A Puddling of Swallowtails

Grandson Devin and I have been wading in the bend of Big Creek which lies across the road from our lower meadow. Devin had gotten mud to his knees while investigating footprints in the ditch; I created a blister on one ankle by stomping about in rubber boots with no socks. He slogged and I limped to the bottom of the pasture, where beyond the asphalt road the cool waters of the creek beckoned.

We eased off our boots and left them on the shaley slope leading into sun-dappled water, stirring up clouds of swallowtail butterflies which swirled ahead, just out of good camera range.

I was delighted to find several clumps of the butterflies resting in the shade.

A look at the wikipedia entry for Eastern Tiger Swallowtail promises a wealth of information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_tiger_swallowtail

 

The water of the creek was cool--not cold.  It felt soothing to my chaffed ankle.

The creek bed was slippery--with interesting cracks and fissures.  Small pebbles had settled into these grooves in the rocky bed.  D. poked at crawdads who slid under the lip of rock.

Males participate in a behavior called puddling, in which they congregate on mud, damp gravel, or puddles. They extract sodium ions and amino acids from these sources which aid in reproduction.[13][19] Males that puddle are typically fresh, and puddle only for their first couple of days. Females will occasionally puddle, but do not form congregations.[19]

From wikipedia

If I have read the information correctly it would seem that the black swallowtail is a color morph of the tiger female.

Some of the butterflies in the "puddles" had the blue markings of the female, so perhaps we witnessed some unusual behavior.

Impossible to get a photo where at least one butterfly wasn't fluttering and causing a blur.

I have never witnessed this behavior of the butterflies before and feel blessed to have seen them today.

The one in the foreground has the markings of a male.

This photo was taken as we approached the creek along the bank.

Although only two butterflies are easily seen here, they were rising up in clouds.

D. and I left the creek reluctantly, boots dangling from our hands, and padded up the warm stretch of macadam road to the driveway and along the grassy verge to the house.

A Giant Toppled

Red Elm being converted to fire wood.

Several months ago we headed the back way to Campbellsville and saw our friend J.M.'s truck at his secondary farm. He keeps part of his Black Angus herd there and knowing he'd been treating a cow with an injured foot, J. decided to stop and ask if the cow was improving.

The men stood talking--cattle, machinery, haying, gardens.

J.M. waved a hand in the direction of the side-hill pasture and said,

"There's that dead elm that needs to come down.  Would you want to cut it and haul it away for firewood?"

Felling the tree and "working up" the wood has been on J.'s to do list since that time, but other jobs have been more urgent.

Yesterday, a day of cold and sunshine, he suddenly announced his intention to take down the elm.

I scrambled into extra layers of clothes, abandoned a search for my winter boots and hats, which hadn't surfaced since our move.

I picked up a book.

[Never go on a journey with a man without a book to read while you wait for him!]

A few miles down the winding back road I realized I hadn't brought the camera.

J. logged during the years that we owned the Vermont farm.

He is no stranger to the tools and tricks involved in bringing a large tree down safely.

[No stranger either to the grim reality that a tree can become an instant killer if something goes awry in the felling process.]

He expected that approximately half an hours' work would see the tree on the ground.

Viewed close up he realized the girth of the tree was greater than it appeared from down near the barn where we stood on that summer morning when this project was first considered.

Here you can see the chainsaw with its 18" blade compared to the flaring stump of the elm.

J. judged where he intended the tree to fall and began the process of notching and slicing.

The snarl of the saw rang across the pasture and several Black Angus wandered past to investigate, then plodded on to a safer spot.

There was nothing I could do to help at this point, so I sat in the truck with my book, keeping a watchful eye on the undertaking.

J. stopped several times to sharpen the saw, adjust the chain.

He stuck his head in the truck and commented that he had met up with only one other tree that had been as difficult to bring down--a grand old maple.

He brought out a wedge and a splitting hammer.

