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Spying on the Neighbors

This pair of Red Tails lives in the farm yard, but we seldom see them together. The last several mornings, however, they have been camped out in the tree over the swing set. The question remains: who was doing the spying and who was the object?

Puff Love

This spring, we discovered several packets of seeds for different annual vines. With three acres to deal with, I don't normally mess with annuals. If I have to plant it more than once, forget it. But just for giggles, we threw some of them out by the fence around Kirby's yard. Most of them...eh.
But there was one that is now a favorite, and will probably stay. Hopefully it will reseed itself. Hopefully, it will not make become a nuisance. I give you:

Love-in-a-Puff Vine

Sweet little white flowers that persist all season, unique air-filled balloons, and adorable seeds with hearts on them. What's not to love?

Cardiospermum halicacabum--*if you live in warmer zones, this plant can become invasive.

Another Rescue

We received another call from the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors hotline yesterday.* So we packed up the equipment and headed to Morris to pick up a downed owl. This was our second owl for this summer.

The first was a Barred Owl in a backyard in Yorkville. It was an easy capture and delivery. The bird had neurological damage and could not be released, but was going to become part of a live display at Willowbrook or another similar wildlife center. Maybe the girls and I will get to go see it soon.

Yesterday's call was for a young Great Horned Owl at a residence in the country. The yard was fantastic habitat for owls with a stream, pond and lots of huge old Oak trees. I really hope the owl can go back there when it gets all fixed up, but it didn't offer much resistance, which isn't a good sign. Hopefully we'll have news some time next week. Aren't those eyes amazing? It was a little unnerving to have it swivel it's head to watch my every move.

*Have I ever posted about this before? If I haven't, the short version is that a friend (the same one that decided we needed a snake) talked us into joining the trained responders for CBCM. If there is a downed bird in my county, people call the hotline and then I get a call to go pick it up and relay it to the Willowbrook Wildlife Center, where it can be evaluated for treatment. We are the only responders in our county, and since we are so far from Chicago, there aren't too many calls. So far, all of the calls have been for large birds of prey and geese (which we don't usually waste gas money on, unless it is putting people in danger).
We missed getting to go after a Turkey Vulture while I was in CA. Fall migration is coming though, so we'll see what happens.

Conundrum, part 2

This time, it's a Barn Swallow nest--on my hammock rope. Sigh. We have no less than 3 barns and several smaller sheds on the farm here. Why can't they build there?

Barn Swallows are beautiful, and I love having them swoop around my head while I'm mowing. Their chattering and chirping is a happy, friendly sound. And they are fearless. They dive bomb the dog and cats when they're outside, and the rubber snakes I set out as a deterrent didn't even phase them. In fact, I found the biggest one had been unceremoniously dumped into the flower bed.

But Swallows are messy, so they had to go. I'm not surrendering my porch.

Before...

What is your best guess as to this critter's identity?

Some clues:

• Just over an inch long
• found in the soil while planting flowers in Northern Illinois
• 3 pairs of legs
• one very cool "foot" on last segment that it uses to propel itself
• eats slugs and snails (so it went back into the garden)

After photo will be posted in a month or so. Stay tuned.

Conundrum

"Somewhere in the world there is an epigram for every dilemma."~Hendrik Willem Van Loon

Lou'siana

Since I've been home for over a week now, isn't it about time I posted some of my pics? Yep, that's what I thought.
Aside from camera troubles frustrating enough to make me want to chuck it in the nearest fountain, I came home with some decent amateur photos. Enjoy.

A few thoughts about the trip:

• New Orleans has some beautiful things in it, and it is true that you could happily eat your way from one end of it to th'other, but it takes some purposeful obliviousness to navigate it without permanently scaring your innocence. That or buckets of Wassa's Eye Bleach.
• When the threat is real, I am indeed afraid of snakes.
• Live Oaks are just about the coolest thing ever.
• Friends you've never met before can turn out to be just as amazing as you hoped they'd be.
• So can their kids.
• Pralines. Yum.
• Worshiping with others "of like faith and practice" is awe inspiring no matter where it takes place.
• I want to go back.

