"I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." ~Wendell Berry
As the weather is warming, I'm beginning to notice more insects out & about here in Missouri. The most annoying one being the ticks that have become active now. From a bird's eye view, it doesn't look like there would be much food out yet for the insects and small butterflies I've been seeing.
But to see, one only needs to look closer.
Drive down any road in Missouri right now and you will see a beautiful hue of purple on each side of the road. To many people's surprise, it's a WEED, but each plant has a terrific cluster of flowers in early spring.
It's called "Henbit" and it's part of the mint family. And while it's a non-native weed, it is not a serious one because its roots are so shallow and it fades before other native wildflowers being to grow, making it a nice 'cover crop'. I tried to rid my yard of it a few times, but I just gave up after I realized, 1) the insects like it and 2), it fades rather quickly. Additionally, it is an edible plant and may be eaten as a potherb or added to spring salads.
Henbit
Dandelions:
The lowly dandelion has come a long way. This plant is native to
Eurasia, but was known to Arab physicians in the early Middle Ages for
its herbal properties in aiding digestion. It is thought that dandelion
was first introduced into North America in 1620. Seeds transported
onboard the Mayflower were planted in the colonies as a food crop, with
dandelion leaves providing a source of vitamins and minerals for early
settlers. (Source: https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2019/3/dandelion/)
The petals are so perfect right now:
Dandelion growing in a patch of Henbit
Among our other blooming plants right now is the fragrant sumac. This is a native plant to Missouri and is not a weed, although it does look like one. It is a thicket-forming shrub, growing mostly in the shade or at least near other trees. And if you look really close, you will see why the bees, flies and butterflies are flocking to it in droves right now. It has the cutest, tiniest blossoms!
In the "Blue" butterfly species, I found a Boisduval's Blue on the fragrant sumac today! Score!
Among other insects I found on it, there were tons of flies. Not sure what type these are, but there were lots of them.
This Red Admiral found the fragrant sumac quite attractive too.
Blue-Winged Teal Ducks
The plums are also blooming - they are a big hit with my honeybees and the bumblebees!
But, the biggest show-off is always my Indian Paintbrush. It doesn't look very bright yet as it hasn't reached full bloom. In a couple of days though my fields will be bright red. And it's starting to spread to other places where it wasn't even planted. That was a nice surprise.
Along with posting about Purple Martins and our native prairie restoration efforts, I'm starting a new series here on my blog, called, "Feed the Bees". With the recent reports of the decline in the insect populations, it's becoming more & more imperative that we start taking a look at what we can do in our own micro-environments to help maintain or restore the insect populations. All life depends on our pollinators and if they die, we die.
I used to think the Virburnum, dandelions and wild plums were the first bloomers in spring. But this year, I was delighted to find this wee little flower growing all over my yard. It's called, Houstonia Pusilla - or more commonly:
Tiny Bluet, Small Bluet, or Least Bluet
As I've driven around Missouri in search of other purple martin sites and talked with people about their resident birds, I've seen a lot of man-made lawns and hay fields that really don't support the insect populations we need to sustain pollination. But, I'm only one person. I understand to some people, it can be daunting to try to figure out how to change a lawn into an eco-friendly garden that will support so many types of wildlife. With this blog, I'm hoping to encourage others to take baby steps towards supporting our insect populations, including ALL our pollinators, as well as reduce the back-breaking work that people do to maintain these sterile lawns.
Our "extended" Savanna - we were going to burn it this year (it's 4 years old), but life happens and we didn't make the window. So instead, we mowed down the dead stuff and mulched all the leaves. It's ready to be a bee-haven again this year.
We currently own 23 acres here in Licking, Missouri. For a long time, I was focused on picking up the dead branches that had fallen from some of the trees. It was back-breaking work. It was hard. And during the summer, it was hot and, even after spraying myself with Deet, I would still end up with a tick or chigger bite as my reward for my hard work. We would wait for it to rain, and then when there was little chance of a fire spreading to the neighbor's hay fields, we would burn all the old, dead and decaying wood.