The rythmic blows rippled through the cold bright afternoon air, but there was no visible quivering in the branches of the tree.

By now grimly determined not to be thwarted, J. produced a 20 ton hydraulic jack, enlarged a notch on the back of the tree trunk to accomodate inserting the jack, and began applying pressure.

He estimated that a 6 inch square of heart wood at the core of the tree was all that was holding it upright.

Nearly three hours after he launched his attack on the old giant, there was finally a telling crack, the tree shuddered and thundered to the earth in a splinter of small dry branches---landing exactly as planned.

The cows, who had retreated to the calm of the lower pasture, raised startled heads at the unfamiliar sound.

I put down my book; I had read 170 pages.

J. cut mostly "limb wood" in the daylight left to us yesterday.

I loaded it into the back of the truck.

The section of the tree which he sawed up today was of larger "chunks."

Some of them were bigger than I could fling into the truck, so I rolled those closer where he could load them.

Elm has a coarse, rough bark, with heavy vertical ridges.

The limbs of this venerable tree were covered in scaly grey lichen.

Here you can see the work of the saw, the wedges, and the space gouged out to place the jack.

The view toward the fence line.

The December sun stays low in the sky and the hedgerows have an amber glow.

Looking over a knoll of the pasture.

The trusty old Dodge, "Snort'n Nort'n", part of every work project for many years.

Elm trees were a familiar and much valued part of the American landscape, particularly in New England, prior to the epidemic of a killer fungus known as Dutch Elm Disease.

The Vermont farm purchased in 1913 by my great-grandparents in partnership with my newly wed grandparents, was known as Elm Row Farm.  I don't know if they gave that name to the farm or if it had been so called by previous owners.

If you would like to read the story about one of the country's last surviving elms, finally felled last winter, in Yarmouth, Maine,  here are two interesting links.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9711219

http://www.dirtdoctor.com/organic/garden/view_question/id/3108/

Macro

I have owned my present camera [ a Canon Power Shot A2000IS] for about a year.  In that time I have done little other than to use the "auto" mode or the setting for night shots, experimenting with the zoom feature.

Two booklets came with the camera, but I have small patience or skill in fiddling with "tech-y" stuff.

To be honest, I like things to work "perfectly" without a lot of practice.

I have been increasingly unhappy with attempted close-ups which missed the beautiful details of flowers or insects.  The camera manual turned up in one of the boxes I rootled through this week.

This being a day of weather unfit for woman, man or beast to attempt strenuous labor, I decided to play with the camera settings.

The flower garden is languishing in the heat, but I have hoped to let seed heads ripen and self-sow.  I've noticed that the hummingbirds and butterflies don't care that the flowers are shabby, so that has been another reason to leave them in over-blown and untidily flopping dis-array.

Two of the spicebush [Eastern Swallowtail] butterflies were damaged and clearly near the end of their short lives. This one was dull and ragged but still gamely flitting from flower to flower.

The monarda is going to seed but still appealing to the butterflies and humingbirds.

Still not as sharp a photo as I would like.  Butterflies don't oblige by "holding still."

A gold-spangled fritillary on a red zinnia.

This tiger swallowtail was huge--and very busy. 

I remember a summer when I was about 12 and decided I should acquire a butterfly collection.

I fashioned a "net" from a piece of my mother's old nightgown fastened to the wooden dowel from a windowshade and I was off for hours, trailing butterflies through the pasture.

Today I tripped over cucumber vines, ran around the edge of the flower garden, trying to get a good shot of this creature.

Today's hibiscus. A thank you to Chris J, for suggesting the color "Chinese Pink."

I tried repeatedly for a shot of this opening bronze sunflower.  The bloom is above my head and the wind was blowing just enough to make the photo blur.

I took this shot in the evening with the overcast sky darkening into dusk.

Another of the "dwarf" sunflowers with an insect visitor.

Detail of a dark sunflower in bud.

