Farm News 05-29-05
Sunday morning, after chores, 62°
Runaway Rabbit Returns
The runaway rabbit decided to end her brief foray into freedom. Sunday evening she was quietly waiting underneath her cage. She quit waiting quietly when Trusty barged in, but I managed to capture her. She seemed happy to be back in her cage and calmed down.
Wednesday, Calvin came to visit, and he immediately noticed that she had a bad leg. Sure enough, she must have suffered a serious sprain at some point. She seems to be recovering.
Planting Trees
It's time to plant trees. Why do most of us, me included, continually try to cut corners when planting trees? It seldom seems to work to our advantage. I was fixing to cut some corners when Calvin reappeared! Not only did he reappear, but he was dragging along what I guess he thinks will be his replacement, Caleb.
When you have two horses and a wilderness to tame, what do you do? You clear and plow. Before Calvin left we had started clearing a small area east of the house, a football shaped space about 40' by 20'. It includes a 40' tall Red Cedar and a pile of dirt, stumps, rocks, roots, and weeds created as a result of clearing and digging for the septic system lateral bed. At various times this tangle has housed foxes, groundhogs, pack rats, opossums, raccoons, numerous Southern Grasshopper Mice, and lots of other stuff, too.
I used to have a campfire site on the east side of the mound; it was there that I saw two Grasshopper mice (one male and one female), mate in the wild. Only wild mouse orgy I have ever seen. After fifteen years the stumps are rotting and the mound is settling. The gaps and openings that allowed little creatures to hide in it filled in as it settled, and they moved away. In the past few years the wildlife population has dwindled and the area has become nothing more than an eyesore.
Calvin and Caleb, working under my wise supervision, finished clearing the area, picked up all the little sticks, chopped out small tree stumps, and then ran the tiller over the whole thing. It's ready for the major landscaping work to begin.
Wooded areas have a strong tendency to rapidly develop a border of shrubs and there isn't much future in fighting that tendency. Something has to replace the border of Dogwood, Honeysuckle, and Prickly Ash which we removed. When practical, I would like to use plants already growing on the place, either in the wild or in the nursery bed, to build the new landscape. Top candidates for plants to use include a lot of Viburnums, especially High Bush Cranberry, Viburnum trilobum, and Koreanspice Viburnum, V. cephali.
Koreanspice Viburnum is extremely fragrant for about a week and just a nice shrub after that. Highbush Cranberry is a good plant year round. There are several seedling plants on this place, one of which is markedly superior. The choice plant is bushier, has more flowers, and grows leaves all the way to the ground. The plant propagates easily from softwood cuttings; that means I better think about writing an article about taking cuttings for next week.
Global warming has made it possible to grow Chaste Tree, Vitex agnus-castus, right here in Kansas. This far north it dies back to the ground in the winter and is slow to sprout in the spring. When it does start new growth, it looks like pot. Late in the summer it is topped with spikes of blue flowers but the leaves still look like pot. It is a Mediterranean plant, it can handle gravelly soil, dry soil, and lots of sun. Treated more gently it will thrive and have lots of pretty blue flowers.
Chaste Tree leaves were used to make a tea. In the Thirteenth Century, when important men left their households for trips to Jerusalem and such they would often leave instructions for their women to drink a daily draft of Chaste Tree tea. The men thought this regimen would help achieve the same ends as the chastity belt. Women, on the other hand, knew that the tea produced not chastity but sterility. The whole story is, of course, an urban legend, but one of such antiquity that it is now considered to contain some sort of wisdom.
Ting Fights for Her Rights
Ting likes to roost on top of the cat feeder. I seem to be the only individual in the barn that objects to this, but I am High Sheriff of the Barn, and I don't want her her on top of the cat feeder. The cats never notice her, of course.
Late Wednesday afternoon a cold front rolled across and the sky darkened. Ting, who wouldn't think of wearing a watch, it being her escort's responsibility to provider her with the time, whenever such a mundane piece of information is needed, went to her roost, as any proper young pullet should do when the bars are closed. Actually, there are no bars, at least none that serve Polish Crested chickens, but Ting likes to express herself in such a manner. Anyway, Ting went to bed a bit early by clock time.
When I came in to do chores, a bit late, perhaps, by clock time, it was to find Ting roosting atop the cat feeder. “Off, tedious fowl!” I called, and swept her from her roost, an insult that no decent Polish Crested chicken could tolerate. Poor Ting.
Ting was convinced that I was late with her evening feed; after all, she had been roosting when I finally appeared. Perhaps the physical assault made her think that I had been drinking, again. Starting somewhere in her abdomen, a burning sense of outrage slowly spread, finally enveloping her entire body. Such treatment could not be permitted.
Many fowl know that humans are vulnerable to attack on the shoe laces. Ting has discovered this and has learned to target the most sensitive parts of the shoe lace.
E-mail Subscribers: Subscriptions are free until 2036, when they will increase to $5 per year. To subscribe, unsubscribe, contribute stories, complain or send a gift subscription, send an email to FarmNews@GeezerNet.com . The editor reserves the right to steal ideas submitted, rewrite submissions, and sign false names to them whenever it strikes his fancy to do so.
