Morsels: Elephants, Poop, and more

Morsels:  tiny bits of goodness from the past week or so....

This past weekend I participated in the MidCoast 1/2 Marathon in Hope, Maine--about 25 minutes from here.  The official race was cancelled due to low registration but a handful of hardy souls turned out for the fun run, with donations going to the Hope Elephants.  The race was Hard.  It should be called the "Hope I finish" 1/2 marathon because not more than a 1/4 mile of it was flat.  The hills were killer.  I'm still sore now, two days later.  

But, while the race was less than enchanting, the elephants were AMAZING.  I've always loved elephants (who doesn't?) and seeing these beauties, Rosie and Opal, and hearing Jim talk about how intelligent they are was fascinating.  His love for them is infectious. I suspect an elephant project may be in the wings for my kiddos.  We were all entranced.  

photo by Wylie

Last week had a tiny winter adventure (similar to last year's).  We used to get out and have these winter walks frequently, and now that Kale can navigate the snow more easily I think they'll become more of a routine.  We tracked some deer and turkey, and while never glimpsing the beasts themselves (no surprise) we found plenty of evidence that they'd recently visited.

 

 

 Kale asked to see the picture of the deer poop several times throughout the walk, and was thrilled each time we found more.  We also found this unidentified poop, in a small shelter that kids had built. It looks like porcupine to me, but we didn't see any other evidence.  We'll have to go back soon and look for more clues.    Its fun to think of a little creature settling into their fort to get out of the elements during a storm.  

We also found these strange marks on a small patch of alders--some kind of disease I assume, though we've yet to look it up.  Any thoughts?

  

Kale:  "Come see my Lego, its awesome, and its really cool, and its awesome."

photo by Rob

Every Monday we swim at the YMCA.  The kids love it, and it makes a huge difference in their swimming strength to be able to swim all winter.  I'm hoping this summer everyone will be out of the drowning stage.  Kale has always love to swim, but now he is truly doing it.  He can swim a good 5-6 feet underwater to or from the edge of the pool.  His only trouble is he doesn't know how to come up for a breath.  We're working on that.  For now he pushes off, swims until I think he probably needs a breath, I lift him gently while inhales calmly, then he's back under swimming again.  He went across the pool and back like this.  Its really amazing to see.  Juniper did a lot of early swimming, but most of it looked more like drowning until she came up smiling and proud.  But Kale is relaxed and clearing floating, kicking a bit and pulling with his arms--enjoying the sensation all around.  I get a lot of comments from other parents of toddlers/preschoolers in the pool and usually feel the need to clarify that it is just who he is (lest they pressure their own baby too soon).  I always add that my 9 yr. old is just swimming this year.  

These kids are who they are, and mostly I think we have very little to do with it.  But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't proud.  Plus its so damn cute.  

Inspired by a friend's recent Cub Scout derby Wylie came home and built his own racer.  It's a piece of strapping, with Lego wheels screwed on, and electrical tape for aerodynamics.  He says the popsicle sticks are for balance.  There's also a rock in there for weight.  He challenged me to a race, so I whipped up a snazzy Lego car (no photo) and it was pretty close.  Mine won for distance, but his was faster and way more official looking.  

With the recent warming (up to 50 today in the sun!) we were able to harvest these carrots that overwintered in the cold frame.  It was a tiny harvest, what you see here is pretty much it, but they were sweet little guys.  Quite a few of the others were rotting and had to be pitched to the chickens.  I was really lazy about garden chores last fall and didn't mulch these with anything, which I'm sure would have done the trick to prevent them from freezing.  With these out of the way we're hoping to get some early greens going.  I can't wait for fresh baby spinach! 

 

One day last week

Last Wednesday in Maine it poured.  It was 50 degrees warmer than it had been two days before, and the snow disappeared overnight.  Thursday morning we awoke to 50 mph wind gusts that felt magical.  The energy in the air was contagious and we stood on the front porch at 7 am in our pajamas watching the clouds whip across the sky, and the trees bending from their hips.  I moved the car way from one suspicious looking subject (still standing, though not for long).   Five minutes later the power went out.  

 

 

 

I love how quiet everything is when the power is out.  All of the white noise from the overhead fan on the stairs, the refrigerator, the lights--its all gone.  The only sound, other than the children, was the wind.  We made a few trips to the stream for buckets of water for toilet flushing.  We let the chickens out.  We very nearly got hit by this huge branch falling in our yard.  After that we decided no one was allowed off the porch until the wind quieted.   We lost several branches, a few small trees, and one big white cedar that we are sad to see gone, split in half about 20 ft. up.
Some of us were thrilled to wear vests in place of snowsuits and running shorts with red boots.  Why not?

