The Quarry Farm

2 Comments Posted on April 18, 2014April 22, 2014 Uncategorized

Thank you, Whale Eyes

Gertie, shortly after arriving at The Quarry Farm.

In February of 2012, shortly after Anne and I came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t take on pot-bellied pigs at The Quarry Farm, we took on our first pot-bellied pig. Such is the way of things. “No, never,” has a way of morphing into, “Absolutely. Today? Bring her on over.”

She came to us by way of the Humane Society of Allen County. They, in their turn, came to have her by way of the Lima Police Department, who called the good people at HSoAC when they found Gertie and a number of other animals huddled around the body of the woman with whom they had lived for all of their lives. There was nothing nefarious about her death; she was simply an elderly woman whose passing left a host of animals bereft and homeless.

When she arrived here, Gertie was understandably morose. The only home she had ever known was gone, as were all of her companions, and she was in the company of strangers. We built her a shelter, her own pen, under the stairs that lead between the first and second floors of our home. We lined it with blankets and that is where she insisted on staying, pushing her head out of a cocoon of fabric just long enough to eat and drink. She slept 22 out of 24 hours, ranging out only when we forced her out, hauling her kicking and screaming from her sanctuary, out the front door and down a ramp we had constructed just for her, using a blanket as an improvised sling. While she was housebroken, this was no house she recognized. So, three times a day, this was our routine. Until, that is, the day she stood at the gate to her pen, waiting. She walked out on her own that day, out and through the front door and down the ramp, grumbling the whole way. Pigs are intelligent animals, intelligent and sensitive, and Gertie was a pig’s pig. It took her all of three days to work out her new situation, despite having had her world turned upside down.

Gertie’s state of mind was only the first in a litany of issues that threatened her well-being. Though it was apparent that Gertie was loved in her first home, there were fundamental areas of care that had long been neglected. She was grossly overweight, weighing in at nearly 200 pounds when she first stepped through our door. And that was the least of her physical problems. Despite their infamous cloven hooves, pigs move about much like horses or donkeys or goats: that is to say, on their toes. Gertie’s toenails, her hooves, had never been trimmed, not once in the estimated seven years she’d been alive. Instead of walking on the tips of her toes, her hooves, extending out over a foot from each toe, forced her to move about on the pads of her feet. It took nearly two years to whittle her hooves back to the point where she could even approximate a normal posture.

Anne and Gertie made friends fairly quickly, though even Anne had trouble at first; Gertie charged her the first time they met. She was much slower with the rest of us. It took her the better part of six months to accept me and even then usually only when I was in the kitchen, and it was nearly a full year before she came to accept her new place as home. I have no doubt that the introduction of Beatrice, better known as Little Pig, played a role in Gertie’s recovery. A new companion with whom she could see eye to eye finally gave us all the opportunity to meet the being with whom Anne was already familiar.

Gertie and Beatrice

I’m stymied now. There are a million anecdotes that I want to share, but the details are gone. What I do remember is her expression. She went from guarded and flat to completely open, no matter her mood. Mostly, she was amused — at us, at what she had just done, at the antics of the other animals in the house — and it showed up in her eyes. Anne referred to them as whales’ eyes: expressive and deep. Though already thin, a few months ago Gertie started losing weight. Ulcers began to bloom on her sides and on the ridges of her spine. Dr. Kathleen Babbitt, Gertie’s doctor, diagnosed uterine cancer. On Tuesday, we took her in for one last visit, then brought her shell home and laid it in her favorite sunning spot.

I’m confident that the stories will come back, but even without them, I’m blessed. I’ll always have her expressions.

Gertie’s happy face

Leave a comment Posted on March 31, 2014April 1, 2014 Uncategorized

when the bough breaks…

Somewhere between two and three weeks ago, we went out and brought back our first squirrels of the season: fox squirrel pups, three of them. They were tiny, nearly hairless and had yet to open their eyes.

The call about them came from a friend in the Village of Continental. One of her neighbors was felling a tree damaged at some point over the winter. What came down with the tree, sadly, was an unnoticed squirrel’s nest and the three little beings inside it. Efforts were made to reunite the pups with their mother, but, again sadly, that didn’t work out. So now they’re here in Rowan’s very capable hands, getting the best that we can offer.

