Extension News: February 2008 Archives

I found it! For years, I've been searching every woodpecker hole in every dead or live tree I could reach. All the books say that many birds use woodpecker holes for nesting sites, but I'd never found a nest in a hole.

I've seen many nests built in crotches of trees, including one I noticed only because a brilliant male scarlet tanager flew right in front of me and up into the nest to feed his young. I've seen nests in bird houses I've put out and robins' nests on the jut-out of the dining-room bay window under the shelter of the porch roof.

The phoebes also like the tops of our outside spotlights and frequently nest there. Once I found the nest of a northern Baltimore oriole out in the middle of the swamp. But a nest in a tree hollow carved out by woodpeckers? No, never. Until yesterday.

We've had wonderful snow for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing this winter, but the surplus of white stuff has meant hours of clearing. By the time I've shoveled the paths to the woodpile and bird feeders, cleared the decks and porch, created paths for my little dogs, pulled snow off the porch roof, I'm too tired to get out there and enjoy the snow.

Yesterday, however, I stole some time. I'd donned snowshoes to get behind the woodpile to clear it off from the back. While working, I noticed that the snow had covered the top of the fence in one area, so when I finished, I headed out into the woods. They were so lovely still, peaceful, the snow clinging to many branches. I could walk everywhere since the fallen trees, small boulders, stone walls, and low shrubs were covered in snow.

I followed a path made by a deer, trekking over to a large, dead tree to check it out. This tree must have been a monster in life. It had at least four trunks, one which showed signs of someone attempting to cut it with a saw 10 feet above the ground. One of the trunks lay buried under the snow. The bark was gone, and I could see many tunnels made by grubs and holes made by woodpeckers. I searched carefully, but no sign of a nest.

Out onto the swamp I went. On my last visit, I'd noticed an odd hole, with dirty footprints all around it but none leading to or away from it. Some creature must have come up from under the snow, looked around, and headed back inside. After the most recent 10-inch snowfall, however, there was only a small opening under a dead tree to see.

Up above, the five heron nests, piled high with snow. stood out starkly from their tree supports. I hope that somewhere down south the heron pairs and their 14 young are feeding well and enjoying the warmth and sunshine. Next month, the first arrivals should be here, scouting out the territory and choosing the best nest site. I'm glad these nests are all still intact. A few additional branches to refurbish, and they'll be all set for a new crop of squabbling youngsters.

A hairy woodpecker flew nearby and began working on a tree. Bits of bark and wood flew out and fell onto the snow below. The dead evergreens seemed almost alive again with green moss hanging from each branch. I love to look at the dead trunks. Stripped now of bark, they reveal the twists and turns each tree made as it reached for the sun, shifted slightly to one side to grow around another, repaired the damage from a broken limb. One tree in particular was covered with knobs formed when the tree grew out over a stub. Little insect holes filled the trunk as well as one or two larger ones made by the birds.

I moved to a new area and noticed a broad snag about eight feet tall. The lower portion was nearly hollow and above, at eye level, was a large hole clearly bored by a woodpecker. I peeked inside and there it was,a beautiful bird's nest.

Snow had filled the nest's cavity so I carefully removed it to see the construction of the nest itself. Dried mud and grasses formed a perfect circle. The inside was as smooth as a carefully sanded, turned wooden bowl. The nest was large, at least as large as the ones the robins build above our window. The birds had carefully selected an opening which faced east, avoiding both the heat of the summer sun and the winds of the north and west. Perfect.

I noted the location of that tree. In the spring and summer, I won't be able to see the opening from the shore, but I'll be able to watch for adult birds flying in and out of the nest. I'm curious to know what species built the nest. Now that I've found it, I'm going to enjoy it.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener, UNH Cooperative Extension

The pewter gray late winter sky hung menacingly, blocking any glimmer from the midday sun. Snowflakes fell intermittently and a cold wind tossed the trees across the horizon. The gloomy surroundings matched my mood of despair, sadness and loneliness. For the third time in two years, we'd had to put down a beloved pet.

Unlike the other dogs, this one was still young; its death unanticipated and shocking. Although the vets had assured me that I could have done nothing to save him, the problem had likely been congenital, I felt such guilt. Shouldn't I have noticed something earlier? He had been my constant shadow, following me despite his trepidation onto the beaver dam in the fall, refusing to leave my side when others offered to take him for walks. He depended on me and I believed I had let him down.

