Saami and Suomi

After a long absence from this space, I return with a bit of heritage. The Sami, or Saami are the indigenous people of northern Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. You may have heard them called Lapps, from Lapland, but Saami consider the term Lapp derogatory, much in the way that the Inuit don't like the term Eskimo. The Saami are mostly nomadic or semi-nomadic reindeer herders, but there are some tribes who primarily fish or farm instead of herd. My grandfather was from a fishing village, and although I am not exactly sure of the location, I believe it was in the vicinity of Lake Inari, north of the Arctic Circle. My father just pointed to the area north of Rovaniemi and Kemi, Finland, and said that his family was from 'there'. Lake Inarijarvi is the body of water in northernmost Finland, up near the Arctic Ocean and the border with Norway and Russia.

Saami are not ethnically Finnish, but they are distantly related based on their language. The Finno-Ugric languages form a subfamily of the Uralic languages. Other closely related Ugric languages include Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian. Unlike most of the languages spoken in Europe, the Finno-Ugric languages are not part of the Indo-European family of languages, that is, they do not stem from Latin nor are they Germanic.

In the Old Norse language, Fenn and Finn are terms for Saami, but after the 19th century it was transferred simply to mean someone who lives in Finland and not specifically of the Saami people. 'Suomi' is still the Finnish name for Finland, and the word 'suomilainen' means Finnish.
Both words stem from the word Saami. There is a lot of confusion about the origin of the Finnish people, both Saami and non-Saami. New theories are proposed every year. Legend says that the khans of Mongolia chased these (Finnic) peoples across Russia until they reached the northern shores of Scandinavia. This happened over centuries, and the Fenns chose flight instead of fight. I once read that the word 'Fen' meant 'runner', but I can't recall where I read that. Anyway, when they could run no further, they fought fiercely and turned back the horde.
I've always liked that story.

The Saami seemingly share certain physical traits, like Mongoloid eye-shape, with other indigenous peoples of northern Asia. Modern theories of origin suggest that this is just chance, and that the facial features in common, such as high cheekbones, are more from cultural similarities than genetics. Europeans, who have a longer history or farming, have lost the high cheekbones necessary to support the musculature of those who eat a lot of meat. Many Saami are dark complected, but there are also fair-skinned blonds. The same is true of ethnic Finns. This phenotype variation further complicates the mystery of the origin of these people. In addition to evidence that these people came across the steppes of Russia, there is also evidence that the Saami and or Fenns have inhabited the Sapmi(Scandinavia to include all of Finland) since the last ice age.

I've included a few turn of the century Saami I found on the web, along with modern Saami. Since they were traditionally nomadic, their shelters were temporary, often tipis from animal skins or huts of stones and earth, as shown. I don't really look like any of these people(except for maybe the little girl second from the right in the front row back when I was 5 years old), but I consider myself of Saami heritage. If you don't know what I look like, then perhaps you have seen Renee Zellweger. She, too, is of Saami heritage. We both have those slanty eyes and round, high cheekbones and dirty blond hair. I'd rather look like Pamela Anderson or Christine Lahti (both Finnish, but not Saami),but, alas, Renee and I are distant cousins. I loved her in Cold Mountain, but I digress. For the record, speaking of celebs, Matt Damon is also Finnish.

I know you guys are rolling on the floor laughing at the traditional garb. That's okay. For a good chortle, zoom in on the shoes of the children. Now, you will understand why small Christmas elves are depicted with pointy shoes. Santa Claus is Saami, by the way, with his rosy cheeks, felt cap, reindeer, etc. I kid you not...now you know. The North Pole really is in the Land of the Midnight Sun.

Anyway, genetic and language studies are rather inconclusive as to proof of the actual origin, but what is known is that the Saami are not related to other Europeans, so perhaps we do hail from the Urheimat. "Urheimat" is supposedly the homeland or origin of the language. The exact location of the Urheimat is unknown and disputed. Big surprise there, huh? Some believed it to be to the just west of the Ural mountains in central Russia, some 5000 years ago. There is evidence that before Slavic tribes lived in Russia, a sprinkling of Finno-Ugrians inhabited the whole territory from the Urals to the Baltic Sea. Other scientists place the Urheimat further south or in Siberia. My Sami grandfather told my father that his ancestors were from northwestern Siberia. I consider myself of Finnish and Saami ancestry, but technically, he emigrated from St. Petersburg Russia (Finland was a Grand Duchy of Russia at the time) and there is a good chance that some of my forebearers were Siberian, so I suppose I could be as much Russian as Finnish, ethnically speaking.

More later...and I couldn't resist the image of the Aurora Borealis over Lake Inari. It is magic, at least to me.

Moving On

Eleven years ago today, Halloween, we moved onto EarthNSky Farm. The beauty of Autumn was breathtaking, and I recall that I felt like I had died and gone to heaven-I was finally home. The sky was brilliant blue, the wind was crisp, and the leaf color was nothing short of spectacular. Before the moving truck was unloaded, George, our neighbor, came by on his old Ford 9N tractor to introduce himself and to visit. Throughout the years, we've had our ups and downs with George, but generally we get along pretty well, our only disagreement being about the type of fence that should go on the property line. He is our most immediate neighbor and I've learned a lot about homesteading from George and his wife. George taught us how to hunt and field dress a deer. Nancy taught me how to clean the meat and cook it. I recently bought the 12 gallon cast iron pot from him in which I learned to render lard. He's taught me how to raise and catch pigs, how to sight in a rifle, how to take care of horses, how to buck 70 pound alfalfa bales into a barn, and countless other skills. They were with me when I got my first chickens and they gave me my first ducks. Almost all of my current flock of chickens are from his Blue Laced Red Wyandotte rooster. His workmanship is all around me as he built this house from the trees on the land; his rockwork on my hearth is beautiful and everyone who comes into the house compliments the artistry. Over the years, we've been the beneficiary of his various hunting kills, wild goose (which looks and cooks like beefsteak), deer, turkey, and even bear. I'd eat bear again only if I were starving-there are much better meats to put on a plate. But tonight for dinner, I'll be enjoying native trout, caught this past Spring by George up in the Cohutta Wilderness. My son loved to watch George forge knives and other creations. He built wagons and learned to forge metal from Judd Nelson of Foxfire fame. He is a true artist, with skills in metalwork, woodworking, rocklaying, carving and painting. His wife is also an excellent wildlife painter and I have a beautiful walking stick with a carved and painted copperhead snake on the handle.

There have been a few times over the years that George has put up a for sale sign. I've never taken it seriously as he has family here and his wife and sister in law are the daughters of the original land owners, the homestead of which we now occupy. They have roots here. However, they have struggled financially over the years and most recently health issues have surfaced for both of them, making money even more scarce. A few years ago, after George recovered from chemo, his son sent him out to Arkansas on a fishing trip on the White River. George fell in love with the place, and his son bought some land out there. For the last two years, they've bantered the idea of moving to the Ozarks. While I know he would fit in there, he is what I would call a true, modern homesteader, I just could never see it happening, until yesterday when he told us he had a contract and buyer for his house and land. He was going to sell off, pack up the camper, and move to the Ozarks. I'm in shock. I'm trying to see this from their perspective in that it will be cheaper to live there and it will afford them a little financial breathing room.