We planted 50 of these wild plums as mere twigs(purchased from George White Nursery) in 2008 / 2009. I still remember crawling through the ragweed that got taller than the twigs and cutting it back to let the small trees get some sunlight. Today, 32 of them survived and on average they stand at approx. 14-15 feet and have a plethora of blossoms in the spring, providing a lot of early pollen & food for the bees.
The plants in the southern fields have started to turn green.
The western half of the southern field - mowed and raked - will possibly be burned again next year. It has been planted for 7 years.
The eastern half of the southern field. mowed & raked to remove the duff. Also planted 7 years ago.
After reading more about bees however, I have learned that some of them actually NEED this dead, decaying wood in order to survive. They also need undisturbed soil, covered with dead leaves, etc.
When Bob mowed the fields, he accidentally killed this black snake. It makes me sad when a snake dies, but we left it in the field for any scavengers to partake. Poor guy...wondering why he didn't hear the thundering of the tractor and get out of the way.
So, no more bonfires here on Gobbler's Knob to burn limbs or dead trees. From now on, we'll be piling up the dead wood and letting it decay. The larger limbs from these piles will be used to create new brush piles and cover for the resident quail (and other incidental wildlife that takes advantage of the refuge.
A dead tree. It was struck by lightning and then the insects and woodpeckers finished it off. We'll push it over and it will be at the base of the rest of the pile, providing food & cover for the bees & insects to make use of it.
We trimmed some of the lower limbs on our trees for two reasons: 1) Bob can mow under the trees now without getting slapped in he head by a low limb and; 2) the hawks that come after my martins won't be able to use them as cover. They will be piled on top of the dead tree log above and given over to nature's use.
Small limbs & rubbish will be piled up for the insects to make use of.
This will take a little bit of muscle, so Bob will use the tractor to push it all up together. Then, we'll make a nice brush pile for quail cover next to it. I can't wait to see what kinds of insects move in!
More limbs to add to the pile.
Supporting the Ground Nesters
How can we support ground-nesting bees and other ground-nesting insects?
Protect existing nesting sites (insects can be observed entering
ground tunnels, small piles of soil often surround the entrances)
Do not disturb the soil (avoid tilling, digging, vehicular traffic)
Do not cover soil with mulch
Maintain existing vegetation, which is usually sparse, by removing strong-growing plants (shrubs, invasive weeds)
Nesting sites can be protected from predators like skunks and raccoons by covering the area with chicken wire
Create man-made nesting sites for ground-nesting bees
In gardens, areas can be dedicated for nesting sites. Rock gardens
are ideal as they usually have well-draining soil and low vegetation.
Some areas need to be kept free of vegetation. Rocks and clumps of
perennials are helpful as orientation for bees to find their nest
entrances. Bees choose sunny locations for their nesting sites and
prefer slopes exposed to the southeast, which warm up quickly in the
morning.
Supporting Tunnel-nesting Bees
How can we support bees nesting in wood tunnels and hollow stems?
Leave dead trees standing as long as they are not a safety hazard.
Do not remove dead wood and fallen trees from forests
Pile up logs from cut trees (especially those containing burrows) to
allow larvae of beetles, wood wasps and horntails to complete their
life cycles, and to provide abandoned tunnels for nesting bees.
Do not remove plant stems of dormant perennials and grasses from
garden beds until early spring, and leave removed stems in a loose piles
for as long as possible to allow young bees to hatch from their nesting
material.
Do not mow wild meadows more than once a year, ideally in early spring.
Shelter for Overwintering
It’s important to provide shelter for overwintering insects:
As much as possible, keep leaf litter in woodlands and garden beds where it falls.
Create stone, brush and wood piles as shelters for overwintering insects.
Wait to cut down old stems and clumps of perennials until late winter or early spring.
