Bev Doolittle Llamma

When I was a kid, my friend and I spent an entire summer trying to catch a feral horse who, in the end, won the battle of wits and lived out his life on the North Edge of Nowhere. For years after that we would see him once in a while as our school bus would careen past his stompin' ground. If he had had hands, the thumbs would have been in his ears, his fingers wiggling and his tongue stuck out.

Now at the Homestead, there seems to be a Llama who is taking the same route to freedom. Jailbreak.

I have no idea where this Llama came from. My best guess is about 4 or 5 miles over the back hill, where there are more houses. He is not from around here, but he has decided he belongs here. He has been popping up every couple of months for a year now. He hangs out in the woods at the back of the Homestead, mostly on the neighbors side where the road to town winds down through Christmas trees and second growth timber, and NO fences.
He grazes along until he hears my car coming, his white head pops up and he skitters to the shadows and watches me pass by. If I slow down or look too long at him, he beats it into the dense woods. I guess he's not taking any chances of being re-domesticated!

Bugs Bunny Cartoon

I have a problem. An underground problem. Gophers! Unlike Moles, which are strictly meat eaters (and very few kinds of nuts), gophers eat mostly vegetation. Unfortunately, this spring, the vegetables on the menu are the same vegetables I want to eat.

They are eating the roots to my overwintered chard.

The result is very much like the Bugs Bunny Cartoons where Elmer Fudd watches the carrots in his garden disappear into the ground.

There is no reason to bother exterminating this Gopher. It will just cause a population explosion of gophers in my garden. Gophers are very territorial and if you get rid of the one who is bothering you, several will move in for a turf war. Who wouldn't want the 'penthouse' of gopher living? Until they worked it out, I would suddenly have several gophers. I'd rather just live with the one I have. Better a devil you know.

When dealing with gophers I find it more effective for me to just plant plenty to share and to make the garden a less pleasant place to be. I have had success with burying 1/2" hardware cloth at the bottom of my raised beds. It is a couple days of work, but it makes gopher proof beds in which I can reliably grow carrots and potatoes, their FAVORITE foods.

Some people recommend putting hair from the barbershop in the holes, but that creeps ME out.

I had a cat once who was very good at discouraging them. He used an interesting technique. He would methodically pee in all but one of the gopher holes and then sit by the one hole he didn't pee in, and wait...

Apparently the gopher would stay away from all the holes in his tunnel network that the cat peed in and then eventually end up at the hole my cat was waiting at.

Sadly, my gopher catching cat is no longer with us. But I am considering using his strategy.

Only, I'm not sure Buck will cooperate.

Bull

I spent years and years wandering the hills around the Homestead while growing up.
I sat quietly on top of old growth stumps while deer walked unsuspectingly below.
I army-crawled up to small creeks so I wouldn't spook the Cutthroat trout that was lurking in a shallow pool.
I slithered down rabbit trails to hunt for Quail.

And during all of these stealth activities, I have NEVER seen Elk at the Homestead.

But last week, I found an entire herd of Elk crossing the road that runs behind the Homestead.

That explained the GIANT "deer" hoof print we saw in the mud near the hay barn last week. I have asked my father what he thinks about their sudden appearance. He thinks it is a sign of over population in the higher elevations. It seems odd to have an overpopulation right now. It might have more to do with habitat changes like logging. At any rate they are such an awesome animal to see around. As big as a large horse, the lead male "Bull" looked as perfect as a Disney film.

 

Trilliums, Flags and a Fairy Slipper Tale

Oregon Grass Iris or Flag (Iris tenax)

Ah, Spring is upon us. The bees are buzzing in and out when the rain stops and the Morel mushrooms will soon be adorning my special white bean soup. We made it through another winter and it feels great!
There are certain flowers on the Homestead that bring me a lot of joy to see peeking above the Dew Berries or weathered grass.

These are what my mom called "Lambs Tongue" but they are also commonly known as White Fawn Lilly (Erythronium oregonum). I spend a lot of time in the early summer trying not to mow their beautiful speckled leaves, which the flowers leave behind to gather sun for next years blooms.

Then there is the illusive Western Trillium (Trillium ovatum) which takes seven years to bloom from a seed. As children we were never allowed to pick these since the act of picking it, killed it. The bulb cannot recover it's strength without its stem and three leaves.

