Educational Ambassadors

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Horseless carriages pony up to Red Fox

Bristch car coupleWe knew they were coming. But at 9:30 a.m. when the Model Ts, Plymouths and at least one Wolseley rolled south on 7L, it was still an unexpected, thrilling sight.

Laura directing trafficNot one of the historic automobiles that were part of the 2015 National 1 & 2 Cylinder Millstream Road Oilers tour came off assembly after 1913, we were told. The 28 horseless carriages and their drivers stopped first at Diane Myers’ Black Swamp Raptor Rehab Center several miles east of here before making their way west to see Red Fox Cabin, the butterfly gardens and the residents of the farm animal sanctuary on their way to Kalida.Walker's Driveway

Because they came from the north instead of south, the drivers had to loop through the neighboring Walker family’s driveway. It was a surprise photo op for the neighbors and for us.

Because the summer is upon us, hot and heavy, Carlton and Beatrice gave a brief ‘hello’ before wagging into the undergrowth for wild raspberries and shade. But Lucy was the gracious hostess for the morning.Red AdmiralLucy and KCS

Because high winds aren’t due for another few hours, a zebra swallowtail, a red-spotted purple, a red admiral butterfly, two saddlebag dragonflies and a flock of pondhawks flitted and zipped through the gardens.

Safe travels, and thank you for the generous donation to help us on our way.Cars

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So like ours

I had another post in mind today; two, actually. Today had other plans.

With the press bill planted on my head, I followed the scanner to a semi overturn on Ohio State Route 12. The word was one slight injury, no heavy rescue required.

This was the scene on approach from the west.

 

Truck

 

The driver seated in the ambulance to the left was shaken, with a bloodied forearm, but his fingers were mobile. His boss in Defiance was on speed dial. Pig truck

This was the view from the east, but the screaming gave them away before I rounded the corner.Pigs 7

 

 

 

 

There were 179 gilts (a female who hasn’t born a litter) on the truck. They were less than five months old.

Pigs 4While I don’t have an exact count, I believe that there were fewer than 15 killed outright (I saw seven outside the trailer and know that there were more in the nose that had yet to be removed). Four severely injured animals were dragged from the truck with chains and a fifth, with a dangling right front hoof, was goaded and prodded and slapped out and into a waiting trailer before instructions were given to cease that kind of activity. The two remaining “downed” pigs were left in the shade of the truck and kept cool Pigs 8with water before they were euthanized on the scene. Respondents from the Columbus Grove Volunteer Fire Department climbed on top of the truck and helped to keep them all cool by spraying them with water. This same horror happened earlier this week in Xenia.

I don’t have to explain the pink-paint markings, really.

Pigs 10In fact, I’ll not say anything more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pause here for P-G

P-G Third Grade 2015Before we continue along the trail in a search of wildflowers and wild mushrooms, let’s take a moment to highlight a Friday adventure that we shared with the third grade class from Pandora-Gilboa Elementary School.

Although the school is just around a few corners from The Quarry Farm, this is the first time a class has been able to pay us visit in a while. This morning, the sun rose in a clear blue sky, the tortuous winds that we’ve had of late held their breath for the most part, and 41 students descending the bus steps to join us for the morning.

At three different stations, these curious kids learned about herbs alongside the butterfly garden, beneficial insects that spend much of their life in and along Cranberry Run and Riley Creek, and met some of the animals of the sanctuary.Herbs

At Station 1, Laura talked about past and present uses for herbs, and the pollinators that live amongst them in the Red Fox Cabin gardens. The students chose snipped samples of their favorites from a selection of culinary and/or fragrant herbs, zip-lock bagged the cuttings and labeled the bags for the journey home.

Steve brought on the dragonfly nymphs, or at least a bucket of them, at Station 2. He talked about the life cycles and habits of these predators, Macrosas well as others like damselflies and water scorpions. He pulled the old arm-covered-with-leeches trick, asking, “How long will it be before these leeches suck all the blood from my arm?” The answer? Never. The leeches he displayed were fish leeches.

