A day to remember all right

After just under 2 inches of rain last night we woke up to a muggy day but
the sun was shining for a change. We had to pump out the crawl space again,
low spots in the yard are flooded again, and we'll never get some spots
mowed this year. Our pond is the fullest I have ever seen it. I saw fish
spawning near the shore, the yellow flag iris are in bloom and big blue
dragon flies are skimming the pond.

Flower smells are cloying in this humid air. The autumn olive by the pond
was overpowering. I could smell the sweet woodruff and lilies of the valley
mixed with lilac sitting on my porch. That was much better than the smells
of bloody feathers and fresh killed chicken I dealt with early this morning.

Yesterday morning I found one dead "teenage" chicken from a pen in the back
corner of the barn. It was right outside the door, the other chicks were
fine and I thought maybe it had escaped in the night and an owl or early
morning hawk had killed it. It was shredded and eaten pretty well. I even
suspected a stray cat or even the male muscovy duck that's guarding a hen on
a nest near the chick pen.

I closed up the back door of the barn last night even blocking the gap at
the bottom and hoped for the best. Didn't happen. This morning I found all
the beautiful young birds slaughtered, inside and outside the pen, a big
mess. Torn and shredded. Further more I found my sweet little silkie hen
who was sitting on a nest dead. My other little chicken Frizzle was ok, but
he probably ran from the killer. He has escaped death many times that one.

I was cleaning up and noticed my Jack Russell, Sarah going nuts scratching
at the wall that separates her inside pen from the loft steps. Sure enough
under the steps was a big coon, the vicious killer. It's dark and hidden
under there. I didn't want Sarah to get bitten up, she's too old, even
though she was game. So I grabbed a shovel and went for him. If I had went
back to the house for a gun it would have been gone, and shooting into that
area wouldn't have been wise.

I was mad, and I smacked him numerous times, bashing him wherever I could.
It was tough and fighting back, growling and snarling, but I had it pretty
penned in under the stairs. I tried to pin its neck to the cement wall but
it pulled away. After about 10 minutes of me beating it, it managed to get
by me and run out the door.

Now if any of you think this is cruel you don't know how nasty raccoons are.
He could have eaten cat food or chicken food. There was lots of food around
the barn. There was still bread on the floor that I had given the ducks
last night. He could have killed only one chicken to eat. It wasn't
hungry. He was just damn mean.

I have 3 brooders full of chicks still, laying hens, 2 sitting turkeys and a
sitting duck in the barn, which if I hadn't beaten him hopefully to death,
he'd be back to get. Raccoons kill for the fun of it. They make terrible
bloody messes with what they kill. I have known them to eat the feet off
chickens or bunnies they couldn't pull through a cage or get into. They
carry rabies, distemper, roundworms and other nasty diseases. They are
vicious animals. In the woods where they belong they are fine, and there is
plenty of wooded land around here. But I don't want them in my barn or
around it.

If the one I beat doesn't crawl somewhere to die I hope he stays far away
from here. If I had the pitchfork handy I may have known that my birds were
safe. We are going to put a couple of the dogs up in the loft when it cools
down to see if there are any more up there, like babies. I don't know what
I'll do if I find babies. I hope that was the only one.

Loving the swamp

Swamps and marshes and little ponds have always held a certain fascination
for me. They teem with wildlife; sitting quietly by a wetland area you'll
see all kinds of birds, a host of water creatures and even larger animals.
As a girl I frequented swamps by walking down the railroad tracks, sometimes
with friends, sometimes with just a dog at my heels. For a long time these
swampy areas were forbidden to me so there was also the thrill of doing
something "wrong."

As I got older and my parents less vigilant I spent several evenings a week
making the trek down the tracks to sit on the banks of a small pond and roam
the marshlands behind the Junior High I went to. I liked to go alone, the
swamps were my place to think and escape from a home crowded with siblings.

One of the selling points for the house that my husband and I bought here in
the country was the fact that it had a pond and also a bit of marshy woods.
The pond was newly dug and glaringly devoid of natural wetland vegetation.
The previous owners didn't make the wisest choices in the site selection and
digging of the pond. The banks were steep and the clay sub soil had been
pushed up over the area around the pond, giving grasses and other plants a
hard time taking hold.

We worked hard to stabilize the banks and stop some of the erosion that was
happening. At first we followed the previous owner's instructions about
adding blue dye to keep out algae and for the first two years we often swam
in the pond. You could feel the little seeps of cold ground water welling
up under your feet as you walked on the muddy bottom.

The pond was stocked with bluegills and bass and the grandchildren loved to
fish there, pulling out stunted bluegills which we allowed them to feed to
the chickens. Some nice big bass were hooked by my son and husband fishing
there. There were frogs, tadpoles, and turtles in residence.

Over time things have changed around that pond. Cattails grew, the natural
vegetation filled in along the banks. We stopped swimming in the pond.
Dye was no longer added. Trees grew up around the pond, making it much more
natural looking but also sucking up tons of water in the heat of summer.
There are poplars and willows, white pine and spruce, river birch, maples
and sycamore. There are fruit trees and a redbud on the south side and a
tangled wind break of lilacs, spirea and forsythia.

The fish all died one winter, too much time under snow covered ice depleted
the oxygen in a pond which regularly went into winter at a low water level.
I knew the fish were gone because the water teemed with tadpoles that
spring. For several years we left it fishless, last year we once again
added some blue gills and also a couple koi.

The bluegills managed to spawn last year, there are tons of tiny fish this
spring but I haven't seen the koi. Maybe they are still there; the pond is
very full this spring.

But the best thing about the pond is that I have a thinking and wildlife
watching spot I feel completely safe sitting in and don't have to walk far
to get to. With all the natural vegetation maturing now the pond area teems
with life. I can sit and watch to my hearts content.

We have of all things, a king fisher who has hung around the last 2 years
and I saw again this spring. There are flocks of yellow warblers that nest
around the pond with the red winged black birds. A night heron nests every
year in the marshy woods behind the pond and scolds me as he departs from
the pond as I arrive. Chick-a- dees frequent the woods too and flocks of
tiny goldfinches flit around the high grass areas.

A great blue heron regularly visits and tree swallows nest in our remaining
bluebird houses and barn swallows in our barn. A Virginia rail and
killdeers often scuttle along the pond banks. Crows and red tailed hawks
nest in our woods behind the pond and are frequent visitors. Their babies
are very noisy in the early summer. Frogs of all kinds call from the banks
and we have a plethora of small turtles.

If I quietly sit on my redneck bench, an old van seat, I often see deer
grazing on the other side of the pond. Rabbits are bold, often playing
within 10 feet of me. We lost our barn cats to an epidemic of cat distemper
two years ago and the rabbits have flourished. From time to time we have
muskrats- which swim around in the evenings with just their heads showing.
They usually can't resist coming up to the dog kennels for dog food and
getting killed.

I have watched the antics of ground hogs many times. One large one would
climb into the low branches of some shrubby willows by the pond and stretch
out on limbs to sleep. It always amazes me he can climb up and do that. I
can watch our own horses grazing near the pond too and this year I added a
pretty pair of muscovy ducks. Our free range chickens sometimes venture
down to the pond, but seem a little uneasy there, and it probably isn't the
best spot for them.

It isn't always easy keeping up with a country place, especially as we get
older. But the fact that I have this quiet, safe Eden to sit in makes it
all worthwhile. I feel young again, scouting for pollywogs and identifying
birds. Hopefully I have years left to enjoy it.