Saturday, May 23, 2020

Tick- eating Vietmamese Pygmy Possums

My wandering brother William Bonaparte Warren seems to be in California still, as he sent me this pair of "Vietnamese Pygmy Possums" which are supposed to eat ticks like crazy, and to tolerate chickens, well .... but the chickens are not too accepting of THEM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHeCyPTq8Dk&feature=youtu.be

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Quick Look Around Dog's Plot in Cherry-Plum Blossom Time:

Whether there are going to be any cherry plums, and whether they be
small on fruit and big on pits, or otherwise....no bird knows.

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Still Life with Blizzard

Two inches of snow in ten minutes, and twenty minutes later; it was like
magic. The snow was gone! The pear blossoms are still there and they
have been unharmed by the freezing nights, but , while sitting in my
cherry plum tree, I haven't seen more than a few native bees , and,
though there are hives up the road, only ONE domestic honey bee, Even
the cats and chickens are sleeping most of the time. The peas are
ducking their little heads. Should I  nap before breakfast?
Afterwards, I think. And even with it this old, when the sun
shines bright, I like to get out in the afternoon and just lay there by
the Juniper.




Thursday, May 7, 2020

pear fest 2020

All that white bloom is on pear trees, a foreign invasive species, for which you can  thank the French Jesuit missionaries who had missions near here well before the English presence.  The English brought the cattle.  These; black Herferds. No, not Angus.  Black Herferds.



Thursday, April 30, 2020

wild and windy weather

It doesn't take Davey Weathercock or Moby Bone Bird to tell you which
way the wind blows, that the cherry plum is blooming, or the sky is
falling. Go home, chickens

Domestic Invasive Beaver

Adolescent beavers are sent away from the colony when they get to
plentiful and raunchy, like the young boy owls, skunks, racoons, and
most everything else. The beavers will make a pond by impounding a
water flow, or they will settle in your pond, if they like the trees in
your lawn. I have had most every natural critter show up in my ponds
here, including painted and snapping turtles, muskrats, and mink, but
never a beaver, although I have a lot of poplar and boxwood they might
like. The problem is that the ponds here are dug ponds without clay to
seal them, so they get too low in summer and during droughts. The
beaver you see here recently appeared in the pond of a family member of
ours which is a good steady well lined pond, but maybe without so much
natural food and lodge building materials. I have plenty and am
offering to send a supply, to keep the beaver from dragging away the
family lawn furniture.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

snakes for chickens

We raise frogs for snakes that chickens eat so that we can have eggs until something eats our chickens.