In addition, there's always that anxiety about who will be buying in. All I know is that they are rather wealthy by local standards, have 3 kids, currently live in Atlanta, and will be using the cabin as a weekend home, a place where the kids can 'run free'. I don't know if they will appreciate the beauty and primitive nature of life out here or whether they will try to bring the city, and all of it's conveniences, with them. I'm sure they will be wonderful people, but it is hard to see the good side of anything when the loss feels so great. It is the first time in eleven years that I have even had a fleeting thought about moving away. I look out the window, and this Halloween is much scarier. The sky is overcast and foreboding. The Autumn leaves are wet and muted. Rock Creek will not be the same without George and Nancy.

Last Dance

Everyone needs joy in their life. I've always disliked the word 'joy'; some of you will know why that is so, and if you don't, it is not that important anyway, but lately I've decided to make a concerted effort to enjoy life more. As Oprah used to say, 'remember your spirit'.

My best bud Ava (Shout-out and wave to Ava!), knowing that I'd soon be returning to the workforce and thereby leaving the way of life I've grown accustomed to for the past year, invited me to join her and my other friend Melissa for a horseback ride on local wooded trails. While I've gone riding with Ava in the past, I'm still very much a novice rider. I've been on horses since I was a kid, but not with enough frequency to become a good rider, and certainly not with anyone who was willing to teach me the way Ava and Melissa do. They've both been riding continuously since they were kids, so usually they take the boys on more complicated rides, rides not suitable for someone like me. So today was a real treat for me, and I learned a lot, both by doing and by watching. That's me on Dallas, Melissa on Spike, and Ava on Joe, left to right in the picture. Skyguy took the picture, and I guess he did not realize that my eyes were closed-not the best picture of me in many ways. Oh well, I guess it happens to everyone eventually, right? You know, Dallas just isn't as pretty with me on him. He deserves his own space, so I post my favorite picture of him as well.

The first thing I should say that I learned is that it is a much more comfortable ride, and an easier ride, if the stirrups are adjusted properly. You may be able to tell by looking at the picture and comparing my leg posture with theirs that my stirrups are a bit too high. We later lowered the stirrups and voila, bliss! When I first saw the picture, looking at myself and my friends, I couldn't help but hear the Sesame Street song, "One of these things is not like the other" in my head. LOL! It is just too funny. You gotta laugh at yourself on days like this. At any rate, we rode for several hours, mostly walking through the woods and pastures. It was wonderful, and while it is not quite Fall yet, it wasn't hot like you would expect on a late Summer day. If I had enough money, I think I would definitely want a horse. You can totally forget about the world when you are riding. You can hear and see things that you would not normally notice. Perhaps it is just me, but I think I enter a state of heightened awareness. I notice what the horse is doing, what other horses are doing, what trees or holes or barbed wire or spider webs are ahead of me. Of course, I try to be aware of how I am holding the reins, how I am sitting in the saddle, whether or not I am leaning too much, and I try to make sure my feet are where they are supposed to me. I wish I could say that it all just comes natural to me, but I just don't ride enough to get to a point where I don't think about such things and just naturally progress from one position to the next as the terrain or conditions warrant.

Will I be sore tomorrow after four hours on a horse today? I'm sure I will, but hopefully it won't be too bad. I'm rather used to those kind of aches. Today, I felt my shoulders and neck and biceps after pulling muscadines and catbriar vines out of the trees yesterday. We are in the middle of cutting and stacking wood for the winter, and while we were back there getting standing dead wood, we decided to clean up a small section of woods. So today, when Dallas would trot, I could feel it in my shoulders and neck. Tomorrow will be no different, except that the location of the ache will be a bit lower. It will remind me of how much fun I had. At least right now I stay active enough to constantly be feeling my muscles and joints. I wonder how that will change after a few months on my new, sedentary job.

Bugs

Yesterday, while picking tomatoes in the garden, I noticed this interesting looking 'wheel bug', a type of assassin bug, on a volunteer tomatillo. They are considered beneficial, but they do bite. It is more like a puncture than a bite, but it is painful and can become infected. If you look closely, you can see that he has killed a small bee. The nymph stage of this insect is red and black and is what I call the 'backwards bug' because the back legs and raised rump look like the bug is backwards. Earlier in the year, I saw hundreds of nymphs, but have only seen two adult wheel bugs, both yesterday. The other day, I was stung by a saddleback caterpillar. I did not see him when he stung me, but I suspected that was what got me. My forearm and wrist started burning while I was harvesting oregano. I put some crushed plantain on it and took a Benedryl when I came in the house. The next day, I found the caterpillar on the floor under the hanging bunch of oregano. I'm glad I found the fuzzy beast before the dogs did. Apparently I am not as allergic to them as I am to bees as the whelting was gone the next day. If you have ever been stung by a jellyfish, that's what I relate this to. It is a very similar feeling. Anyway, it's too bad that Mr. Wheelbug did not find Mr. Saddleback before I did. It is just my luck that a beneficial insect like a wheel bug would be eating my mason bees.







While I am on bugs, I thought some of you might like to see what we locals call 'Mexican grasshoppers' or Devil Horse grasshoppers. It is a type of Eastern Lubber, and I have never seen them outside of this valley. It is obviously a isolated local population as even people who live 15 miles away in Calhoun are amazed when they seen these grasshoppers on the road. That's where you usually see them, on the road. You can actually hear them crunch as you run over them.





This yellow flowering plant is an unknown that I'm hoping someone can help identify. It looks somewhat like a Jerusalem artichoke, but it shorter and only has 5 petals instead of 12. It is blooming now. For comparison, you can see the JA flowers in the background of squash picture. The leaves are very similar, but the unknown plant only grows to about 3.5 feet tall.

Onward

What to write about....what to say...
I have lots to say about the things going on in the world, but since I can't change any of those things, there is no use in writing about it, except to say that contrary to what Nancy Pelosi says, I am one of the most patriotic people I know, and it is my right and duty to protest what I feel is a misstep in healthcare legislation.

I've been busy the last week or so, mostly gardening and canning, but also house cleaning and running errands. I may go back to work soon, and I feel unprepared with a zillion loose ends here that need tying. I really thought I would have heard something by now, and I really hate waiting.

The stress of it all has sparked an RA flare-up, and every joint in my body hurts and is stiff. I keep going, else I will be like the tin man and become stiff. When my RA flares like this, I end up totally exhausted because I don't want to sit down at all. It is too hard to get up. So, I channel the Energizer Bunny and head to the garden. I'm no speed demon, but I can get things done. Today, I planted English peas, snow peas, carrots, spinach, radishes, lettuce, and onions. I transplanted Brussel sprouts. Tomorrow, I'll finish sowing my brassicas: broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, and cabbage. The seedlings of broccoli and cauliflower are not ready for transplanting yet. Skyguy planted more sweet corn a few days ago. It will be a close call on getting it in before the first frost. In the last week, I've also planted more butternut squashes and a few cukes. Those squashes store really well, so if I can put a few in boxes, I won't be too hungry this winter. You just never know what the future holds with the economy teetering on the edge of disaster. One trucker's strike (Hi Trevor!) or a hurricane which disrupts the gasoline flow again, and the stores will be bare within a few weeks. If we all become home-bound due to swine flu, I'll be glad that I can make a nice, velvety butternut soup to comfort me.

