Stories from We Are One Farm

They say rain makes things grow, and we've certainly had our share of rain this spring, but does it grow wildlife too??

The last two weeks of woodland walks with Angus has revealed such an abundance of critters, as well as wildflowers, just on our property, that they must be adding something to the water these days!

On one walk alone, just by the pond I was greeted by big black dragonflies, a momma duck and her six youngsters paddling silently (until she saw Angus and called some warning quacks), and a beautiful green Leopard frog who skipped through the long grass just avoiding my clumsy, rubber-booted feet.

A chorus of bullfrogs held a sort of syncopated beat while two small painted turtles slipped off the bank into the water as I neared.

Whenever I hear the rubber-band guitar string "boing" of the bullfrogs I look around and rarely spot them, or manage to just catch the "plop!" with telltale ripples in the water as they drop out of sight. But the other glorious day I saw several, larger ones with their heads out of water, blowing up their vocal sacs to toot their horns, while smaller frogs hopped around in the shallows, seemingly playing....could it be...leapfrog? Sure looked like it!

On the way back from the woods three or more Monarch butterflies flitted about. There have been years when not a butterfly was to be seen, but they have come back in abundance, especially the yellow ones rather than orange which have been more common here.

When we got back up the hill to where Edward was working in the garden he glanced up and then whistled, and my gaze followed to see two beautiful red-tailed hawks circling above us. "Thank you Creator!" yelled Edward, arms outstretched. Hawk as an animal totem is a messenger from Spirit, and one is supposed to "pay attention" for what comes. Not sure I caught the message that day except to say thank you for the overflowing beauty and life-force around us!

Later the same day Angus began barking frantically in a patch of brush behind the garden sheds. When his yips don't move through the woods we know it's neither a hare nor a deer, and we can discern between the two of those by the intensity, direction and how fast he runs out of breath. And I am becoming accustomed to his desperate barks when he corners a porcupine down in the forest. If I am close by, I can usually pull him away, as I did a few days ago, from a wee black baby who was heading straight for him, backwards, in a defensive move.

He was not so fortunate a week or so ago when a larger one got to him before I did, and by the time he staggered in my general direction he had four quills in his snout which I pulled out promptly before they were too embedded. I guess he didn't learn his lesson after his first major quill encounter last summer.

But the barking this day sounded different again, excited, stationary...our first thought was "porcupine!" but when Edward found him he called me over to see an adorable (to me at least) small groundhog. What a cutie, standing upright, head tilted, small ears, long-fingered hands. He stayed put after Edward dragged Angus away and Groundhog and I had a little chat, as I am wont to do with most woodland creatures. No, I'm no "animal communicator", but I like to think they can interpret English delivered in my high-pitched, sing-song-y, momma-talking-to-a-baby kind of voice. Sometimes I think I should have been born in an animated cartoon, probably something by Disney in the ol' days.

But that was just one day lately. Another day I saw a brown furry thing swimming along in the pond but he dove under as I appeared, too quickly to tell if he was a muskrat or maybe even a small river otter. I didn't get a good look at the tail except enough to know it wasn't a beaver coming back to reclaim the area and decimate the hardwoods!

And in the past two weeks I uncovered a nest of 8 or more snakes under a large rock I was moving down at the edge of our medicine wheel garden (oops! I felt bad for disturbing their den). Then I wondered what the symbolic significance might be of having "snake medicine" in the east of the medicine wheel. The east is new beginnings...the element of air, the new day dawning, the direction of Eagle who represents Great Spirit. Snake symbolises healing and the transmutation of poison or "bad" into healing or "good".

I did try to re-establish their home. A couple of them wiggled away, a few just vanished into thin air it seemed, and two I managed to grab and put back under the rock in it's new location, only a foot or two away, but I don't know that they took to the new digs. Time will tell.

Another day in the woods a common toad crossed my path. I bent down to say, "Hello, what's your name?", again as I am wont to do. "Robert" was the flash that came to mind immediately. "Robert?" hmmm. Not a name I would think of generally for a toad but why not? I admired him for a few moments and went on my way. I see lots of brown toads in the garden but ot often in the woods. The next day at the same spot I called out as I neared, "Robert! Robert! Are you there?" and didn't he just jump aside, an inch from my big boot as I walked through. Wow! "How cool!", I thought. Robert the frog is here again, responding to me! Alas, I have not seen him since. Whether he just wasn't ready for a relationship or my shouts attracted unwanted attention, I'll never know. But I have been calling out for him, just in case.

The same day as my first encounter with Robert, a long brown snake crossed my path in the woods also. We didn't talk, but something unusual like that always feels like a "sign" of some kind. What bad am I turning into good? What poison into healing?

And to top it off in the Unusual Animal Encounters department, three days ago Edward and I were ambling down the driveway and saw what we thought was a large grey rock in the gravel roadway. "Hmm..I don't remember there being a big rock in the way there." And just then the rock got shorter! Something had moved downward and as we neared we found to our amazement a large snapping turtle which was bringing it's head into its shell for protection! Wow! He or she was a good foot long, the shell that is, and from head to dinosaur-like tail, complete with triangular protrusions, was a good 18 inches!

We had made the mistake once before of relocating a painted turtle we'd found in the driveway back down the hill to one of the ponds, thinking, stupidly, that it had "lost it's way". I found out later that they look for gravelly places by roadsides to lay their eggs! Oops.

So figuring it might be the same for snapping turtles, we just moved her a few feet to the side of the driveway, out of harm's way for the moment at least, and onto a pile of gravel crush. I am glad I took pictures of her as, an hour later after going inside for some lunch, there was no trace of her. I thought turtles were slow??

This morning Edward glanced out an upstairs window in time to see she'd returned, was once again in the driveway but a little closer to the house, and being investigated with a tentative paw by our cat Spirit! "No Spirit!! Don't touch!' we yelled. The sharp beak of these turtles could do a lot of damage to a curious cat and apparently their necks have a fast and long reach.

Edward had to run down and retrieve the cat, so far unscathed. But again, the next time we checked the driveway she was nowhere to be seen. If you're curious about these turtles, see here .

Finally, to add to the critter-dom here on We Are One Farm, Edward went to another farm in the area and picked up four more Rhode Island Reds to add to our laying hens. The folks there were selling the Reds off in order to take on different breeds. However, to his disappointment, he found their layers were kept in cages with wire "floors" as well, much like on factory farms. While we bought two young pullets who were still free to roam around the barn and were in good shape, he took pity on two of the year-old hens, one whose neck feathers were worn completely off from having to stick her head through the cage wire and the other missing tail feathers for some reason. They look a sad sight.

But now the four are their third week of fresh air, sunshine, green grass and bugs to eat. They even experienced what were probably their first dust baths, so cute burrowing into the ground and flapping their wings! I'm not sure if they've figured out yet that they are supposed to roost up on the rails with the other chickens at night, but at least they know where to get in and out of the coop now. Freedom! They'll be good as new by the end of the summer. Happy chickens and so much more here on We Are One Farm. Enjoy the Summer Solstice...nice to have a sunny day here for the longest day of the year!