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Yearly Archives: 2019
Where the Frogs Went
Lately we’ve seen cooler temperatures with periodic bursts of rain, filling up Farthing Pond and our big rain cubes. Last week I estimated that we had about 2,000 gallons of water at our disposal, so when Levi told me he wanted to “build some waterfalls” I was happy to oblige. I just let the water run from one of the 275-gallon cubes. Levi yanked the hose from me and started piling rocks and other debris on the sidewalk, joyfully watching the water trickle down the front of the yard.
After a while he started getting more creative, diverting the water flow through some old pvc pipe and letting it fill up an empty pond shell I had lying around.
It got interesting when he discovered that he could make his garden pinwheels turn if he directed the water flow towards them. It seemed like a perfect time to talk to him about the merits of turbines and hydropower. I told him he’d made an important discovery.
Feeling inspired, we turned our attention to Farthing Pond. What if we “made” a waterfall, or at least the appearance of one, trickling down from the pond? It would be a nice visual. And so we began pulling up large rocks and digging into the ground in front of the pond.
On this day the temperatures were much cooler. Levi asked me what the frogs of Farthing Pond did in the winter. I explained to him that frogs are cold-blooded, their body temperatures taking on the temperature of the environment around them. During the winter, they go into a state of hibernation, and some can be exposed to temperatures below freezing. I told him I thought they might be hanging out at the bottom of the pond, in the muck and the mire.
Minutes later, as I was pulling up a big rock to make room for our waterfall, I uncovered one of our beloved frogs. “He’s alive, and in perfect hibernation!” I yelled excitedly.
We just stared at him in amazement for a few minutes. “Looks like they love to burrow,” I told him. After that we decided not to unearth any more rocks. Let sleeping frogs lie.
The Pump Station Trail
This weekend Levi and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and took a hike and picnic on the Eno river. Our destination was the old pump station, which supplied water for the town of Durham from 1884 to 1926.
We stumbled across the old ruins as if we were in some enchanted forest.
We spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the river, skipping stones and looking for artifacts and enjoying the sounds of nature. For a while we were the only two in the forest, and magic was in the air.
Spider Lilies
I recently read the excellent book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann. An overriding theme of this book is that pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas shaped their environment to fit their needs, time and time again. Some of these environments were barren intially but the land inhabitants were able to cultivate them with remarkable success. He sites, for example the terra preta of the Amazon Basin. This anthropogenic soil was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, broken pottery, compost and manure to the otherwise relatively infertile Amazonian soil. The soil’s charcoal has remained in the soil for thousands of years.
I was thinking about the book when I stepped out of the house today. The backyard has become wild and overgrown due to my inability to tend to it this summer. In addition to the long grass there are beautiful red spider lilies popping up all over.
These flowers usually bloom around the autumnal equinox and apparently are bulb-producing perennials which likely means someone planted them before I bought the house.
Looking back it was the backyard that sold me on the house. A large, skinny double lot in the city, I noticed the rich, dark, earthy soil in the back which seemed anomalous considering most of the soil in the Triangle is red clay.
I asked my geologist friend Brian if our soil was rich due to some geological feature. He told me that it wasn’t, that it was more likely the yard had been cultivated by previous owners. He paused for a second and said “but if that’s not the case then it could be a burial mound.” Startled for a minute, I remembered that one of our elderly neighbors told me that back in the day, our yard was a giant sweet potato field. I started thinking about the lot’s previous owners and how long it had been cultivated. Hundreds of years? Thousands of years?
We continue the tradition by composting what we can and giving much love to our beautiful back yard. We plan on spending the next couple of weeks taming the yard back in shape. But we won’t mow over any of the beautiful spider lilies.
1979
Last Saturday I took Levi up to Gramma and Grampa’s place in Watauga County, NC, otherwise known as “Mielke Mountain.” At 4,000 feet, the temperatures are usually 12-15 degrees cooler than Durham. It was wonderful to escape the oppressive heat for a little while.
This time we didn’t bring our tent, due to the presence of two black bears on the property. A couple of nights before, one of the bears decided it would be fun to visit the front porch and eat some birdseed out of one of Gramma Sue’s feeders. Unfortunately, bear habitat destruction and a rebounding black bear population in the area means we are seeing more of them.
Gramma Sue was a little freaked out about us romping around the 12-acre property with the bears so close by. Since we forgot to bring our bear bells, she hooked us up with some cow bells from my great grandfather’s village in Switzerland. How fitting, since the flag of the Canton Bern is the bear!
As we played, I was filled with immense gratitude for having grown up in one of the most beautiful places in the country. It was wonderful having the opportunity to share some of those same childhood experiences in nature with my own son.
Our first day there we headed down to the creek to see if the dam we built last summer was holding. There it was, still intact, holding back a nice pool of water—and some crawdads had moved in. I told Levi we’d created a crawdad hole and showed him how to pick up a crawdad without getting pinched. His excitement was contagious and I just had to get it on video.