Bronze turkeys Humperdink, Inigo, and Miracle Max were the greeting party at Station 3, the farm animal sanctuary. Johnny the Canada goose joined in, too. Most of the residents were lying low — in outbuildings and under trees — due to warm, sweaty temperatures, but Buddy the donkey came out. Potbelly Carlton and Lucy the donkey made their large group debut as well. Carlton rolled over for a belly scratch and Lucy leaned in for ear whispers.Lucy

Captain John Smith the Virginia opossum was the special guest “speaker” during the lunch hour. Half of the class met the Captain at Christmas time during a classroom reading of Jan Brett’s The Mitten. We thought it only fair he should meet the whole class on his own turf.

Here are a few more images from the day. Thank you to Nikki Beckman for sharing photos, Jessica Arthur and Jill Henry for sharing your class time, and top Paulding Putnam Electric Cooperative and First National Bank of Pandora for supporting this educational program. If anymore photos arrive in the email box, we’ll add them to the show.

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Buddy meets a girl

Lucy

Lucy

The oaks, the last trees to lose their leaves in fall, were down to just a few spots of brittle color when we first learned of Lucy.

A family in southwest Indiana sent out a distress signal that life had thrown them a curve, making it necessary for them to rehome a small flock of sheep and their guardian donkey. Bot flies and shearing wool appealed to neither our time nor talents, but the thought of opening our gate to another donkey seemed the ticket for our little Buddy. Six months and a bitter winter later, Lucy and her person made the four-hour journey to Riley Township.

My Steven and I were on the south boundary Saturday replacing old fencing, much to the dismay of two sassy goats whose nimble limbs and twitching noses were turned by the grass on the other side. The job also gave us an excuse to watch for a truck-pulling-trailer with Indiana plates.

I think Buddy knew. As I leaned over to stretch the bottom of the fence, he walked up and laid his head across my shoulder. They always know something’s up, whether it’s a storm or a class trip full of adoring little persons with apple slices and peanuts in their pockets.

Lucy’s wheels rolled up around 1 p.m. The welcoming committee lined up along the fence to meet the driver, except for Buddy. He pressed himself against the fence and stared in the window of the horse trailer. When Lucy was led through the gate and let off the lead, Buddy did an-honest-to-goodness happy dance.

For her part, Lucy was a little stand-offish. Her person Brandi Ireland told us that they lost a donkey to the winter of 2013-14, leaving a sad Lucy to mind the sheep. For the first hour on Ohio soil, she put on a good show of preferring grass and hay over some boy, but she never let that boy get more than a few strides away.

For the rest of the afternoon into evening, Buddy showed Lucy around her new digs, placing himself dutifully between her and the goats. I’m not sure if that was for her safety, theirs, or just Buddy making a statement of ownership.

Through human eyes and sensibilities, it seems that Buddy’s warm brown eyes are brighter and five years lifted from his gait in a few hours’ time. The goats are watching them both to see which donkey will figure out how to open the hay barn doors now that the salad bar next door is off the menu.

That’s not anthropomorphizing; that’s a day in the life with a Buddy boy and his goats, plus one. Better than a Sudoku puzzle to keep any two-legger on their toes.

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lions and lambs, donkeys and chickens and geese and goats

In 1826, American folk artist and Society of Friends minister Edward Hicks created “The Peacable Kingdom”. While it’s not in a style that I find particularly appealing, the content of the painting, its message, strikes a chord. In the foreground are a number of different creatures, some of which I can’t identify simply because of the manner in which they were represented, but clearly both predator and prey lying down with one another. There are cherubim and seraphim, as well, and in the background, English settlers meeting with Native Americans.

1934.65

I don’t pay attention to the human interaction; so little, in fact, that I’m always surprised when I see it. Suffice it to say that there appears to be some manner of commerce taking place involving blankets and, given how that type of exchange often worked out to the detriment of Native Americans, I apparently choose to ignore it each and every time I view the painting. I simply refuse to see.

