Epic Beautification 2: Friends to the Rescue

On  November 4, after days of work, my little Deere X300 crapped out on me. It kept surging and cutting off, something it's done before. The two times it happened before, there was a stinkbug in the gas tank. This didn't feel quite like that. It was too predictable. It would happen on startup, when the engine was cold, and then it would calm down.  The surging would start again when the engine was hot and I was going uphill with a load. 

One thing for sure: I was very bummed to have my best mate back in the shop. I'd only gotten it back in June from another gas tank cleanout, at tremendous expense, including a $200 pickup and delivery fee!

David and Laura, my incredible naturalist/photographer/videographer friends and neighbors, to the rescue! They brought their big pickup and trailer. First we threw my last five loads from the oil road onto their trailer and hauled it to the brushpile.

We threw the brush on the pile. In about a half hour, David and Laura did another full day's work for me. It sure helps to have the right gear, in this case a trailer that would take all the brush at once.

Then, we loaded the tractor onto the trailer.

I can't even tell you how wonderful it was to have such great help, and to not have to throw another $200 down the well for transport. I followed the truck into town to arrange the repair.

I asked the repair shop to change the oil while it was in and they assured me they would. 

I got it back in a couple days; they said the diaphragm in the fuel pump was bad, so they replaced the whole pump. Sounded reasonable, cost $145...I've never been so happy to pay that kind of money. Could it really have been that simple? No. It was even simpler.

 Dave and Laura went back and picked it up for me, and when I started it, it surged and killed exactly as it had when I sent it in. Now I was MAD. Had the shop tested their work? Apparently not. And they hadn't fixed the problem. @#$@#$#$%#$!!!!

Since it was a predictable problem, I was able to sneak in a couple more loads from around the oilwell before the tractor acted up and died on me again.

Well, at least I was done with the oil road, and I managed to clear the mess behind the oilwell that had obstructed my favorite Loop trailhead. Mow Day, Nov. 9, was almost upon me. I'd deal with the sick tractor later.

Curtis and I were plumb worn out.  But there was one more huge day to go. 

Here's a look at the meadow and brushpile the night before the big mow on November 9, 2024.

It's just stunning the growth that takes place over one season. The place is totally transformed by tall heads of goldenrod and shining sumac poking up through it. I like to leave all that until it loses the last bit of life and color. Then I'm ready to see it go, whether we've had frost or not (not yet, as of Nov. 12.) 

I charged the big Massey 135's battery for several hours the night before Walter, Timmy and Kevin arrived. It didn't take them too long to get it roaring and going on the big job. Kevin loves to run my red tractor, he says it's a nice little machine. And he goes allll day long on that thing.  He's incredibly good at nosing it and backing it into nooks of invasive vegetation and mowing it all down. He's got a sixth sense for where I'd like him to mow, and walking through the orchard and along the meadow borders is always such a delight after Kevin's been through.

While Kevin was mowing, I asked Walter and Timmy to give a listen to my John Deere.  I started it up and yes, the constant surging and eventual sputtering out was happening still. 

They checked hoses and wires and fiddled with choke and throttle and finally Walter said, "You know, these John Deere's have a sensor that'll shut 'em down when they get too low on oil. Let's check the oil." 

"Good idea, " I replied, having had NO idea such a sensor existed. "But I asked the shop to change the oil so it should be full." 

 

Well. The shop hadn't changed the oil, and it was very low. Holy cow. Could it have been as simple as that? All this time, just low on oil? No bug in the tank, no busted fuel pump, just low on oil?

Walter put about half a quart in and started it back up. It surged a bit, and we ran it for awhile, then shut it down. The next time I started it, it ran like a top. I think...we...figured..it out. Time will tell. 

What would I do without my friends?
I sure couldn't make it alone out here.

Here's how the meadow looked after Kevin got done with it. Willya look at that brushpile though?

Here, I have to divert a bit and perhaps explain myself to some who may not grasp what I'm dealing with on these 80 acres. Every time I post a photo of one of my brushpiles (and they have been legion since I got serious about cleaning this place up in 2019), I get comments from people who ask why I don't just "leave the brushpiles to rot." Why do I burn the brushpiles? Why don't I want to sequester carbon and give habitat to the wildlife? 

Why would I want to burn a brushpile? 

Because this is not the only brushpile I've made. Since 2019, I've probably made ten or more of these enormous piles of invasive vegetation. Here's a little review of piles I made just in 2021.

Dec. 27, 2021

Jan. 10, 2021 As you can see, they grow to titanic proportions when I get a bee in my shorts.

