Chris Brown’s 7th Grade Science students from Glandorf Elementary visited The Quarry Farm on March 15 to demonstrate how to safely view the April 8 total solar eclipse and to make a solar eclipse viewer from a cereal box, as well as one made out of a paper towel roll. Videos of the students are posted to The Quarry Farm YouTube Channel and Facebook page. The videos, recipes and posters were also designed by the students and those are shared on Facebook. The farm animal sanctuary residents provided video commentary.
Debbie Leiber, Deb Weston and David Seitz have been working hard to keep the trails clear, what with all of the high winds dropping branches from treetops. They have been harvesting bush honeysuckle trunks which are made into hiking sticks throughout the year. The Quarry Farm is part of Toledo’s Imagination Station Ambassador program. As such, we were provided with lesson plans, solar eclipse glasses and photo-sensitive beads that will change color during totality. Those beads will be available for registered participants to string on the handles of hiking sticks during our April 8 “Total Eclipse on the Prairie” program.
March 1 was a bit chilly starting out, but a good day to work in the woods, according to David Seitz. He posed here next to one of the mammoth, invasive bush honeysuckle shrubs that he has been removing from the nature preserve for five years and counting. He does a brushcutter sweep periodically to keep fast-growing seedlings from filling back in. This gives native wildflowers and trees a chance to grow in their place. Dave has also cut scores of wild grapevine and poison ivy that pull down and siphon energy from the native trees.
The 8th Annual Quarry Farm 5K crossed the starting line on the first truly chilly, windy day of autumn 2023. Two days ago it was hot and dry. Good running and walking weather blew in overnight, dropping temperatures at least 20 degrees and changing leaf color.
Runners and walkers headed into strong westerly gusts then unzipped their jackets and sweatshirts at the halfway point to float with the wind to the finish. Phil Buell came in first for men, with his son Adam on his heels. Susie Ricker was the first woman 5Ker. Casey Walker was the first walker. An anonymous mini Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle won the children’s division.
Deb Weston and her camera captured the morning. Much-needed rain has settled in for the afternoon, making this a good time to curl up with hot tea, a blanket and a bunch of fall fundraiser photos.
When someone refers to you as ‘bird-brained’, or you feel like laying the description on someone else, consider that Birder Deb discovered this excellent self-portrait while walking the nature preserve trails today. She and Birder David hiked this morning to see what birds are migrating through or settling in ahead of next Saturday, October 14 and the October Big Day event.
“We had 5 warbler species today, all around the perimeter of the prairie,” she shared. “Common Yellowthroat, Palm Warbler, Pine Warbler, Black-throated Green and at least 15 Yellow-rumped. Saw more sparrows today. White-crowned, White-throated, Swamp, Song, Lincoln’s and Field Sparrow. One Yellow-bellied Sapsucker followed us around the prairie.”
A total of 38 species—pretty good for October. Join us next Saturday at 9 a.m. with your best walking shoes.
The Spring field trip season was hopping with onsite visitors and road trips to offsite presentations. Matt Hanneman, Cubmaster for the Glandorf Cub Scout Pack 229, brought his troop to earn their hiking badge on April 11. Recent flooding resulted in sightings of displaced shrews and hungry Great Horned Owl calls. Continental Elementary School third grade students arrived on May 12, most for the first time. They traveled by yellow bus across Putnam County at the urging of Charlene Finch. Charlene and her Continental Junior Gardeners were some of our first visitors after The Quarry Farm became official. We took The Quarry Farm on the road on May 15, or at least a snapshot thereof. Miller City-New Cleveland School rounded out their elementary program year with the theme “School is Wild” and we visited, along with Estella the Virginia Opossum and Amur honeysuckle hiking sticks finished by Deb Weston for each teacher.
The May 20 Spring Migration Bird Hike resulted in 44 species observed in the nature preserve, including the addition of a Mourning Warbler to our eBird.org list of species. The days leading up to the hike were full of song, although the early spring foliage gave the birds plenty of places to hide. It’s a good thing that David Smith speaks bird. David and Deb Weston recorded 56 species the day before the hike. Eleven were migrating warblers.
For the first time we shared space with Into the Wild LGBTQIA+ at the Findlay Pride Resource Fair on June 3. We removed invasive honeysuckle the day before and used all 50 trunks to make hiking sticks there at Riverside Park.
Putnam County Educational Service Center scheduled a summer camp geared toward Grades 5–8 here on June 6. Campers made hiking sticks and discussed aquatic insect adaptations before wading into Cranberry Run and the quarry to look for the insects, fish, mollusks and crustaceans that live there.