 

 

We checked out the muddy sand box, and got out the kids' bikes to tour the neighborhood for damage.
We had leftovers for lunch and ice cream that was threatening to melt in our freezer.    

  

It was a strange day for January.  There is something magical and wild in a wind like that, and in a day so drastically different from the season.   It was a welcome change to the single digits from just days before, but also a quiet reminder of the shifts in the weather we've been noticing over the past few years.  Its both beautiful and concerning.
It is cold again this week, but the bare ground and blue sky seem distinctly summer-like if you look past the leafless trees.  I'm feeling a little unsettled by it all.  The hope I feel when I watch my children as they grow, and the sense of defeat I feel when I think of the world we're leaving for their children is hard to reconcile.  
Its fine to recycle and drive less, but in the face of tornadoes in New Englad and shorts in January it can be discouraging.
In the meantime I'll do my best to "be the change I want to see in the world", and enjoy these summer like days as gifts--and move the car as often as necessary to avoid the falling trees.  

Snowy Morning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week we welcomed (by email) my newest niece into the world, and are now anxiously awaiting news from the NICU where she is receiving treatment.  She seems to be in good health aside from some troubling/confusing symptoms and so is fortunately able to be held and loved by her parents through all of this.  Even so I can't begin to imagine the stress on my brother and his wife as they negotiate through the already harrowing first days as parents.  I wish there was someway I could help, instead of sitting here a state away, feeling distracted, teary, and short with my children.  We're sending good, healing thoughts their way and hoping she'll be able to go home before too long.

With so much distress in the world this season the quiet and peace of snowfall was a welcome way to start our day--a bit of hush during this period of worry and waiting.  

Good Bye Boys

I went to feed my ladies this morning.  Roughly weekly, I deliver a half gallon of nearly 2:1 ratio of sugar to water.  They appreciate a little fast food this time of year when the nectar is scarce and the air chilly.  Honey bees form a cluster at about 52 degrees F, which means they all clump together in a large ball, with the queen and brood in the middle.  Older bees make up the outside of the "bee ball" and swap positions to stay warm.  They vibrate their flight muscles, without actually moving their wings,  fast enough to heat the cluster to as warm as 93 degrees.  During these chilly days they may break cluster for only the warmest part of the day, and are happy to have some sugar water right nearby.  Of course I only took a tiny bit of their honey, so they have plenty of the real deal as well.  I'm hoping they're saving that for the really cold months when I won't be delivering.

I've affectionately referred to them as "the ladies" all summer, despite the few (several hundred perhaps?) brothers among them.  The drones live an easy life, of no work--aside from hoping to mate with a virgin queen, and eating all the nectar and honey their sisters bring in. (If ever their wish comes to fruition they will chase and catch said queen, and will begin mating while maintaining wing velocity so high they will actually "pop" and explode upon ejaculation, dying and falling to the ground*),  Not a bad life.  Until October.

A week ago when I made my sugar rounds I noticed maybe 30-50 bees swarming anxiously about the entrance.  At first I was afraid there was some kind of robbing taking place, since a few of the bees were yellow jackets.  But on closer inspection I realized that aside from the few foreign visitors, the panicky bees were all drones who were desperately trying to gain entrance to the hive, where their sisters had suddenly turned against them.

Today I discovered a rather large pile of dead bees, most of them drones just off to the side of my hive stand.  The poor boys must have formed their own tiny cluster and perished in the night, having been evicted.  Such is the life of a fall drone.  The ladies know they eat a lot--they're quite a bit larger after all, and since they do so little work its hardly worth feeding them all winter.  Out they go.  Its the way of things, but oh what a sad thing to find.

My ladies however were thrilled to have the syrup and I noticed a few brave souls still returning with pollen baskets full, and lots on tiny new bees gathered about the feeder.  These girls are the bees who may actually live to see spring.  I hope they eat up.  Winter is a hard time of year to be a bee.


*At least according to The Storey Guide to Backyard Bee Keeping

A Walk in the Woods

Today I got to have a nice little walk in the woods with just Kale.  This almost never happens.  We walked the same path I walked nearly every week when Wylie and Juniper we little, but Kale hadn't done since our winter walk last winter.  It was fun to experience this walk with just him.  To peer into every hole and beneath every fallen tree in search of wolves, tiny baby bunnies, or ogres.  You never know when you might need a bicycle helmet.  His actually came in handy twice--in a shower of acorns that left me ducking and hiding my head, and 10 feet up in a small beach tree while I tried to hang on to both of us while snapping our photo.  Neither of us fell, but the helmet made us both feel a little better about the possibility.
   

