Pumpkin Consequences

 

I'm pretty sure the troubles all started with a volunteer pumpkin that came up in the spring of 2022 in the Heritage Garden out by the compost pile. I had set a nice white one out there, knowing it would rot and shed seeds.  I let a couple volunteer plants grow and they made 28 beautiful medium-sized white pumpkins. Liam and I decorated around the yard, setting them in a neat row down the sidewalk. We'd never grown pumpkins like that.

Oh, it all looks so lush, with the green grass and the bonsais still in color.

One put out a blossom from its severed stem. Pumpkins never stop trying to make more pumpkins. 

I had great plans to eat them all but alas, they never materialized. We ate one, for four meals, and that pretty much quelled our desire to eat them all. So I broke up the chorus line and scattered them on the low terraces and walls and porches around the house.

Someone noticed. The pumpkins began to disappear, a couple each night. It was very strange. There would be not a trace of the pumpkin, except sometimes a discarded stem. It was as if someone was walking up and carrying them off. 

The losses accelerated as frosts finally came and softened the pumpkins. I had an idea who might be doing it, but I set out the trailcam to be sure.

From this, I learned that deer eat everything of a pumpkin, leaving no trace behind. 

Always learning.

Having delicious snacks right up close to the house did something to the minds of the deer, who for 

almost THIRTY YEARS have left my flower gardens completely alone. In 2023, there was a complete paradigm shift in how whitetails regarded my plantings. Even before the pumpkin bait I inadvertently set out, I had eight flower stalks from tuberoses clipped off in July, when nothing had ever bothered them before. That blew my hair back. I would no longer be able to plant tuberoses around the yard, to perfume it all evening. Such a simple pleasure, denied.

Once they found the pumpkins, all hell broke loose. My hostas were mowed to the roots. Big deer prints laced the raised beds. They've chewed my heirloom iris tubers away. They're very neat, leaving hardly a trace of the plants I once loved. Just like this fawn cleaned up this pumpkin. Not a trace remained the next morning.

Readers of my blog will remember the days of Ellen and Buffy, Pinky and Flag. Those animals would come up in the yard to clean up birdseed, and never bother a thing in the garden bed. I didn't know how good I had it. But I haven't had deer to photograph here for years. Hunting picked up on surrounding properties for several years and there were a lot of animals killed. I stopped seeing anyone I recognized, or many deer at all. With Ellen's crowd gone, an ethos to leave gardens untouched died with them.

Then, for the last two seasons, hunting slowed way down. I did find a big bare spot last week where two people had butchered a deer on my land, but they didn't get the Wrecking Crew, as I call the big doe and three fawns who have moved into my gardens. 

This is the big mama. She's really beautiful. 

There are three smaller animals usually seen with her. The Wrecking Crew.

I have lost a lot of sleep over these deer. Those of you who've been living among whitetails for years know that they demolish everything, once they take a notion. It was very strange for me to live in peace with them for 30 years, then suddenly have four come in and clean everything out.

I lay awake many nights, thinking about what I might do about it. I thought about fencing and repellants. My mind ran in circles. I was pretty upset about it, because everything I could come up with had drawbacks. I didn't want tall fencing around my flowerbeds. I didn't want to have to spray everything with stinky repellent several times a week. I just wanted things the way they always had been. 

Isn't that the root of so much misery? Wanting things to be the way they used to be? Not being able to move forward?

Still in a quandary and upset, I decided to completely dig out the main front shade bed. It had hostas, daylilies and evening primrose, but thanks to a takeover by the evening primrose, it had gotten pretty weedy and nasty in recent years. Let's just start over. So I got rid of most everything except the daylilies, which the deer will probably devour this coming summer. Hoping they'll leave the bleeding heart and daffodils alone when they emerge, since those are poisonous. 

There it lay, bare earth. Somehow that was better than seeing the chewed-off stalks. 

The other night I got to thinking. What if I replanted only with things deer don't like? I don't know why it took me so long to come to that. I guess I was stubbornly hanging onto keeping the things I liked. I found an article online about it: 

 

                                           https://savvygardening.com/deer-resistant-annuals/

The more I read, the more I realized that these deer-resistant plants are to be commonly found in many of the garden centers I frequent. And why? Probably just because they're deer-resistant. Many people in Marietta, Ohio, where these garden centers operate, have herds of deer tromping through their yards year round, dropping fawns in fenced backyards where they know they'll be safe. And eating everything in sight. 

Here's what settled out of that wonderful article. And here's what I'll be planting in the spring of 2023. 

Add to that zinnias, because I noticed that the deer didn't bother them much. Most of them aren't natives. At this point, I can't afford to be a native plant snob, or I'll have no flowers at all.

Making this list was the first time I've felt a little empowered since the Wrecking Crew moved into my yard. 

I realized that I've been in a fetal position, mentally, whenever I try to think about my flower gardens in the coming season. I still am, but I'm uncurling a little since I made this list. 

They're here, and they're not going anywhere. 

I can't expect them to respect my boundaries.  I'm just the new neighbor who doesn't know the rules.

