As we welcome summer we also begin to indulge in Iowa’s natural harvest of berries and cherries. Mulberries must be ripe because purple colored bird droppings mark lawns and sidewalks. Scat from raccoons and coyotes are full of seeds. Mulberries are great to eat out of hand and we get great laughs from the purple tongues and fingers that result from our munching them.
Black Raspberries, or “Black caps”, are ripening. Red raspberries big as your thumb fall into your hands and cherries hang tantalizingly just beyond reach on the most slender branches. If the weather stays warm but moist, we will have excellent blackberries come mid-July into August.
Squirrels and birds naturally have an advantage over humans and our chickens make sure that they clean up any cherries that escape the squirrels. But we are out with the best of them harvesting the fruits of an Iowa summer, indulging in fresh berries by the handful and freezing some for winter.
Take time to walk a trail and have fun with summer’s bounty.
The annual evening toad serenade has begun! From May into summer rural and urban folks can enjoy the loud trilling announcing toad lovemaking season. Nature’s summer music.
As amphibians, toads require standing water to reproduce but unlike many frogs they don’t need watery abundance. Toads lay their eggs in small pools that often dry up by summer. Eggs hatch quickly into tiny black tadpoles. While bullfrog tadpoles take two years to change into adult frogs, toad tadpoles are speedsters that transform into tiny hopping miniature adults by mid-summer. Often hundreds of these tiny creatures can be spotted seeking cool damp places to live.
Toads are voracious insect eaters, and gardeners delight in having them live under squash vines or tomato plants. Some people even construct tiny toad homes to encourage them to live in the garden.
We’re lucky to have a big toad living in a shed near our garden. His home is damp and cool with plenty of insects to keep him well fed.
According to the National Wildlife Federation, when pestered, toads eject a watery toxic substance from the parotoid glands. The toxin discourages dogs, raccoons or other hungry varmints intent on a meal from eating them. Few predators bother the placid toad. This bufotoxin can cause an allergic reaction in people. But humans do NOT get “warts” from toads.
Homeowners can encourage toads to take up residence. Building a small pond creates a toad magnet and maintaining a few damp places in the garden will provide toad homes. Avoid insecticides and, thus, encourage worms and insects for these intriguing animals to gorge on.
Kids love toads. When our children, Dan and Nancy, as small children delighted in watching them in our small backyard pond. Toads help transform a boring yard into a wondrous one!
Winding Pathways has had fun this spring working with neighbor children on syruping. While the season here in Iowa has ended, in more northern and Eastern areas it is still in full swing. The 2015 syruping season may last longer in the north east because of the deep snow and continued cold. Take in the excitement of a syrup festival in your region and take time to tap a tree in your backyard. Things will pop fast, so go outside and play!
Clambering over the fallen branches of the cleared understory saplings, I realized I was pushing my way through a metaphor.
Recently, a dynamic work party gathered at Sand Ridge to access Faulkes Woods and begin rehabilitation of the diverse ecosystems that had inspired the dedication of this lovely preserve.
Soon after the 1998 dedication, Faulkes Woods Forest began to show degradation from previous years of little maintenance. Garlic mustard took over the ground cover. Barberry seeds, spread by birds, quickly colonized in huge inaccessible patches, crowding out all other vegetation. Shade-loving maples – some native, some European – prevented sun loving oak and hickory nuts from rooting. Food for wildlife became scarcer as quality habitat declined.
The prolific deer and turkey populations foraged in neighboring yards and gardens more frequently. Woodpeckers, finding the dying and dead trees just right for their food and shelter needs, had increased. Yet, other birds, such as the Ovenbird, that are typically found in large timber tracts seemed to have disappeared. According to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology under Habitat “Ovenbirds breed in large, mature broadleaf or mixed forests from the Mid-Atlantic states to northeastern British Columbia. They set up summer territories where the leaf canopy overhead inhibits underbrush and provides deep leaf litter hosting plenty of invertebrates.” This excerpt can explain why they are not around. Too much undesirable understory has prevented native plants from growing and leaf litter is practically non-existent. Erosion has increased.