Just a Tad

Banded Garden Spider

This is a Banded Garden Spider, or Argiope Trifasciata. It is related to the Black and Yellow Argiopes (Writing spiders) that I posted about HERE. Out of more than 30 of the argiopes that I've found in my yard, only two of them are this type. They are just as common as the black and yellow kind (just not in my yard), but I think the metallic silver on their backs makes them way cooler.

We're protecting (that means I told the kids to leave them alone) about half a dozen garden spider egg sacks. While I wouldn't want one crawling down my shirt, fearing and destroying them is irrational. They're great at pest control. I didn't have to spray for Japanese beetles this year because of them.

*On the butterfly front--The Black Swallowtails that we have been waiting for seem to have stalled out. It has been more than 3 weeks now. That means one of two things. Either this generation will overwinter and not emerge until spring, or we've had catastrophic caterpillar failure. Which would be very sad. I'm going to give them a few more days and then find cold storage for them, just in case.

Swallows

Part of the appeal of living in the country, for me at least, is all of the accidental delights that bring joy to the ordinary. One of those delights is the Barn Swallow population here on the farm. I love their acrobatic swooping around my head when I'm mowing. And I love their neighborly chattering as they gather on the fence row and the gutters outside my office window. Their back and wings are the most beautiful shimmering dark blue. And they eat mosquitoes too! I especially love how the little babies silently spy on you as you walk under their nests in the barn. Those in the picture above are almost ready to set off on their own.
I will miss them when winter comes.

Musing on Mowing

I am really, really, really getting tired of mowing. Normally, by the beginning of August, the lawn starts looking crispy and thin; and I can get away with only cutting the grass every 2 weeks or so. Not this year. I'm still mowing every week; and the grass is still lush and green. Don't get me wrong--I'm happy for the grass. After 7 years, it's finally starting to look more like a lawn, and less like a bean field. We've had fewer thistles, and no puff ball, mutant mushrooms this year. The crab grass, dandelions, and other weeds I can live with because they are green and mow just like the grass. But my spleen is tired of getting bounced around for several hours every week and I'm ready for frost.

Last night, in an effort to break up the monotony, I carried my camera with me. Aside from the blast of adrenaline when the camera bounced off and almost got mowed (thankfully, the strap got caught on one of the levers, saving it inches from the blades), I think it was a success. Here are a few of the shots.

Chinese Mantid

Lots of berries right now-red, white, and blue!

"I'm hiding. You can't see me!"

Hyssop-I really need to plant more of this. The bees and butterflies love it.

Sedum-Purple King, maybe?

Liz, I know the challenge was for our town, but I thought I'd start with just my yard. How'd I do? :)

Inordinate Fondness

"The Creator, if he exists, has an inordinate fondness for beetles."`JBS Haldane*

And just for scale:

I really need a camera with a macro lens. 

I have not the first clue as to what these are, but the I-can't-help-myself part of me wants to find out. They'll probably turn out to be something hideous and itchy. Shall we?**

*Please do not mistaken my quoting Haldane as agreement with him in general, or even in part. I just think the quote is funny.

**Further research has revealed that these are eggs from the Spined Soldier Bug, one of the True Bugs (as opposed to an insect mistakenly called a bug). They are predatory stink bugs. I am going to put them back outside so they can help eat the Japanese Beetles that are turning my Porcelain Vine into lace.

Skeeters

This is a mosquito:

This is a mosquito on drugs:

Any questions?

The Gallinipper Mosquito (Psorophora ciliata)

Bananas

Sing with me..."One banana, two banana, three banana, four...four bananas make a bunch and so do many more..."

Yes, you're right. Technically, these aren't banana spiders. They are Black and Yellow Argiopes, but nobody around here can pronounce Argiope (ar-guy-o-pee), so they call them banana spiders. All I know is that with more than a dozen of these beauties in my front flowerbed, it's not going to get weeded any time soon.

