Dear Prairie - While You Were Sleeping

Winter is our time for burning, planning, planting and clearing even more areas to prepare them for the native plantings of forbes and grasses. With over 23 acres of soil available, we have an endless canvas where we can plant and then later, enjoy the summer blooming parties that result from so many varieties of plants.

Each fall, as all the trees are starting to shake off their summer leaves and the flowers are starting to make seeds, I start visiting the Hamilton Native Seed and Missouri Wildflowers websites and perusing their catalogs. This year, I found a new educational resource - I signed myself up for the Missouri Prairie Foundation's webinars via Zoom and yowza, are they fantastic! With Covid-19 lockdown and winter encroaching, now's the time for me to educate myself, read everything I can and discover new planting opportunities so we can provide more diversity in our native plantings. Thanks to MPF and Missouri Wildflowers, this year we decided to try something new - we now have over 40 new shrubs planted - wild hydrangea, ninebark, and witch hazel planted & hunkered down under leaf-mulch...waiting to spring their beautiful flowers on us this spring.

And thanks to Hamilton Seed and my own seed-gathering techniques (which consists of one step -  outrun the birds), I have over 4 oz. of a variety of coneflower seeds (at 7,000 seeds/oz., I'm pretty proud of myself!) and almost 1 full pound of my full-sun native wildflower mix too (see the hand-written labels on the bags in the picture below). These orders I make are my Christmas presents to myself...thousands of wildflower seeds. Thousands...maybe millions. Gazillions...all to be planted this winter.

This is another quarter-acre area that we cleared - where one bag of the above wildflower seeds has already been spread. And it's right outside my home-office window!

We've also started tackling the non-native Japanese honeysuckle. Ugggh, what a pain it is. Below is a picture of a sprout (probably Sumac) that finally gave up. The honeysuckle had wrapped itself so tightly around the trunk that it created these permanent twists in the trunk. Behold the strength and the impact of the non-native, for they are indeed impressive, but now, we need to rip it out.

I love winter, almost as much as I love fall. I can walk all the trails, even when covered with ice or snow and not be attacked by chiggers or ticks. It's a time when I can see everything from a different perspective. The ice-laden branches of the sandbar willows create their own beautiful reflections over the pond.

The cedar trees whine about the ice & cold as their branches droop, threatening to snap off, as the surrounding Sassafras and Ash trees stand tall and proud, bragging that their branches stand UP to such brutal weather, while simultaneously laughing at their sagging evergreen neighbors.

As I walked yesterday, I recalled the pictures I took this past summer and thought it would be fun to compare the summer versus winter pictures from the same perspective. Winter is part of their normal cycle - the plants take time to rest, the soil re-saturates from the rainfall & snow (measured in feet here in the fall, winter & spring), the ground heaves and contracts to absorb the seeds dropped by all the plants and the seeds that need it, as they are stratified, in preparation for growing a new plant in the spring. It is a time to shake off the past year, renew and change things - to try again to do better in the New Year.

The Sandbar willows on the pond:

Winter:

 

Summer

 

The Goldenrod and Indian Grass - Winter:

 

 The same patch this past August / September:

The West Trail around the pond, Winter:

 

The same West Trail, this past August / September:

   Part of the prairie, Winter:

The same part of the prairie was rioting this summer in June & July with coneflowers, prairie blazing start, Wild quinine, compass plant, etc.:

To some, this winter perspective may look like quite the dreary landscape. But for me, this landscape it quite exciting and holds a lot of secrets that will be revealed in the spring. 

Rest & renew, Dear Prairie. Bob and I have been busy this winter, so make sure you say, "Hello" to your new neighbors this Spring and let them know how much you love your happy home here on Gobbler's Knob.
 

Feed the Bees: Because You Can Never Have Enough Wildflowers

Last November I shared some pictures of the area we were planning to convert to all native wildflowers & grasses (Link here: http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2019/11/tell-it-to-trees.html).  Bob ran over this area several times with a disc to help kill the grass, but with our Yellowstone vacation and other activities, we weren't able to spread the seed during December or January as originally planned.
Realizing we were running out of time, we started watching the weather at the beginning of this week, and finally decided that today - if the ground had frozen hard enough that we didn't sink up to our knees in mud - we would finally hand-spread it all. This area was just too small and cluttered with trees to try to use a seed drill.
Yesterday, we found some vermiculite at Menards in Rolla, MO that was perfect to mix with all the seeds so that we could get a more even distribution when flinging the seed.  An added benefit of adding that stuff - it also helps you see where you've already spread seed as you walk through the field.

Vermiculite, ready to be mixed in with the seeds.

 Over 6 pounds of seed to spread - and when you consider how small some of the seeds are, that's a lot of seed!

Bob 'flinging' seed.

The freezing & thawing process, along with the snow, ice & rain over the next month will not only help stratify the seeds, but also naturally "plant" them, just as nature does it when left to Her own devices.
One Bonus - with a resident Great Horned Owl and Barred Owl, there won't be a lot of mice trying to steal the seed. At least, there won't be a lot of mice that get away with it anyway in this wide-open area! HA!

