squirrels

Findings


I'd like to tell you what kind of Oak this impressive bark belongs to, but in age, among oaks, it is a challenge without leaves. No matter, this old, large oak is anchored near a clearing made by wind of storms and pressure of fungus and disease.



On the bark of a giant that had fallen last summer, I place garlic mustard just pulled. I keep it off the soil so that it properly desiccates, a lesson learned a year ago. Now committed to the project of eradicating the weed, I think of it as gardening, a task with its own time, that I can accomplish while out photographing the woods, searching for mushrooms or ramps, or completing some other woodland project. Away from fallen logs or large stones, I make piles so the mustard remains obvious to me later, as I check on its desiccation or dispose of it. Officially known as Garlic Mustard, Alliaria petiolata, I've pulled enough acreage of it now to refer to it as "skunk mustard," because its garlic-onion odor reminds me more of that mammal's funk. Click here for a concise and useful journal article on all things problematic with garlic mustard in North America.



This upland spot was (still is?) an oak and sedge stronghold for quite some time. Now cleared of its main shade oak, what may grow in these changed conditions? Its slopes are partially covered with Pennsylvania Sedge, Carex pensylvanica, and some Virginia Waterleaf, Hydrophyllum virginianum. I found these native strawberries, Fragaria virginiana growing in patches, too. A straight line trail runs through this location, with plenty of soil disturbance from quadrupedal hooves and nosing through leaves and soil for food. Maybe I could intervene beyond pulling weeds by giving some complementary plant a foothold. We tend to avoid plants consumed by deer and in this way we consume them by exclusion.



While pulling skunk mustard I stumbled upon this snake, a common Eastern Garter, Thamnophis sirtalis. Its reaction to my sudden presence was no reaction at all.



As I continued to hover, pushing my fingers into the dried leaves to pinch-grab below the prostrate brassica stems, concern took over. I let it be, moving on around a tree to grab more mustard.



Then I spotted two more, one with coloration slightly dull compared to the other, sunning themselves near their burrow. My leaf rustling was too much antagonism and the one to the right took off. Minnesota isn't known for its snakes, although I am happy to see them here in our woods. Along with our frogs and salamanders, they are an important indicator of the land's well-being.



It's been very dry so far this spring (and despite constant snow cover, the winter was short on snow). In our new climate reality, we anticipate extended dry periods along with excessive rains from thunderstorms. Because of the lack of runoff from non existant spring rains, I was able to navigate the entire small wetland, plodding across acres of dried, sun-bleached naples yellow grasses. I witnessed the garlic mustard making inroads into the wetland as well as an arm or two of Creeping Charlie, Glechoma hederacea. I also spotted considerable patches of Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica growing among the garlic mustard, but also several feet farther into the wetland. There is a tree, likely an ash, rooted at the edge of the wetland but fallen into it that has continued to send up branches along its trunk. Under the tree's crown there is a muddy circle where only the plants, above, are growing. At first glance I thought "Marsh Marigold?" Maybe not. Thoughts?

I did make a soggy-footed attempt into the great wetland on the south side. I wanted to see the willows -the first pale greening of spring, up close, but I didn't make it far enough in to be truly rewarded. Underneath those grasses were channels and ponds of water still draining from a much larger supply of slopes than the little wetland to the north. I did see evidence of Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, about twenty five feet from the wood's edge. The exploration of the wetlands, our sunny places, compels me to engineer a boardwalk (literally -cut logs, debarked and placed longitudinally, with boards run lengthwise between them). Future projects.



Closer to the house, on the dry slopes bloom Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis. Maybe these can be planted in the clearing among the wild strawberries?



There have been many sightings of hawks, vultures, eagles, sandhill cranes, turkeys of course, and others to make seeing the more common birds seem, well, common. Yet the first robin of spring was worth pausing for, as well as bluejays and cardinals hanging together.



And while squirrels aren't on anyone's favorites list, they have yet to cause us any trouble, likely because their habitat is still largely intact. They do not come toward the house and didn't mess with last year's garden. This bounding fellow has a red head, feet, and tail. I wonder if it this one, from last fall, or a relative.