A bud of the tall golden sunflower.

Buds on the pink hibiscus.

My proficiency in photography has a long way to go.

I will always be an amateur with an inexpensive camera.

Still, the quest for photos to share is yet another interest and a continuing joy.

For as many remaining years as I can be out and about to explore the intricacies of Creation, I will never be bored.

Indoors and Out

Teasel sleeps on the bed after supervising our morning activities. Teasel greatly enjoys food and I have been calling her "Teasel the Tank."

Charlie, the dad cat, looks appealingly innocent.  Moments earlier his son Chester was under the rug atop the hassock with Charlie pummeling him, while Teasel jabbed a wiley paw under the rug for good measure.  Charlie has led the tribe this evening in wild surges through the rooms, crashing headlong into his cardboard box under the picture window, banging his head on the same window in an ill-judged leap for the sill. The sobering moment came with a crash in here.  I was taking cookies from the oven, so it was a bit later that I came in to find my ironing board upended, iron on its side with water puddling out, fabric strips in a muddle on the floor.

Charlie and Maisie's daughter, Jemima, is such a sweetie. She favors the top of this bookcase.  A leap into my old wing chair and a bounce up to the top shelf, and she can keep tabs on whatever I am doing.

Pebbles the Horse is recovering from a frightening bout of laminitis brought on by injudicious consumption of grass which had been frosted. This was a danger to her health that we had to learn the hard way.  She has been a month in this "starvation pasture" and none too pleased about it. She is being fed very carefully with a non-sweetened grain mixture created especially for horses who are subject to founder.  She has a water tub, and hay. She is bored with her confinement to such a small area, although pleased this week that J. has been working on the side entry roof and she can watch him.  If she creates a big enough fuss, chances are he will fetch her a carrot. It is a relief to see that she is once again stepping smartly.

Silvery bare branches against a clear blue sky. I was surely intending to include the bird in this shot--but zooming in has not identified which bird it is.

 

I am always intrigued by the patterns of branches against the sky. I tend to gaze up into the heavens, fiddling with the camera's zoom feature until I am dizzy and losing my balance on uneven ground.

In spite of living for a decade in Wyoming, my identification of native trees isn't good. These may be either young cottonwoods or aspens.  At any rate, you can see how the wind has canted them.

Cottonwood leaves, brown but still glossy, lie scattered on the dry rough ground and catch in clumps of dried weed.

If I were not lazy this evening--and if I was sure I could locate my book on wild plants, I would label this photo!  Maybe sorrel? 

J. has been working on the side entry roof this week. I expect that come spring we will be dealing with starlings who would like to nest in this newly sheltered spot.  They are such messy pests.

The kitchen window with its plant-laden sill faces the new entry roof.  This is the eastern exposure of the house.

A side view of guest/rental cabin, house and attached garage, taken from across the pond.  The "Sky Trak" which J. used to put the cross beam in place, and SIL's plumbing van add to the view.

The pond with a crinkled coating of ice, reflects the blue sky and the shadows of the over-hanging cottonwoods. Fallen leaves and twigs are caught in the cold slush.

This post has been a bit of an adventure---my first attempt at using the newer format.  I can see some advantages, such as the better photo uploads, but a few things are boggling my very untechnical brain. Perhaps I'll eventually be able to provide a "link" without pasting in a url.  There is always hope.

The Off Season

The pansy doesn't have a white blotch--I had difficulty with the angle of the sun, and didn't check the only photos I took until too late to get another!
These little flowers have struggled back after the plants were nibbled down by the deer in early August. In New England I've had pansies and violas revive as late as December during a few warm days. These had a cool, earthy-sweet scent when I leaned over them.

Perhaps a robin's nest, as many of those cheerful birds bounce about in the trees and on the ground during spring and summer.

This little nest at the tip of a slender branch, swings over the edge of the pond. I'm wondering if it belonged to an oriole [?]