Table 1. Nesting locations of common bee and wasp genera
Ground-Nesters:
Bare patches of well-drained soil, most
often sandy or silty loam that does not collapse when dry and is soft
enough for digging, but some species nest in pure sand, others in river
banks that are periodically inundated
Mining Bees
Andrena
Minute Mining Bees
Perdita
Cellophane Bees
Colletes inaequalis
Slender Sweat Bees
Lasioglossum
Dark Sweat Bees
Halictus
Green sweat Bees
Agapostemon, Augochlora, Augochlorella
Digger Wasps
Sphex
Horse Guard
Stictia
Spider Wasps
Entypus
Sand Wasps
Bembix
Wood and Stem-Nesters:
Tunnels in trees, logs, rotting wood, and
also hollow stems of herbaceous plants and grasses, as well as wooden
structures and old masonry
Mason Bees
Osmia
Yellow-faced Bees
Hylaeus
Carder Bees
Anthidium
Leafcutter Bees
Megachile
Large Carpenter Bees
Xylocopa
Small Carpenter Bees
Ceratina
Resin Bees
Anthidiellum, Dianthidium
Mason Wasps
Euodynerus
Cavity-Nesters:
Abandoned mouse nests, cavities in the soil, in trees and buildings,
Two ASY male purple martins arrived on March 10, 2019 this year. This year's arrival is more back in line with my first 10 year average arrivals.
In all the years past, my martins had also arrived with the tree swallows, however, this year, a male tree swallow had actually arrived a week earlier. During the last few days the tree swallows have been swarming the nest boxes in the fields and my blue birds are not really thrilled with their arrivals.
They are such happy, cheerful little birds and love to fly up high with their bigger cousins. I was going to remove this perching pole this year, but since they seem to like it so much, I may have to leave it...I don't want to upset my fabulous sentries!
This year, I'm making more changes. A landlord decided he wanted to retire his colony, so I bought some of his equipment from him - namely another Super System. It is so much easier to do nest checks with the extended cages on these systems than it is with the round Deluxe gourd rack systems, so this year, I'm removing one of the Deluxe systems and by adding 4 more gourds to each Super system, I'll still be able to offer 84 gourds and my nest checks won't be so painful (literally - it was death by a thousand scratches in the round racks).
So, with this system, I'm designing the cages in the same way - since they work so well on the other racks. I'm extending the 4' gourd arms by adding an 18" aluminum angle arm. I drilled 2 holes to mount the extensions to the main arms, with another 2 holes on the very end, where I can mount the cage wire.
Then, I have laid a 6' piece of aluminum angle arms from corner-to-corner. We drilled holes in each end, so I can anchor them down with tie-wraps. This helps support the top cage wire, so it doesn't sag, and these arms are super-light.
Since I've removed one of the Deluxe round racks and I wanted to keep the same number of gourds, I added 1 gourd per arm on each rack, so I'm still at 84 gourds. For the end gourd, I replaced the straight arm with a 45 deg. arm, which effectively points the end gourd back inside the cage.
For this Super system above, I just replaced all the arms with the extra long arms I had purchased from Hilltop and have made it a perching rack / feeding tray / oyster -egg shell feeder. Bob was tired of seeing me stand on my 4-wheeler to try to fill the other tray on my old post, so we converted this one.
For now, I only have 10 martins here, so I'm taking my time and making sure I have everything the way I want it. Lesson-learned: it is super annoying to get into the heat of the summer with jumpers and not be able to easily put them back into their nests. This Great Horned Owl has made my life more difficult but as she has learned and adapted, so have I.
I'm also keeping the Deluxe gourd rack that I took down - you never know, I may change my mind when I retire and put it back up and expand my colony, but for now, I'm pretty happy with offering 84 gourds that are 100% protected from the owl, yet still being able to perform nest checks.
Lookout 2019 - here we come!
John Miller, St. Louis - Forest Park Purple martin landlord & mentor, worked very hard and long to convince the MDC to host a purple martin event at their Conservation Center in Springfield for this past Saturday. He even coordinated with the Springfield News Leader to do a story about the event in advance to generate more interest. So, when he emailed me to let me know he had suffered a back injury and asked me to take his place, I thought he was surely kidding me. He had worked so hard for this...but he wasn't kidding and on Saturday, myself and Jeff Robinson, purple martin landlord and mentor from Rogersville, MO, took the stage in Springfield and, along with the MDC, we led 68 purple martin enthusiasts down the path to learning more about how to be a purple martin landlord.