Autumn Creature Feature


This is the best view we could get of a Wood Duck that inhabited the back pond (I don't know what else to call it now, it's beginning to suggest permanent). About two months ago the ducks began congregating, yet I was so busy I didn't realize what was happening. A few weeks later, while felling trees, we noticed on the ridge a steady stream of walking ducks. It went on for minutes, there must have been one hundred! They are extremely skittish and do not let you get close, but I had been listening to their squeaky swing set sound for weeks. It wasn't until the parade that I understood we had a large congregation. One day, a week or so ago, they began flying over the house, rounding back to land on the lawn. Then they were gone.



Last year I did my best to save the frogs from what I thought was a frog trap. But now I'm beginning to think they want to be in this pit -the soil cut and retained around our basement, code required, egress window. I count at least thirteen in this portion of the pit, but there are more. You may also see the blue-spotted salamander to the left of the blue, roofer's trash. Next summer this pit will be excavated, probably retained with a galvanized steel, and a new, rot-proof, egress window installed. What will happen to this amphibian paradise?



Apparently, in autumn, the best house painting days are also the best days for lady bugs to seek out their death chamber. By the thousands on a warm, breezy day, a couple of weeks back, they swarmed the house. On their backs, stuck to the paint I eagerly applied, they became such a nuisance I had to quit. Several left defensive trails, "reflex bleeding" as it is known, on the paint that had dried. Once in the house they strive for light, which tends to be the light fixtures on at night. Look up at the plastic lens to see all the dark splotches of recently passed Coccinellidae. Don't bother cleaning it until winter sets in. They are stubborn too. When you try to coax them into your hand or onto a piece of paper they hunker down or, just as frequently, as they climb walls and windows, they simply drop to the floor, sometimes spreading wings to fly to another location. While gardeners love ladybugs, I have entered a new relationship to them that is, well, a little bit more complicated, and I well-learned not to paint the house after labor day.



Squirrels. This one had no idea I was standing there, silently waiting for Wood Ducks to come by. They didn't. Look at how auburn it is -for a gray squirrel. The posture resembles a man in a Godzilla suit, and by most people's reactions to them, squirrels may as well be Godzilla. Me? I still like them, they do not bother us or the house, we don't feed birds so I have no self-interested reason to despise them, and I'm pretty sure they're having more fun in the woods than any other animal. There is one thing I have learned. I always thought it was squirrels dropping all those acorns in the back yard. It's not. Bluejays. Autumn is the season of bluejays. They knock the acorns down and then do their level best to stuff them in their mouths, then fly away to stash them. Even though I grew up in an oak forested area where gray squirrels and bluejays were the most common animals, I never recognized this behavior until this autumn.




No Respect


No one respects squirrels, except for the oaks, maybe, if that's possible. Certainly the hawk does not. The sound of a thousand paper shufflers dominate the woods through the golden hours. So much work before quitting time for the poor, lowly squirrel, but no one respects paper shufflers. Like a boss, the hawk swoops in below the treetops, gliding above the wetland, and issues its battle screech. Every busy body freezes into a terrific silence. No intention of coming in for the kill, it then climbs out of the basin, heading for preferred hunting grounds, snickering likely.



Brown Out

 I woke up to find it completely brown outside. From minus eleven to sixty two in five days. As the day wore on, into the late afternoon, it felt distinctly like late September in warmth, quality of light, and brown-ness.



Except for the squirrels, they're still gray, to match their favorite tree trunks.


The Backwoods


At the western edge of the land, just before it rises up toward the old gravel pit slash horse farm, there is a topographical depression, what I will call the swale. Although its origin may be artificial, it is one of the more interesting features of the land.


I walked out to the swale to investigate bark-stripping that, as far as I can tell, is only happening here.



Stripped clean from the base well up the tree, with no broken branches, so it isn't deer rubbing or eating the bark.



Several feet away I spotted this mess and a hodgepodge of prints.



Above it, more stripped bark. An animal that climbs, or flies. Hmm, I'm going with climbs as birds at the base of a tree seems to put them at risk of predators. Probably a rodent, maybe a squirrel.



I see hanging material, which at a distance I took for lichen, on many of the upright twigs. On closer inspection I recognize it as the dried remains of duckweed. Ah, an excellent indicator of the depth of the past summer's vernal pool, which looks to have been nearly two feet in places.