June and Jubilee

I know that you have been waiting breathlessly for the next Box of the Month picture. It looks pretty much the same as last month. Very green.
The June box was from 3 Blind Mice, so we had to make sure we didn't miss it. The day after M's bday, we hot footed it down to Princeton and picked up two boxes. Then M asked "Are we ever going to meet Shorty?" So we called him up and met at Culver's for lunch. How fun!

Several days later, Questar and I went down to Peoria to finish pulling the rest of the event boxes out of Jubilee College SP. I have not mentioned Jubilee up to this point because I'm trying to repress the memory. Let me be brief. I have never met a preserve I didn't like...until now. When I went down in May to help Hart x6 and Shorty plant for the Great Lakes Event, it was hot, slimy, sloppy, muddy, and I got my first taste of stinging nettles. Everything in that park has fangs.(Oh, and don't forget the CRUD marathon going on all day. I have to admit, it was fun saying "Oh, Crud! every time one of the runners came by when we were trying to plant.) The day was successful however, and from the reports I hear, the event was exciting. I'm sure the tornado helped.

Since I did not get to attend the event, we made an agreement that I could help pull boxes that I didn't plant so that I could stamp them and at least get to enjoy some of the amazing carvings. Which is the only thing that took me back to that park. It was drier for the most part, and I was mentally prepared for the PI, nettles, and 'squitoes. And thankfully, we had been warned about the Wild Parsnip and Giant Hogweed, so we could avoid those too. Parsnip and Hogsweed are photo-toxic plants, meaning that the oils react with UV rays and chemically burn your skin. Lovely.
We saw a number of butterflies, but other than the vulture that circled us at lunch (until I shouted that we weren't dead yet, and he went away), we did not see any other fauna in the park (the snake is from the day we planted). Maybe they don't like it there either.
Still, 18 boxes and 7-8 miles hiked isn't too shabby. The company was good too.

**The invasive, uncharitable vegetation seems to be on the rise in many places. I would highly recommend that everyone who spends time in the parks and preserves becomes familiar with plants that should be avoided. Forewarned is forearmed...know thine enemies, and all that. You can usually get reliable information from the park services or you local county extension office.

Lincoln Park Zoo

Since the weather cooperated last week, we scrapped our plans for the Adler Planetarium and spent the day at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. Last summer, we went with a group from our church and it ended up being a horrible experience. Not because of the people from the church, but because I went unprepared to deal with J's sensory disorder. Any chance we had of enjoying ourselves went out the window when I ignored what should be second nature by now. At the point in the day when all three of us were in tears, I promised the girls that we would come back someday and do it right. I am happy to report that this time, all went well.

The highlight of the day was the Aardvark. I am glad that my children can see creatures they wouldn't normally see, but zoos sometimes seem a little sad to me; especially when an animal acts the like the equivalent of an autistic child rocking itself under the kitchen table. It just reinforces how I feel about the stewardship of God's creation. But that aardvark was thumbing his nose at us all. He might have been in captivity, but he wasn't about to act the way his keepers wanted him to act. He was going to ignore the fake termite mound and sleep in the Rubbermaid garbage can and there wasn't a dang thing they could do about it. I loved it.

We only got through half of the zoo, so we'll have to go back and finish later this year. Some thoughts:

• There is no such thing as a Free zoo.
• People from Wisconsin in extended cab pickup trucks should not attempt U turns on Michigan avenue.
• I loved squished pennies. 51 cents and you've got a souvenir. Hang the gift shop.
• There is no accounting for taste in art in Chicago.
• We don't care if they did change the name. We're still calling it the Sears Tower.
• J knows more about animals than I ever will, and I'm not afraid to defer to her.

The Great Turtle Adventure

Remember what I said about God bringing creatures our way so we could learn about them? Imagine my surprise when I found myself at the back of our yard early one morning, in my pjs, scooping up a turtle.
Now you must understand something. Our yard is three acres in the center of miles and miles of cornfields. No lakes. No rivers. Opportunistic predators abound.
So many unanswered questions, so little time.