The clearing out “work party” left the forest floor in shambles. At least that would be the first impression. Piles of barberry littered the bare forest floor. But, the rest of the area was free from large patches of impenetrable brush. The felled saplings were another story. Not only were they tough to climb over and push through, but also, they blocked the trail. So, newcomers to the forest could not tell if they were on the right path back to the house for lunch. Thank goodness for the bright orange marker tapes that the leaders had tied to trees along the way to point the way!
And, that is not all. This project has been in development for a number of months. Leadership centered on a core of reliable professionals from the City of Marion, Trees Forever, Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, and Winding Pathways. Each knew his/her role. Everyone contributed positively. Volunteers, some experienced and some new to the efforts of ecological restoration, followed the lead of the crew chiefs. The project was successful because everyone made it so. And, deferred to experienced leaders.
All this hit me as I navigated the timbered jackstraw.
In short, a steady, decades-long and then rapid decline in quality with a huge mess to clean up.
So, the metaphor that popped into my mind as my way opened and the house loomed high on the ridge before me – still uphill – was, “This is a lot like church.”
Lacking regular attention to details over decades – finances, maintenance, staff and communications – and without a person truly “in charge” as a CEO by whatever name one gives this position, a church congregation can find itself overwhelmed by “garlic mustard, barberry, and invasive understory.” At a certain point a major “clearing out” needs to happen. But, it is messy, has far ranging consequences, hurts many people directly and indirectly involved, drives off productive families and may not be successful if it is only a superficial or “one time effort.”
The cultivation of steady maintenance and care of the physical plant, to social interactions, to nurturing of the tenets and principles to which a congregation espouses and spiritual development is necessary. Both professionals and volunteers need to participate. But, above all, someone must be in charge. And keep at it!
Finally, I pushed through the last of the maple branches and hiked up the trail to the house, washed up and prepared lunch for 27 wonderful volunteers and professionals who made a significant dent in stopping the woods’ degradation. Knowing that this was just the start of restoration, Rich has gone down periodically to trim back the branches from the fallen understory, the deer have eaten them back, the trail is open into the Woods and sunlight is beaming down onto the soil, warming it and the resting native ephemerals. The best part is that the Parks Department of Marion is very interested in the long term health of the Woods and that the sponsoring organizations’ leaders want to do more projects there.
The goals are clear and energy remains high. This is what restoration is about. May it be so in the church as well.
Few animals frustrate homeowners as much as moles, but at Winding Pathways we appreciate them. Moles are Mother Nature’s roto tillers, and like mechanical tillers they soften and mix soil, helping plants grow.
The common Eastern mole only weighs about four ounces. It stays underground and is rarely seen, but the evidence of this animal’s foraging is easy to spot. Humped ridges wee waw around a lawn and volcanic like cone-shaped hills of loose dirt appear as if by magic. See them and moles have been at work.
Ridges are created as moles swim through the soil seeking tasty earthworms and grubs for dinner. They are most active in the evening and morning and prefer loose soil, especially in shady areas.
People who want their lawn to be as perfect and blemish free as carpeting hate moles and endlessly and needlessly persecute them. We like them because visible mole tunnels and hills tell us that our lawn is rich in worms, grubs and other underground animals that are natural components of the soil. In short, our lawn is healthy and ready for children to play on safely.
An insect and worm free lawn is unnatural and likely happens when people poison the soil in an effort to discourage moles. It works. With no food available, moles move elsewhere, leaving the homeowner with a blemish free unnatural lawn that may be toxic.
During the heat and dryness of late summer lawn grasses want to go dormant. Moles move to shady cooler woodlands, abandoning lawns until fall rains resume. Ironically, the people who hate moles often water their lawn during summer droughts, creating perfect conditions to attract the tiny mammals.
Commercially sold poison peanuts are ineffective because moles don’t eat peanuts. They’re insectivores. Plunging spear traps pose safety hazards to small children. Moles often don’t reuse humped up feeding tunnels. They’ve already caught the food there. Traps and poison set over tunnels may kill harmless shrews and mice that use them as highways.
We’ve noticed that places where moles were most active last year have the greenest grass this year. That’s probably because last year’s diggers made the soil softer and added a bit of natural fertilizer in their droppings. Mother Nature’s roto tillers at work.