But the animals? Now that is an altogether different story. I relish those innocent interactions; revel in the way they coexist. And while it’s unlikely that, in the wild, a lion will lay down with a lamb, interspecies cooperation isn’t a rare event, particularly here on The Quarry Farm. I’ve grown accustomed to seeing the chickens ride Buddy, the resident miniature donkey, or any of the six goats that also live here. I’m not surprised to see Snitch, the neighbor’s cat, padding under Mister Bill, the extravagantly tall Boer goat mix, around a pig or two and sideling on by Johnny, the Canada goose. The goats play with the pigs, the pigs play with the chickens and Buddy whips everybody into a (relatively) friendly frenzy every now and again, especially now that spring is just around the corner. We’ve even seen wild rabbits lying out in the open and nursing little ones old enough to have left the nest, but still willing to nurse.

The Quarry Farm Musicians: Audrey, Buddy and S'More

The Quarry Farm Musicians: Audrey, Buddy and S’More

Even so, and despite all of that, I witnessed something the other morning that made me stop and stare.

Gigi

Gigi

Although we named him something altogether uncharacteristic of his gender, Gigi is a gander, an Emden goose who is, characteristically this time, very protective of the two geese in his flock. He came here several years ago from Van Buren State Park, where he and Louise (the other goose’s name is Henry and yes, yes, we know) were abandoned. Gigi can be so protective, so surly, in fact, that we encourage visitors to give the trio a wide birth. Gigi is the gander your mother always warned you about: quick to hiss and threaten and quicker still to follow through on that threat with a wing beating or a hard pinch with his bright orange bill.

Madmartigan

Madmartigan

Madmartigan is one of three pygmy goats that we adopted from a failing goat herd on the eastern side of Ohio four years ago. While generally good natured, like most goats, he has a fondness for his fodder. When food’s involved, all bets are off and he can, and does, do whatever he feels necessary to secure his own little patch of whatever. Being male, Madmardigan also has a ridiculously impressive set of horns, horns that spire up from the top of his head like twin missiles. And when he’s staking claim to a flake of hay or a patch of grass or an apple or three, he liberally applies those horns to heads and backsides and bodies; whatever he can reach to drive his point home.

Individually, these two are more often than not at the core of any discontent. Together, though, at least earlier this week, the two were quite fond of each other. Gigi would slide his neck along Madmartigan’s back and nibble through the hairs there and up his neck and behind his ears. For his part, Madmartigan would gently nudge him with his horns, prompt him to continue her gentle ministrations.

And so here we are on The Quarry Farm, our own peaceable kingdom.

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and then there were four…

A little less than a month ago, we made a relatively short drive north to pick up a potbellied pig that, lost or abandoned (though most likely abandoned), had wandered into our friend June’s yard. Not knowing about us at the time, June called Laura Zitzelberger at Nature’s Nursery, who, in turn, called us.

in the carThe hour-long ride back was interesting; interesting in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Given to reckless behavior, I had decided to pick him up sans crate, so the little pig — and he is indeed little, weighing in at just a smidge over 30 pounds — was loose in the car. He spent nearly as much time on my shoulders doing his best to climb up on top of my head as he did on the seat. Eventually, though, he did settle in and down, sprawling in the back and resting his head in the palm of my right hand.

getting to know youOn arriving home, his behavior in the house was little different from his initial behavior in the car, that is to say, “hell bent.” He chomped and rooted, prodded and postured, picking fights with any and all comers, even with those more inclined to run away, myself included.

I grumbled. I growled. I cursed.

Anne smiled.

“He’ll be fine,” she said. “Don’t you remember Bob?”

Bob is a dear friend of ours, one of four pigs rescued last winter and one of two of the four who now live on The Quarry full time, along with Beatrice, aka Little Pig. At first, his behavior left something to be desired. Now, however, he’s nearly the perfect gentlepig. Despite Anne’s assurances, I had my doubts. And so did Lolly, who maintained a discreet distance.

lolly

As he was still intact, the first order of business was arranging for a quick snip. Though she’d never performed this operation on a pig, our veterinarian, Dr. Jackie Santoro, did the requisite research and the procedure came off — pun intended — without a hitch.