About every three days or so, I can small batches of tomatoes. Because my stove doesn't get that hot anymore, and because I am too lazy to fire up the outdoor propane burner just yet, I've been hot water bath canning in my large, flat-bottomed Dutch oven. I can process 4 pints or 3 quart jars, about half as much as the rippled-bottom canning kettle. Because the Dutch oven heats quickly and more efficiently than the ripple bottom kettle, I can process two batches in the same time as one kettle full, so it doesn't slow me down much. I've canned stewed tomatoes, pizza sauce, plain tomato sauce, and tomato juice. The mixture of this year's tomato varieties has resulted in a very tasty sweet sauce, but the pH is right at 4.0, so it is safe to can. Yeah, the chemist tests sauce pH with pH paper strips-what can I say.

I've never grown sweet peppers. I do not like bell peppers, but I just love chili peppers and devote my garden space to the chilis. However, someone gave us a few banana peppers and they are pretty darn good. They smell like the little hot peppers you get with your Papa Johns pizza(I call those pepperoncini), but they are not hot at all. It is the strangest thing because they smell hot but don't taste hot. They are large, some are 6 inches long, and they look waxy like Hungarian Wax Chilis. I'm not quite sure what to do with them. Should I slice them and pickle them as pepper rings, or should I cut them into strips and maybe freeze them for use on pizzas??? Decisions, decisions. I may have to save the seeds from these-they are definitely interesting and not what I am used to eating. I wonder if they are really supposed to be hotter, but due to some soil condition or some other variable, they are super mild? Could that be?

Change of subject...
Snakes are crawling here in valley. Skyguy hit a big timber rattler on the way home from work a few days ago. He drove on home, picked me up, and we went back up the road to get a better look. That puppy had 11 rattles and a button and was as large as my arm. There was another dead snake on the road near here that was almost as large as the one Skyguy hit and killed. There seems to be a lot of snakes this year, but perhaps it is just that the neighbor's logging and tree thinning has stirred them up. The machinery and logging is in an area known for legendary-sized rattlesnakes. Habitat destruction is real and local.

Non-trivial Science related Trivia

I have this list of useless, but interesting random trivia, so for something different, I thought I would share the list with you. As you might expect, most have a science bent....Big surprise on that one as you all know, Bev is Earth.

Pavement on land creates "expressways" for oil and other pollutants to run into the ocean. "Every eight months, nearly 11 million gallons of oil run off our streets and driveways into our waters -- the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill," --- from the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003

That's why I like my gravel driveway. Yeah, it is rut filled and gets the vehicles muddy, but at least I know that my pollutants stay here and do not become someone else's problem downstream in the watershed.

The quest of alchemists—to change base metals into gold—was achieved to a certain degree in Soviet nuclear reactors, where radioactivity transformed some lead nuclei into gold.

The largest reservoirs of gold on Earth, about 10 billion tons, are the oceans. Unfortunately, there is no practical way to get it out. Gold is also plentiful elsewhere in the solar system. In 1999, the NEAR spacecraft showed that a single asteroid, Eros, contains more gold than has ever been mined on Earth.

That's a WOW from me. I heard the other day on TV that all the gold ever mined in the history of human mining would fill only two Olympic sized swimming pools. Same show informed me that a gold bar weighs about 27 pounds.

Kevlar, superglue, cellophane tape, Teflon, Post-it notes, photographs, and the phonograph: All were laboratory blunders. Chinese alchemists were trying to make an elixir of immortality and made gunpowder instead.

Speaking of Kevlar... the International Space Station is covered with a foot-thick blanket of Kevlar to protect it from over 100,000 meteoroids that will slam into it over a 20 year period. Of course, every day, up to 4 billion meteoroids fall to Earth, most of them insanely small, but you never know when a killer rock might slip in undetected.

Life on earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, but sex did not evolve until more than 2 billion years later. Asexual reproduction is a better evolutionary strategy in many important ways, so it is unclear why sexual reproduction developed.

The hermaphroditic earthworm Dendrobaena rubida has both male and female genitalia. If it cannot find a mate, the worm doubles up so that its female bits and male bits can go to town.

Some fish and reptiles can 'change sex'. In marine environments near coral reefs, most fish change sex at least once in their life, and they can have both male and female organs at the same time, like the worm.

Homosexual behavior is found in at least 1,500 species of mammal, fish, reptile, bird, and even invertebrates.
In the animal world, there doesn't seem to be a choice, just an adaption. Nature wins.


Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol, into the soil each year. Cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air.

Americans generate 472 billion pounds of trash every year, including 96 billion pounds of food trash—more than 300 pounds per person, wasted.

Food waste is only 2 percent of the total waste. The rest is industrial refuse, including mine tailings, agricultural waste, construction debris, and chemicals

One quart of motor oil, improperly disposed of, can pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water.
WOW!


Each year, consumers in the United States spread 300 million pounds of chemical insecticides, including compounds that the EPA says may impair the nervous system, disrupt hormones in the body, or cause cancer.
Not me, not me-I'm getting greener all the time!


Landfills are actually the No. 1 human-generated source of methane, belching 7 million tons into the atmosphere each year.
Those poor cows and pigs have really gotten a bum rap.

Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in New York, which closed in 2001, is the world's largest city dump, covering about 2,200 acres

This N That

Monday I went to the doc to have my bandage changed, and while I had hoped to convince him to remove the sutures in my foot, I will have to wait another week. Note to self, work on powers of manipulation, cast magic manipulation spells, and perhaps sex up requests using the word 'please'. Yeah, that's the ticket.

While in Rome, we checked out the new Cycle Therapy bike store. They've moved to the center of town and are sponsoring a local Sprint Triathlon, the second annual Navigator Triathlon to support Cancer patients in our area . Kate and Jon have decided to attempt the triathalon in September, so it should be a lot of fun to watch. Skyguy might even try it. I can't because my foot won't be well enough to train in time for the event. This is an abbreviated competition consisting of a 500 meter swim, a 12 mile bike ride, and a 3.1 mile run.

http://www.navigatortriathlon.com/

It's being held at a nearby state park. We are already riding 12 miles over hilly terrain, so that would be the 'easy' part for us. Running would be the hardest leg, and these races are almost always won on the run. A good runner can make up for being a mediocre swimmer. Skyguy and I decided it would be a lot of fun to complete one of these things, but we would have to take it slow and train well, making sure not to overtrain and risk injury. Neither of us deals well with high impact activity like running, so it would be a risky venture, but don't you think it would be a cool thing for a couple of geezers like us to do? I do! Anyway, we went to the bike store to look at road bike tires and I noticed that they had all of their womens apparel half off. I'd been looking for a pair of riding shorts since before we went on vacation. They are padded, and wick moisture away from the body. The tight fit compresses muscles, reducing recovery time and bruising. I'd been looking at the various styles of riding shorts, but finding them in my size is daunting. I'm still overweight, and in case you had not noticed, most serious cyclists are rail thin. Usually I see Small and X-Small, maybe a Medium, but nothing designed by Omar the Tentmaker. However, I suppose it was my lucky day at Cycle Therapy as I found a skort in an XL that will be great for riding. (I'm 5'11 and 190#) It is a Shebeest Cycloskort like the one on this page:

http://www.bikesomewhere.com/bikesomewhere.cfm/product/391/3743/31592

Don't freak on the price...no way I could afford that, and I paid less than half of that price. Anyway, for a woman of my age and shape, I think this was a good choice in shorts. If I had to, I could swim in it as well. But for now, I can't ride or swim or run. I can do tai chi though. The doc said I could ride a stationary bike on Monday. Woot!