April 2, 2021. Mostly multiflora rose, the worst worst worst! That stuff will seed and re-root in a brushpile. It needs to go away forever. Leave that "to rot" and it will spring up 100 hydra heads.

April 3, 2021. Autumn olive, just leafing out, cut from the driveway. It's easy to spot and cut when it's leafing out, before any native plants awaken. Well, it's not easy to cut. It's thorny and horrible. Not something I want to look at for years, thank you.

I'm cutting invasives all through the fall, winter and early spring, just trying to reclaim this place from the disgusting tangle of vegetative trash (Japanese honeysuckle, autumn olive, Amur honeysuckle, and multiflora rose) that it had become by the time Bill died in 2019. 

So, tell me. How would my sanctuary look if I "just left the brushpile to rot" times a dozen? How would the meadow look, dotted with piles of brush that then become multiflora rose, Japanese honeysuckle and Asian bunchgrass nurseries? What is in those piles you do not want to re-seed, re-sprout, re-spread!

Y'all are free to leave your personal brushpiles to rot. I'm going to doubt they are far taller than your head, and I also doubt that you make several such mountainous piles every season. I am not sure that those who question what I'm up to here fully grasp the volume of brush we're talking about. This 80 acres is an invasive vegetation factory, and it runs day and night. The gears are always turning, the conveyer belts always bringing more loads of the plants I don't want.  In the last two days I've found two new invasives on the place: Callery pear, lollipop tree beloved by developers, now scourge of the highway shoulders (AAACK) and privet. They die! 

 I am always fighting for space and light for the useful and beautiful natives that belong here: dogwood, spicebush, tulip trees, nannyberry, sassafras, persimmon, pawpaw, oaks, hickories, black, red and sugar maples, to name just a few of the trees I cut around. These are the trees I free from being smothered. These are the neighbors I want. And this is why I burn. 

Third and final installment coming soon! 

Epic Beautification 1

                                   

Being a chronicle of the efforts of one medium-sized woman to create an exclusive, native plants only sanctuary in the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio. There is some hiring out, but not much.  

                        

The crisp fall days send me outdoors to work. I can't stay inside, and, squirrel-like, I feel like I have to accomplish something BIG before winter sets in. So in the third week of October, I set myself a goal to clear the road to my oil well before the Big Mow on Saturday, November 9, 2024. You see, this summer (2024) the oil and gas company that holds a lease on my oil well ( a common feature of every 40 acre parcel in my area of southeast Ohio) decided, after probably 15 years of neglect, to bulldoze and widen the service road that goes to the well. Which was a total surprise to me. I was delighted, having decided they would never again do any real maintenance on it, and it was all up to me to keep it open. The only hitch was that the dozer simply pushed all the brush over to the sides and it looked like hell. Worse, it would be a nursery for multiflora rose, which would come up like gangbusters under the protection of all the brush and fallen logs. And then I'd have as bad a mess as I started with. 

 The idea was, I'd get all the brush cleared from the bulldozing of this road, which runs along the east edge of my big meadow. I'd load it in my little wagon, pull it with the Deere tractor, and pile it on an already enormous brushpile in the meadow, just in case we might be able to burn it on Mow Day.

I knew, with the Extreme drought now going into its sixth consecutive month (we've had less than 5" of rain in six months!!) that the likelihood of being able to burn it was nil. But I still wanted to try to get the brush cut and gathered and hauled. I got serious about it on October 27, my first full day of clearing. It began to sink in on me how big the job was when I looked and I had cleared maybe 200' of road after working all day. First, I have to chainsaw the brush and logs down to manageable pieces. Then I load them in the wagon and pull it with my little John Deere X300 to the brushpile. I figured out that five loads is the maximum I can expect to get cut, loaded and thrown on the pile in a day of work. After five, I'm too tired to do more.

They're big loads, as this trailcam photo shows. Each one takes 1-2 hours to create and deal with.

Here's the energy expenditure of a typical day of cutting and hauling. It was pretty funny to have my Pilates and yoga app bugging me all week long to get some exercise with this going on in the background! Needless to say, yoga could wait. I did notice that, with a few months of Pilates and yoga exercise under my belt, I simply did not get sore from all this exertion. A good soak in Epsom every  night and I was good to go the next morning. It felt great to become a machine, well oiled and working! 

My best guy is always at my side, watching me carefully, for what I'm not sure--signs of distress? A fall? I don't think he'd run to the house and dial the sheriff like Lassie would (Arf! Arf! Arf!  What's that you say, Lassie? Timmy fell down the well?) but his presence is very comforting. He's helping in intangible ways, cheering me on.