Occasionally, we do see the Painted Turtles around here, but to be brief, this was a Three-Toed Box turtle. Non-native, which means some (insert derogatory term of your choice) probably picked it up in the south and thought they'd be clever and bring it home as a pet, got tired of it (they can live 100 years!) and let it go.
I didn't get in touch with anyone who knew what to do (we even went to Red Oak), so I put it back outside. If I had known what it was at the time, I would have known that was the wrong thing to do. But this (insert derogatory term of your choice) thought it best to leave well enough alone. If we had gotten it to our naturalist friend, he would have taken care of it until he went south later and returned it to where it belongs. Now it will wander in ever widening circles searching for familiar territory, which it will never find. I can only pray that one of it's circles will bring it back across our path so I can fix my mistake.

Yes, it's "only" a turtle. Not an immortal soul (Tuck Everlasting notwithstanding). But it brought home to me that the Stewardship that God has entrusted to us is a serious business. To have another's life in your hands, regardless of significance, is not to be taken lightly.

I draw the line at ticks though.

Red Oak Nature Center

The girls and I have picked two projects for this summer. The first is that we are reading books together that take place in the Great Lakes states. Little House, Caddie Woodlawn, Minn of the Mississippi,Paddle-to-the-Sea, and the Mitt and Minn series are some of the titles on our list (feel free to suggest others). MC and I have this hare-brained idea/dream of someday taking the kids on a road trip around the Great Lakes. The trip involves peaches, cheese (to fix the problem caused by the peaches), and wild rice (to fix the cheese...). It also includes bridges, walking across the Mississippi, and saying things like, "Oh, buckets." By the time either one of us can afford this trip, our children will likely have other plans. But we can dream.

Our second summer plan is to take a field trip every week. Only two of them on the list are places that the girls have seen before. We went to Red Oak Nature Center last week (as part of the Great Turtle Adventure, which you will hear about next post.) and my parents unknowingly took them to the Phillips Park Zoo, which was on the list too. From what I hear, the zoo didn't go over so well (there wasn't even a gift shop!), which makes me glad that I wasn't there.
Here are some of our pics from Red Oak. M insisted on having her picture taken with every critter in the place.

A number of our wildlife questions are directed to a gentleman from our church who works for the forestry service. He is a naturalist, wildlife rehabilitator and educator. One of the interesting things that has come about from our conversations is that he has offered to let us keep a gorgeous orange Corn snake as a science experiment. The educator/homeschooling mom side of my brain wants to jump at the opportunity. The descendant-of-Eve side isn't so sure. Of course, J wanted a snake as a pet several years ago and I just saw M and her little cousin carrying toads around the yard, so I'm pretty sure both the girls are on board with the idea. I'll let you know which side of my brain wins.

Frog and Toad are Friends

I am convinced that God brings things across our path so that we can delight in his creation more and learn to glorify him. We are forever finding incredible stuff in our back yard and each new discovery takes us in unexpected directions.

If "the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork", then my window wells are proof positive of his sense of humor.

Zoom in and see if you can count all of the toads. Don't forget the one half buried in the mud. We have three window wells. Only one of them is big enough to climb down into to rescue these guys, but we've gotten creative. It gets pretty silly when they don't want to be rescued. I've lost track of how many dozens we've pulled out (8 this morning), but it would do Pharaoh proud.

This year, we found someone new. This is a Green Frog (identifiable by the fold behind her tympanic membrane and dorsal stripe. Don't worry. I had to ask too). She is about three inches long (males have a tympanum larger than their eye). Compared to the toads, boy, could she hop! High, far, and in unpredictable directions, thus causing delighted shrieks all around.

She found her way in, and out, of the girls' wading pool. I can't believe people eat frogs. Nu-uh. No way.
Several of our recent finds identified a hole in my library (don't gasp, it does happen). I did not have any kind of field guide for reptiles or amphibians. That problem has since been corrected. Hooray for Roger Tory Peterson!

Caper got to make a new friend too.