Tuesday, in addition to my David Carradine Tai Chi tape exercise 'workout', I clipped more herbs from the herb garden and hung them to dry. I harvested some more oregano and marjoram, as well as lemon balm and horehound. I also tore up and jarred up some mullein that was dry. After washing and hanging the clippings, I decided to make a cough syrup from the fresh horehound. I stripped the leaves and buds from the stems and put it in the food processor to chop it and bruise the leaves. I probably had 2 cups of crushed horehound leaves and 1/2 c of mullein leaves. Both are expectorants. Then, I added it to about a cup of lemon juice and a bit of water. I brought the concoction to a boil, then allowed it to steep for a few minutes. I separated the plant matter out by straining it, and then added 2 cups of locally produced honey to the 'tea'. When the time comes to use it, I'll probably doctor it up with cayenne pepper and garlic, too, depending on how I feel. Adding some dried lemon balm might make it taste better, too. Horehound is good for making cough drops, too, but I don't have a candy thermometer at present and I did not feel like standing at the stove all day. Mullein is a great herb that grows wild almost everywhere. Not only is is a good expectorant, but it is good for the respiratory system in general. It can be smoked in a pipe to counter asthma or pneumonia. Some companies use it in their herbal cigarettes, replacing tobacco.Its tall yellow flower spikes and fuzzy leaves make it easily visible on roadsides for wild collecting. These pages have a lot of good info on mullein, but they are by no means complete:

http://www.herbcraft.org/mullein.html
http://www.prodigalgardens.info/march%20weblog.htm

While I am no expert, I do consider myself somewhat of an herbalist. Additionally, while I would not characterize myself as a person of faith, I do believe that there is great wisdom in the Bible. I found this quote from Psalms: "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man" Psalms 104:14a Pretty cool. I really like the Psalms. Another of my favorites is: "The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display His marvelous workmanship." (Ps. 19:1,2)

Yesterday, my friend Ava and I picked the last of the blackberries from Patch #1 on the mountain, and we both ended up getting chiggers for our trouble. New bites, and I still have sores from the last time I picked berries before my surgery. I did get enough berries for a cobbler or pie, but there is yet another patch, my Secret Patch, of blackberries to pick, and hopefully I can get another quart or two. It has been so dry lately that the yellow jackets are sucking the juice from the berries. I'll need to start picking blueberries soon before the wasps suck them dry, too.

Speaking of berries, I got about a quart of strawberries from my plants yesterday as well, and we enjoyed them mixed with some sugar and a few blueberries over angel food cake last night. Berry good!

Save the Lightning Bugs

I live in the boonies where there are lots of woods and pastures, but I grew up in a woodsy subdivision in a suburban area. As a kid, I caught lightning bugs and put them in a pickle or mayonnaise jar. (Remember that smell of lightning bugs in a pickle jar??) It never took but a few minutes to catch enough to fill a jar. Now, even though lightning bugs, AKA fireflies, exist here in large populations, I don't think I have more here than I did 75 miles south of here as a kid, and I think, due to all the grassy pastures in this area, I should have more. I've read a few articles on the subject of fireflies and I'm not alone in thinking that there are fewer lightning bugs now than there were 40 years ago.

Old timers and youngsters alike enjoy being outside and watching or catching lightning bugs in the summer. It is almost a ritual among kids, and a sign that the day is drawing to a close. If we were playing outside, we knew, without a watch or cellphone, that it was time to go home when we saw the first lightning bug flash. These little buggers seem to transport us back in time into a majestic world-a world without troubles or worry. It doesn't matter how old you are, if you catch a few lightning bugs, you feel like a kid again. Watching a jar light up a dark room is as memorizing as a watching a bonfire or watching aquarium fish. It is magical, and I would bet that doing this on a regular basis, like petting your dog, would lower blood pressure.

We moved here in October and that first summer was one that I will never forget. We had not bushhogged the pasture yet, and since the property had been rented before we moved in, I can say that it had probably been more than a year, perhaps as many as four years, since the pasture had been cut at all. Obviously, during that time, fireflies reproduced and their populations exploded. One night, after a summer rain at dusk, we went out to inspect the electric fence for shorts. Out in the pasture, just above the waist high grass, were millions of lightning bugs, and to my amazement, they blinked in unison. It was an unforgettable sight, one that I will remember for the rest of my life.

That experience made me do a bit of research on the insect that I thought I knew so well. During the daytime, fireflies, their larvae and nymphs live in the grass or soil (for larvae) where they can extract the moisture they need to survive. Drought conditions can really affect firefly populations. Until I moved to this rural location, I had never seen the larval stage of the firefly beetle. They are commonly known as "glowworms" and you can see them in the grass near dusk. Their bioluminescence lingers a bit, giving them the 'glowing' appearance. Because these beetles and their offspring spend the daylight hours on the ground, they become victims of lawnmowing and lawn chemicals, pesticides and herbicides. In neighborhoods where the lawns are kept short and green, you may not see lightning bugs at all. These little guys find their mates by flashing. The males fly around and flash and the females flash back from a branch or tall grass perch. If you caught only the flying lightning bugs, chances are you caught predominantly males. The behavior of flashing in unison is apparently part of that mating behavior as it has been observed in Smoky Mountain National Park in the month of June. Some scientists believe that light pollution from patios and street light hampers mating due to light overload, leading to confusion in locating the opposite sex.

If you want to learn more about lightning bugs, try this link:

https://www.mos.org/fireflywatch/about_firefly_watch

If you homeschool, there is also a great science project for the kids.

Gotcha!

As you may recall, I've lost two chickens in the past two days. I set the Have-a-heart trap last night, baited with a chicken gizzard, and this morning I caught a raccoon that was just too cute. He was looking at me with his cute little eyes proclaiming his innocence, not snarling or growling like a possum would have. This old Bird, however, knows that killers always return to the scene of the crime. He was actually playing dead or sleeping very soundly when Bear and I first
approached. I put Bear up and he magically woke up, like he was afraid of Bear, but not me.