Ideally, though, infants will grow up with their own parents. So, without meaning to sound preachy, if you’re going to do tree work, particularly at this time of year, give a thought to the animals living in the tree in question. If you can, wait until the little ones, whether mammal or bird, have grown and left the nest.

On a different, but related, topic, if you happen to find an infant on the ground, do your best to reunite the little one and its parents. If it’s a mammal, keep an eye on it for up to 24 hours before making the choice to take it in. More often than not, one of the infant’s parents will rescue the little one. With birds, try to work out from which tree the nestling might have fallen. If you do, build another nest out of an old butter tub or some other suitable container and line it with paper towels. Drill holes in the bottom of the container to allow rain water to pass through and tack it to the tree as high as you can safely place it. Then, as with the mammal babies, keep an eye out for the bird’s parents. If you don’t see a parent caring for the nestling bird, then take it in, keep it warm and dry, but do not feed it, and contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitation center to make arrangements for transport.

*A special thanks to Fox Valley Animal Nutrition, Inc., for all their efforts in creating the most effective milk replacement formulas for orphaned and injured wildlife.

1 Comment Posted on March 23, 2014March 25, 2014 Uncategorized

perhaps Spring

Coburn’s Bottom

This Winter past was tenacious, a Narnian epic of cold and ice and snow that took heed of D. Thomas’s advice to “…not go gentle…” Even so, Spring arrived this past week, though with very little fanfare, very few signs to tell the difference between Wednesday’s Winter and Thursday’s Spring.

There are hummocks of snow on the leeward side of slopes, dirty brown and coarse with thaw and freeze. In what some locals call Coburn’s Bottom, there is still ice where we would expect to find clear vernal pools, and ice on the quarry as well. Near the Cut Off we would ordinarily see signs of spring wildflowers: at the very least, their tender shoots breaking ground. But not this year, not yet. No trees that I have seen are budding and even the bane of The Quarry Farm, Japanese honeysuckle, seems lifeless and brown.

But as obstinate as this Winter has proven itself to be, Spring is equally resolute. The signs are there if you look sharp and keep your ears open.

Skunks and raccoons and squirrels all shriek and whistle and bark their intentions, whether amorous or combative. Turkey vultures are making their way back, riding what thermals they can find and woodcocks, too, those strange little baseballs with wings and beaks, buzzing and whickering in the night. I have seen a killdeer or two and heard a red-winged blackbird. And there is duckweed on the quarry and Canada geese and mallards and wood ducks.

So, rather than the raucous, slippery immediacy of Cumming’s in just-, we’re experiencing a different sort of Spring, something more along the lines of…

Spring Is Like a Perhaps Hand
By E.E. Cummings

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

Leave a comment Posted on February 22, 2014February 23, 2014 Conservation Farm, Uncategorized

The first run of the season

Today was the first day of the plunge into the season of animal rehabilitation calls. An hour or so after arriving at home, a call came in about a Canada goose that was reported to have a broken wing, and spent three or so days frozen to the ground amidst field stubble out on Old 224. I met up with Mum so that we had a better chance at catching the creature.

We drove out toward the area where we were told we would find the goose. We parked in a driveway that once belonged, presumably, to a house along Old 224, approximately one hundred and fifty yards up the road from where we had spotted our target. The two of us laughed helplessly, looking out at the goose, which sat across one of the many impromptu lakes created by the melting of the snow. In fact, it was more like an impromptu creek, being connected to the Blanchard River at its head and base, roiling at both.

The snow made the drop down into the field look gradual, but my first step toward the bottom proved that assumption to be false. My right leg plunged down into the snow, burying itself up to just above my knees. Chuckling, the both of us tread more carefully down into the field.

Upon approaching the spontaneous creek, the Canada goose stood up, displaying a slightly off-looking wing, and took a few hesitant steps away. It had had no need to, as unless we were going to miraculously acquire a boat or full-body waders, there was no way we were going to reach the other side of the waters.