We learned from a showing of hands that only about 20% of the folks there were already purple martin landlords. That means approximately 54 new landlords are now spreading out across western Missouri on their way to putting up new houses for purple martins!
Two and a half hours later, my voice was nearly gone, and Jeff and I were still fielding questions.
It was a great turnout! Thank you to John Miller for providing Jeff and I with this opportunity and to the MDC for hosting this event!
Following are all the pictures from the event:
As we roll into 2019 today, like always, I take a look back and remember all the ones in my family that are missing and aren't rolling ahead with us. We had our first Christmas and first New Year without Nikki and the moment my thoughts turn to her or her picture pops up on my computer, I begin to cry again. The memory of the last look she gave me is burned into my soul and Bob and I both miss the routine and her constant companionship. She took a piece of our hearts with her and I sometimes wake up late at night, thinking I heard her tag from her collar clinking on the heating vent in our bedroom.
Nikki - December, 2012
I had a reprieve from her memories during the Christmas holidays while my Grandsons were here and keeping me busy for 5 days. For some reason, thinking of her today, has made me vulnerable to a flood of memories of other lost loved ones in my family. Listening to this song doesn't help matters either.
I used to think life was so hard when I was a kid, but of course hindsight being what it is, it really wasn't. The older I get, the more my heart tries to drag me back down those old, dusty country roads and while teaching our Grandsons to drive our 4-wheelers, the memories of my own driving lessons by my Grandfather washed over me like a soft, warm cloak wrapping itself around me.
I was Pawpaw's favorite grandchild - not because I was the best-behaved (I wasn't), but because my father (his son), Jack Pippin was a drunk, philandering, physically and verbally abusive man who had no clue how to be a father. So Pawpaw stepped in and took myself (the oldest of the three), Karen & Clint into his large comforting arms and protected us from my father's demented psychosis. Pawpaw made it his mission to teach us everything a real father should teach his children. And he didn't just teach us the educational stuff - A,B,C's, math, reading & writing - he taught us the very practical stuff too, such as learning to drive a vehicle.
When I was 5, 6, & 7 years old, Pawpaw would put me in his lap and patiently teach me to drive both the old John Deere tractor and our old standard-shift Chevy pickup. The tractor was fun, but it became boring, going back & forth across the same field - never really going anywhere. But in the truck it was a different story; now we're talkin' - now I'm going places!
At that age, I had to spread my arms wide, wrap my little fingers around the huge steering wheel and pull myself up so I could see over the hood of the truck. My feet still couldn't reach the pedals and I wasn't strong enough to pull the shift into the proper gear, but Pawpaw operated the clutch, gas pedal and shifted for me. It was a thrill for me - such a little kid - to be allowed to control such a huge piece of machinery, but the best part of this was knowing that the adults recognized that I was growing up and there was a bit of implied trust with this new responsibility.
Kathy-6 years, Karen-5 years, & Clint-2 years (l to r - Circa 1967).
He only let me drive on the back dirt roads my first couple of years, where I'm sure he had to grab the wheel more than a few times to ensure we stayed out of the ditch. As my skills improved, he eventually let me drive on the pavement, with him still operating the pedals. I would become terrified and start to shake when we met an oncoming vehicle, but Pawpaw somehow knew of my terror and would put his right hand on my back, providing comfort and steadying me through his touch. He would place his left hand on his knee close to the wheel, ready to grab it if needed, until they were past us. Eventually, it was no big deal to meet someone, and I even learned the finger-wave /greeting - lift the right index finger to greet the oncoming vehicle. Back then, it was pretty common to see kids in their parent's / grandparent's laps while learning to drive, so there was never any concern about getting in trouble with the law.