I should have known the way that chicken was manipulated and cleaned to the bone that it was a coon. It is the only animal with enough dexterity to eat a chicken like that. Recall that I had not thought that the predator was a raccoon because it did not eat the chicken's crop. Now that I think about it though, the crop was neatly separated and set next to the carcass, as if he were saving the best for last. I should have known, too, that coons like to wash up before and after dinner, and my little frog pond is only 30 feet away inside the garden fence. We had known that something had been eating the beans and peas. I actually thought it was a rabbit, even though the perimeter garden fence has rabbit wire at the bottom. A few weeks ago, the pea and bean feast seemed to stop. Next to my garden frog pond is a huge clump of spiderwort. It was beautiful, about thigh high and 3 feet square in size, maybe a bit larger. About a week ago, I noticed that the spiderwort had been smashed down. Skyguy asked me if Bear had laid on the plant-that's what it looked like, but I knew that he had not. (see third picture) It all makes sense now. Now, I know that Mr. Raccoon was tired of eating his veggies so while he was waiting on my corn to mature he thought he would have some chicken to fatten up. Actually, he probably dined on pond comets as an appetizer for the main meal to come as I had put a few large comets in that pond about a month ago to keep mosquitoes down. I seriously doubt they are still there. It is funny how it all seems so clear now, all the little mysteries of life-like where did my fish go? and Why did Bear lay on that plant?-are solved. :)

The top picture, is of course, Rocky Raccoon (he was a male) caught red handed(now I know where that phrase comes from) at the scene of the crime, next to the chicken moat (second picture). The red X is where the attacks happened and the C is where I found the remains. I also saw a place under the blueberries where it looked like he laid in waiting for the chickens to pass by, as well as some tracks in the barn next to the old coop where the roosters are that were obviously raccoon. If you look closely at the tracks, you can also see that a small snake crossed the path, snake track runs 2:00-8:00 near the double print. Pretty cool stuff. Anyway, Rocky is now killing chickens in Coon heaven-in a universe where people, dogs, coyotes and .22's don't exist; he did not suffer.

Canoes and Critters

Skyguy and I went paddling yesterday at Rocky Mountain Lake. If you live anywhere in the north Georgia or northeastern Alabama area, this is a really nice lake. There are several lakes on 5000+ acres owned by Oglethorpe Power. It is about 35 minutes away, but worth the drive. The fishing lakes are used as backup lakes for the power plant and have been stocked and opened to the public since 1996. Unlike some of the larger reservoirs, these lakes are not polluted and it just feels clean, the way a lake should be. The lakes are entirely no-wake lakes and no jet skis are allowed. It is a quiet place to camp, fish, or canoe.

Anyway, it was after 7 when we got there, so we did not paddle much, just enough to get the boat christened again and to get our own feet wet. Still, that canoe will hum across the water, so we covered a lot of ground in the 45 minutes we were out on the lake. We paddled into a lake sized cove and saw a muskrat diving nearby. I'm not sure what he was diving for, but he did not seem bothered by us. I saw one of the largest herons I've ever seen-that sucker had an 8 foot wingspan, at least! On the way back to the dock, a mallard hen with her crew passed us going in the opposite direction. It was good to get some upper body exercise, and of course, just be out in the natural world. On the way back from the lake, just before dark, we saw a fox run across the road. If I absolutely had to ID it, I'd say it was a red fox, but it had enough gray on it to make me really wonder if the two species interbreed. I've only seen a few foxes in a my life, so every sighting tells me that they are still a viable predator in this area.

Speaking of predators, it seems I have a something eating my hens(2 lost to date). No, I don't think it is the young hawk that has refused to leave the nest area. I believe it is a possum. The attacks happened at the same time both days(yesterday and today), at the same place, and I found the carcass at the same place. It all happened in the chicken run, which is dog proof, but not coon or possum proof. Yesterday, the bird was about half eaten, and today the bird was almost picked clean the way raccoons eat. However, raccoons like the crop, and this predator left the crop. Today's predator ate all the meat, most of the innards(except the crop). Leg bones were cleaned down to the feet. The head was still attached, but barely, as the neck bones and the neck itself was all but gone.

I suppose the predator could also be that feral cat. I don't know. As of today, I have 25 birds in the main coop, and 9 roosters in the old coop waiting to be put in the freezer. We are now in a poultry fortress lock down, and the birds won't have access to the moat until I think the coast is clear. Just in case you are unfamiliar, the 'fortress' is a 8x25 chicken run made of 2x4 wire with rabbit wire at the bottom, metal siding at the bottom(to prevent digging), and 2x4 wire covering. It is not snake or weasel proof, and a small possum might be able to get in. It was designed mostly to prevent airborne predators and canines. It is the best I can do right now. The coop is 8x9 and can be totally locked down, but the bird have to be able to walk around outside some. It is too hot for them to stay in the coop all day, but I will lock them in at night. Stay tuned.

Snakes, Chickens, Sex, and Sermons?

We were able to get the jungle under control this past weekend, but we crossed paths with 2 additional snakes..that makes 3 snakes in two days...one King snake and two red rat(corn) snakes. I was down at my friends house this morning and she showed me a single winding track through the grass-the track was muddy, the grass was green, so it was easy to see. The track was several inches wide. The only thing that would make a track like that is a big rattlesnake, or a monster king snake that just ate the monster rattlesnake(like the one we saw in SC). This track definitely has a Wow Factor associated with it. The snakes are definitely out and about.

We have a few more roosters to dispatch, but in doing that, we will end the great 2008-2009 hatching project to replace chickens lost to predators. I started with 6 birds, and now have 6+ roos that need to be dispatched, 30 hens and 1 rooster in the main coop, and one poor battered hen in the chicken tractor. There are 2 or 3 birds in the 30 that might be roosters, too, but right now they are just androgynous pullets. I have a beautiful partridge rock looking roo that I am thinking of keeping. He would be part Partridge Rock(mother) and Blue Laced Red Wyandotte(father). Currently, I have a RIR/BLRW roo. I've forgotten the number of hens a rooster can service, but I think it is somewhere close to 15. I doubt I will keep all the pullets/hens, but I can always raise two flocks separately. I wonder if two roos will fight if there are sufficient hens for both?

I'm quite amazed at the percentage of pullets I hatched vs. roosters/cockerels. I think I've maybe a dozen+ roosters in all the birds I've hatched since Thanksgiving and with close to 70 total birds, that's rather amazing. Even at 15/75-that's only 20% roosters, and I believe the actual percentage is closer to 17%. It's got me wondering about evolution and the role temperature plays in determination of sex and embryo development. I know that with some reptiles, noteably crocodilians(alligators, crocs, caimans,and gavial), temperature of the eggs during incubation does influence gender. I believe that it must be true with some birds, perhaps in my case, the chicken eggs I hatched. The incubator temps were kind of high, 100-101F. In some reptiles, higher temps can switch off male expression genes and create females. The embryo starts off as a male, but when the egg is exposed to higher temperatures, the embryo undergoes a gender switch and the hatchling becomes female. In addition, some animals that appear female are actually male and visa versa, i.e. their sex is ambiguous;they are intersexed. Could this have happened with my chickens? I think it is possible. Birds are descended from reptiles and the sex change thing is related to a changing environment. Perhaps during warmer eons, more females are produced to expand the population, but during colder eons, the embryos remain predominantly male. The planet is currently experiencing a warming trend as we all know....is it Nature's Way-the ultimate survival technique-the Master's Plan- to turn males into females to expand the population while it is warm and to prepare for the cold eon to come? Are my ambiguous, androgynous looking pullets really male?