Runaway Rabbit Returns
The runaway rabbit decided to end her brief foray into freedom. Sunday evening she was quietly waiting underneath her cage. She quit waiting quietly when Trusty barged in, but I managed to capture her. She seemed happy to be back in her cage and calmed down.
Wednesday, Calvin came to visit, and he immediately noticed that she had a bad leg. Sure enough, she must have suffered a serious sprain at some point. She seems to be recovering.
Planting Trees
It's time to plant trees. Why do most of us, me included, continually try to cut corners when planting trees? It seldom seems to work to our advantage. I was fixing to cut some corners when Calvin reappeared! Not only did he reappear, but he was dragging along what I guess he thinks will be his replacement, Caleb.
When you have two horses and a wilderness to tame, what do you do? You clear and plow. Before Calvin left we had started clearing a small area east of the house, a football shaped space about 40' by 20'. It includes a 40' tall Red Cedar and a pile of dirt, stumps, rocks, roots, and weeds created as a result of clearing and digging for the septic system lateral bed. At various times this tangle has housed foxes, groundhogs, pack rats, opossums, raccoons, numerous Southern Grasshopper Mice, and lots of other stuff, too.
I used to have a campfire site on the east side of the mound; it was there that I saw two Grasshopper mice (one male and one female), mate in the wild. Only wild mouse orgy I have ever seen. After fifteen years the stumps are rotting and the mound is settling. The gaps and openings that allowed little creatures to hide in it filled in as it settled, and they moved away. In the past few years the wildlife population has dwindled and the area has become nothing more than an eyesore.
Calvin and Caleb, working under my wise supervision, finished clearing the area, picked up all the little sticks, chopped out small tree stumps, and then ran the tiller over the whole thing. It's ready for the major landscaping work to begin.
Wooded areas have a strong tendency to rapidly develop a border of shrubs and there isn't much future in fighting that tendency. Something has to replace the border of Dogwood, Honeysuckle, and Prickly Ash which we removed. When practical, I would like to use plants already growing on the place, either in the wild or in the nursery bed, to build the new landscape. Top candidates for plants to use include a lot of Viburnums, especially High Bush Cranberry, Viburnum trilobum, and Koreanspice Viburnum, V. cephali.
Koreanspice Viburnum is extremely fragrant for about a week and just a nice shrub after that. Highbush Cranberry is a good plant year round. There are several seedling plants on this place, one of which is markedly superior. The choice plant is bushier, has more flowers, and grows leaves all the way to the ground. The plant propagates easily from softwood cuttings; that means I better think about writing an article about taking cuttings for next week.
Global warming has made it possible to grow Chaste Tree, Vitex agnus-castus, right here in Kansas. This far north it dies back to the ground in the winter and is slow to sprout in the spring. When it does start new growth, it looks like pot. Late in the summer it is topped with spikes of blue flowers but the leaves still look like pot. It is a Mediterranean plant, it can handle gravelly soil, dry soil, and lots of sun. Treated more gently it will thrive and have lots of pretty blue flowers.
Chaste Tree leaves were used to make a tea. In the Thirteenth Century, when important men left their households for trips to Jerusalem and such they would often leave instructions for their women to drink a daily draft of Chaste Tree tea. The men thought this regimen would help achieve the same ends as the chastity belt. Women, on the other hand, knew that the tea produced not chastity but sterility. The whole story is, of course, an urban legend, but one of such antiquity that it is now considered to contain some sort of wisdom.
Ting Fights for Her Rights
Ting likes to roost on top of the cat feeder. I seem to be the only individual in the barn that objects to this, but I am High Sheriff of the Barn, and I don't want her her on top of the cat feeder. The cats never notice her, of course.
Late Wednesday afternoon a cold front rolled across and the sky darkened. Ting, who wouldn't think of wearing a watch, it being her escort's responsibility to provider her with the time, whenever such a mundane piece of information is needed, went to her roost, as any proper young pullet should do when the bars are closed. Actually, there are no bars, at least none that serve Polish Crested chickens, but Ting likes to express herself in such a manner. Anyway, Ting went to bed a bit early by clock time.
When I came in to do chores, a bit late, perhaps, by clock time, it was to find Ting roosting atop the cat feeder. “Off, tedious fowl!” I called, and swept her from her roost, an insult that no decent Polish Crested chicken could tolerate. Poor Ting.
Ting was convinced that I was late with her evening feed; after all, she had been roosting when I finally appeared. Perhaps the physical assault made her think that I had been drinking, again. Starting somewhere in her abdomen, a burning sense of outrage slowly spread, finally enveloping her entire body. Such treatment could not be permitted.
Many fowl know that humans are vulnerable to attack on the shoe laces. Ting has discovered this and has learned to target the most sensitive parts of the shoe lace.
E-mail Subscribers: Subscriptions are free until 2036, when they will increase to $5 per year. To subscribe, unsubscribe, contribute stories, complain or send a gift subscription, send an email to FarmNews@GeezerNet.com . The editor reserves the right to steal ideas submitted, rewrite submissions, and sign false names to them whenever it strikes his fancy to do so.
posted by The Geezer at 9:54 AM
1 Comments:
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