wood for the winter

We finished stacking this year's today. I estimate: 4½ - 5 cord. Two rows is just under a cord; the shed holds 10 rows or nearly. Hope it's dry enough.

Saw a dozen or so chickadees, a titmouse, two or more blue jays.

migrate or not?

I saw a Mourning Dove on a Maple Tree today -- on a branch -- thought they migrated? Just a territory shift?

whoosh

LittleBirder and I saw a shooting star tonight in the high NorthWest.

reassurance of warmth

It's always amusing when you describe your old wood stove to someone who knows stoves, and he says, with respect, that you've got a work horse and it'll probably put out as much heat or more than the other one(s) you've been talking about.

Our stove is old. I've had it since I bought the deep camp this place used to be, and always assumed it was at least 5 if not 40 years old. I wonder if it is older than me. That'd be amusing too.

a toddler's approach to squirrels

LittleBirder went outside today with a bird book, notebook, and crayon. Came in to tell me of a "chipmunk" eating seed in the green feeder that is (in his mind) for chickadees. We talked about how he could scare away a red squirrel by going out and talking to it. In the back of my mind is the idea the squirrel might become habituated to him and he could eventually feed it. I wonder how likely that is? And I wonder if the uneven bit of fur on a red squirrel (the same one? A different one?) is a scar (thus earning it the name "Nibbles") or just a rain-soaked and temporary look.

I wonder where Stubbs is, and how -- whether he survived the summer.

Handy-Dandy Notebook

LittleBirder went outside with his notebook and crayon. I asked, "Is that your 'handy-dandy notebook?"

He replied quite solemnly, "No, Mama. A 'handy-dandy notebook' is for Blue's Clues. I have another one."

scrap of journal, quick rough sketch of chickadee nape

One of the 7" chickadees has a little pale patch at the nape of its neck, in the black hood. Some other one has an irregular hood instead of a smooth.

I love seeing little differences like this.

Same ol'

Same birds as yesterday except no hairy woodpecker, and six or more chickadees.

Sometime earlier this week, we managed to clean out the woodshed of stored cedar shakes and siding (on the new shelves in the tools shed and in the wood shed "ceiling" -- now that we put in braces to make such ceiling, respectively). And the ladder is now up under the woodshed roof, not under a leaky tarp, and not going to get thick with ice and snow. We even stacked some wood. I should do more of that today; it's great weather for it.

Birdly birds

LittleBirder and I started feeding the birds again last week, although he did it with Granddad a while back before that too (funny how right now I can't even remember when Granddad came up to visit... oh yeah, mid-September. I've not journaled much the past couple of months).

Today is very busy out there: between 8 and 9 a.m. we've seen a hairy woodpecker (possibly a female), a red squirrel who isn't Stubbs, a pair (or more) of juncos, two blue jays chasing each other, three or more chickadees, a titmouse, a white-breasted nuthatch. Nothing unusual, but pleasant.

We still have LittleBirder's pansies -- just 1 -- after 2 or 3 frosts. And sedum. And a few roses! The roses didn't do so well this year.

bed building

LittleBirder and I finally laid leaves, straw, and dirt in the shade perennial bed I'm trying to build around the well. I'm trying to create this bed as a buffer, for when I eventually start parking in the shade. My long term goal is to park farther from the house, in the shade of the woods, in a half-circle, and use the current parking area, which gets full sun, for garden. Raised beds, with some sealer layer underneath, because we've been parking cars there, but still, why waste full sun on the cars? This is still at least another year away (not counting that we don't have the money for a driveway surface, not even gravel).

colors of fall

Decorative crabapple, I'm told .... they look a lot like cherries to me.

 

Maple leaf in our driveway... sugar maple? Red maple? I've got to learn these one of these days.

 

Rounds Road, up towards the dead ends we go...

 

Thinking Autumn Thoughts under the sedum

chickadee vids

In which a chickadee proves its preference for black oil seeds.

I love my camera.

natural and green architecture

Really want to browse through this Natural Architecture by Alessandro Ross (heard of through worldchanging). Maybe you do too? Not to mention maybe folks who are interested in green architecture and/or Andy Goldsworthy's art...

garden decoration

Among other busy small happy things today, LittleBirder and I attached a trellis to the house. It was given to me as a Mother's Day present, and I love it. That's one of those things that's been waiting to be done for ages -- you know the sort. so nice to have it up! And just where I wanted a trellis too: in front of the propane tanks as you look at them from the drive and stairs.

