Rain

It’s hard to imagine, after last summer’s drought, that a rainy spring could be anything but wonderful. So many suffered in the dryness. And with spring growth, a season’s loss can be repaired.
But even for me, amphibian-loving, frog-watcher that I’ve become—this rain is too much.

Last week I arrived home from work to find a tree had swallowed my front yard. It had disappeared under the boughs of a locust.
A Leaning Locust, native to the Ozarks and southern Appalachians, one of many, persistently sprouting from every corner of my yard.
Eyeing small buildings on which they may, someday, fall.

It never seemed so large--standing by the porch, as it had for years. But, sprawled out, face down across the lawn like a waiter catching his toe on the carpet—he’s wiped out everything in his path. Cherry tree… lilac bush…
The porch is unharmed.
The softened ground, a mound—one taut root, its lifeline.

There he lay, as it continued to rain.
Until, finally, a dry day for cleanup.


And more rain.

I put on my spotted boots and trudge across the pasture, days overdue for mowing. The grass is, in places, almost knee deep.
The tractor, in the barn, still sleepy from winter’s dampness, refuses to tackle the green, wet mess.


Tractor pneumonia.
A coughing, glassy-eyed machine—we cover it and let it rest. Maybe it will get better.

I’m headed to the Wood pool, to bring a bucket of fresh water back to my tank.
The path at the edge is flooded.
The cool, rising water within has found a way out.


In the small clear streams flowing past my toes, Wood frog tadpoles scramble, frantically, upstream. Swept in the current from the surface of their quiet pool--into these leafy hollows, from which there will be no return.
Trapped beyond the edges of their home, they’re doomed.

Soon, it will be time to return the growing salamanders from the tank to the Wood pool, also—to become wild, again. And free.

I feed them a snack before heading upstairs to bed.


A small foot touches my finger and crawls into my hand.
Safe, for now.


The rains pound against the tin roof.

Last September, we were 12 inches below average in rainfall.
This spring, we are over 6 inches above average.

For the journey of my Jefferson Salamanders,
now 42 days old,
please click here.




Thanks to Mrs. Nesbit for hosting ABC Wednesday!

A chat with Julie Z.

I enter a swamp as a sacred place.
~Henry David Thoreau


It never ceases to amaze me--the diversity of natural areas around us.
And, that as often as we go out exploring, there continue to be places brand new.

Siebenthaler Fen is part of the Beaver Creek Wetland complex, several miles east of Dayton, and less than an hour's drive from our home. A protected peat-forming wetland, it's fed by groundwater and offers a mile-long stretch of board walk, observation areas and a tower platform, from which to view these rare communities of plants and animals--without getting your feet wet.
And, for the 20th anniversary of the organization that oversees this unique area, an early morning walk led by Julie Zickefoose.

Big Beaver Creek, rimmed by willows and shrubby cinquefoil, reflected a bright blue sky in its quiet surface. While in the wet woods, the shaded water beneath the cottonwoods hides frogs and turtles.
Even on this cool morning, emerging.
Green frogs in green duckweed.
And the tiniest painted turtle that slips beneath the surface before excited fingers find their focus.




From the treetops, Orioles and Indigo Buntings shone brightly in the sunshine. Orange and blue. Defending territories in persistent calls.
The low, dense shrubby areas covering the birds and their nests well-- their songs the only clue to their presence.

Julie's ear caught the song of a Yellow-breasted Chat, and we watched--as she called him into view, mimicking his whistle and chatter. Flitting from branch to branch, before finally resting at the top of a small tree to sing in the open--his throat full with sound and pouring forth joy. In the thick green tangles, the bold yellow spot with black gape--he held us there, watching.

In the sedge meadows, Skunk Cabbage and Great Angelica showed their large leaves from between the narrow sedges.
What looked like grass, was not that at all.
There is roughness here--spines and burs.
Texture.


Even into the woods, rushes in dark, clear water.
Just tall enough to hide beneath--if you're young.
And don't mind muddy feet.


So much packed into this rich area.
And so much richer with a leader like Julie.

Boardwalk down from Tower

Skunk Cabbage Rolls

Julie & me, after walk

Blue-eyed Mary

When winter's chill has scarce left earth
And April winds blow "Hey down derry!"
Comes gaily dancing down my hill
Sweet, laughing, Blue-eyed-mary.

She wears a dress of bronzy green
Draped round her light and airy;
She lifts the loveliest face I've seen-
Brave, tender, Blue-eyed-mary.

Her eyes shine like the azure sky,
Her step light as a fairy;
Her face, no crystal drift so white,
Dear, steadfast Blue-eyed-mary.

