Five Photos, Five Stories: Day 5

Some call the Orkin man when pests arrive; I call the Mountain Blue Bird Gals.

Rattlesnake bean leaves spread broad and tattered. Vegetative lace is not my goal in gardening. Whatever is feasting on my newly sprouted plants is evidently unaware that I planted marigolds for pest control.

Early in April I planted two entire flats with marigold seeds and kept them warm and moist in my laundry room. In May, I moved the flats outside and as I began seeding my kitchen gardens, I carefully broke apart tangled marigold roots to plant individuals among my mounds that promised to sprout cauliflower, corn, peas, radishes, butternut squash, pumpkins, zucchini, patty pans or a variety of beans including the rattlenakes.

Some devious little nibblers stripped or ate many of my marigold pest deterrents!

So I called in the big guns. The. Big. Blue. Guns. Actually, it was a stroke luck; I don't really know how to call in blue birds. But they flocked, about seven females with light gray bodies and a hint of blue as if they had been hastily painted. Maybe it was a girls day out and they were famished after sitting in their nests all spring. Now that the little ones had fledged, they were looking to feast.

And they found it in my garden. For most of the morning, they dove and perched among my new crops and now I am pest free! How remarkable is that? I feel as if I work in partnership when I garden without chemical intervention. One dose of blue birds was all that my garden needed to get over its pest ailment.

If that doesn't work in the future, I might try spraying with coffee. Wonder what the birds would think of that?

This is Day 5 of a photo and story challenge from Norah Colvin. Today I nominate my talented cousin who is a professional designer and photographer with a fledgling blog of his own. JR Warren of Ramble Dog, I pass the final baton to you if you are so obliged to participate. Thank you, Norah! This was a fun challenge!

The rules of the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge are:
1) Post a photo each day for five consecutive days.
2) Attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or a short paragraph. It’s entirely up to the individual.
3) Nominate another blogger to carry on the challenge. Your nominee is free to accept or decline the invitation. This is fun, not a command performance! 

Five Photos, Five Stories: Day 4

Hummingbirds and swallowtails are not the only pollinators at Elmira Pond. The humble bumble bee is a mainstay of clover patches, fruit blossoms and hairy vetch.

Winding in a tumble of vines, stringers of fluted purple blossoms and small pea-pods, this European plant is not native. Ranchers often add it to feed nitrogen to pastures and farmers use it as a cover crop in between plantings. It's hearty but not noxious, as far as I know.

And the pollinators love it.

It does look striking with the white meadow daisies which seem to not attract pollinators. Why, I do not know. These are merely my casual observations. As long as the pastures and wild spaces attract and feed the pollinators, I know that my garden will benefit.

This is Day 4 of a photo and story challenge from Norah Colvin. Today I nominate author, photographer and entrepreneur, Ann Edall-Robson, to take up the challenge if she is so obliged to participate.

The rules of the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge are:
1) Post a photo each day for five consecutive days.
2) Attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or a short paragraph. It’s entirely up to the individual.
3) Nominate another blogger to carry on the challenge. Your nominee is free to accept or decline the invitation. This is fun, not a command performance! 

Five Photos, Five Stories: Day 3

Hallelujah! I shot a hummingbird! My prize of the day: a clear shot of a female black-chinned hummingbird.

White butterflies wobble like tissue caught in a breeze; dragonflies zip past with iridescent wings; and swallowtails flutter like elegant breeze dancers. Amidst these dainty flyers, I seek the buzz of hummingbird wings.

My first hummingbird encounter on Elmira Pond took place two summers ago when one mistook my hot pink t-shirt for a large flower. I had binoculars scoped on the pond as I sat beneath the apple tree. A persistent buzzing at my right ear made me think it was a bee and casually I would swat at the sound. Finally, I put down the binoculars to be face-to-face with a hummingbird!

Often I catch them buzzing about and when the apple tree was in full blossom this past May, several hung out as if it were a favorite pub. They sipped apple blossom nectar and I identified three different kinds: black-chinned, red-throated and calliope.

For so long, I've wanted a photograph. I've learned what they like -- hairy vetch blossoms, radish blooms, colorful perennials. I also bought a feeder which they've drained three times in two months. I catch glimpses and snap blurry shots as they flee my camera lens.

Today I was determined. After watering, I sat beneath the spruce tree by my gardens and waited with camera, cat and coffee. Todd walked out onto the porch and I tried to shoo him away. After weeding and planting more beets (because one can never have too many beets), I sat again in the shade of the spruce, drinking cold water. Todd got his camera and joined me.

Then he got bored. I watched wispy white clouds pass overhead. I listened to the steady strum of summer traffic on Hwy. 95. I spotted a chipping sparrow in a tall pine. Bootsy sat companionably beneath my chair. I saw a black and white dragonfly. And then I heard the buzz of wings.

Snap, snap, snap! She posed, drank and left. At last, I have her in pixels. My hummingbird patience paid off.

This is Day 3 of a photo and story challenge from Norah Colvin. Today I nominate author and poet, Susan Zutautas, to take up the challenge if she is so obliged to participate.