They were here first.

The Lady Vanishes

I started this post before I left for Ecuador October 24. I wound up leaving only one day to pack and prep for the trip, so it has been orphaned for awhile, floating around in cyberspace, hoping to become a whole blogpost. I'll leave the first part as it is,  and finish it up. Heads up: It's going to be tough going for people who aren't used to looking at kills. Proceed with caution, and, I hope, with the same sense of wonder and curiosity that I have.

I've been working really hard lately to get Saving Jemima as done as I can get it before I go to Ecuador. I've barely looked up. One good thing about having no one around is I can work a 14 or 16-hour day and not offend a soul. So that's what I've been doing. I have loved every minute of it.

I glance up a lot, watching the blue jays at the feeder, watching the red and white- breasted nuthatches, the cardinals, the woodpeckers. I'd been seeing turkey vultures sailing over all day, which I found unusual for late October. I thought about it and wondered what was up.

Late afternoon came and it was spitting rain. I wanted to get out and see the sky, but I knew better than to start a run. So, uncharacteristically, instead of heading out on foot, I climbed in the car to drive out into the country. I took my big camera along. I just had a feeling.

And there they were, lots of them, circling over a big hayfield on the corner of my road and the county road. Glory rays streamed down. They looked so fine up there.

I parked the car to take some photos and wonder what they were up to.

I decided to head into the hayfield to see. I had a feeling I knew what it was. There were too many vultures for it to be something small. And bow season has just started here.

Yep. Knew it. In early November of 2016, they killed my crooked doe Ellen this way. Just a small, inconsequential doe, an animal nobody would miss, a little something for live target practice. Maybe the same person who killed Ellen had turned his truck into the approach to this field, just one over from ours, fixed this doe in the glare of his headlights, and taken her down. What sport, what fun. Just getting in shape for the season, sighting in the bow or gun.

I know the poachers are stalking when I find things like this, when the beer cans start to accumulate along my road.  They show the same disregard for beauty as they do for life.

I didn't know this animal, thank goodness. Though it would be hard to tell who she was now. Now, she was nothing but a carcass.

I made some images. How could I not? The grass was flattened all around her where the vultures had been tramping. I could see that no other animals had been there, because the carcass was opened only at the back and front, the way vultures do. 

They'd been working on her all day. I stood there, with the fermented contents of her rumen scenting the air, thinking that at least she'd go to feed a nice flock of vultures, to speed them on their way to Central America.

I left her then, and went on to see some old house friends on up the county road. It was that kind of day, glowering and gloomy, and old houses look good in this kind of light.


If there's a classic Ohio farmhouse, this is it. Although the beveled corner is atypical, the porch and foursquare design is not. There's a ramshackle addition off the back, which adds to its interest. Gosh, I'd love to go inside. But I have never tried the door.

 

 Across the street, two other dwellings are slowly deliquescing. 

 

I like the addition on the big house, like a sloping rump off the back. Sooner or later, people ran out of space, and then they'd tack something on the side or back of the house to give them a little breathing room, a place to hang some coats, stack some boots, keep the egg baskets.

I'm not sure what the little building is off to the side. A summer kitchen?

 Whatever it is, it's sweet, and it reminds me of North Dakota. 

The birds have been perching on what little furniture remains inside. 

I'm thinking that's an eastern phoebe's latrine there. 

 

 I love this little scene. The table isn't much good any more. But oh, the patina on the walls and floor.

Heck of a view out the window: cattle moving easily across the land. While I was shooting the scene, an osprey flew over. A late osprey! They usually like to be gone before it gets very cold, as they don't have down feathers.

 

It was getting so dark I figured I'd head back home. A pale spot in the woods border resolved into a young red-shouldered hawk. If you click on the photo you'll see it can't be anything else. Well, I could see that. So many things go into telling me that's a redshoulder and not a redtail or a Cooper's hawk. I'm not even considering broad-wing, because they're long gone, having migrated in September.

  

It's got big blobby markings on its belly, and no belly band--the blobs are just scattered across the white. It's got really small feet. Redtails have big feet. The tail is banded, but nondescript, as would be that of a young redtail. Overall it's small but chunky, not lean and long like a Cooper's hawk would be, or urn-shaped like a redtail. And it's just a-settin' there, redshoulder style. Yep. For whatever reason young redshoulders just pop up this time of year. Maybe that's where they get the old name, Winterhawk. 

I passed the carcass site again, and the vultures were still wheeling very low. I left them to their meal.

The next morning, I came out early to see what had happened to the carcass overnight. 

When I last saw her, she looked like this. Entire, but for some missing bits.

There was still a vulture coursing low, unusual for so early in the morning.

 

As I approached, a great flock of crows rose up cawing. It was such a beautiful ragged sight I had to make a video. One vulture was already up and feeding.

             

I walked up to where the doe, who had weighed more than 100 pounds, had been, and she was simply gone.

I hadn't expected that!

Nothing but the stain of her last meal remained. 

But there were plenty of clues. A stray bone:

One ear.

