animals

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Giving thanks trailside

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A mossy find

Qarie Marshall offered a sunny weather radio forecast for Thursday—“Turkey Day.” I’m counting on Aunt Paula’s cheesecake and Mom’s mashed red potatoes, with the ruby skins liberally integrated.

Every day is Turkey Day here. Max the Bronze is the current guardian of the farm animal sanctuary flock. Visitors have frequently lost the contents of their pockets to bronze Buttercup. Their wild relatives sway in summer night breeze, perched high in tree tops like giant fruit. They chortle and murmur in the daytime, hidden from predatory eyes in the thickest thickets. A stray feather occasionally makes its way into the Putnam County Master Gardeners’ pollinator patch.

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Cool hat…missing boots

Saturday, we stretched our legs in thanks for a late morning hike. Elisha broke in a new pair of Trespass boots shipped from the UK. His mom Esther shared her lovely Irish accent and details about the clothing line, including the fact that Trespass makes water-resistant onesies.

Type ‘Ohio’ into the company website’s ‘Find a Store’ widget and you get Galway (eh…only 3,426.94 miles away.) Still, the “No Child Left Inside” movement would benefit from a line of puddle-jumping ware.

So, apparently, would my child. Home on holiday, she took off her rubber knee boots (“They’ll get wet, Mom”) to wade in the chilly quarry wetland with a seine in hand. She caught a sample of snails, a beetle and a fingernail clam for us to see. The clam was the size of the second smallest hiker’s pinkie finger. 20181117_112005

The smallest hiker of all slept through the walk, swaddled in his mother’s walking fleece.20181117_105059

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Fungi suspended over autumn leaves

The sun brought out the color in what leaves still hung on the trees. We used honeysuckle walking sticks to traverse downed leaf matter. We gathered a few Osage oranges before the ghosts of mammoths could lay claim to them. I thought I saw a shrike in the back 10 acres. Maybe we’ll see his/her larder—voles impaled on hawthorn spikes—during the 2019 Great Backyard Bird Count.

We saw tracks. They crossed our path in wallows and licks and fur clinging to branches. There were hoof marks, short and long bird toe prints and thin drag lines. The turkeys left the latter two for us to find, surely watching us from a distance that would keep them whole beyond Thursday’s feast.

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In the Storm

IMG_5770[1]Things here at the Quarry Farm are as they are everywhere else it seems. We’re cold, we’re trying to keep warm, and we’re trying to keep everyone else warm. The drifts at the start of the drive are at least four feet deep and the wind persists in howling. The auxiliary heat in the house has kicked up and we humans, when not caring for the animals, are glued to our books and Netflix, covered in layers of dogs and cats and they in turn are covered in blankets and pillows.

Outside, the turkeys are in with Johnny and Andy (Canada goose and duck), the chickens reside in their henhouse, the pygmy goats are staying in their shed, and Buddy and the goats are huddled together beneath their own roof.  So far, we have kept everyone alive.

This cold is dangerous, as the weathermen and sheriff departments keep telling us.  The pigs almost flat-out refuse to go outside—bellowing and pushing backward until we’re able to shove them out the door. Lolly, our bulldog mix, has so little fur to cover her skin, and so it makes the cold that much worse for her. On her first outing she ran out and right back in, but on her second go, she went around to the side of the house, became too cold, and huddled crying beneath the hutch off the side deck. She had to be carried back in the house.

IMG_5780[1]It is Buddy, however, that has made us worry.  He made it through the night, which we worried about, but he is still here. However, as you can see, he is sporting a new look. Quite fetching, I believe.

Our neighbors across the road just plowed out our drive. We saw them start to, but were on a mission to look after another house with animals, so a quick thank you by waving was all that was conveyed. I shouted a thank you across the road when we returned home, but they had already retreated to the warmth. So we shall have to thank them properly later. When it is warmer.

To all:  I hope your days in the snow storm have been at least slightly comfortable. Good luck for the rest of the duration!