 

those colors!

  I can't get enough of the colors around here--and they're only going to get better...

 

    

 

Homeschool Thursday: Acorns

Unlike the cranberries, the acorns seem to be never ending.  Bicycle helmets serve double duty as daily bike rides along our oak lined road have become something akin to dodge ball.  Every fall these smooth, shiny treasures fill our pockets, line window sills, and become the makings of some craft or another.  One of my favorite activities from several years ago was the making of our "hundred" board.

The title photo is an old one from that fall, with Juniper's then 3 yr. old feet in those favorite shoes of mine, and her fast pudgy hands gathering acorns.
This year the acorns are most treasured by the current almost 3 yr. old.

But they have not been forgotten by the others.  Wylie and Juniper were recently inspired (as they frequently are) to gather wild foods and play "survival" or "Mary and Laura" depending on who you ask.  This particular day was their most successful and after much collecting, shelling, pounding, and grinding yielded some pretty good acorn pancakes.  For the first batch the kids wanted to use all gathered foods and we turned to our two edible plants books to find alternate flour ideas.  There were many different options for making flour but most involved days of soaking, drying and pounding.  They tried one batch with all acorn flour (and two eggs, water, and maple syrup) which was edible but lacking.  The second batch was a mixture of 1/3 acorn flour, 1/3 rice flour, and 1/3 tapioca starch.  With some wild blueberries and maple syrup they were a hit.  

 

 

               The Peterson Guide is much easier to use and full of information, but Gibbons is pretty fun.  

Yum!

Phenology

Wikipedia defines phenology as:  noun, "The study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, esp. in relation to climate and plant and animal life."   

                                          outdoor bathing last March

The seasonal natural phenomena around here have been out of whack for a while, but most of the time the changes have been lovely, such as 80 degree days in March, and a July and August with barely a rain day to slow us down.  
But, when something negative happens its a bit of a wake up call as to how interconnected all things truly are.  While we thankfully haven't had a devastating drought, a tsunami, or a tornado (though they've been forecast) what I discovered the other day has really put a damper on my fall.  No cranberries.  


Last year we discovered that our frogwatery marsh was chock full of wild cranberries.  This year I've been waiting and scheming up all kinds of cranberry goodness for this harvest season.  But when I walked the bog to see how they were coming along I discovered the plants were bare.  Sadness.  


So what's the deal?  I did a little research on the Cooperative Extension website (a truly underused wealth of information) and emailed with an official cranberry expert and concluded that our plants most likely flowered early (in said 80 degree March/April days) and subsequently froze during one of the normal freezing temperature nights shortly thereafter.  Another factor is that pollination of early flowers, which around here is typically done by native bumble bees, was low due to a decreased population of bumbles who rely on snow to insulate them during the winter.  A third factor in the missing berries may possibly be the overall warmer temperatures all winter long.  Cranberries, it turns out, have a particularly high chill requirement, meaning it has to be really cold for a long time in order for plants to go dormant for the winter.  

I'm easing into the idea of  a fall without berries.  We bought two extra boxes of local organic blueberries to help pull us through the winter, we've been gathering elderberries roadside, and making the most of our frozen strawberries.  Its not the same, but will have to do.  

And as much as I never thought I'd say it, I'm hoping for a long, cold, snowy winter this year.   And with any luck, a bumper crop of cranberries next fall.   

Homeschool Thursday: Life Cycles

Every late summer/early fall we collect monarch caterpillars (pics from previous hunts here).  Some years this requires a bit of effort, and other times like this year, we just spot them crawling along the ground.  Some years we find them in the end of September, this year it was still July.  (I've been thinking a lot about  phenology of a place and the changes we're noticing in nature's timeline here in Midcoast Maine, surely a topic for another post).  This will be our 4th year catching, observing, and releasing monarchs--though we've never (yet!) observed the egg part of the cycle.

Juniper age 3, with monarch caterpillar face paint

 

 

 

Every year it is the same process, yet we still get just as excited about seeing the chrysalis turn black, and feel that catch in our breaths the moment when we first notice the butterfly has emerged.
Cycles of all kinds are fascinating to me and their rhythms whether life cycle or seasonal ground me.  As my kids grow it is a true measure of the passing of time to experience these same rituals year after year each time through new, older pairs of eyes.