I packed away his bowls,leashes and collar. I knew we'd get another dog in time so I wouldn't get rid of these things. But the open bag of dog food couldn't be kept, so one morning I decided to toss some kibble from it out for the squawking blue jays to eat. Perhaps they'd leave the sunflower feeders alone for a while with kibble so easily obtainable.

Later that day, I sat at the counter that overlooks the back yard. With my mate away for a few days and the dog gone, the house reverberated with emptiness. I settled down with a sandwich and a book and tried to block out the pain. At the end of a chapter, I looked up from the book and blinked twice. Quick! The binoculars!

There on the path were two gray foxes, calmly but rapidly eating the dog kibble. They were the first gray foxes I'd seen.The reddish coat below, the coat of grizzled gray above, the black tipped tail, and the white throat made identification easy. The abdomen of one was somewhat distended, very full and rounded. A later check of a wildlife book confirmed that gray foxes mate in February or March and give birth in March or April. I felt they must be a breeding pair, happy to have obtained a winter meal so easily.

In too short a time, they finished the few pieces and headed down the path towards the woods. I sat there for some time, just savoring the visit of these two wild foxes. I knew they were primarily nocturnal, but do sometimes forage by day. Probably the winter snow had made hunting difficult for them so they had ventured out in daylight.

Now I had a dilemma. I knew it was ill-advised to feed wild mammals. Doing so habituates them to humans, making them more likely to come closer to people and thus putting their lives at jeopardy. But it was winter. There was still snow on the ground. Their main winter food,cottontail rabbits and other small mammals and rodents,had to be hard to catch with this snow. Soon they would have kits to feed and I still had a partial bag of dog food to get rid of.

For the next few days, I scattered some kibble along the path. Throughout the day, I watched whenever I had the chance. Nearly every day they would return. My spirits lifted as I watched the pair feed. The house no longer seemed empty and my loneliness and grief receded.

One day, a solitary fox appeared. Was the other one surrounded by young in a hidden den? If so, he'd need to bring food back to her. I gave in and when my bag of food was empty, I bought another at the store. Over the next few days, I continued to put out the food and to enjoy the fox's brief visits. The snow was melting rapidly. I knew he'd soon be able to catch prey for his growing family. One day I waited in vain. The jays came and ate the kibble. I saw the foxes no more and when the bag was empty, I didn't replace it.

The visiting foxes came five years ago. I've never seen them again, but I still treasure the memory of that brief encounter. At the time my heart most needed easing, and the foxes appeared, helping me far more than I helped them. Of course it's fanciful to think that my beloved pet somehow sent his wild cousins to cheer me; but the Natives who once lived so close to nature would have understood and shared that belief. We are all one in nature, part of a large circle, our lives touching endlessly and seamlessly. My dog is gone, but the memory of this gift remains.

When I was an English teacher, teaching poetry was one of my favorite activities. For my sophomore classes, I decided to do nature poetry. Each day we read and discussed some famous and not-so-famous nature poems. For inspiration, we studied nature photographs and went outside for walks around the campus and across the street to the little pond.

While outside, each of us made a list down the middle of a piece of paper of the things we had seen or heard, and when we got back into the class room, on the left side of the paper, we wrote down three adjectives for each living creature or thing we saw and three adverbs for each sound we heard. We couldn't overuse any adjectives or adverbs and they had to be descriptive. On the right side of the paper, we wrote similes or metaphors describing the noun or sound.

Then, choosing words from our list, we each wrote a poem. These usually came out well, and the students were amazed that, although we had all looked at the same things, the poems were very different. I always participated in these poetry-writing exercises alongside my students. Their poems were often better than mine, a fact that amazed them and delighted me.

We did this exercise every year, and I looked forward to it. I wanted my students to think of poetry not as something rarefied that took exceptional talent, but as a way of communicating anyone could use.

During one class, to push them, and myself, a little harder, I borrowed rulers from the art department and we went outside, spread out, and each measured off one square foot of ground. We marked the corners with debris we found or stuck pencils in the corners.

Then we each got down close and looked long and carefully in our square foot. A square foot is pretty small, but we found amazing things. Ants, lots and lots of ants: red ants, black ants and red-and-black ants. Worn-down grass with roots twisted at the surface competed with spindly weeds for a bit of sun and space, and dead pine needles crisscrossed each other, making delicate patterns on the of the ground.

Dried bits of seeds, bark, and tiny twigs filled in spaces, and here and there rocks and stones pushed up through the gray dirt. In some of the squares we found beetles; once someone found a spider with eggs. It seemed that everyone found pieces of acorns or the husks of seeds. We all wrote down our observations of our square foot of earth.