My hat is off to Bouncing Bet,
Gill-over-the-ground runs quite contrary,
Black-eyed-susan is my pet,
But I'm in love with Blue-eyed-mary.

by Gene Stratton-Porter

From Wikipedia
"Gene Stratton-Porter (August 17, 1863 - December 6, 1924) was an American author, amateur naturalist, wildlife photographer, and one of the earliest women to form a movie studio and production company. She wrote some of the best selling novels and well-received columns in magazines of the day.
Born Geneva Grace Stratton in Wabash County, Indiana, she married Charles D. Porter in 1886, and they had one daughter, Jeannette.
She became a wildlife photographer, specializing in the birds and moths in one of the last of the vanishing wetlands of the lower Great Lakes Basin. The Limberlost and Wildflower Woods of northeastern Indiana were the laboratory and inspiration for her stories, novels, essays, photography, and movies.
Although Stratton-Porter wanted to focus on nature books, it was her romantic novels that made her famous and generated the finances that allowed her to pursue her nature studies.

She was an accomplished author, artist and photographer and is generally considered to be one of the first female authors to promulgate public positions — in her case, conserving the Limberlost Swamp."

The changing landscape

The field behind our woods has been plowed and planted. And the first green to appear reveals that, this year, it is to be corn.
I've never given it a second thought. The choice of crops. The alternating cycle between corn and soybeans has, in the past, seemed simple.
And although I prefer to walk this lane between fields of soy, where afternoon breezes make the golden plants sway in autumn, the tall stalks of corn will soon transform this path into a tunnel of sorts.
A changed place.

Filling this brown space with a green leafy wall, hiding our woods.
And the geese and deer that walk here.

I wonder if, this year, it is something other than "simple."
And if this field now grows, not fodder, but fuel.
Ethanol.

A wind turbine spins gloriously as the clouds pass.
The landscape is changing.

Thanks to Wigger's World for hosting Skywatch Friday each week at his site!

Look at those legs!

They peer from beneath the leafy hideouts, deep in dark water--their charming faces, bright white. Just a few Jefferson Salamander larvae, visiting from the vernal pool--and showing me the marvel of their ever-changing lives.
Daily, I peer back.

At 32 days since hatching, they're just under two inches long.
Golden brown-freckled bodies.
Brilliant white bellies.

Wide faces with ever-present smiles.



And, at last--
four legs!!

Jefferson Salamander larva, upper right
Wood Frog tadpole, lower right

Watching Woman, center



For more glimpses into the lives within my vernal pool,
from migrations to eggs and hatchlings,
click here.

Life lesson from a Quince

It never ceases to amaze me--the resiliency of nature.
That trees, stressed in last summer's drought to the point of dropping leaves much ahead of fall, can rebound with such force.
And fill their branches with hundreds of wildly blooming flowers, plump and luscious.
When I wondered if they'd return at all.



And I find another lesson in wondering how this can be.

Wait and worry not in the trying times.
Conserve your energy.
For next season, there will be opportunity.
Be ready.
Flower wildly.

Plum

Cherry

Autumn Olive
(Invasive in Ohio)

Tatarian (?) Honeysuckle
(Invasive in Ohio)

Flowering Quince





Thanks to Mrs. Nesbit for hosting ABC Wednesday!

Hidden in plain sight

We celebrated the second Saturday in May, International Migratory Bird Day, with a bird walk at Cincinnati Nature Center, where 1000 acres of woods, streams, ponds and fields have come alive.
Leaving a bright, sunny cool morning behind, we walked a couple hours hours where the newly-leafed canopy already prevents much of the light from penetrating. With birdsong all around, we followed the trail, soft beneath our feet from 2-days' rain, weaving and winding into the deepest parts of Rowe Woods, already edged with dense growth. Patches of wild hyacinth, the faintest delicate blue, and spots of bright purple--a larkspur here and there, the only colors now. The wave of showy spring wildflowers has passed with little more than a leaf to tell of what had been.
Already the leaves hide them as their calls ring throughout these woods. And, aside from a swaying branch or a flash of wings as the birds dip through the understory, very few are seen.


An old beech, nothing more now than its silver trunk where woodpeckers have hammered, holds new treasure, though. At the very top, perfectly camouflaged in black and brown against the decaying wood, a large owlet--this spring's Great Horned, soon to fledge. Behind feathers the exact texture of his wood home, his dark features follow us as we pass.


In the fields, the blackberries and grasses are knee high. From every fencepost and treetop, a song rings out--everywhere, the activity is undeniable.


Migrants seen or heard this morning:
Acadian Flycatcher
Barn Swallow
Chimney Swift
Eastern Bluebird
Eastern Wood-Peewee
Great Crested Flycatcher
Indigo Bunting
Louisiana Waterthrush
Northern Parula
Scarlet Tanager
Wood Thrush