A rather disheveled nest tucked in a precarious tangle of small branches. Perhaps it was occupied by a rather boisterous bird family.

I'm sure there is a nest in these branches, but maybe this isn't the photo I meant to select! I was lurching about a bit trying to walk, look up into the tree tops and focus the camera. I think that's called "multi-tasking"--something I shouldn't attempt. Doing this two afternoons in a row has given me a "crick" in my neck.

Two dainty hanging nests. These are in the ditch-bank tree where the female owl was perched yesterday. It seems a miracle of engineering that these little bird-built structures can withstand wind and weather.

This nest is wedged untidily against a knot on the tree trunk. I shouldn't think it was a "desirable residence."

A yarrow has sent up some out of season new growth, probably encouraged by the moisture from melting snow.

This beautiful little nest was woven in the top of a struggling old lilac just above the pond. In the spring of 2008 a goldfinch huddled there on her eggs throughout dreadful weather---days and nights of rain, pelting sleet, and howling winds. The nest was vacant this season. If you enlarge the photo you will have a good look at the thin strands of plastic looping from the nest to catch on the lilac twigs. I don't know that it was designed that way with "anchors" of a sort; I suspect that in the past year these threads have loosened from the nest and whipped free only later to be snagged on the branches.

Autumn can be the natural season for a bit of melancholy reflection, even when several days unfold with a mellow golden sun slanting low from a clear blue sky. We have already had a foreboding of winter's reality with snow and cold temperatures assaulting us during the first week of October.

I do enjoy the tracery of nearly bare branches against an autumn sky. I marvel at the bird's nests which are revealed in such sturdy delicacy. As I plodded along the ditch banks yesterday afternoon and again today, I thought of the cottages and summer hotels which were a large part of the local economy in upstate New York where so many generations of my mother's family labored. It was a country setting of small hillside farms, but there is also proximity to Lake Champlain and Lake George which lured well-to-do "city people" to spend summers there. In their middle age my g-aunt and g-uncle acquired some land near the shore of Lake George at "Indian Kettles" and built several house-keeping cottages to rent by the week or month. In the spring the cottages had to be "opened up"--the water turned on, windows and curtains washed, everything swept clean. In the fall, after the last late renters had departed, the reverse process was carried out. Pipes were drained, floors were swept one last time, cupboards checked to make sure nothing was left to entice a stray mouse or two. The shades were drawn and all was carried out to keep the cottages secure and weather proof for the long months of winter.

So, too, a generation or two previously, the owners of the big hotels and boarding houses dismissed the summer dining room help, put away clean bedding and towels, boarded up windows and stacked the wooden porch rockers under cover til another season.

Farm gardens which had worn protective sheets or old blankets for protection on chilly evenings had now been abandoned to the nights of killing frost. Potatoes were stored in cellars, rows of filled mason jars promised good eating for the winter. A few last green tomatoes ripened--or rotted--on a windowsill in the back entry.

Stove wood, cut and hauled the previous winter, was sliced into accomodating lengths and woodsheds stuffed full. The whine of a tractor-powered circular saw rang on the cold air. Kitchen doors, quickly opened and shut again, let out a waft of mincemeat or simmering applesauce, made from the last of the bruised apples which wouldn't "keep."

The little songbirds departed, one day there, chirping and twittering, the next, gone. Woolen blankets and heavy jackets brought from trunks smelling of cedar and moth balls, bounced for a few hours on the clotheslines to air.

November is not a time which I anticipate happily. I grumble a bit about the coming months of cold, the expense of heating the house to a bearable level. I think of the need for new snow tires on the car.

I try to line up interesting projects to accomplish indoors til spring unfolds again with light and warmth.

A co-worker's 6 year old grand daughter asked her last week when the clocks were "set back, " Will nights be longer now?" No---but they will seem that way!

Whatever mankind may do, the earth continues to turn in the deliberate pattern of the seasons. It is only we who may feel "offish."