The rules of the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge are:
1) Post a photo each day for five consecutive days.
2) Attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or a short paragraph. It’s entirely up to the individual.
3) Nominate another blogger to carry on the challenge. Your nominee is free to accept or decline the invitation. This is fun, not a command performance!

Five Photos, Five Stories: Day 2

Bootsy the Barn Cat came with our lease at Elmira Pond. The first few years, she remained an enigma, slinking through the grass and eating kibble in the garage unseen. I occasionally wrote of Bootsy sightings as if she were Blue Heron or a moose.

This past winter she decided to stay and we see her every day. I enjoy coffee with Bootsy in the morning, and bird watching with her under the apple tree. She's a tad unsettled with Grendle's new off-leash lifestyle. A remarkable transition has occurred since he was injured by a bear on the Pack river -- he no longer wants to run off! But he will still run after the cat, to her disgruntlement.

When it comes to a balanced eco-system, I'm skeptical of cats, especially feral ones. Cats kill songbirds. I reluctantly accepted the cat that came with the lease. Yet time and observation leads me to believe that Bootsy does not hunt birds. She has subsisted on rodents and does was a barn cat is supposed to do -- she keeps our outbuildings rodent free.

Better than that, Bootsy is a gopher killer. The problem with killing gophers by recommended methods of poison is that poisoned rodents then kill higher up the food chain, including bald eagles, hawks, owls and coyotes. Ranchers have long held biases against coyotes, but if you observe their actual nature, they keep down the populations of rodents and rabbits that can destroy pastures and eat crops. It's all about understanding the balance.

If you've tried to lead a balanced lifestyle, you know it can be a challenge. The weather can be like workplace stress. It tips the scales. My workplace stress these days is the result of a dry spring and summer. My cherry tree died; my apple tree just dropped all its marble-sized apples; my garden plants look tattered; not all my seeds are germinating and my magnificent spruce tree has some sort of invasion.

While these things are not the direct result of a dry season, they are responses to a weakened state. Just as we often catch a virus or strain a muscle when we are under stress. I look at my property and understand that its immune system is challenged by the weather. I can water, wait and hope.

Bootsy is a good companion for waiting. She doesn't roll her kitty eyes at me or offer opposing opinions. She offeres me a comforting rub against my legs, a lap sitting and a greeting chorus of meows when I water. She just is and she lets me be. What more could I ask for? Oh, yes, the daily gopher head to show she is keeping my gardens and yard free of pests. And she doesn't harass the birds so we are good.

This is Day 2 of a photo and story challenge offered by fellow blogger, friend and hopefully (one day) a visitor to Elmira Pond,  Norah Colvin. Today I nominate Yinglan who is a blogger at A Simple Life, engineer, accounting student and a creative photographer to take up the challenge if she is so obliged to participate.

The rules of the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge are:
1) Post a photo each day for five consecutive days.
2) Attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or a short paragraph. It’s entirely up to the individual.
3) Nominate another blogger to carry on the challenge. Your nominee is free to accept or decline the invitation. This is fun, not a command performance!

Five Photos, Five Stories: Day 1

Like a lost ribbon fluttering in the wind, the western tiger swallowtail is easy to spot but hard to catch with the camera. This one perches at the edge of a gopher hole.

Todd and Bootsy have shared yard duties -- kill gophers. These critters destroy trees, pastures and gardens. Yet we have a self-imposed no chemical policy. I'm an organic gardener so we employ the hose and cat for gopher pest control.

Gophers can dig up a wide swath of soil in a single night. They mound dirt like burgeoning volcanoes. Wherever the gophers destroy land, knapweed sprouts. This noxious weed is one I battle by hand, spade and moth. I can't say I've been successful, but without access to burn and till our pastures it's the best I can do without harming the pond eco-system.

The hose is Todd's weapon of choice and he floods the burrows as soon as we see a hill emerge. Bootsy often leaves me head-bounties and I can tell the gopher head from other rodents. They make a good team, the Hub and Barn Cat, but it's not a perfect process. Poison would be more effective, but it kills more than rodents.

Yet the gentle Lepidoptera resting in the barren space is why I don't use chemicals to combat pests and weeds. Though others might look with disdain at my weedy or hill-ridden land, butterflies, birds and bumblebees proliferate here.

Sometimes, I think we need to adjust what is beautiful. I'd rather have swallowtails than a perfect lawn. 

The photos in this series will focus on pollinators and garden helpers, as I learn to improve my organic gardening skills. A big thank you to Norah Colvin for inviting me to participate in the Five Photos, Five Stories challenge. This is Day 1 and I nominate Ruchira Khanna to take up the challenge when she returns from vacation and if she is so obliged to participate.

The rules of the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge are:
1) Post a photo each day for five consecutive days.
2) Attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or a short paragraph. It’s entirely up to the individual.
3) Nominate another blogger to carry on the challenge. Your nominee is free to accept or decline the invitation. This is fun, not a command performance!