The best solution to a “mole problem” is simply to ignore it and allow the small animals to go about their business improving soil health. Simply stomp down tunnels and rake out hills before mowing. New grass grows quickly in this newly enriched top soil.
The charming but pesky chipmunk is an amazing forager and storer of food.
Wildlife sometime create yard mischief. Raccoons, possums, and skunks tip over trash cans in the middle of the night. Chipmunks tunnel under walls, moles heap mounds of dirt. And woodchucks and cottontails raid the garden.
Damage, or perceived damage, often infuriates homeowners. Woodchucks have the uncanny ability to harvest lettuce the day before it is to be picked for an evening salad, and raccoons raid the sweet corn patch the moment ears are ripe. Moles hump up hills of dirt that lawnmowers hit, and skunks mine into the sod for grubs. What’s a homeowner to do?
WHY WILDLIFE CAUSE PROBLEMS
There’s no mystery to it. Wild animals are attracted to yards because they are comfortable places to live or find food. All living creatures need food, shelter and water to live. Yards frequently offer these basic needs all in proximity. Create a beautiful diverse yard and wildlife will enjoy it as much as people. In most cases people love seeing most species of wildlife in their yards, but often agree that they are best enjoyed in moderation.
THREE STEPS TO CONTROL GARDEN WILDLIFE DAMAGE
There are three ways to effectively overcome, or at least minimize, wildlife damage.
Homeowners differ in their strategy on how they weigh the benefits versus problems of wildlife in the yard.
Strategy One: Tolerate damage and enjoy wildlife.
It’s a state of mind that may require attitude adjustment. How important is a perfect lawn or head of cabbage, versus watching a cottontail mom peacefully nurse her babies on the edge of the law? How valuable is the beauty and inspiration gained from seeing chipmunks pack their cheeks with seeds and scamper across the yard versus the tunnels they make in retaining walls? For many people having beautiful and interesting wildlife out the window far outweighs damage they may cause.
We had a friend who grew a tiny garden with a few lettuce plants, a short row of string beans, and one hill of summer squash. When a cottontail devoured them she was incensed and declared war on bunnies. She bought traps but never managed to catch them. She built a fence but the lettuce thieves found their way under it. Her stress level rose as plants disappeared.
We suggested she might rely on simple arithmetic to solve her problem.
“Instead of spending about a hundred bucks on fencing and traps, wouldn’t it be simpler and cheaper to just buy lettuce, squash, and beans at the farmer’s market”, we asked her. She agreed. It took some mental adjustment, but now she buys locally grown vegetables and enjoys watching the cottontails that she once hated.
SOMETIMES IT’S BEST TO JUST IGNORE MINOR DAMAGE AND ENJOY WILDLIFE.
Strategy two. Preventing damage in the first place.
The saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” holds true for wildlife damage. In most cases homeowners can both enjoy wildlife and prevent or greatly reduce damage critters might do. Some simple ways to anticipate and reduce conflict include:
Fencing: Craft fences sturdy enough to keep rabbits and woodchucks out of the garden. Cottontails, for example can jump a long ways horizontally but not high vertically. An inexpensive 18 “ tall temporary fence of chicken wire will keep them out of the garden. Woodchucks are more challenging, as they are expert diggers and climbers. A garden fence needs to extend below the ground to keep them out and needs to be at least three or four feet tall. Watch for more fencing specifics in future editions of Winding Pathways website.
Securing: Store trash cans inside the garage with the door closed to keep raccoons from tipping it over. Better yet, compost food scraps and don’t put anything in the can that will interest wildlife. Composting turns waste into a wonderful resource that improves the soil. Don’t let the trash man cart it away. Some people who prefer not to add meat scraps to the compost bin, feed them to a small flock of chickens or simply put them on the edge of the yard in the evening for the raccoons to devour. No more tipping over the trash can.
PREVENTION IS A KEY
Strategy three: Killing the offending animal.
Often people resort first to killing an animal. However killing a few woodchucks, raccoons, moles, or chipmunks will not solve damage problems. These animals are in the yard because they find perfect conditions there to live. Remove a few and others will move in. Keep killing and you’ve created a wildlife death trap.
Sometimes it is necessary to kill an animal. Upcoming issues of Winding Pathways will feature tips on how to eliminate problem animals.