Trees fall easily here, succumbing to the wind and saturated soil, a soil made visible by the exposed root mound of a fallen tree. I wonder how it is that it holds much water at all, as it feels crumbly and porous. This, and the spring which emerges from the base of a tree about two hundred feet from here, reveal a complex hydrology that I've yet to fully understand.



Toward the back and upslope lay an assortment of aggregations; what looks to be concrete, dumped by the gravel mining operation that long ago operated just over the property line.



The aggregations have weathered, moss clings to it now, and one day I may make aesthetic use of this waste. 


An old, plastic six-pack in the swale.



Beyond the swale, up and quickly down again to the edge of the large wetland, a sign painted and hung by Rex. It read "American Trash Museum."



This neck of the woods, at the bottom land of a ravine just beyond our property, is full of cast-off appliances. Some go back fifty or more years. The dump exists at an intersection of what farmers would consider three "wastes" -a ravine, a wetland, and a woods. Well, the woods held some value as a woodlot, and the cows could roam them for munching on all kinds of under-growth (which probably helped the buckthorn get a foothold), but the other two were rarely looked upon kindly by farmers and country men. 



Looking southeast you see the wetland. Where there is little to no grasses there's visible snow, revealing where water is most likely to stand in wetter periods. Here the ravine drains its steep-sided slopes.



Up the ravine, littered mostly with old washing machines, but also empty fifty-five gallon drums and five gallon pails of mostly unknown chemicals. If you live in a second-growth forest that once was part of a farm, on or near a farm, you can probably find this kind of dump, or what remains of it. 



At the top of the ravine, a two hundred feet or so off our land, looking toward the adjacent horse farm and the steep incline of the old gravel pit. 



Trash comes in many forms.



And offers its warnings.



Heading back, one of Rex's many brush piles, consisting mostly of fallen branches. There are ten or twelve of these around the woods, and more could be made, should one choose to.




My Beating Heart



Some days I wake before we've rolled around to meet the sun.



By the time I get dressed for the cold, stumbling through, half asleep, the sun has breached the canopy.



A light snow fallen the night before drew me out from the warmth. The farm field, behind the scrim of trees, changes weekly from white to mottled gray to black and then white, again.



It is still.



No rustling of cold-crisp leaves, no creaking of timber, no muffled doof of dropped snow glops. There was a squirrel motionless, vertical, on a dead or dying red oak. Fixed on that spot for quite awhile, I say this squirrel did not make a move. To my right, then, an explosion of noise! My head jerks upward to see a squirrel bursting out of a leafy nest wadded into the crotch of another red oak, then scrambling into the branches of a different tree. I thought how rare that I should get out of bed before squirrels.



I was about ready to come in from the cold when Betsy came out dressed for a walk. Not too far she promised, just around the bend in the road. Outside for half an hour, not moving but for camera work, I was pretty cold, but I joined her. 


- I am the still squirrel and Betsy the exuberant one. -


 At the end of the drive, up slope, frosted pines, spruce, and aspen grow in the clearing.



Down slope, sumac curlicues tickle the sky.



I see a prop plane traveling northwest and I think how cold it must be in that cabin, single engine planes fly in pleasant weather, and then I understand -it's about the stillness.



Around the bend, a roll of hay, unused, under a willow.



And the matted grasses.

___________________________


On March 1, 2015 I will discontinue posting on NYCGarden. You can continue to read my posts here.



April Heat



This is tulip Angelique. It's been droughty and over warm and it shows. Other years, Angelique came up in late April, this year, the first week of April. This is also the time I do some transplanting. Cool days and nights and generous rains make for good survival rates with little to think about. But this year, not so much. I transplanted quite a few things over to the side yard. The heat-induced super growth has led them to transpire much quicker.

The squirrels, of course, are digging around these new transplants, and I've already lost a few phlox to this. If it were cool or rainy, the uprooted phlox would hang on until I noticed it; just replant and protect. Instead, fallen over, they wilt in the hot sun. Much harder to revive after that day in the sun. Same goes for the St. John's Wort shrub -although not because of squirrels, but my own transplanting. It's made it, but lost most of its new leaves, and looks terrible -like a sick person at a party.

