Bluebirds and Cold Rain

Jamie and I arrived at the Blue Ridge Center on Saturday morning, the 14th, ahead of the coming Nor'Easter , in time to check on the Bluebird nest boxes on the Farm Loop trail. We saw Bluebirds perching on wire fences, in the trees and even a pair on a box, but we didnt see any finished nests in the boxes. One box held a single 6" long white chicken's feather...probably brought there by a Tree Swallow. I've wondered...do they collect feathers for their nests off the ground, or do they pluck them out of the air as the discarded feathers of other birds are lifted by wind gusts ? Last year, there were lots of Tree Swallows in the boxes...out of the 12 boxes available, I think 7 were occupied by them. Amazing creatures of the air, and brave defenders of their nests...they'll swoop repeatedly at your head, until you are sure that it is going to take a piece of you ! Kaufman's bird book describes their call as "liquid twittering"......can't think of a better way to describe it. I also read that although most of their diet is flying insects, they will also eat berries.

Into the Allium Patch

Today I got about 16,17 marble-sized Purple Onions into the ground, next to the garlic and the little purple onion plants I rescued from the compost heap. I don't know that the soil is as loose as they might like...this coming fall I MUST layer up horse maure and leaves and compost to deepen the beds. Our next door neighbor gave us the onions...he's already planted 2 pounds of onion sets and didnt want any back from me. I ended up turning all the extras into the heap. Also in the heap are some "compostable" plates made by Earth Shell. I peeked at them today, two weeks after they settled in, and they seem to be about halfway "composted". The heap was warm, with hundreds of worms...think I'll have to heat things up a bit.

Saw the first warbler in our yard today...not sure which kind...deeply yellow throat, white wing bars, dark streaking on flanks and head...argh ! wish I had gotten a better look ! Jamie and I are going out to the Blue Ridge Center tomorrow morning to monitor Bluebird boxes before the big Nor'Easter due to arrive sometime after Sat evening. We probably won't see anything but nests in the boxes, in fact, bluebird babies at this time are pretty risky...no reliable bugs about yet. I'ave heard that the parents have had to stuff their babies full of dried seeds and berries in the absence of insects during cold, wet Springs...and the babies die :<

Arizona Cactus Bloom

Well, since things seem to moving pretty slowly here ( another freezing morning ! ), and not many things in flower ( other than the hundreds of daffodils ! ), I got to thinking about Arizona's desert blooms. Cacti that stand mute for most of the year are suddenly shouting " Magenta !" "Yellow ! " " Red ! " Insects, birds and even bats answer the call and join the plants in mutual relationships of give and take. This is a picture my Mom is AZ took several years ago of a neighboring cactus in bloom...incredible color. Nice shot, Ma !

There is a tiny poppy of the purest orange that unfurls its petals as the sun comes up...if you are hiking amongst some of Arizona's many mountains, hills or outcroppings you might catch one in the act of presenting itself to its world.
Ocotillos are fascinating...looking like nothing more than a shabby bundle of thorny sticks for months at a time, they can grow several sets of glossy boxwood-like leaves several times a year. In times of drought they drop all their leaves to conserve energy . Yet they bloom every April without fail, providing hummingbirds with crucial nectar at a time when food may be scarce.

Red Onions' New Home

Here are the little guys snuggled in with last Fall's garlic. Hope they form some bulbs !
We are testing the "compostablity" of some compostable tableware...Earth Shell. We used a few plates the other day and this morning I'll bury them into smallish compost heap we've got going. I think it's got some heat going on in the middle, but it does need to be built back up. I think I'l just slide them into the middle of the heap and check on the progress in a week or so.

Red Onions

March 31st I found this clump of red onions growing on the edge of the compost heap. Seemed such a shame to just turn them under when they looked so healthy and happy to be growing. It looks as though maybe a seed head of onions started there...where would that have come from ? maybe they're just red "spring onions" that will never form a bulb ? Where would those have come from ? I lifted the clump and seperated out 8 of the sturdiest looking ones and planted them alongside the garlic that was planted last October. The very next day a neighbor gave us some small red onion sets...proper little onions bulbs. Having never grown onions, I read up a little and see that I have to put a little thought into planting them ! I really wish that I had spread thick manure and straw over all the beds last Fall ! Well, I'll give some a try anyway.