Back inside the classroom, I had the students read quietly to themselves the poem, "To Look at Any Thing" by John Moffitt, which begins: To look at any thing, If you would know that thing, You must look at it long.

Then for homework, I asked them to use their observations of their square foot of earth to write a free-verse poem between 10 and 20 lines. I struggled with my poem until I simply focused on all that was going on in that one square foot of earth and how amazing each thing in it was, and then I wrote it as if that one square foot was all there was to the Earth.

When we read our poems to each other, a quiet reverence filled the room. No one laughed or said anything crude or cruel. After we shared, one girl said, "Who would have thought we'd see all that in one square foot of earth!" Who indeed.

So go outside and, as Moffitt advises, "enter in to the small silences between the leaves." Let the natural world around you and beneath your feet fill you with wonder. You don't need to be a poet or a student to learn to have an appreciation for nature. Just imagine all the earth in square feet, imagine all the life teeming within each square foot, and tread carefully.

By Sheila Roberge, UNH Cooperative Extension NH Outside Volunteer

In mid-October, begin raking (or collecting from neighbors) fall leaves and pine needles to replenish your supply of garden mulch. Keep working on winter firewood (split, stack). Begin storing large columns of cardboard hauled home from town dump to replenish spring mulch under the woodchuck fence.

Separate the best of last year's garlic bulbs and plant the cloves pointed side up about four inches apart in well-composted soil in mid-October; mulch heavily to prevent heaving. Amend entire garden planting area as recommended by a soil test. Spread and rake or till in compost, wood ashes (as needed) and either mulch or sow winter rye in all bare spots.

Get your stovewood under cover before snow falls. Maintain compost pile throughout winter.Haul kitchen scraps to the pile on snowshoes as needed. Haul wood ashes in covered metal container outside, away from your house. Save newspapers and cardboard for use as weed-suppressing mulches.

In early January, order pizza seeds to ensure good choice of varieties: tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers (optional), onions, basil and parsley. Late February, sow onions and parsley seeds under lights. Six weeks later, sow tomatoes, peppers and basil. Water seedlings as needed; keep full-spectrum lights on 12 hours a day.

In mid-April, begin hardening off onion seedlings, setting flats outdoors for gradually increasing periods of time. Around the third week in April (providing garden soil has dried enough), transplant hardened onion seedlings into amended soil, setting seedlings four to five inches apart. Remain vigilant with weed removal from onion beds throughout season. Acquire pickup load of aged manure from neighbors with horses. Begin new compost pile. Mix weeds and kitchen scraps with horse manure. Repair and mulch under entire perimeter of electric woodchuck fence. Test line. Ouch!

In mid-May, retrieve tomato supports and polyester row covers from garden shed, till under winter rye and (provided soil test shows need for lime) broadcast wood ashes over entire planting area at recommended rate. Begin hardening off tomatoes, peppers and basil. Plant non-pizza salad crops if desired: lettuce, carrots, Asian greens, snow peas, radishes, etc.

Memorial Day weekend: Spread old compost. Transplant hardened tomato, pepper and basil seedlings into garden. (To pre-burn the calories for, say, a pepperoni pizza, transplant cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, leeks; direct-sow bok choi, beans, carrots, kale, winter squash, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon, and cantaloupe. Spread row covers over non-pizza crops as needed to foil insects.) Set stakes or other supports for tomatoes. Rigorously maintain mulch under woodchuck fence to prevent short circuits from weeds.

Mid-June to mid-July: Don bathing suit, periodically harvest pond weeds from backyard pond. Once soil has warmed, keep weeding or mulch entire planting bed with underlayer of hoarded newspaper topped with saved leaves, pine needles and pond weeds. Begin tying up vining tomato varieties. Water only if top two inches of soil dry out. (Non-pizza crops need rigorous daily monitoring for signs of insects and disease; e.g., check undersides of squash leaves for squash-beetle eggs; scrape off eggs with fingernail.) Remove garlic scapes as they form; eat in salads and stir-fries.

Mid-July through mid-August: Harvest garlic when all but three blades have begun turning brown. Set in warm, dry, well-ventilated space to cure. Begin daily check for early blight on lower leaves of tomatoes; remove any leaves with lesions. Pull row covers off cucumbers, squash and melons as soon as female blossoms appear to let pollinating insects do their work. Keep watering and weeding as needed. Make successive plantings of non-pizza salad crops.