I should be watering, I suppose. But I'm not that kind of gardener in this place. Don't get me wrong, I've spent countless hours watering, usually in the evening (tisk tisk) with a hose. It's meditative, or something. But I have not chosen that path in this garden. I have a watering can and 100 foot march to and fro the spigot on the other side of the building. I've chosen not to walk that walk, simply depending on rains and some coolness in early spring. I'm no zealot however, I will water again, in another garden, or in a prolonged summer drought right here.


Extraordinary Rendition, Torture, and Other Policies in the Effort to Rid the Civilized World of al-Sciurus


Do you have one of those little counters on your blog or website that tells you how many visits you've had? You do, oh -okay, then you probably get for free the report that shows you which search keywords led to your blog. Can I tell you, I have a few keywords that send people to my blog regularly: free compost, garden center NYC, lead in my city garden, plastic deer, etc. But one startles me because of its frequency: Drowning Squirrels. Yep. So, sometimes I copy and paste the keywords and Google them to see what shows up.

My blog is often on the third page, but I am awed to see so many web logs, message boards, forums, how-tos, and articles that deal specifically with the killing of squirrels and often drowning. I do not know what to say other than this: If you must spend Memorial Day weekend drowning ten squirrels, obviously it is not an effective method of control. Ridding themselves of squirrels is all the rage in the UK, with the native fervor that goes along with alien species (Eastern Grays are from North America).

All it does is satisfy weak, immature, and undoubtedly pathological thought processes when dealing with squirrels this way. If you were a 16 year old boy, the psychologist would be called in to question your future psychopathic potential. Although some say they are as intelligent as dogs, squirrels will do what squirrels do without much regard for your gardens or soffits and they cannot conceptualize the world the way people do. Get smarter, your brain is heavier than the weight of two squirrels. Figure out how to stop them short of torture and death, figure out how to live with them, short of being driven to insanity. Despite their allegiance to the Dark Side, we are better than this.


People are sheepish about posting photos, but you will find them, some gruesome death shots.

Do not feed them. Begin a neighborhood information campaign about not feeding them. Adapt by planting things they don't care for. Use mesh on top of fruiting trees. Ugly yes, but fruit will be there when its time to pick. Put lids on your trash pails. Keep your exterior woodwork in good shape. Keep it well painted, rot free. Consider not feeding birds (attracting birds because you like to look at them, while killing squirrels because they like the free food is, well, twice as bad). Squirrels have teeth that keep growing, and they need to gnaw to grind them down. They are not eating your deck, they are using free and easy wood to do the trick. Consider a stone patio in a high squirrel area. Adapt. If you insist on killing, Good God Man, do it in a way that appreciates the awareness of life all living creatures have! Good luck.

Squirrel





After entering Prospect Park I hardly could believe seeing this squirrel -completely eviscerated, saving its head. I made this b&w photograph because it removed some gruesomeness from the scene, but now I see how it also looks like a forensic crime scene photo.


I Drown Squirrels, But Its Okay Because I Use a Rain Barrel To Do It



This Highlighted Archive article from the New York Times Home & Garden Section, "Peter Rabbit Must Die," left me feeling shamed, ashamed of my people -the humans. The article seems to thrill in the confessional talk of killing yard animals -the squirrel, the raccoon, the woodchuck, even birds that chomp the carrots or mow down the tomatoes.

With rhythmic sensibility, the author mentions that killing wild animals may be illegal (as if that seems to matter) or that the reader should indulge in a book by John Hadidian on coexistence with wildlife. But in an article subtitled "Humane Ways to Deal with a Pest Problem", it was the description of the drowning of squirrels in a rain barrel that put me on edge:

"They did, however, as conscientious environmentalists, have a large rain barrel on the roof, which they used to water the garden. Who first came up with the idea of drowning, Ms. Lennig cannot recall, but it was her husband who handled the first executions. The trap, which was long and narrow, fit perfectly in the barrel.

Ms. Lennig has yet to be able to deal with the removal of the corpse, which is then thrown into the garbage. But she and her husband are now so comfortable with this form of pest control that when they visited Ms. Lennig’s in-laws at their lakefront property last year, where squirrels were climbing on the deck and ravaging the planters, they offered to drown them.