A panoramic view of 1/2 of the field we planted.

Tell it to the Trees

I often catch a lot of grief on the purple martin Facebook sites for my suggestions to struggling landlords to cut down a single or even multiple trees. Some "environmentalists" take my suggestions to cut down a tree as 'flippant', cavalier and careless. Rest-assured, I do not take those suggestions lightly - especially when it comes to my own property. It actually breaks my heart to have to cut down a tree.

Nevertheless, we have lots of cedar trees - really old cedar trees -- on our property that need to go (for a variety of reasons). Regardless of the fact that I'm allergic to them, I've always admired their beauty and resisted the urge to give the greenlight to Mr. Freeze to cut them down. All this to say, the decision to take out these 2 cedar trees this past weekend have been a subject of much emotional debate for about 5 years now.

The large cedar in the foreground and the 2 to the right in the background were targeted for eradication.

The largest cedar on the left was consistently used by hawks to launch surprise attacks on my purple martin colony.

Three trees were originally on the chopping block, but after taking down 2 of them, my heart couldn't take anymore, so I asked my “Paul Bunyan” to stop and we compromised with a very aggressive limb trimming for the third tree. For the last few years a resident Sharpie and later a Cooper's hawk have both taken advantage of the cover that these large cedars provided, and launched surprise attacks on my colony.
Eventually, maybe...some other day the third tree will go down too after I've had time to heal and assess, but not today.

Cedar tree providing cover for the hawks is gone.

View from the gourd racks - another 100' of visibility.

The hawks' approach has been pushed back another 100 feet. She will now have to cross this clearing to attack and she will surely be spotted.

The far right cedar tree got a reprieve and only received an aggressive limb trimming.

As a way to comfort myself after cutting a tree down, Bob and I either find a ‘volunteer’ (a small tree sapling of a desirable variety) or plant more trees in a better location than the one we removed.
A lot of dire information about climate change has been on the news lately, along with some very cost effective measures to counter it – as in, plant a tree! I did some research this week and it turns out that incidentally, Bob and I have been planting the *best* trees that also help sequester the most carbon.  
Eastern white pine trees, sycamores, hickory trees, poplars, silver maples and a few other species, according to this website (among many) that I’ve read:  https://www.thoughtco.com/which-trees-offset-global-warming-1204209    and:
This site: https://www.americanarborists.net/tree-tips/2017/july/what-trees-are-best-suited-for-the-changing-clim/
“Fast-growing trees with large crowns”, they say.
Trees that are too crowded do not do well either - regardless of their age. They won't spread their branches when a tree is overcrowding them, therefore reducing the amount of leaves they grow. Cutting down their neighbors and planting a replacement in another area will provide much more benefit to the environment and the climate, than overcrowding your stand.

Oaks to the south of the cedars provide mottled shade. Lower limbs are kept trimmed up high to encourage growth.

But we have multiple goals here on Gobbler’s Knob and when multiple goals can be accomplished with minimal effort, that’s even sweeter. We've been planning for over 2 years to plant this area (approx. an acre) with native wildflowers and grasses and I could hardly contain myself when I ordered my seed from Hamilton Native Outpost yesterday.  We've killed the fescue growing here and Bob has been discing the ground over & over to ensure everything is dead.
The Shadows and Sunbeams mix did so well in our western extended Savanna, that I'm ordering more of it for the large oak-shaded areas. And the oaks in the above pictures provide the perfect amount of shade for this mix.

The Shadows and Sunbeams mix in my 'eastern Savanna'

Some of the cedar trees we have removed have been replaced with much nicer trees. Swamp white oaks are one of our favorites.

 

 

 

 

2 Swamp white oaks planted 8 or 9 years ago.

This hickory tree was a 'volunteer' and after much expert trimming by Mr. Freeze, it has now chosen a primary and is starting to grow rather quickly. It received a lower limb-trimming this past weekend to encourage more top-growth.

Hickory Tree

This plum grove (below) consists of over 40 trees. We planted them as small saplings that we purchased from the George White nursery in 2008. I remember crawling around on my knees to cut down the large ragweed that grew up around the small saplings, threatening to choke them out. Now, they're spreading and stronger than ever.

We planted 3 -"Mighty Moe" (poplar) trees in 2012. The purple martins love to use the new leaves out of the tops each year to line their nests. The purple martins stripping out the leaves are a large part of the reason the trees struggle to grow each year. Mr. Freeze walks by and (jokingly) tells them each year, "get outta my poplar trees, or I'm gonna get the shotgun". hehehe! They're not skeered.

2 large poplars. There were 3, but my neighbor got drunk one night and ran one of them over. The purple martins love to pick their new leaves.

 We planted this river birch (and several others around the property) around 2009 or so. We needed it mainly for shade, but I love the multi-colored trunk shavings that peel off the trunk. They are so beautiful. Now if the limbs would just quit drooping down! It really loves the water runoff from the house and is growing exponentially every year!