If this interests you as much as it does me, read this:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/sex2.htm
References are listed at the bottom of the page, but consider this:

"Sex is relative. Among animals, especially cold-blooded ones, males
can be turned into females by increased feeding or a change in
temperature. In the case of warm-blooded creatures, it can be done by
extracting ovaries to turn, say, a hen into a cock. In many species,
sex reversals happen naturally. Quahogs (hard-shell clams) are born
and grow up male, but later half of them turn female. Slipper shells
and cup and saucer shells do this too; they commence every season as
males, but nearly all of them later pass through a phase of
ambisexuality and turn into adult females.
Fish have evolved the quickest sex-reversing capacity of any animal:
some species not only change from male to female as they grow, but a
few, like groupers and guppies, develop the ability to switch
sexually back and forth within seconds. [ I intentionally picked an image of fancy guppies-quite 'flamboyant', huh?] If two female guppies meet
while feeling amorous, one is likely to start turning into a male so
he can mate with the other. Occasionally both shift at the same
moment, which usually results in a furious fight, with the winner
emerging as a female who somehow forces the other to stay male."

If you want a good mental exercise, think about all of this with respect to human evolution, global warming, homosexuality and gender identification. You've probably already figured out that I believe homosexuality, intersexuality, as well as heterosexuality to be natural phenomena. I realize that many of you believe otherwise due to your various faiths, so I don't mean to be disrespectful to your beliefs, but I do believe that there is sufficient scientific evidence and sufficient Biblical contradictory passages to suggest that perhaps we all should have a more open mind to things we don't fully understand or know. I suppose the middle ground we meet on is this:
Matthew 22: 36-40
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Vacation Post #1: Activities and Sights

We left Saturday for a quick vacation. We haven’t been anywhere in several years, and after Skyguy’s cancer diagnosis, we promised ourselves that we would start taking vacations as soon as the hospital bills were paid. You gotta live life and not work ALL the time. We’ve spent the last 4 days soaking up South Carolina’s Lowcountry culture and riding bikes. We camped at a KOA to keep costs down, and we took a lot of our own food. We did eat out once a day though, after all, it is vacation! We spent a day at Hunting Island (biked around the island-15.5 miles) a 'natural', island with a pretty lighthouse, a day in Bluffton (10.5 mile residential ride) and Port Royal, a day in Charleston(Patriot’s Point and Ft. Sumter-photo of USS Yorktown and the tour boat to the Fort) , and one day we just rode bikes near the campground (9 miles). We fished some, and Skyguy skunked me by catching a nice sized catfish. I wish I could have fished more, but the mosquitoes and ticks were horrific. At night, we relaxed in the campground’s hot tub and went to bed early.

We saw quite a few animals that we don’t see at home. On the first day, while riding our bikes along the lakeside(in the picture-the lake is actually much, much larger than the image suggests), we spooked a small 4 foot alligator as he sunned on the bank and he made a huge splash as he lept for the safety of the water. Fishing in a lake with alligators is always more exciting than fishing in a lake where there are only turtles for reptilian representation. On the boat ride to Ft. Sumter, we saw quite a few dolphins coming in the feed at high tide and one was positively huge-maybe 10 or 11 feet long. He/She came within 15 feet of the boat so I was able to get a good, however brief, look at him. Later that day while dining in a restaurant on the intracoastal waterway, we saw a family group with a young 3 foot long dolphin racing around at play. It reminded me of the way kids run ahead of their parents at an amusement park, then Mom reins them in, then they run ahead again, etc. It was fun to watch-great food and great entertainment. In Beaufort, we saw an osprey nest, and she was rearing young. We stopped on the roadside, took some pictures(click on the image for a better view), and I could hear the chicks calling, much in the same way that our resident red shouldered hawk chicks chatter. While on the fishing pier at Hunting Island, an old woman caught a small shark, and that got everyone excited, especially the kids on the pier. In Bluffton, while riding bikes along the roadside, I was fighting the wind in the lead position. I had my head down concentrating on a cadence to maintain speed. A nearby noise startled me(I later learned from Skyguy that it was a Canada Goose) and I looked up to see a positively huge snake at the edge of the road just ahead of me. I swerved, but words failed me. Luckily, he saw the snake, too. It was a dead king snake, but it had to have just eaten the largest eastern diamondback on the coast because that was the largest king snake I've ever seen. I did not even know that they got that large, and even though I clearly saw the yellow markings on the snake, my brain just would not register that it was a king snake due to its size. I swear it was the size of my arm, but Skyguy says it wasn’t quite that large. Of course, we saw gulls, Brown Pelicans and other shore birds, too. I never realized this until we got home and I looked it up, but we don’t have Black Vultures here, only Turkey Vultures.

It's a jungle out there!

I came back from vacation to a flooded garden. Everything is muddy and water is standing around. I don't know how much rain we got, but the creek has apparently been running for the last 4 days and my guess is that we got over 6 inches here (since last Saturday). I have never seen my property so green. We cut the grass on Friday, and now it is over a foot tall and looks like a forgotten field.
This morning, I noticed that my whiskey barrel iris was blooming-but the little pot had fallen over and the flower was half in the water, so I walked over to upright the pot and as I did so, was startled by a frog on the rim just sitting there looking at me. It was right near my hand, and it kind of scared me. (I was barefoot, standing in foot tall yard grass) I jerked back instantly and then realized it was only a frog. I thought, "well, it's a good thing it wasn't a snake-it would have bitten me"...lol...just then, I looked down at my feet in the grass and saw a snake laying at my toes-two inches from my big toe. For a split second, I thought it was a copperhead, then realized it was a red rat snake/corn snake. He was about 2.5-3 feet long, little, but about the right size for a copperhead, so he gave me quite a start. I ran inside and grabbed the camera just in time to snap a picture of him as he crawled away through my little Zen garden. My guess is that he was lying there next to the barrel waiting for the frog to make a wrong move and I startled both of them. It is a jungle out there!

Plus three Red Shouldered Hawks

On February 27, I blogged about the pair of red shouldered hawks that were mating and building a nest in a tree in front of my house. Since that time, I've watched the hawks come and go, apparently feeding each other as they incubated the eggs. According to what I've read, this breed of hawks incubates eggs for 28 days. Today, for the first time, I heard baby hawks crying, at least 3 of them, maybe 4 or more. They seemed to know when the parent approached with food because they would start vocalizing when the parent was flying in from about 50-75 feet away. I read that they are generally helpless for the first two weeks, but have flight feathers and are learning to fly within 5-6 weeks. By eight weeks, they are hunting on their own.
It is interesting to note that of all the trees in the area, the one with the hawks leafed out first. In addition, I can hardly see the nest now due to the leaves. The leaf cover is very thick. I suppose this protects the young from overhead predation. I wonder how the hawks knew that that tree would leaf first and have very thick foliage?