“My husband and I said, ‘We’ll take them to the lake,’ ” she says, “but our in-laws were having none of that. We had to get in the car and drive them five miles away. I spent the entire weekend like a soccer mom, driving squirrels around.”

Isn’t drowning cruel?

No, Ms. Lennig says. She recalls reading that you lose consciousness and then your heart stops; it’s actually one of the nicer ways to go."

Drowning of squirrels? If a young man did this, people would call the police because it suggests his future as a serial killer -heartless, unable to empathize, no conscience. You know what I am saying here, but somehow in the name of the garden -that's fair, good reason, drown the squirrel. By the way, I once saw a squirrel swim across a lake -not kidding, they can swim.

I have experienced the ravages of squirrels on roses (eats every bud) and tomatoes (one bite, no thank you -next), I've seen the damage of deer and woodchucks. I don't belong to PETA or even the Humane Society, but as a gardener -the kind that I am, suggests that we are not using our brains or hearts if we submit ourselves to drowning of animals that are simply enjoying the things we set out for them. They do not distinguish between nature and culture -that's our pathology!

I live in the City of New York. I got feral cats, rats, birds, and squirrels. I am smarter than them -yes its true. But they have time on their paws. It is my job to outsmart their tenaciousness. Killing is not outsmarting them, its the tantrum of a child, undeveloped. Outsmarting them, that's fun, full of boastful pride.

I am growing vegetables. For the sake of aesthetics I should not build a cage around my vegetables? Build a cage around your vegetables! Put the wire mesh in the ground and all around so that the animals cannot reach your prized tomatoes.

In creating the garden we realize our connectedness to the animals of the world because we see how strongly attracted to that ideal environment we and many animals are. It is a garden for all of us, but only we have the intelligence to build it and protect it. I do not believe that aesthetics, irritations, or petty fears should trump life.


A Year Without Acorns or "Squirrel Nuts!"

Recently there has been a million posts here and there about the missing oak acorns. I can say with some certainty that most of these posts and threads grew out of this Washington Post story. It spread like post-Thanksgiving wildfire, popping up on every other person's blog. Like its some kind of signal of the Armageddon.


But I hadn't noticed a decline in acorns. I hadn't noticed them at all. Probably because oaks are not widely planted on my neighborhood's streets and because I haven't been in Prospect Park lately. And the squirrels, are they thin and attacking everything? No, they have plenty of goods to eat in our fair city. This is the city where squirrels will come up to you for a snack. Garbage is not off limits either, and neither is your garden. So the squirrels seem to be hanging in there- at least here in NYC.


As a child I grew up with acorns; all our trees were oaks. I cannot remember when they would begin to fall, but I especially prized the longer ones that held onto their caps. We would have so many that I would collect them in pails; have pails full. I had some idea that this was a good practice, saving the acorns. It was the only thing I had a lot of anyway and I like collecting them. Maybe I intended to be squirrel-like, though I don't remember my reasoning, pure speculation.


But I think I know where all those acorns went this year. All the banks are now on the acorn standard. Yep. The acorn standard. Now all your deposits are backed by the full faith of the oak forest. Yep. Sorry squirrels. Acorns now as good as gold. Maybe you should have saved more, maybe you should have been prepared, maybe a little less shady dealing Mr. Squirrel.


A vault at JP MORGAN, filled with the acorns. CITIBANK, tower of acorns. WELLS FARGO, Conestoga wagons cartin' those acorns west. Worth more than the dollar. I should have saved all those acorns from my childhood; just that I liked them green so much more than brown.


bronze cast acorn caps

Squirrels Beware

I met the artists Franzy and Hajoe in 2001 at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens where we were building projects. I was re-introduced to them this past summer at an artist residency in New Hampshire and we struck up some gardening conversation. Turns out they had a rather bare patch of soil in Sunnyside, Queens and I had overgrowing perennials in deep need of division. So last autumn I divided and gave all they would take away. But Franzy expressed her concern about the squirrels.

They are the deer and woodchucks of the city. They eat tomatoes on the vine, rose buds just before bloom, zuchini gets chomped, they dig up bulbs, and what else-these omnivores!

Well, I made Franzy a red cedar admonishment that only the most brazen of squirrels will not heed. Read it and weep, squirrels.