I could see the drag mark where she'd been pulled away toward a distant line of firs, originally planted as a windbreak for the farmhouse that no longer graces this field. I stood, stunned, thinking about the power of the coy-wolf or coy-wolves that must have done this.

 

A forelimb!

 

I continued to follow the trail. Here's the other ear.

  Finally I found all that was left of the doe. 

I was flabbergasted. 

 

How many coy-wolves would it take to reduce her to a ribcage and a head, overnight? 

 

A single turkey vulture feather, black with a surprising white base, reminded me that the coy-wolves had had help.

There she lay, in the dancer's point in which they'd left her, dragged by one hind hoof hundreds of yards down the haymeadow. And there they had finished her off.

I could only marvel at the efficiency of the operation; the day shift of vultures and crows starting the cleanup, and giving way after dark to a pack of coy-wolves. She was gone, overnight.

In the ditch, a brace of asters and the spent heads of Queen Anne's lace gave a shot of fresh beauty to my wondering eye.

Back home, the flowers bloomed as if there were no tomorrow

 

and the bonsais promised to peak while I was away. 

 

when I left October 24

I don't want to leave in late October, ever again. There is too much beauty, both harsh and soft, all around.

when I got back Nov. 3

Plucky's Gift

What ever happened to that half-winged mourning dove?

You know I wouldn't leave you hanging if I could help it.

I had this whole post written on a plane. And the Internet swallowed it. The photos stayed but the text disappeared. Never had that happen before. Now I'll probably say something completely different than I did while hurtling over Kansas at sunset. One of the things I like about blogging is that I have no idea what's going to come out when I sit down. I started this one, and what came out was "One Day in Light" (the last post). When I'm blogging, I enter into a conversation with you, and it can go anywhere.

I saw the ghost of Ellen on March 11. I'm at the point where I can recognize certain deer naked eye at rather long distances. I raised the blind in the bedroom and saw Ellen against the west border of the meadow. The camera revealed that it was actually Flag, her daughter. All the little Elleny things in her gestalt at several hundred yards, that added up to Ellen for me, made me smile so big. It was like a visitation from her mama.

 

Nobody would give a passing glance to a small plain doe like Flag, unless they had known her mama, and come to love her so. I grow fonder of Flag every day.

 

I almost never see Flag without Buffy. Doughty little Buffy. I'll always wonder if she was related to Ellen, because they were always together, too, though they didn't get along very well. 

 

I have watched Flag take corn right from under Buffy's nose, and have never seen one iota of aggression between them. That's saying something, because I've seen Buffy fight.

Here's Buffy kissing Flag back in January 2017. Flag was still a little fawn. She'd just lost her mother in November.

Buffy, left, Flag right, today. See how much warmer-toned Buffy's hair is?
Buffy's also got tear tracks from her weepy left eye.

Buffy gave me a good laugh on March 8 when she stamped me. Deer stamp when they see something they don't like. Which would be me, through the window, at my drawing table.

 She stamped me with both front feet!

 

 Come on, Buffy. You know me. Stop punching more holes in my poor mushy lawn.

I do notice a difference in these two (the only ones who come in to clean up the jays' corn) and the other deer at Indigo Hill. Buffy and Flag are much more approachable in the field, more likely to watch me pass at a safe distance than the others, who all bound off. They know the Corn Lady, know my schedule, know my voice. It feels good to be recognized, even if I can't throw my arms around their necks.

Speaking of recognizing...A small gray female mourning dove, the avian equivalent of Flag, came walking in from the direction of the trumpetvine tangle on March 1. 

  

 Nothing to distinguish her on the left side, unless you were to notice the fresh white edging on her secondary wing feathers.

 

But on the right side...oh yes. Hello, Plucky! Look at that regrowth! There's still a lone black primary exposed, one of the two that remained after the hawk attack. But here come the primaries!

Luckily, she gave me a closeup.  It took only two weeks for all those feathers to regenerate. That, to me, is amazing.

In a few more days, she'd be virtually indistinguishable from the other doves.That won't stop me, and hasn't. I'm still looking for a small, grayish dove--probably less than a year old-- with a pale cheek and fresh wing feathers. So far, I haven't seen her again. But I take that to mean that she no longer needs to hide in the vines and gobble down grain at my feeder simply to survive.

 

As is so often the case,  I find myself scrutinizing groups, looking for one special creature. It may seem silly to some, but for me it's time well spent. Looking for Plucky taught me that each mourning dove has a unique spot pattern on its wings. Like this one--likely an immature, who is sprinkled with small dots.

 

And this mature male, with his iridescent neck and large oval spots on his coverts and tertials.

 

 I'd never realized that about mourning doves before Plucky came into my life. And I will recognize her should she appear again, as her wings are very lightly spotted.  And that's something to be able to say, that you could pick one special mourning dove out of a flock. That's the gift of close observation.

When Plucky finally took flight March 1, she corkscrewed as she went, but not nearly as badly as she had before. No longer would she have to walk from the tangle to the feeders and back.

Plucky had gotten her second chance.