I make sure to bring snacks and plenty of water for us both.

This video will give you an idea of the scale of the job as I peruse one small section of the woods road.

The only way to get it done is to do it in small bits. The bits were smaller than I'd have liked, but the mess was so much greater than I'd realized at first. In the end, I cut, piled and hauled  35 loads with my Stihl chainsaw and little Deere tractor. 

It seemed like I would never stop finding piles of brush and dead trees to deal with.

I also found a less common invasive: Euonymus alata, or burning bush. It was pretty, but I cut it down, because it doesn't belong here and is invasive.

Load after load after load, cut and hauled.

I cut five portals to the meadow along the road's length, which bring me joy, and I'm sure they delight the wildlife, too. Even if I don't decide to pop through them, having that peek of a view and the possibility of easily crossing into the  meadow lifts my heart. 

In between all the work, a delightful diversion: a grayish jumping spider, Phidippus princeps, scoots around on my tractor dash. I about died from the cute.

The saga continues in my next post.

Liam is 25!

 My dear boy, 

  I never realized how having a birthday that falls on or around Election Day would factor into your life; all I remember was a rush of passion one February afternoon in 1999, and it gets blurry after that. Thus did biology deliver into my arms a nearly spherical baby boy who grew into a lanky wonder.

I miss you. But I always enjoy throwing together these birthday blogposts that celebrate you and the increasingly rare times we get to be together.  I'm so, so happy you're on your own path in Columbus, and that you've found a place where you're appreciated for the wonder you are, and can share a space with like-minded creatives and kind people. 

It's always such fun to see you in situ at Trader Joe's. Your coworker's heads all swivel, they smile knowingly as Mama Zick enters the store, tracking her boy.

You show me a beer made with (Trader Joe's oreo knockoff) JoJo's. Wut? And one called Mad Elf, a spicy Christmas brew that has 11% alcohol content, but "tastes like stinkbugs."

We start laughing and we don't stop.  I think one of my favorite things is to take you and Ayla out for a nice meal. 

All the better if Oscar and Phoebe are along, too! Addis Ethiopian Restaurant, North Columbus.

I love to go windowshopping with you, too. We mostly love to look at things we can't afford. 

Remember the 300 pound coffee table at Crate and Barrel?

This is how we know we're living in a gilded age. First, who could afford a 300 pound STONE coffee table? How much does it cost to ship? How many people does it take to carry it into your living room? Better decide where you want them to put it... FOREVER... because you're not gonna lift that thing EVER again. Much less dust under it. Or move it to wash the Ruggable. Sheesh. The impracticality of it all is overwhelming.

I love the little glimpses into your life that your too-sparse postings on Instagram afford me.  That's a really good whateverosaurus impersonation you're doing there, son! Look out! It's right BE-
HIIIND YOU!

LOOKIT THAT BOY!! That looks like a shirt your dad might have picked out, or worn. 

I'm just so thrilled you're having fun and exploring your new surroundings all the time. That you get to be around people your age (impossible back home; everyone has fled this town!) 

But no matter how far you roam, remember I am the little puff of ...wind...beneath your wings!

(they're set a bit low, I think).

I sure love seeing you in your new life with Ayla. What mother wouldn't be over the moon to see a photo like this one from June? Ah, you lucky kids. And you there, wearing my Dear Old Dad's pale blue eyes. He'd get such a kick out of you. He'd try to figure you out by interviewing you, then teasing you. Good luck, DOD.

You're getting Shaggier and Shaggier, and I love it! If you've got thick golden hair, rock it, son!!

I think I love this jazz club photo of you two best. I'm just happy that you live in a place that even HAS jazz clubs. I always knew, from the time you were a little boy and you got so excited when you smelled  

the "sweet French Fry air of town" 

that you'd find your place in a city. 

I can't wait to see you two for Thanksgiving. Your family awaits!

Happy birthday, darling Liam. I love you six hundred six sixty six!

Oh! and Someone has been waiting to say Happy Birfday to you!

                                                              It's Curtis. He's so patient. 

                                                                           OK go, Curtis. 

HADDY HADDY BIRFDAY WIAM!!

Wook! He miling!!