Today is the first day that I have heard the chicks, but then, it has been raining for a few days and I haven't spent much time outside. I think I would have heard them before today if they were more than 48 hours old. They were as loud as the parent's keeyah call which I can hear in the house.

It is hard to measure the enjoyment I've gotten from watching these hawks over the last 6 weeks. In yet another 6 weeks, the ritual will be over and hopefully the young hawks will make a dent in our snake and rodent population.

Salads, Flowers, and a Mystery

I was reading the Garden Path website, looking for information on nasturtiums and got sidetracked by the article on violets, sweet violets. I learned or relearned (that's what happens when you get old-you aren't sure whether or not you are learning something for the first time or the second...lol) that the smaller leaves were edible raw. I knew that the flowers were edible, and I recalled that the plant could be cooked as a green, but I did not remember that the leaves could be eaten raw. I have an area near the garden that is literally all violets, about 20x50 in size. The area is just covered with gill 'o'er the ground and violets. At any rate, this evening, I was a bit short on lettuce, so I went out and picked some fresh lettuce and mesclun from the garden. I also grabbed some spinach, and on the way back to the house, also tried a violet leaf. To my surprise, it had a good flavor, not bitter at all, so I picked a handful of heart shaped violet leaves for the salad, along with some flowers. Needless to say, we had a great salad this evening. I even added some chopped ham, asparagus tips, and boiled egg.
It amazes me that eople put herbicides out to kill the violets in their yard not realizing how great they are to eat! BTW, you can also eat mouse ear chickweed, portulaca(purslane) and of course dandelion, but y'all probably already knew that. I've also planted a bunch of peppery nasturtiums for salads, and tonight I learned that nasturtium seeds can be put in a pepper shaker and ground as fresh pepper. Apparently they did this in war when they could not get pepper. The nasturtium seeds are also used as a substitute for capers. When it comes to edible flowers, don't forget borage. Don't forget too that you can candy flowers. Pick a borage or violet flower or even collect rose petals and with a small, fine paintbrush, paint on someegg white. Then, lightly sprinkle on superfine sugar and place the flower on wax paper to dry. It may take a day or two to dry, but once they are dry you can eat them out of hand or use them as garnishes on a plate or even as cake decorations.

I had seeded several herbs last month and yesterday we planted some of them into the new herb bed. One of the new herbs was rue. This is the first time I have ever had rue or tried to grow it. The plant was about 3-4 inches tall with several true leaves. We planted it on the edge of the bed, near the corner, oriented so that as it grew it would make a nice background plant. To make sure we did not accidentally pull it as a weed, I set it out with a plant marker about 2" from the plant. Now mind you, there was also a 32" tall metal garden fence at the edge of the bed to keep the dog from cutting through.

This morning, as Skyguy left for work, he noticed that there was a plant marker laying on top of a landscape timber. He walked over to discover that it was the marker for the rue. He also noted that the plant was missing, and there was a hole where the plant had been-just a 4" deep hole.
Now what would eat or take the whole plant, roots and all?? Deer? Raccoon?
What would pull the marker out and lay it on the landscape timber??

Now, here is the really weird part....upon researching rue to try and determine what animal might have eaten it, I came across this passage in my Herbs book by Norma Jean Lathrop:
"Greeks also believed that the secret of getting rue to grow well in your garden was to steal it from a neighbor."
What the...??? Can you believe that?
Fact #1 No one knew I had rue
Fact #2 I am the only person around here that likes growing herbs, and I can not imagine someone stealing a plant as obscure as rue. If I have to mark it, it is not exactly a commonplace herb.

I'm having a hard time believing that someone stole it, but what animal would neatly dig up only the rue, leave no tracks, and lay a marker on a landscape timber?
I am considering two other possibilities...
1. That I sleepwalked out there and dug up the plant-God only knows what I would have done with it....it is nowhere to be found
2. A ghost dug it up

Now, if you don't believe in ghosts, then you mostly likely will believe that I sleepwalked. I'm almost 1000% sure that I did not. The original owner of this property loved gardening. Two of my neighbors are his daughters. They believe that his spirit is still here, and in the past they say there have been unexplained happenings in and around the house. I happen to believe in ghosts, and while I have not seen John, I have felt his presence. I know he likes what I've done with the place. As a fellow gardener, I seriously doubt John would have pulled up the rue. What would he have done with it?? LOL I just don't think that is the answer to the mystery either. I keep coming back to an animal...

This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy wondering what happened. Oh well, life needs a bit of mystery now and again, I suppose.

Comfort from the Earth

I tilled the garden today-almost all day. It was hard, but for someone who loves to play in the dirt, it was very satisfying. That seems a bit contradictory for someone who is an advocate of no-till agriculture. I do believe that deep tillage is not good for the soil and that long term, all tilling is damaging. Not only does it kill earthworms, but it totally destratifies and kills the organisms in the soil. Some organisms live right on the surface, others several inches or feet down. In one shovelful of soil there are more living organisms than there are above-ground plants and animals in the entire Amazon rainforest. One cup of soil contains more bacteria than there are people on Earth. A teaspoon of soil can hold the fungal spores for miles and miles of fungi. Tilling mixes everything up. If you went deep sea fishing over an ocean trench and caught a fish that lived at great depths, chances are that he could not live in shallow water, and visa versa. Temperature is different. Pressures are different. Oxygen content is different. Living organisms, even microscopic organisms, are dependent on specific environments, and if the environment changes abruptly, many organisms will die. So I suppose, in reality, I am a minimum till or a conservative tiller. I don't like to till, but I do want to grow my food, so I try to strike a happy medium and only till to cultivate and mix the very top layers.

This year, I am tilling for corn, sweet potatoes, pole beans, cucumbers, squash, okra and tomatoes. Some tomatoes and peppers will go into the raised beds, as will the bush beans, but not everything will fit. I could probably do lasagna type beds, and probably eventually will do that because it works great, but right now, all the materials that would go into a lasagna bed are going into my raised box beds. Every year, I have to add materials to my monster raised beds and every year it composts into rich soil that settles down in the bed. I anticipate that it will take another 5-10 years to get to a point where I do not need to add additional material to bring the soil level up. When the beds are finally full of soil, I will start lasagna gardening on the ground.

I borrowed a 6 hp rear tine, counter rotating tines, YardMachine tiller and worked the soil only at the 'cultivation level' of about 3-4 inches. I crossed the areas at 90 degree angles, basically just trying to kill the grass and weeds and incorporated them into the soil. Organic matter is important for holding moisture. The weeds 'mine' deep nutrients from several feet down and by cultivating, that moves those nutrients to the top layer of soil where they will be more available for uptake by the veggies. Also, before tilling, I scattered kelp meal and organic fertilizer and manure on various areas and tilled that into the earth. It is supposed to rain for the next 4 days, and then it will take another week to dry out. Luckily, my garden holds moisture well-it enables my veggies to be more drought tolerant, but when I want to work in the garden, all that moisture becomes a liability. I want to plant corn on April 10, which is two weeks from Friday, and I want to till one more time before I sow the seeds, just to give the seeds a weedless advantage. Next time, I will try to till a bit deeper, but I am of the belief that 6" is plenty deep enough. Anything more can be done with a hoe. I plant tomatoes deep, but I plant those with post hole diggers.