On returning him to The Quarry, there wasn’t any significant change in behavior. He had this truly annoying habit of, when he wanted something, anything, of furiously rooting at any available ankle. With 30 pounds of pig behind it, that nearly vulcanized snout left bruises.

I threatened. I snarled. I swore.

Anne smiled.

CarltonHe hadn’t been back much more than a day, certainly no more than two, when, coming in from outside or up from the basement I heard Anne chirp, “Yes!”

She was standing in the kitchen with the little pig at her feet. In her hands was some manner of treat: grapes or carrots or banana or some such. She would hold out a morsel and watch the pig. When he took a step back, she’d bend at the waist, deliver the treat and exclaim the encouraging, “Yes!” In a single 15-minute session, she permanently broke his annoying, destructive rooting behavior.

Even Lolly was impressed.

Lolly and Carlton

annerNow, he spends his time making his way around the house. I’m not saying that there aren’t still problems. He has a habit of poking his nose into places it doesn’t belong and he and Bob will likely never be fast friends, but we all have our faults, our own clashes of personality. The bottom line is this: he’s a smart, gentle, comforting being and it shows in any number of ways.

So, he’s here to stay. This is home.

We call him Carlton.

c2

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Christmas readings with Captain John

One animal stayed outside in the winter snow to clean up after everyone else who snuggled inside the mitten. That’s what third grade students in Mrs. Arthur’s class at Pandora-Gilboa Elementary School found out this week when one class member invited Steve to read a story to his class.

PG visit3As a holiday treat, with language arts side effects, students were allowed to bring sleeping bags and pillows to class. They read favorite books in comfort and listened to visiting friends and family read out loud.

Quarry Farm friend Jaren asked Steve to be his reading guest. Steve chose to read Jan Brett’s The Mitten, a tale of woodland inhabitants who all find cold-weather shelter inside a mitten that was left alongside a trail.

If you’ve ever read The Mitten, you’ll know that quite a few animals, big and small, fit inside. But the Virginia opossum didn’t make the cut. We figure it’s because Nature’s garbage collector wandered on, cleaning up everything else that the bipedal trail walkers left behind.

PG visit2This being said, Captain John Smith*, The Quarry Farm educationalPG visit animal ambassador for Virginia opossums everywhere, accompanied Steve on the classroom visit. The Captain’s beautiful self was a hit, so much so that he was invited to visit Mrs. Henry’s class across the hall. But, since Captain John hadn’t had his breakfast yet, nor had he used the loo, Steve thought it best that the two of them return home.

There will be other visits. Like his namesake, Captain John Smith is up for the adventure. As he is nonreleasable due to his lack of fear, especially when it comes to humans like those that dropped that mitten, he benefits from the outing and is a wonderful guest.

* The opossum received its name in the early 1600s from Captain John Smith of the Jamestown colony in Virginia. Smith was trying to pronounce, for his mates across the pond, the word aposoum, a Virginia Algonquian word meaning “white beast.”

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Third time’s a charm

IMG_0826The Junior Gardeners of Continental were one of the first groups to visit The Quarry Farm after we officially opened to the public three years ago. I distinctly remember the initial telephone conversation with organizer Charlene. She had picked up our newsletter and wanted to bring her charges out for a program. She didn’t sound too sure about the whole idea, but her group arrived and we had a fantastic time. Guess they did, too, because they spent two hours with us on Saturday, this time searching for butterfly host and nectar plants on a scavenger hunt.

IMG_1107Beatrice met up again with her good friend Brandon, the first person she would approach of her own accord after her arrival in 2012 as a very young pot-bellied piglet. Although Brandon had some slick new wheels this year and Beatrice was sleepy in the July humidity, she knew him well. So did Buddy.008

Megan Ramey, Program and Partnerships Manager for the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio, arrived just before the Junior Gardeners to talk with us about the possibility of scouts earning various badges here. Thanks to the joyous enthusiasm of Charlene and her crew, a star of a Virginia opossum and Laura’s coffee and sugar cookie bars, we’re in.