Mid-August to Labor Day weekend: Remain vigilant with insect, disease surveillance activities. Harvest onions as tops begin falling over; spread to dry in protected area on old metal bedsprings (another raised-bed gardening strategy). Harvest tomatoes as they ripen. Can or freeze on weekends. Prepare some as pizza sauce, adding diced green pepper, onion and garlic, parsley, rosemary (see below), basil, thyme and oregano (from perennial herb garden).

Sometime in September or October, attend family reunion in Vermont. Shower brother Peter with effusive thanks for harvesting a load of rosemary branches from his Albuquerque backyard and carting them east in his golf bag.

September through early November: Harvest and eat or store all crops in timely fashion. Spread compost, sow cover crops in bare spots.

Ready for pizza? Fire up wood cookstove, remove sauce from jar or freezer, and simmer on stovetop. Prepare pizza dough. Make salad with seasonal ingredients. Build and bank fire to about 400°.

Assemble pizza. Add generous amount of pepperoni and sausage if you've also raised the pork and beef, grown your own wheat, and milked your own cow for the cheese. Slip pizza into oven, bake until cheese bubbles and browns.

Sit down, relax, and enjoy your nega-cal pizza.

By Peg Boyles, Writer-Editor UNH Cooperative Extension

I never liked the cold and dark of winter. Cold, dark days found me sitting by the fire reading a good book Beowulf outside the Mead Hall in the cold, or King Lear ravaged by the elements, cast out by his daughters.

Then a year ago in December, Memphis arrived in a van from Tennessee. An organization had rescued him from being put down. He is part Great Pyrenees and part St. Bernard, bigger than the other rescue dogs. Despite his size he was at first hesitant in his new surroundings.

He soon adjusted to the old colonial and extended family of adults and children who pass through. He was so affectionate and willing to please that my husband and I began feeling guilty if we did not take him for a daily walk. A big dog needs big paths to run on.

In searching for new trails to walk with Memphis, we have discovered fresh places to explore, and have thereby expanded our own horizons. We go to Stratham Hill and Creek Farm and pore over maps in search of wildlife management areas.

Last winter we discovered the beauty of the frozen, rust-colored marsh. Memphis ran with pure joy, his white coat rippling and tail curving outward as he bounded over the icy cord grass. The expression of delight on his face exhilarated us as we wrapped our heavy coats closer to ward off the wind. We were energized by his childlike delight and graceful lope in the silver light.

Another day we took Memphis ice fishing. Again, we received more than he. The lake lay in great expanse as far as the eye could see, a Brigadoon that appears each winter. Memphis ran past abandoned fishing holes and primitive shacks, scattered communities of people covered in wool caps and lined jackets, and children running at the tilts to pull up the fish.

We exchanged greetings with the area fishermen and their families stamping their feet, offering advice. Later, we sat on a sled and drank beer and ate ham sandwiches. In the sharp air, Memphis raced far and wide, eating the leftover bait, tasting the winter.

We crunched across the temporary landscape,deep snow over ice, a landscape that would disappear in the spring. I experienced a sense of freedom that sprang from some deep collective memory. I looked forward to this winter to recapture that sense of freedom.

On a warm day this January we walked in the woods. Black, gray, dark brown trunks rose in stark contrast to the pale blue patches of sky. Deer prints abounded beneath our feet. The noise of a piliated woodpecker rang out. We heard the sharp crack of tree branches. Later we followed through a mist of snow fog as the snow evaporated in the warm air. With his white and tan coat Memphis blended with the landscape. Dripping snow fell into patterns of sea foam underfoot.

My husband, an outdoorsman, pointed out the protected areas under the greens, hemlock and pine where deer had bedded down. The snow was disturbed where they pawed for acorns or nibbled the hemlock and cedar. The temperature changed as we walked on the path, colder in the lower areas and warmer in the open.

We came to the frozen marsh with the frosting of ice over the inlet tide, our boots crunching down on the frozen bog. The fawn-colored salt-marsh cord grass lay in ruffled clumps. We were the only travelers on the frozen land, the sun a pale wash of light in the afternoon sky.

The woods were colder on the other side of the marsh as we followed Memphis, spirited on by his joy of discovery. The sun broke through and set patterns of shadow and pale, gold light on the east side of the trees.

Later, driving home, we looked up to glimpse the white head and tail of a bald eagle. What a thrill! Recalling my former dread of the cold, dark days of winter, I realized I had entered a whole new realm of winter joy and wonder, a gift from Memphis.

By Carla Marvin, Community Tree Steward UNH Cooperative Extension