But my very favorite is the Fairy Slipper.

This Western Fairy Slipper (Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis) is our tiny native orchid. I actually grew up calling it "Lady Slipper" which is what my Mom and Grandma called it. That is why "common names" can be confusing, they tend to be different for the same plant depending on localities and families.

The story of this Fairy Slipper is one of the experiences that helped me overcome my reluctance and brought me back to the Homestead.

I carried this plants' ancestor back to this spot on horseback.

When I was about 10 years old, I rode my horse over to my friends farm a few miles away. It was a rare, warm and sunny April weekend. When I got to my friends house, she caught her horse and off we went into her back woods. Our Homestead is on a rocky mountain top with a few winter springs here and there but the land is fairly arid. Her families property was at the bottom of the mountain and had a much more verdant ecosystem, with strings of ponds and lakes in deep woods.

We loved to ride our horses down to the lakes and let them graze while we hopped from one floating log to another trying to cast our fishing line directly in front of the "lunkers" we could see in the lakes, sunbeams piercing the water.

In retrospect I think we didn't really want to catch the fish on these trips. Catching a fish meant hurrying home. And we wanted to do anything but hurry home.

Anyway, these trips into the forest usually degraded into chasing one of our horses who was tired of waiting around or it turned into a deep woods snoop to find her teenage brothers secret fort.

This day it was the latter. And as we followed rabbit trails through the underbrush looking for tell-tale boot prints or a flash of dropped paper or cloth in the deep green moss floor of the woods I spied a Fairy Slipper in bloom. Recalling my mothers exclamations of joy anytime she spied one of these delicate creatures in the woods, I decided I would bring it to her. I dug it up carefully from the duff with my fingers and set it into a scrap of wax paper. I nestled it under the pommel of my saddle and there it rode for the rest of the days adventures.

 

When at dusk I rode up our driveway and dismounted, I excitedly pulled the Lady Slipper from my saddle and brought it to my mother.
Her reaction was the opposite of what I had imagined on my long ride home. Being an avid botanist and gardener, she gasped in sadness and chastised me for digging up the delicate orchid. It would surely die now.
Crestfallen I apologized, handed her the plant and went to bed. Of course she was right. Fairy Slippers were rare and that was because they only grew in very specialized niches in the ecosystem.
The next morning my Mom apologized and thanked me for my thoughtfulness. But I had thought about the plant all night and I wanted to set things right. I couldn't return it, since I would never find the spot I dug it up in again.

I asked if I could plant it outside. She smiled and nodded but also expressed her doubt that it would survive.
I wandered around the Homestead clutching the plant. I sought out the damp shady places I knew of, but nothing seemed to be like the place I had found it, until I found the mossy stump. It seemed right to me, but it was only a guess and a hope.

It turns out it was a suitable spot. And to this day, around the first of April there is a 20 foot puddle of these Lady Slipper orchids around the spot where the mossy stump used to be. I had inadvertently established a new colony of the tiny orchids.

And here they are decades later! How such small happenings can effect our lives is difficult to predict but this one event helped shape who I am and what I care about, and what I do to this day.

This tiny treasure helped to bring me back to the land I love. That's a lot like a Fairy Tale if you ask me.

What We've Been Up TO

Sorry for the lag in posts this summer. We have all been so busy it's been difficult to even gather our thoughts let alone write them down!

I have been working on a post about ponds but it has taken on a life of it's own.

In the meantime I have been collecting photos along the way so I decided to just give you a pictorial overview of some of our activities this summer and catch up on the writing when I get a chance.

Thanks for stopping by and we'll talk soon.

One of my top bar hives had a mouse.

 The Meat Chicks are well on their way.

Our daughter in law had a show.

Buck plays host at the Art Shack

The old barn is getting a face lift, 2 inches a month.

And the underside is full of Carpenter Ants.

It's Red Haven peach season at our neighbors.

 

 Buck fermented amazing pickles from the cucumbers he grew.

 Our littlest friend has coming for visits. Busy, busy.

My and Jake's coffee roasting has been taking on a much more serious flavor. We have been cupping wholesale lots of green coffee beans to prepare for large orders.

 Amazing sunsets are pretty regular this summer. All the smoke in the air.