On June 17, the pavilion was set for a tea-tasting led by Kathleen Heeter. Her presentation included a rich, flavorful history of tea and tea culture. Participants tasted four curated loose leaf teas, each paired with a selection of freshly baked items from Kathleen’s menu. Attendees also shared a display of their own tea pots and tea cups.
Last fall, Cub Scout Pack 324 conducted their annual cake auction at Findlay Zion United Methodist Church. They donated the proceeds from the auction to support the work that we do here. On June 28, over a dozen pack members hiked The Quarry Farm trails to earn a badge and visited the farm animal sanctuary residents.
A wood duck zig-zagged through the understory yesterday morning en route to the southeast bank of the quarry wetland. Nearly 50 third-graders, teachers and chaperones paused between Cranberry Run and the southwest bank of the quarry. Several children chatted about the possibility of crayfish in the stream and turtles sunning on snags. Others were looking to the northeast at just the right time to see the bird land briefly in an overhanging tree before it spotted humans and took off again.
The Continental Elementary School students were here on a field trip, most for the first time. They traveled by yellow bus across Putnam County at the urging of Charlene Finch. Charlene and her Continental Junior Gardeners were some of our first visitors after The Quarry Farm became official. They made the trip several times until their leader was no longer able to coordinate the group’s adventures.
Two days before we took The Quarry Farm on the road, or at least a snapshot thereof. Miller City-New Cleveland School is rounding out the elementary program year with the theme “School is Wild” and Grades K-5 are getting wild by virtually traveling to other parts of the world. A few months ago we were asked if we could work with that. “What would you think of our talking about how some plants and animals are here that shouldn’t be, like invasive bush honeysuckle and zebra mussels, and how they affect local wildlife?” I asked, and our spot on the agenda was a ‘go’.
North America’s prickly pear cactus is spreading around the Old World, while Eurasian plants like Lonicera maackii, the Amur honeysuckle are going on a joy ride here. One Miller City New Clevelander student exclaimed, “Like a Hydra!” when Rowan explained that, when you cut that honeysuckle down, 20 more grow in its place. So yes, you fine young man, the Amur honeysuckle is exactly like the mythological beast that grows back twice as many heads each time Hercules or another Greek god cuts of one head, unless someone carefully treats the stump or yanks each root hair from the ground.
We ran with the Hydra reference all day and carried it over to yesterday’s field trip. I expect that it’s here to stay.
Birder-extraordinaire Deb Weston crafts gorgeous hiking sticks from Amur honeysuckle. She collected suitable honeysuckle trunks from the nature preserve and finished one for each of the school’s K-5 teachers. Virginia Opossum, Virginia Estella represented native species in Central America and the USA, although the Virginia opossum is considered an exotic (non-native) species in British Columbia. Not much is known about its impact on the province’s native species. Maybe North America’s only marsupials are making a dent in tick populations as they wander.
Getting back to yesterday, the Continental schoolchildren made lasting leaf t-shirts from leaves collected on the hike. There were visits with the farm animal sanctuary residents.
SIDEBAR
K, like the other tagged Canada geese T, U and X that are current residents of the farm animal sanctuary, were placed here by a wildlife rehabilitation center with the hope that the proximity to wild Canada geese will light that spark within them tell them that they are wild birds. K, like T, seem to realize that Steve, who just had significant knee surgery, is an injured member of their flock who must be protected from potential predators. T has been Steve’s protector since the bird first saw Steve walk with a cane. We found out yesterday that shy K, who has only been here for a few weeks, will come out of his timid shell to keep Steve safe. After one field tripper had to high-step over a K intent on keeping the predator/student away from Steve, K was escorted into the inner paddock where he spent the remainder of the visit. And that is just one of the reasons why wild babies should left in the wild.
They began their own hiking sticks by threading cord loops through pre-drilled honeysuckle—40+ hiking sticks from just four “Hydra” shrubs. The day was dry, so some bark was peeled. Students were encourage to keep peeling to reveal the lovely woodgrains and insect trails beneath. Teacher Sharon Siebeneck invited the students to each bring something from home, a threadable something that is of value in their young lives, to thread on their cord loop. There were buttons, medallions, charms and beads. All have stories. One little girl shared hers while she arranged her leaf shirt with Rita.
“She kept showing me the bead. I could tell she wanted to tell me something but was kind of shy.” They chatted a little more. Eventually, the girl told a story that made all of us cry, with the anger and sorrow of it, and the honor that child bestowed upon The Quarry Farm by selecting that piece to for her hiking stick. The little girl once had a cat that she loved. One day the cat went outside with the dog. The dog came back but not the cat, not for a long time. When the cat did come home, it curled up on her bed. “We went to church,” she told Rita. “When we came home, the cat wasn’t acting right. My grandma looked her over and someone had shot her.” The cat died from this cruelty and the ashes are stored in that bead.