Here’s to more face time with the kids from Continental. Special thanks to Junior Gardener Jazlyn Bishop for sharing your photos and video with us. Keep them coming.

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Beatrice gets a hoof trim

There are two pot-bellied pigs that live with us here on The Quarry Farm Nature Preserve and Conservation Farm. Neither began their lives here, but this is where they will stay. Soon Beatrice and Gertie will be joined by Alphonse, Bob Barker, Grits and Greta, four pot-bellies that found themselves without a home after a cruelty and neglect seizure by a nearby humane organization.

While this video may make you laugh a little, we hope it also makes you think long and hard about the care that smart, inquisitive, stubborn and vocal pot-bellied pigs require in order to live in harmony. Indeed, keep that in mind whenever you adopt. Anything.

On the other hand, piggies are a joy when you are prepared to welcome them into your life.

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These little piggies went to the vet—and screamed the whole way

Hung-over Auntie Gertie* and Princess Beatrice Buttercup went to the vet’s in Lima today, and they both lived up to their adored full names.

I awoke this morning to the meeps of little Birdy—ironically a cat—pacing back and forth in front of my door, whining to get out. Beatrice stood on the other side of the egress, snuffling and rooting at its base. I pulled my sleep-addled self out of bed and dressed myself quickly.

Birdy shot from the room like a streak of lightning, while Beatrice attempted to bull her way in. Pushing her back caused a grunt and grumble of indignation, and she squealed in anger as I shut the door in her face.

unnamedMum (or Anne as you all know her) was rushing around in the living room, slapping the kettle on and brushing back her hair in impatience, as she always does after her run in the morning. She looked up and grinned , then ran about a little bit more, cleaning out the back of her small Toyota Matrix. We threw back some tea as fast as possible, and hopped to the process of loading the pigs.

The three of us, Mum, Dad (Steve), and I, decided that the best course of action was to load Gertrude first, being the less likely of the two to spring from the car. So up she went, straight from the porch into the car, which was parked right off the edge. (Thanks to the weather for no more rain, but a wonderfully hard-packed and frozen ground.) She bellowed and kicked as she was hauled in, nearly knocking me down on the descent from porch to ground, but she’s so much smaller than she was, it’s almost easy getting her to go where it is you want.

Little Pig (now, amusingly enough, the larger of the two), however, is ridiculously difficult to move about. She’s built like a tank but moves as fast as a bullet, make no mistake. So this time, Mum and I set to cornering her in the house, but our efforts were pitiful at best. Outside she had to go, but never near enough to the edge to spring for it. Unfortunately, she screams like a banshee, and Gertie is highly protective of her big wee bunkmate, so when Beatrice starts caterwauling, Gertie moves faster than appears possible.

She sprang forward out of the car, got her front feet on the side of the deck, slipped, did a spectacular flip, and hit the ground, unharmed but trapped. She remained there, dazed but much calmer, while we figured out how to get Beatrice into the car. We ended up flipping her upside down and holding her aloft by her little legs. This sounds cruel, but it didn’t hurt her, and I ended up with plenty more bruises and scrapes in comparison by the end of the morning.

After getting her half into the car, I leapt in with her and pulled her front end whilst Dad pushed from the back, and in doing so we finally managed to get her squealing self in. Mum had to pull the car forward so we could get to Gertie, who stared up at us with an expression of utter distaste. Mum and Dad held her up and thrust her in and I scrambled out of the back before either could jump for it.

I moved into the front passenger’s seat as Mum leapt into the driver’s and we took off to Lima. On our back-route way to Lima we ran into a construction area with a one-lane stretch. Each of the ODOT employees we passed did a double take, their Carhartted forms spinning, allowing the small slit of exposed flesh and eyes to stare. I am sure that beneath their scarves and masks, bemused expressions adorned their faces.