March 31st is also Circumference Day...the day we go measure the circumference of most of the trees in the yard. It's a fun thing to do, something I wish we had started the year we'd moved here. As good a clelbration of the return of the growing season as Easter, I think. Pop came over and helped J and I measure and record the trees' girth. The big surprise was seed pods on one of the baby Catalpas that I started on Pop's 72nd Birthday started in Feb. of '01. We had a nice Mexican casserole ( layers of corn tortillas, roasted veggies, tofu, beans ) a big salad for dinner and then watched Who Killed The Electric Car. Everyone should see this film. Especially anyone contemplating buying a new car. It's a wake-up call for an individual's responsibility as an informed consumer and a scary look into how that information is twisted manipulated by and for the automobile and oil industries, aided by friends in the White House. Yikes.

Tender New Lettuce

I bought these at a wonderful local nursery/garden center yesterday. A few were plucked from the greenhouse...they have not spent a day or night outside yet. I'll harden them off in the next few days and then plant them in a few galvanized "wash tubs" I got for cheap at HD. I'll sow some lettuce seeds amongst these little guys to take their place as they get eaten .

Soil Ruminations

I find myself thinking more and more about soil as an actual organism, rather than just something that plants happen to grow out of. Our appreciation of both the intricate relationships between the separate organisms within the soil, and their sheer numbers and diversity grows each day. here's a nice example of soil life, lifted from
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/fred.moor/soil/formed/f0105.htm

Soil Inhabitants

"Bacteria
As well as plants, other life arose in the soil. Some of it is more fascinating that the world we see each day. In one tablespoonful of soil, there are more bacteria than there are people on the entire planet. A quarter of a million of them could sit on the full stop at the end of this sentence. They can live in air, water, extremes of heat and cold, and are able to function without sunlight. There are bacteria that can take animal excrement and purify it. Others can take nitrogen from the air in the soil and convert it into nitrates that are needed by higher plants for growth. Being contained within a single cell, they cannot eat solids, but feed by secreting enzymes to dissolve their surroundings to a form which they can digest, then re-absorb as lunch.

Another of the most impressive things about bacteria is the range of material they can break down to digest. Carbon compounds like naphthalene present them with no problem, something we as humans find difficult to do unless we have a laboratory.

Fungi
Essential to the breakdown of woody organic matter, fungi are another mystery in the soil, Some are parasites on live or dead plants, others live in harmony with plant roots, helping to create the ideal conditions for both to flourish.

Algae
Like plants, but more simple in composition, algae can take up carbon dioxide from the surface air (although a few do it deep in the soil) and convert it to oxygen as part of their food production process. We, of course, are happy with this, because oxygen is replenished by such means and we get to live.

Microscopic Animals
From simple celled amoeba and protozoa running their lives in the soil moisture, through nematodes that can damage the roots of the plants we want to grow, your soil is teeming with unseen life all of which plays its part in the complex chain of interdependency that is life.

Other Creatures
The most obvious are earthworms. The gardener’s friend, they play a huge part in mixing organic matter from the surface into the lower depths of the soil, and in doing so, they provide the source of food for countless numbers of other organisms who feed on the organic matter. Their burrowing also leaves (by comparison) huge aeration channels and fissures in the soil, along which air can diffuse and water drain. It is estimated that there are somewhere between 200 and 600 worms in every square metre of your garden.

Then there are the beetles that assist in clearing up the decaying organic matter, and who themselves provide food for small animals all the way up the food chain to man.

So, as we have seen, soil is a hugely complicated microscopic world, teeming with interdependent life chains."

Now would be a good time to have a national reading of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Not only to marvel at her prescience and courage, but as a wake-up call. From the chapter, The Obligation To Endure:

"Future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind? Yet this is precisely what we have done. We have done it, moreover, for reasons that collapse the moment we examine them."

Time to get outside and fluff up the compost heap again...got it re-invigorated yesterday...stirred in more leaves that were shredded in the Fall, turned in the kitchen scraps that had accumulated on the heap...folded it all in with the worms and microbes from the bottom of the pile. It'll heat up nicley in a few days...yea, Spring !