This "Shingle Oak" was another volunteer. It has received some 'trimming love' from my expert arborist, Mr. Freeze.

Shingle Oak (also known as "Water Oak")

Another Swamp White Oak -obviously, the ground is not as favorable for this tree as in other spots, but eventually, it will be a beautiful tree.

One of my favorite Swamp White Oaks that we planted along our driveway. Mr. Freeze gives it a lot of love.

 This picture and the second sycamore tree below are my favorite trees. They were both 'volunteers' and have grown so fast that I'm afraid to get caught up in their vortex each time I walk by. During late summer, it is such a hoot to stand under them and listen to the cicadas 'singing'. And they drop so many seeds. I have 3 of them now.

Sycamore #1 - approx. 14 years old

Sycamore #2 - approx. 14 years old

These Eastern white pine trees were planted in April, 2010.

Check them out now. 

 We planted more of them at the end of our driveway.

The same trees today: 

The George White nursery here in Missouri is wonderful - carrying all the native trees for Missouri in very cost-effective bundles. I encourage everyone to order or visit this nursery and see what a great job they do with providing Missourians with a wide variety of trees and shrubs (check out their chokeberries!).  Seriously, how cool is that??

A Summer of Purple Martins and Flowers

With all the rain we've had this year, the purple martins' nestlings have been feasting on dragonflies galore. Fledging began here on Thursday, June 20th with 2 nests and as of now, June 30th, about half of my nests have fledged. I had 79 pair this year (up from 76 pair last year) and currently 71 of those nests contain 313 young. That means there are approximately ~150 new fledges and 158 adults (~308 birds from my colony) filling the skies around Gobbler's Knob....and slaughtering every insect in sight. This year I will have 8 late nests - most of them hatching now and over the next couple of days, meaning they won't fledge until the end of July / early August.
My colony is 13 years old this year. This is the first season, since my 3rd or 4th year, where over half my pairs are sub-adults. It's as if there has been a 'changing of the guard' this year. While my number of pairs is up from last year, the number of young that have hatched and survived is lower and I attribute that to the much 'younger/ more inexperienced" sub-adults that I have this year. Along with that change, has come the inevitable passing down of the message, "hey, did you know there's also a Great Horned Owl that lives here?"  Yes, she's still here....and she has caught at least 10 adult martins this year and now, with so many new fledges returning at night, we're moving to DEFCON 1 and many sleepless nights until our season ends.
This is a mid-day video of my colony with approximately half the adults still feeding their young during the day.
[After clicking on the video, you can then click on the YouTube link and go to full screen for the HD version].

Below is a video of 300+ purple martins coming home in the waning sunlight. The chaos caused by over 150 new fledges not knowing to which gourd they should return is pretty hilarious. The ruckus heals my heart and makes all the pain, sweat & tears of the season just melt away. Maybe that's the way nature intended it? Ending the year with this kind of party always gives me a sense of accomplishment and renewed hope. Pretty fantastic and fun!

For the first time in our 13 years of hosting Tree Swallows, they are all producing a second brood this year. So unusual - but I'm happy about that! Normally, they've left by now and aren't around to help with the hawks that start trying to take the martin fledges, but this year, the little "Orcas" are helping out and I'm loving it!
The purple martins are not the only ones who have benefited from all the rain this year. Our native wildflower field has been bustin' loose too! We have had way more coneflowers this year. And while the 'Queen Anne's Lace' is a native, it is really annoying because it too has benefited from the excessive rain and is blocking the view of some of the other natives. Nevertheless, we are thrilled with the amount of flowers and abundance of insects they're currently attracting.
This is a video from 3 different viewpoints of our most-mature native wildflower field. I love the variety and how there is always something in bloom here. I didn't realize until after I had already processed the video, that I still had 'image-stabilization' turned on for my camera, so some of the video will blur a little bit, but as I pause in various places it does clear up. I have had this video camera for several years and I still can't figure out how half the crap that I really don't need, gets turned on!!  Bummer - definitely need to practice more with that! 

I have a St. John's Wort bush in my landscape bed that has been spreading all kinds of fertile seed and I can't keep up with pulling all the small shoots that are coming up. Soooooo, if you want a St. John's Wort bush or some seed, contact me! I'll let you have all you want - but you have to dig it out. Ha!  The bonus is that the bumblebees absolutely LOVE St. John's Wort. It's hard to get a good video of the bumblebees because they move so quickly - but in this video, you can see the prolific blooms on the St. John's Wort too.

Lastly, a quick tour of our savanna area - scattered oak trees with broken sunlight. We planted this area in December 2014 with the Native wildflower mix from Hamilton Native Outpost called, "Shadows & Sunbeams". This is its 5th season and it is absolutely beautiful. The birds are now scattering the grey-headed coneflower seeds and the plants are coming up all around the property.
Come with me and take a tour of my favorite spot.

QUIZ TIME! If you watched all five of my videos on this blogpost, you will find that three of them have at least 2, maybe 3 bird calls in common. Can you name them?