We also found several large salamanders–too elusive for us to catch or photograph. I was glad to see them, as it seems there are fewer of them than in the past. North Carolina has over 60 species of them.
We woke up one morning to a beautiful scene of cloud-draped mountains. Levi exclaimed, “The clouds fell on the mountains.”
The whole week I’d been thinking about that wonderful summer of 1979, 40 years ago, in Boone, NC. Those beautiful, sometimes foggy summer mornings where you needed a light jacket, at least for the first hour of the day. Days spent swinging on grapevines, catching salamanders, picking wildflowers. A more innocent time for sure. Our town seemed like a small village back then. That summer, when, for a brief period of time our little town was in the national spotlight after the world’s largest windmill, built on Howard’s Knob, was completed.
How fun it was to relive some of those experiences.
The Fledglings
Our 3 bluebird babies. born on Easter Sunday, left the nest on day 17. It was a remarkable experience to see these little things on the day they were born–tiny and hairless, like little pink shrimp.
We were all amazed at how quickly they developed. By day 4, we could make out their eyes–still fused shut. When I peeked in, they opened their little mouths, thinking it was feeding time. They were still covered with soft, gray down.
After a week or so we could make out the feathers. The last picture I took of them was day 16.
The bluebird parents did an excellent job guarding the perimeter, perched on our fig tree. We became familiar with their sounds and watched as they flew in and out, delivering grub worms to their hungry babies.
Our massive tabby Franklin would occasionally look up at the house, licking his lips and making that funny, chattering sound known as the kill-bite reflex. Too big and clumsy to scale the pole for a snack, he kept other potential predators at bay. Guardian of the yard, he resumed his usual practice of hunting for frogs in the pond. Fortunately, they too have proved elusive.
I told Levi we’d clean out the birdhouse and let another family start over again. He seemed pleased.
To Plant a Rainbow
One of Levi’s favorite books is Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert. In this beautifully-illustrated board book, a mother and daughter plant a rainbow of flowers in their garden. One night after I finished reading the book to him, Levi told me that he wanted to plant a rainbow garden too. That week he’d been learning about the colors of the spectrum in school.
“Alright,” I said. I told him we could start in the front of the yard since we had a nice row of daffodils there. “We already have a lot of yellow,” I told him. That seemed pretty reasonable to him. “But we need to get some flowers that mama likes,” he said. I told him that his mother’s favorite flowers were tulips, so we could start with those.
Later that week we went to the garden store. Levi picked out some nice red tulips for Shawnna. We planted them in a row in front of the daffodils.
The next week we added to the spectrum–orange marigolds and lampara, purple violets, and a beautiful cascading blue ground cover. A kind neighbor gave us some tiger lillies.
I let Levi decide where he wanted to place the plants, and together we dug holes for them. Occasionally we’d dig up a grub worm which we’d leave for the bluebirds next to their house.
After we finished planting, Levi wanted to make sure that the plants got enough water.
He made several trips to the backyard pond, dunking his watering can into the water and then racing back to the front yard to take care of the flowers. It was exhausting to watch.
By the end of the day, we were tired but happy. I am so grateful that this child loves being outside with me.
The Bluebirds and the Blueberry Bush
This weekend Levi and I worked and played in the yard together. It’s an exciting time now, as he’s able and interested in helping out on the “Family Farm” on Farthing Street.
A few weeks ago we put together a bluebird house and stand. I didn’t let him use the drill of course, but his eyes, much better than mine, were able to find the drill bits for me. We staked the house next to the pond and I told Levi I bet they will love it here at Farthing Pond. We just have to be patient and wait.
Saturday the bluebirds arrived. We watched as one sat on the house, puffed up mightily, defending his territory from cardinals and thrushes. This morning, Levi jumped out of bed, opened the curtain and was delighted to see one of the bluebirds sitting on the house.
Outside, daffodils were everywhere like little coming attractions for spring. Together we planted tulips, which he’d picked out at the garden store for Shawnna (he knows they are her favorite flower.)
As we planted the tulips in a row in front of the daffodils, we’d dig up the occasional grub worm. I explained to Levi how bluebirds loved them and we left some as a present for our new friends.
Levi called the ground squishy in some places and he was right. We’ve gotten so much rain this winter. Over the last couple of months, when it hasn’t been raining, we’ve been expanding our bioretention area in the back. The pitcher plant bog is saturated with water and has looked like a small creek at times during the recent rains.
The plants are loving all the extra water that we are catching coming down our sloped yard. For example, we have 3 paw paw trees that are budding now. The trees sit next to a fake stream bed that I carved out at the top of the yard in the back. Paw paws are river trees. We might actually have some to eat this year.
Another example: in front of the bog we have a blueberry bush that is almost eight feet tall. It’s grown like a weed this winter. It’s also expanding sideways and is taken over everything with little runners sticking out all over the place
There should be enough berries for both birds and humans this year.