Luckily, I have good,deep soil. I do have rocks, but the soil is fertile, has a good crumb and is relatively loose(compared to some folks hard clay gardens). I have one area, about 6x6, that was a bit compacted a few years ago, but I believe that time and earthworms have probably healed that area. The last time we raised pigs, I kept them in a 16'x16' pen that I moved around in the garden. The pigs were great rototillers, digging down sometimes as deep as 18", eating weeds and seeds and roots along the way. If I only had a couple of pigs now! As long as I moved the pen daily, the soil did not compact, but there was a period of about 4 days or so that I was unable to move the pen and for a while water just stood in that area, indicating subsurface compaction.

In the old days, farmers sealed ponds with pigs. They would fence off an area where the pond was to be, dig it out, and then raise pigs in the 'pond'. The pig manure and the clay forms a special 'mud' that is very dense. The pigs hooves knead and compress this mud making it more dense, so dense that it in effect puts a layer of 'concrete' on the bottom that will hold water-the water doesn't drain or seep through. Pig manure is magic as a fertilizer, and it is magic as a pond sealer, but in the garden, you want the former, not the latter. To prevent compaction, the pigs have to be mobile. I haven't noticed water standing in that area, and we have had a good bit of rain this year, so I am thinking that the earthworms have naturally healed the soil by tunneling and aerating that layer. Earthworms are a gardener's best friend, and I will never understand why people put pesticides and herbicides over large areas of earth as they are killing the earthworms, and in effect, killing the soil. There is a lot of truth to the adage that a gardener tends the soil, and the soil provides the food. I'll sign off with a quote I saw today:

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles. - Anne Frank

Homestead Hike

Today my friends Ava and Melissa and I went for a hike through the National Forest near my house. We hiked through the woods, following the creek beds (Hidden Creek AKA Rocky Creek) and an old road bed that predated the land being part of the National Forest to look at an old homestead, and we ended up 2 miles away at the old, now closed Hidden Creek Campground, a CCC venture, in the Chattahoochee National Forest. It was a fun hike with the dogs as we stopped and took pictures of various plants along the way. At the old homestead we found some naturalized leeks or ramps as the locals called them as well as old daffodils, a large pear tree, a nearby crabapple, some walnut trees, grape hyacinths and a monster wisteria vine that is taking over the area. The only remains of the house was a few bricks with Plainville Brick Co. on them. That is a nearby town over on the Oostanaula River. I called and found out that the company was founded in 1910, so the old homestead is probably only about 100 years old. At any rate, it was a nice hike along the bottom land of the forest, and the company was great. My friend Ava took a few pictures of me, so now I can finally be like the rest of the world and display an actual, recent picture of myself on my blog.

Light Pollution, Globe at Night

The International Dark-Sky Association defines light pollution as: “Any adverse effect of artificial light including sky glow, glare, light trespass, light clutter, decreased visibility at night, and energy waste."

Light trespass occurs when unwanted light enters one's property, for instance, your neighbor's security light that is not switched. Over-illumination is the excessive use of light. How many lights really need to be on in a skyscraper at night? Over-illumination wastes two million barrels of oil per day. (DOE stats) Glare is often the result of excessive contrast between bright and dark areas in the field of view. If you drive at night, you understand glare. Light clutter refers to excessive groupings of lights. Streetlight and sign lighting is often the culprit here. Finally, my pet peeve, sky glow, refers to the "glow" effect that can be seen over populated areas. It is the reflected light from all the pollution fixtures and practices listed above. The same effect (the Rayleigh effect) that makes the sky various shades of blue in the daytime will make the night sky various shades of gray/black. If the night sky is too light, too gray or white, then no stars can be seen. For astronomers, this is a real problem. As populations increase with urban and suburban sprawl, combined with cheap lighting and poor practices, more and more places are losing the stars, so to speak.

It is a common problem that few are aware of and yet, easy to eliminate. We simply must become more frugal and aware of the dangers of too much light. Lighting uses 25% of the world's energy, and one way to save energy and fiscal budgets is to turn out the lights.

Recently there was an article in the news stating the in the UK, the government will be paying women survivors of breast cancer if they worked at night. While some studies have shown an association between shift work and cancer, it is still under study. Mostly, it has to do with the hormones and chemicals, like melatonin, that our body uses or makes in the dark-at night. When the chemistry is off, diseases look for the chinks in the armor. Nighttime light pollution also affects people more directly. Night vision and visual acuity may deteriorate. Too much light gives some people migraines. The light itself is a subconscious reminder that people out there are moving, busying themselves in fun or work, and that knowledge can actually raise your blood pressure. Fatigue, stress, and even sexual dysfunction and infertility have all been tied to the health effects of light pollution. Even indoor fluorescent lighting can be considered light pollution, and it's effects have been documented in a number of studies.

Naturalists are concerned about how light pollution disrupts the natural cycles of light and dark and the negative effect on non-human animals is being documented worldwide. The artificial light disrupts animal navigation, changes predator-prey relationships, and alters the biochemistry of species. Here are some examples:

1) Studies suggest that light pollution around lakes prevents plankton, such as Daphnia, from eating surface algae, helping cause algal blooms that kill off plants and lower water quality.
2) Sea turtle hatchlings emerge from nests on beaches and move inland instead of out to sea. They don't really navigate by the moon, but they move to the lighter area by contrast. For millions of years, the dunes behind them were darker than the ocean before them. That is not true any longer. This is endangering to many species of turtles.
3) Migrating birds can be disoriented by lights on tall structures. Millions of birds are killed every year by flying into skyscrapers.
4) Night blooming flowers that depend on moths and nocturnal insects for pollination may be affected by night lighting. This can lead to species decline of plants that are unable to reproduce, and change the ecosystem.
5) Light pollution can negatively impact the migratory and breeding behaviour of frogs and salamanders, the canaries in the coalmine of our own world.

I wonder, too, if light pollution, especially sky glow, is responsible death of certain coral reefs.

The first thing you can do is to make yourself aware of your own situation. Globe at Night has easy charts so that you can compare the sky you see to what is really there. Between now and March 28th, people are observing the skies in their locations and then they will objectively report their location and the condition of the pollution. It is fun to participate. Hopefully it will open your eyes and make you aware of what you are missing. Once you have the facts, contact your local city council and try to get lighting changed or have special ordinances instated. You can do this!

In the meantime, participate in Earth Hour, which is on March 28. With observation and compliance, cities, corporations, and individuals around the world will collectively turn off the lights for one hour to save energy and protect the environment. Tell your neighbors and co-workers.

You can learn more here:
http://www.globe.gov/GaN/
http://www.globe.gov/GaN/observe_magnitude.html
http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do