Journal for April 5, 2010

My cousin Joan and her son Robert came to visit this week.  We had a wonderful time – we took them on long walks to see the farm, Joan and I worked on outside projects, and Mike and Robert did music.

Here are Robert and Joan sitting on one of the benches.

Robert was good at spotting snakes.  He found several Brown Snakes – small woodland snakes.

They’re very small – only 8 or 9 inches long.

I think the snakes must have been emerging from their overwintering spots, because we saw at least 6 of them this week – many more than we usually see.

This is a well-documented snake.

Me photographing the snake

And here’s the photo.

Joan and I did a brush clearing project on Sumac Prairie.  It was a warm, sunny morning, and the prairie was buzzing with Bumble Flower Beetles – more of them than I’ve ever seen.  There must have been at least 100, all over the sandy parts of the hillside.  They didn’t seem to be searching for flowers – they were flying low over the ground, stopping once in a while to crawl under a dead leaf or into a clump of dried grass stalks.  They really look, sound, and act like bees.  It’s only when they stop – which isn’t often – that you can see that they’re beetles.

We found more Common Whitlow Grass blooming.

The first blossoms of Sand Cress – another early spring mustard.

And Pennsylvania Sedge – a small grass-like plant that blooms early

Joan and I also worked on cleaning off the pond near the old farmhouse.  The pond is really a number of springs, but long ago someone built a cement wall around them.  In the last few years watercress and algae have grown over the surface of the pond.  We removed about half of it.  I didn’t want to clear it all, because we heard Wood Frogs calling there, and we found lots of snails living in the watercress.  I don’t want to destroy their habitat, but I do want to be able to see the springs bubbling up.

Here’s the pond before we started.

Me, getting into waders

Joan, raking out plants

Even with waders, the center of the pond was too deep to walk in.  So we stayed near the edge and raked the plants off onto the banks.  Here’s the pond after we’d finished.

We picked up stakes in East Center Valley, so Joan learned to drive the gator.

Mike and Robert spent a lot of time doing music in Mike’s work space in the attic.

I found a few more flowers blooming in the woods.

Small White Violet

Closeup of the violet

Rue Anemone

I just discovered that a pair of Red-tailed Hawks has built a nest across the valley from our house.  It’s pretty easy to see – but not so easy to photograph because it’s high up in a tree.  The red in the nest is the tail of one of the adults.  It likes to sit with its tail facing the house.