoles has gotten legs. Last week, they were barely visible nubs.

The chorus frog tadpole, on the right, has a barely visible leg above its clearly visible poop-filled intestine. The leg is parallel to its tail, while the poop is more perpendicular.

Yesterday, they were looking quite leg-like.

I put all the tadpoles in the same container I had them in when I thinned the herd for comparison. I have gained one tadpole from the pond every time I have changed water, bringing the total to ten. The smaller ones are new arrivals, having had their development slowed by the lower temperatures in the fluddle.

Tadpoles, April 25

Same tadpoles, same container, May 6 (10 days)

I changed the water and got new handfuls of muck-covered grass, acquiring yet another tadpole. It is really tiny compared to the others.

The tadpoles are now very round. Unlike the feeding frenzies of the previous weeks, they spend a lot of time just hanging out buried in the grass. I have two hypotheses: 1) they are all going to die or 2) having reached a maximum of weight, they are preparing for metamorphosis. So far, I haven’t seen anyone floating on top yet, which supports hypothesis 2.

Tadpoles hanging out in the grass

The new native plants by the creek continue to grow, although one of the Dutchman’s breeches has died, possibly from frost.

Mayapples

The seeds we planted on Earth Day are up.

Earth Day sprouts. 

We are welcoming back many old friends, both plant and animal.

Bleeding hearts

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Jacob's ladder

Wood phlox

Shooting star--my favorite

White crowned sparrow

Baltimore oriole and goldfinch

Orchard oriole--Terry's favorite

And the thirteen-striped ground squirrels, perhaps the cutest arch-nemeses ever, are back in abundance. Here’s a mystery for you. When groundhogs did burrows, they leave a huge pile of displaced soil by the entrance. Ground squirrels, on the other hand, dig tunnels all over the yard without ever disposing of the excess soil in a visible place. How can this be? 

Thirteen striped ground squirrel stuffing his face with sunflower seeds