Storage...

LittleBirder, R, and I added some crossbars (perhaps better-termed collar tie or rafter?) to the shed. We've now moved those planks and the ladder up onto them, tucked under the metal roof of the woodshed. Very nice. Pallettes are in. Gotta get the wood stacked!

Now if only I could get a side extension onto the garden shed for the bikes...

predation, round 2

Bug cat and Probable Fox had another growlfest tonight. Something's hungry for my white beast of doom, apparently.

predation?

So there's this strange noise coming from... somewhere. Outside? Er.. yeah. Yeah! Is that the cat?

We scamper to the doors, R to the kitchen door, me to the living room door, a guest to the front door.

R and I see nothing, but we hear our guest shouting, and run back through. So does the cat.

Our guest tells us that the cat was on this old chunk of sauna tube footer concrete, which pins the edge of the flower garden (more or less, until someday I move it), grumbling and yowling. When he came out, he saw and shouted at a fox in the wood pile, which apparently had also been growling at the cat.

For the record, this cat is about 17 years old, all white (except for spots on her nose), has caught approximately 4 mice he entire life, and perhaps all of those were by accident. (I base this on the evidence of observing her and chipmunks and her and birds and her and the mice in the kitchen.) And yet, here she is, defending our home from the Forces of Foxery.

Well, no. I think she was just utterly terrfied. But I like the first version better!

bat rescue

We rescued five bats from our woodstove and its chimney tonight. Two we brought out by hand (in gloves, of course), and three by opening doors and shooing them. I think they were Little Brown Bats (Myotis lucifugus)—using Stokes Beginner's Guide to Bats for identification after the fact. Even after all that time in Carlsbad and with DR in Montana, I'd forgotten what to look for.

Big Brown Bat Eptesicus fuscus	Length: 3.4 -5.4" Wingspan: 13-16" Weight: 0.4 - 0.8 oz No fur on wings, tail, ears, nose, which are dark brown/black
Little Brown Bat Myotis lucifugus	Length: 2.4 - 4.0" Wingspan: 9-11"" Weight: 0.2 - 0.3 oz Long hair on toes, small black ears

What we saw: medium brown fur, slightly ashy. Slighter darker ears, wings. Didn't look closely at their feet. Hairless wing membranes, naturally. They looked more like the little brown bat pictures, what with the proportion of eye size to head, nose not noticeably black.

We took some photos, but they were hopelessly inadequate. Oh well. Luckily, there's google.

Turns out the Montshire Museum did a week of "Montshire Minutes" on bats. And here's s brief natural history summary from Mass Audubon as well.

Two Two-Lined

Two-lined Salamander
(Eurycea bislineata)
Starksboro, July 2007

We were moving some old tarps covering up some aging lumber and our extendable ladder, so we could put the boards and the ladder up on the rafters in the woodshed. This stuff was up on some sawhorses about 3 feet off the ground. Over the last couple of years (have I mentioned we move slowly on our projects?), leaves and moisture had collected along the tops of these things. And certain small critters were attracted to such habitat...

There were two salamanders, but only one got photographed. That ruler is awfully bright, isn't it?

Cooper's Hawks

We saw a whole family of Cooper's Hawks over our house today. I think there were four: 2 adults, 2 young. Very talkative, lots of cheeking sorts of sounds.

Woodshed

Up here in dem boonies, we heats with wood.

Ok, enough of that dialect.

But yes, we heat with wood. We don't have enough land and time to harvest and split our own (although we do a little culling here and there, and will more next year). We buy it. Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at stacking it and covering it with tarps. On the other hand, over the years, the tarps have developed holes. In my wanna-be-irregular thriftiness, I don't replace the tarps perhaps as often as we'd find useful.

Woodshed, about 6' x 14'. Using 4"x4" pressure-treated posts (would recommend cedar, however) and standing seam metal roofing, precast concrete footers, and 1"x4" pine for rafters and roof slats

So this year, we (by which I mostly mean my husband and brother-in-law) built a woodshed. This is a little taller than we'd intended (thanks to my brother-in-law's powers of persuasion). It is in fact (despite the picture) plumb, but as I'm often not, neither is the image... It'll hold about 5 cords, which is about what we burn in a winter, give or take.

It will have some pallets for flooring, presently, and eventually (this year?) we'll add slatted sides for better weather protection.