We arrived at the Lima Animal Hospital at 0915, and I went in to make sure that the appointment was still doable. The woman at reception assured me that we were fine, but could we please go through the back as there was a woman in with a euthanasia patient. I said we would—it was in fact the route which we looked on as preferable. Princess Beatrice, however, had other plans.

We hauled her out and were pulling her toward the door when she slipped out of her rope and headed into the parking lot. This vet’s office is along Elida Road in Lima, a very busy main route that runs past the mall and many shops and fast food restaurants. Terror is what is experienced when your four-legged fellows make a dash across a short lot by this road.

Mum and I chased her a bit, and I did—if I say so myself—a spectacular dive into the asphalt, collecting myself many of the aforementionedS nice scrapes and bruises. I managed to get a grip on one of her hind-legs and Mum the other, but we lost it again (and my glasses to a bush). We finally wrangled her closest to the front door and pulled her in. Mum went back out to close up the back of the car to ensure that Gertie wouldn’t make a leap, however unlikely it would be.

As I opened the door, this poor woman looked up, her eyes puffed and red, looking at Beatrice in slight nervousness. I apologized again and again as the woman looked on. She looked nervously at Beatrice and asked tearily, “Does she bite?”

“Oh no.” I patted the princess and looked up at the woman. “You can pet her if you want; she’d love it.”

So the woman leaned down and patted Beatrice’s face. I would like to say that Little Pig responded in kind and brushed her face against the woman, but being as disgruntled as she was, she merely grunted and walked the length of the hall, away from the two of us. The woman gave a choked giggle and left through the front. If she ever reads this, I hope she knows that she is not alone:  the mad girl with insane hair with the even madder pig and other company understands and hopes that she has many more wee friends in the future.

I stayed in the patient’s room with Beatrice as Mum got Gertie out of the car and into building (through the side door this time, as asked). It went pretty smoothly after that; Gertie went in to have her hooves trimmed first. She was true to form and shuffled slowly in and went straight for the cushioned bed. The doctor and Megan McCoy carried her out to the car and eased her into the back while she was still out.

unnamedBeatrice whined and grunted, pushed and pummeled, until Dr. Babbitt got the mask over her snout, and she fought the laughing gas as long as she could until she lowered herself—still not on the cushion, thank you!—and fell into sleep. Her hooves took very little time to trim, and then we had to figure out how to get her back to the car as well. Beatrice hasn’t been weighed since she was tiny, and she has gained quite a bit since then. The four of us, Mum, Megan, Dr. Babbitt, and myself, hauled her up by rolling her onto her back and carrying her by her hooves, each of us to a leg. We went back in to pay, and off we went. The poor pigs were so out of it, but Beatrice sat up the entire trip, staring dazedly and moodily back at the ODOT workers as we passed by them again.

We lifted the still-groggy Gertie out of the car and urged Beatrice to jump out on her own—we’d done enough lifting for the day.

This is a cautionary tale for all those who think that the cute little piglet would be a wonderful pet. While they bestow joy and great fun, and a kind of bond and understanding one finds very rarely, they are not to be taken on lightly. They’re work, hard work; the term “pigheaded” wasn’t created as an amusing joke, it is true. I rarely meet anyone so stubborn as Beatrice or Gertie. They grow from that cute wee piglet into adulthood the size of a medium to large dog—at least Beatrice did. She was supposed to stay as small as she was when we got her. She did not. And you should try putting her in a harness. Lord, the screaming. However, if you are up to the task, pigs are ahhhh-mazing. There is nothing quite like sitting with a cup of tea and a book in hand, your feet propped up on the stomach of a pig. (And you had better be working those feet in a scratching way. Elsewise she will get up and leave you. Jerk.)

*I named Gertie “Hung-over Aunti Gertie” in recognition of her behavior. Her temper is short, and is almost always found on her cushion beneath the stairs, a blanket pulled up over her head. When she snores, I swear, I almost see the fizzes and pops coming from her nose as she expels breath.