Tanagers Eating Weird Stuff

I have huge dark Chamaecyparis trees hanging over my north studio windows. This is bad. It cuts my light. Gosh, they were so tiny when I planted them 30 years ago! Who'd think they'd shoot up to 20' plus, and get so thick and plumy? In desperation to get my view back I have limbed them up, but their bushy tops still cut a ton of light, especially on those dark winter days when the sun seems to set at 3 pm. Good times! 

 One of the good things about having huge dark Chamaecyparis trees hanging over my north studio windows, however, is the intimate look they give me into the lives of birds. They feel safe in those dark trees and they do things most people don’t get to see, right at eye level. It’s my mini canopy walk, I guess. I’m perched on my high drafting chair and they’re a good 12’ off the ground, and I’m looking right into their eyes. One of the more thrilling birds who perched in there was a Cooper's hawk, on April 6, 2023.

                                                                                   

Most are songbirds, though, like this hatch-year female scarlet tanager who just calmly studied me as I looked back through the big lens. She was but a few feet away, and I was moving slowly, as always, so as not to frighten her. Sept. 16, 2024. My Canon is permanently to my left on the drawing table as I write or draw, and I've perfected a very fluid, slow way of hoisting it to my eye.

                  

                                         

The water features, especially the trickling WarblerFall, draw in forest birds like nobody's business, especially during fall migration. Look at this gorgeous young male scarlet tanager molting into his first adult plumage on Sept. 16, 2024. He starts with the lesser coverts and will gradually replace the fresh flight feathers with jet black ones. And by next spring, he'll be replacing those green body feathers with brilliant scarlet ones. 

I like how he looks like he's wearing a cape around his shoulders. 

On Sept. 22, I was shocked to see a young male scarlet tanager eating a brown marmorated stinkbug, which would have to be the most odious mouthful a bird could ingest. But there he was, crunching it down like a toasted almond. 

Maybe a little gag reflex happening here, but the bug went down the hatch. Zow! 

The same day, I was thrilled to bits to see a young male summer tanager come in to drink at the WarblerFall, then perch in the Chamecyparis! Unlike the scarlet, summer tanagers don't breed on my land, though I do have the mix of Virginia pine and deciduous trees they seem to like. 

Summer tanagers are a late summer and fall phenomenon here, and they are almost always hunting hymenopterans when they're here. I've had them catching yellowjackets off the deck railing! 

Summer tanagers have an old folk name of "bee bird"  because they are notorious for staking out beehives and feasting on their occupants, often catching them in air. My old friend Hank had one spend a Connecticut winter at his beehives in Old Lyme, living on honeybees. He was happy to donate bees, but he did offer other foods, hoping to cut the damage. This is where the extra long, strong beak of the summer tanager comes in really handy. It's good to distance your eyes and face from an angry bee, wasp or hornet. 

This young bird was looking for something, and there was plenty of what he was looking for in my yard.

I have mentioned the absolute Jobian plague of yellowjackets that ruled my life and land all summer. I couldn't go anywhere without having to walk through swarms of yellowjackets, which spent the summer coursing low over the ground, looking for prey, and stinging me and Curtis. Curtis was stung nine times, and I was stung four times, and it was a huge drag. Yellowjacket stings hurt for a couple days and then itch for a week or more. I came to loathe those insects, which always seemed to be in between me and what I was trying to do. There were three huge ground nests in my backyard alone. In September, I accidentally mowed over a nest and got two yellowjackets down inside my hiking boots, stinging the blue-eyed crap out of me as I tried to stop the rider mower and slap them out of my socks. That was fun.

So I was thrilled to see the summer tanager chewin' on a yellowjacket in one of my birch trees.

He masticated that thing into a pulp before he swallowed it, stinger first. You want to make really sure the wasp's head is separated from its body before you pass it through your tender esophagus. Just looking at this photo hurts me, but that bird certainly knows what he's doing. Anyway, my theory as to why summer tanagers have evolved that big honkin' beak is to help them in their quest for stinging insects--an unexploited resource! They can quickly and safely process a large stinging insect with a long, strong beak. From seeing bees hit my windshield and leave a clear puddle of nectar, I imagine that they are sometimes quite sweet to eat, though I doubt I'll ever find out. 

Score two tanagers and a couple cool sightings of Tanagers Eating Weird Stuff for the WarblerFall!

If you haven't got your plans yet, by all means go to warblerfall.com and join the growing family of folks who know the magic attraction of moving water.

And remember, a WarblerFall makes a fabulous holiday gift. All you have to do is fill in your credit card info, and your recipient's email, and the plans will be emailed to your friend. You'll have to give them a heads up to look for it in their email.

Crazy cool bird sightings will follow! Thanks for your support.