David-4 years, Kathy-10 years, Karen-9 years, Jack Jr.-2 years old
Eventually, my legs grew long enough so that my feet could reach the pedals with the assistance of a few pillows at my back, instead of Pawpaw. I'm sure he had mixed feelings about my new abilities. He had no idea at the time just how much of his energy it was going to take to corral me after introducing me to a gas pedal. After many trials and errors and hearing, "do NOT pop the clutch, do NOT grind the gears and back off the gas when shifting" over & over, I was finally allowed to drive the truck in the hay field. My first work assignment was to pull the hay trailer around the fields as the hired hands, some of them only a few years older than me, loaded the hay bales. I was paid $1.00 per hour for driving.
Most of the time, I could keep the truck in first gear and idle along as the men walked along and tossed the hay on. Not only did I feel like I was the most important part of that operation, but I also had the best seat in the house so I could watch the tanned, handsome young mens' muscles glistening and rippling as they loaded hay in the hot sun.
Still, I was prone to mistakes and while not in any danger in a big hay field, the men were not amused when I would accidentally pop the clutch and the hay would go rolling off the trailer. I learned a lot of different cuss words back then as they would stomp back to the trailer and reload the hay.
It took awhile, but I was determined to learn to control the clutch better; part of my determination might have come from having to spend some time on that trailer, dragging & stacking too, and learning just how frustrating it is to have to reload and stack if the driver is too busy admiring the handsome loaders. Back then, they were the smaller, rectangular bales - and I started to appreciate why you don't want to have to pick them up twice. That's when I started earning $2.00 per hour.
After a few years in the hay fields, a few more inches of growth, and maybe too much admiring of the handsome hired hands, the pillows were removed and Pawpaw let me start driving the roads, always with his accompaniment. I sometimes wonder how Pawpaw didn't have a stroke while I was driving.
I was an adrenaline junky and I loved pressing the gas pedal to the floor and flying down the road with the wind blowing in the side window vent and the dust roiling up behind us. I graduated once again to the pavement and to this day, I distinctly recall Pawpaw's stern warning, "Girl, I'll pay the overweight ticket, but you'll pay the other'un". That was his way of warning me to slow down.
Kathy-13/14 years, Clint-9/10 years, Jack Jr.-4/5 years, & Karen-12/13 years - (l to r - Circa 1975)
Out of all the driving training, getting me slow down was the biggest challenge for him. Except when people loaded up into the bed of the truck and we headed to our camp on the river. Even at the age of 12, I knew it was extremely dangerous to hit a pot hole going too fast when my younger siblings were in the back. I loved riding in the back too. It's funny - today, I can't stand all the dust from the back country roads, but back then, we didn't have a care in the world about it. Sand & dust flying all around us - the gritty stuff in our eyes and teeth - because who doesn't smile when they're riding in the back of a truck? Sometimes, if he was going slow, Pawpaw would let us ride on the tail gate - he rarely dropped one of us kids, but if he did he would stop and wait for offender to catch up - the one who obviously hadn't been listening when they were told to hang on in the first place.
Pawpaw was loving, but at the same time he was tough - he would tell you once, sometimes even twice, but after that, you suffered the consequences of your pride.
To this day, I can still drive any vehicle with a stick shift and a tractor.
April, 2014- plowing the field, preparing for clover planting.
I still have the problem of driving too fast, but I pay my dues when I do - or at least when I get caught. We had the best Christmas, as Bob and I taught our two grandsons how to drive our 4-wheelers. The labels on the bikes state, "no operators under the age of 16". We scoffed at that. As our Grandsons begged & pleaded to be allowed to push the bike from low to high gear for more speed, and wanted more control of the throttle so we could go airborne over the whoop-di-dooes, I laughed to myself as I imagined Pawpaw had probably experienced all the same thoughts now spinning in my head; "not an ice-cube's chance in hell, kid" & "I have no desire to die today".
I can't wait until my Grandsons visit again, so I can continue to teach and play with them. My son told me they're still talking about all the fun they had with Gramma and Grandpa. I hope they cherish these memories we are making long into their own adulthood, as I cherish my memories of my own Grandparents today.
