Earth Day, 2017

Pat, Nancy, and Jane came up for a work day on April 22. All the week before we watched the weather reports. Early in the week, rain was in the forecast. As the days went by, the predicted rain disappeared. The day could not have been lovelier. Blue sky, bright sun, rapidly rising temperatures. We started in the greenhouse. Pat and I had gotten some seed kits that we wanted to start. The lisianthus that Hilda started months ago were ready for the big pots, which would be shared among Hilda, Jane, and me. Here we are filling pots with soil.

Pat, Nancy, Hilda, and Jane filling pots with soil in the greenhouse

Here are the lisianthus in their big pots. Everything had to stay in the greenhouse. It was hard to believe it would ever be cold again, but our frost-free date is in mid-May.

Lisianthus potted up and ready for the patio after the danger of frost has passed

We took a break for lunch and then started on the real work. My goal for the day was to get rid of some massive buckthorns. Buckthorn, if you are not familiar, is a wickedly invasive, wickedly thorny small tree. They don’t get tall, but they develop large crowns that produce small, black fruits by the thousands. The seeds are very efficiently dispersed by birds. The species name is Rhamnus cathartica. Need I say more?

The trouble with buckthorn is that if you just cut the tree down, it comes back as stump sprouts. Terry’s plan was to clear out around the largest of the buckthorns so he could get at the trunk later. He would cut notches all around and pour in herbicide to kill the tree. After it dried, we could cut and burn it. He got his chain saw and took Pat to help him haul out the brush around two giant buckthorn growing in the wetland. The rest of us went back to the creek with clippers and hatchet to clear out the smaller buckthorn growing there.

Terry had started a brush pile in the fire ring. With a hot enough fire, we would be able to burn the small trees and branches that we were clearing even though they were green. We also got rid of last December’s Christmas trees.

Pat and Terry watching our Christmas tree burn

My native plants were mostly doing well, although one of the Dutchman’s breeches had either not emerged or had been eaten.

One of the Dutchman's breeches

Mayapple

Trout lily

My second Jack-in-the-Pulpit came up, which I was glad to see.

The second Jack-in-the-Pulpit coming up to the right of the one that was up previously

When Pat and Terry were done in the wetland, Terry cut the brush and lower branches from around a large buckthorn by the fire ring. Here is Nancy going in for another armload of slash.

Nancy clearing brush from around a big, ugly buckthorn tree

We were quickly done with the heavy work and sat by the fire enjoying the beautiful day until 3:30 or so. Pat and Nancy wanted to go snipe hunting. I had not seen any snipes on my last walk through the south end of the property a few weeks ago, so I prepared them for disappointment. To give us the best possible chance of seeing one, however, I left my camera in the house.

Once we got down there, I thought I saw one take off in the distance. We walked through the muck and water to the far south end of the property. Pat said that she loved that feeling, and I agreed. Nothing makes you feel like you’re 8 years old quite like putting on your big rubber boots and splashing around in puddles. We started walking north through the unmowed area. A snipe took off with its characteristic wing whir and flight call. We took another step and flushed another snipe, this one so close we could see its long bill and the stripe on its side. Another step, another snipe. We saw 8 in all. We were all thrilled.

We had a nice supper together to cap off a perfect day. It was so good to finally spend some time outdoors after a long winter of rain and mud, and good to be with such wonderful friends. I made a rhubarb pie for dessert to celebrate one of our two first harvests, the other one being asparagus.

Sunday was also a beautiful day. I mowed the lawn for the first time. In the afternoon, we went to MCC for the band and chorus concert. When we got home, three tom turkeys were marching in formation straight for the house. They were after two hens who were eating sunflower seeds from the ground under the bird feeders. I got my camera from downstairs and was able to get this picture. 

Macho tom turkeys utterly failing to get the attention of two hens

I find the spectacle of tom turkeys strutting around in perfect synchrony hilarious, the epitome of macho posturing. The hens did not seem to be impressed either. The toms spent the remainder of the afternoon following the hens all over the hay field. We never witnessed any success, but we are still hopeful that we may see turkey poults before the summer is over.