Wild life has been staring in the window at us.

 I found some really promising fasteners at Harbor Freight.

 Buck is really good at keeping us fed.

A blessed moment for June, that puppy finally slept!

I Like Spiders and Snakes

I was a slightly strange little girl. As soon as school let out for the summer I would begin to collect every kind of insect on the farm and I would make bug zoos with my mom's canning jars. Then I would sadly watch them all die off. Since I had no idea what these insects ate or did for a living, I couldn't really care for them properly.

Spiders were the exception. A few juicy flies would keep them happy, so through the simple result of attrition I kept several spiders as "pets". To this day I will not kill a spider. I think they are really cool and they get rid of flies in the house. I do make them build new webs when they get too dusty and full of fly skeletons.

Another childhood fascination was with snakes. In Oregon there are very few dangerous creatures. We only have one poisonous snake, the Western rattlesnake, and it doesn't live in the Willamette Valley.
So I was free to wander the fields looking for Garter snakes. I would sneak up, grab them behind the head, wave them at my playmates and watch them scream and run!

Somewhere there is a photo of me at age 8, swinging two large snakes, one in each hand, while my cousins and neighbors run screaming. I think my mom took the photo just before she ran back to the house and locked the kitchen door. Ah, the heady power of wielding snakes!

I was excited when I lifted a messy roll of weed cloth last year and found a very large Northwestern Garter snake warming itself in the solar heat of the black cloth.

In the next fold was a very large Western Fence Lizard. Strange bed mates.

Then, when I picked up the rest of the roll, I found this stash of MY STRAWBERRIES!

I have been trying to get a crop of strawberries for the last three years. Between the voles, Robins and the Chipmunks I am losing ground.

I tried putting bird netting over the strawberry bed, but I kept finding little lizards tangled and trapped in it.

Hmm. How can I discourage this large group of strawberry thieves?

Bring in the snakes!
Of course it is too much to ask for a real snake to guard my berries 24/7 but this rubber snake is more than happy to do the job.
And it seems to be working. I have had many more strawberries this year and it is not because the plants are bigger. In fact they are a little stunted because I had to move them last fall.

 

The only downside to this method is that I keep scaring the *&#% out of myself when the weeds cover the snake and I forget it is there. I like snakes, but I don't like them sneaking up on me.

Bird Songs in Spring

I know, that title sounds like a bad 6th grade poetry assignment.
I can't help it. Here at the Homestead it's spring and I feel like I'm in the 6th grade. I find myself sniffing the air and rubbing moss with my finger tips. I want to ramble through the woods with a wax paper wrapped PBJ sandwich in my pocket and eat it by the creek at the bottom of the hill. But I can't. I have work to do today. Instead I take a moment and watch the birds do what I wish I could.
The Northern Flickers are calling back and forth. The White-Crowned Sparrows chase each other from tree to tree and a Robin lilts the song he only sings now, when the Morel mushrooms are about to spring up from the thick brown duff in the woods.

Fledglings and Plant Predators

So as you may remember, Invisibird had two families "in the oven" so to speak, when we last checked in. Well, shortly after I posted, the first family stealthily vamoosed and then, a week ago, family number two silently fledged. Do you think I saw them, even though I checked in about every half hour? ( I mean, what could be cuter than the babies of a tiny bird?)

Even though the babies made a racket of disproportionate scale for their minuteness while in the nest, they could not just hang around outside it and sit on the fence for a minute or two while they practiced being birds. No, they took after their father and stayed invisible, right out the door and into the woods without a peep.

So I took a picture of the nest for you instead.

Click to Supersize

Remember the herb bed I put in? Well, it's doing great. The deer haven't bothered anything in it except the eggplant- I guess I know now that deer do like eggplants. The chickens on the other hand have decided that despite the fact that Rhubarb leaves are considered poisonous, they rather enjoy their crispy texture and tangy flavor.

And if I was suspecting that the deer weren't bothering the herb bed because they were just worried about of the close proximity of:

I was flat out wrong, because they stood IN my herb bed and ate the tops off of our grafted fruit trees that were inside the garden but leaning against the fence.

It's a good thing I'm not a lion tamer. Predicting the behavior of the mild and meek around here is hard enough.