Nemo the Pig has been featured in this space before. She came to us in 2015 as a tiny shoat. She was scraped, bruised and broken from a fall onto I-270 from a transport truck in Columbus. A kind, determined person rescued her, nursed the piglet’s wounds and brought her to us. For a couple of weeks, we socialized little Nemo by carrying her around to programs in a baby sling. She housebroke easily, although she outgrew the house and was unable to turn around in hallways. At six months of age, the age that young pigs are typically “finished” and loaded into a crowded transport to be “processed,” Nemo was spayed at Ohio State University. For the first few years of her life, she was one of the first farm animal sanctuary residents to greet visitors.
Click to download your copy
“I’ve never seen a pig that big,” everyone still says when they see her for the first time. There’s a reason that they haven’t.
Nemo excavated a mud wallow that is so deep and wide that the geese and ducks swim in it when rainwater fills it to the brim. She made friends with Carlton the Pot-bellied Pig, a buddy system that continues to this day. They allow the other pot-bellied pigs, the geese, ducks and the occasional chicken to use their mud wallow.
Seven years on, visitors don’t often see Nemo, especially when the sun is high and the air is hot. Children love to see her, but she doesn’t often run to greet them, even when we mention the word “apple.” I did coax her out to see third-grade students from Ottawa Elementary in May. She walked out of her favorite building, stared across the pasture at the kids waving at the fence, then turned and walked away to her muddy spa. “Not today,” she seemed to say. I explained to the students that, while they could shed their coats and put on sunscreen, Nemo can only protect her fair skin and floppy ears with sparse, fair pig bristles, cool mud and shade.
For those lucky enough to visit on a cool day, Nemo allows a soft jowl rub. She sighs the deep, rumbling sigh that one would expect to emanate from a body such as hers, closes her blonde lashes and rolls over for a belly pat.
Today was Spring Family Day on The Quarry Farm. At 1 p.m., the temperature was in the 90s, sending a puddle of honeybees up the side of the north hive to cool…maybe. We are very, very new to beekeeping so I don’t know why they are washboarding backwards and forwards above the hive entrance. But I did learn this week that this inch-by-inch dance is called ”washboarding” and I would do it to cool off outside my hive if I were a honeybee.
So a little before 1 p.m. the first family arrived. The Rita the Greeter’s table and umbrella was up, ice water and cookies were in the pavilion and “staff” appeared as coolly collected as anyone could be during a Midwest heatwave. Dragonflies swanned in and out of blooming Lizard’s Tongue on the quarry wetland. Pearly Crescent Butterflies flickered orange under Buckeye tree leaves. Nemo cooled in her mud bath and Beatrice emerged from her own spa to visit with her piggy admirers.
“It’s all so peaceful,” someone said.
I smiled, making a mental note to take my new plants out of the truck as soon as possible. At 6 a.m. this morning, My Steven saw the donkeys at the front door, Nemo lounging in the flowering herb bed and several goats munching away at the blossoms. I forgot to latch the lower chain on the south gate last night. While Steve sold his bread at the Bluffton Farmer’s Market, I bought new herbs from Ann Boyd’s My Own Backyard.
Tyree the Red Rat Snake (also called Corn Snake) and Sean the Virginia Opossum starred at the Wildlife station at the 49th Annual 5th Grade Conservation Tour in September.
Every now and then someone tells us about the Virginia Opossum that has lived under their porch for years. If there is one thing that we learned while volunteering with Nature’s Nursery Center for Wildlife Rehabilitation and during the years following is that these individuals are probably not the same Virginia Opossum. While getting to know educational ambassadors for this fascinating species, we have discovered that they are nomadic creatures, moving from place to place to eat whatever they find in their path and sleeping in the most convenient dry spot when they need to. Combined with the fact that Virginia Opossums only live for two or (maybe, if we’re lucky) three years, the animal that people see around their porch from year to year is actually a parade of several of North America’s only member of the marsupial class of mammals.
Did you notice that I said “if we’re lucky”? There are a lot of reasons that it’s a great thing to have Virginia Opossums around. These free-ranging omnivores consume a varied diet that includes plant material, grasses and leaves, grains, fruits, carrion, snails, slugs, worms, insects, rats, mice, snakes, amphibians, eggs, crayfish, and fish. They are nature’s garbage collectors. We would be up to our eyeballs in offal without these animals coming and going. We would also be dealing with more biting, disease-transmitting ticks. Research on captive Virginia Opossums at Illinois’ Eureka College estimates that they eat, on average, 5,500 larval ticks per week. That’s nearly 95% of ticks that cross their path.
The biggest and best reason that we are lucky to have Virginia Opossums is that we just are…lucky, that is. They have been around for a very long time—at least 70 million years—as one of Earth’s oldest surviving mammals. Because they eat almost everything, they are disease-resistant. In fact, they will do just about anything to avoid direct contact. To appear threatening, a Virginia Opossum will first bare its 50 teeth, snap its jaw, hiss, drool, poo and stand its fur on end to look bigger. If this does not work, the Virginia opossum is noted for feigning death (passing out) in response to extreme fear.
Here on The Quarry Farm, we are so lucky to have known a few non-releasable Virginia Opossums. Sean is the current onsite educational ambassador of his kind. Sean was born without eyes so can’t properly protect himself from predators. He is also agreeable to human contact, which is why we have a State of Ohio education permit that allows us to house him and introduce him to people who want to know more about him and the world around all of us.
Saturday, July 31, 2021 was gorgeous: light clouds, a breeze to move them slowly across the sky, and cooler, drier temperatures. If the scheduled “Create a Floor Cloth for Your ‘Cabin'” workshop had happened earlier in the week, the acrylic paint applied by 10 textile artists to rug-worthy canvas would have puddled in the humidity. As it was, it didn’t. And just look at the participants and their work in action in the Seitz Family Pavilion.
While we can’t offer you workshop or supplies (maybe next year?), here’s TQF Board President Laura’s recipe for one of the snacks provided. There were also fresh strawberries and hot coffee, but you’re on your own there.
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Ingredients
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats [quick oats will work in a pinch]
2 cups chocolate chips (semi-sweet, milk chocolate, or a mixture)
[Optional] ½ cup dried cranberries or cherries
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 in. pan with cooking spray.
In a large mixing bowl beat together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth and light.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add the vanilla.
In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients: salt, baking soda, baking powder, flour, rolled oats, 1 cup chocolate chips, and cranberries, if using.
Add to the butter mixture and stir until combined.
Spread the cookie dough into the prepared pan. Sprinkle remaining cup of chocolate chips on top.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.
[Optional] Scatter chocolate or vanilla melting wafers over the surface while the bars are still warm, allow to soften, and spread by criss-crossing a fork lightly through the melted chocolate.
I think it will always thrill me to overhear someone asking someone else if they have ever been to The Quarry Farm, for people to talk about the animals, birds, gardens and the clarity of the stream. Not everyone will turn over their yard to goats, roosters, and geriatric pigs, but gardens—the riotous kind filled with a variety of native flowering plants—and trees can make birds and clear water more common. This region’s native grasses and trees have long, branching root systems that hold the soil like a strong net. Have you ever pulled English Ivy? This non-native is tenacious and fast-growing but you can remove a large patch with one pull, so shallow-rooted and interwoven is this European transplant. In contrast, ever tried to pull a Common Milkweed in its entirety? Best of luck.
Old Man Sycamore in the north floodplain of the nature preserve has a hollow base that provides shelter to who knows how many creatures each night and during winter’s worst. As shallow-rooted landscapes topple across Northwest Ohio, he and the 300-year oaks withstand wicked flood currents and down-bursts. As the floodwaters recede, the forbs at his feet grasp run-off silt and soil. Within 36 hours, Cranberry Run is clear again.
You hear a lot about native plants these days. Big-box stores as well as local nurseries stock a variety of plants labeled as native. Keep in mind that native doesn’t always mean native to here. Also, ask your green-grower what kind of substrate your plants are potted in. Mass-marketed plants are often potted for long shelf lives, their roots sandwiched in neonicotinoid-laced soils that wreak havoc on bees and other beneficial insects.
Remember that part about riotous gardens? Variety is the spice of life. Some native plants can be invasive without other native plants to keep them in check. The Quarry Farm Gardener finds it necessary to parcel out starts of Coneflower every now any then, as well as Menarda (Bee Balm). Much is made of the benefits of keeping Common Milkweed for the Monarch butterflies. Without Ironweed, Coneflower, Asters, and Common Hackberry trees to watch over them all, who will feed and shelter Comma, Question Mark, swallowtails, and the Hackberry Emporer butterflies? And without Jewelweed and its orange orchid-like flowers nodding on the riverbanks and floodplains, how will I ever be rid of this confounded poison ivy rash?