We stood on our side, looking right and left for a break we could cross, when the goose took off, running and throwing open its wings. It caught a bit of wind and rose higher and higher, gliding west through the river corridor. Turning, we strode back up to the road and back to the car, shivering in our sweatshirts. Two vehicles stopped and inquired as to whether we needed help (thank you!) and chuckled when we informed them that we were returning from a literal wild goose chase.

And so, for us, the year begins. Hopefully, this first call foreshadows the course of this year, with concerned fellows and the positive turn of events.

1 Comment Posted on January 8, 2014 Uncategorized

In the Storm

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.

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!

Leave a comment Posted on January 5, 2014January 5, 2014 Educational Ambassadors

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.

Mum (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.

Beatrice 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.

Leave a comment Posted on October 4, 2013 Milestones, Public Events Aside

It’s been nearly eight days since the Autumnal Equinox rolled around and in those intervening eight days, a lot has happened. On Thursday past, some 70 home-schooled children and their parents/grandparents/guardians visited the Farm. As with other groups that have come and gone, they made herb bundles, learned about the waterways around Ohio, got a peek at what lives down under the rocks and the mud in the creek that runs through the Quarry Farm on its way to the Riley and they met many of our two- and four-legged friends and fellows who live here with us. Beatrice has already worked out how to circumvent the fence, so she spent the morning visiting with the groups over by the cabin. Buddy and the goats stayed closer to home and were treated like royalty, which is as it should be.

On Saturday, we held what we hope was the first of many acoustic nights. Friends and family met in Seitz Pavilion to listen to friends and family play and sing (and, yes, that’s a lot of friends and family). Thanks particularly to Erin Coburn (and Bruce and Beth, of course), Mark Gallimore, Brian Erchenbrecher and Doug and Merilee of 12-String Relief.

If you missed it, we’re truly sorry for your loss.

Leave a comment Posted on August 21, 2013 Uncategorized

At long last, the pie

Do you remember this pie, made with wild black raspberries picked right here on the Quarry Farm? A photo of one production of this pie was posted on July 1. What followed were requests for the recipe.

Summer is still with us. The black raspberry picking time may have passed, the last nodules picked clean by hungry birds, but just in case you have some put up in the freezer, here’s that recipe. If you are fresh out, other late summer fruits may suit your taste buds.

BERRY STREUSEL PIE

Crust for single crust pie

5 cups black raspberries or mixed berries such as blackberries, blueberries, and black raspberries
¾ cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, or ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Line a 9-inch pie plate with pastry for single-crust pie.

2. In a large bowl combine the sugar and flour. Stir in berries and lemon peel (or lemon juice or cinnamon). Gently toss berries until coated. (If using frozen berries, let mixture stand for 45 minutes or until fruit is partially thawed but still icy.)

3. Transfer berry mixture to the pastry-lined pie plate. Crimp edge of pastry as desired.

Sprinkle with Streusel Topping (below).

4. To prevent overbrowning, cover edge of pie with foil. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes (or 50 minutes for frozen fruit). Remove foil. Bake pie for 25 to 30 minutes more or until filling is bubbly and topping is golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Streusel Topping: Stir together ½ cup all-purpose flour and ½ cup packed brown sugar. Using a pastry blender, cut in 3 tablespoons butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

2 Comments Posted on July 1, 2013July 1, 2013 Uncategorized

Black raspberries and more

It’s been summer for a little over a week now. On the quarry, and elsewhere in the region, I suppose, that means raspberries. Here they’re mostly wild and black, though there are a few domestic red raspberry brambles planted in the big back field nearly two decades ago. Now the picking of raspberries, dependent on where it is that they’re being picked, can involve some little bit of a blood-letting. Here, along the wildest areas of The Quarry Farm, that is certainly the case.

There are the brambles, of course, with their little thorns that snag cloth and skin. And then there are also the multiflora rose bushes, the thorns of which are a bit more than little and, consequently, do a bit more damage. Hawthorne and honey locust trees have thorns that, for the unwary, can prove literally life-threatening: honey locust thorns can grow to as long as five or six inches, come in clusters of ten or twelve at a time and are as sharp as needles. But botany is only one aspect of the blood bath. Mosquitos range in clouds of hundreds, along with midges, horseflies, deerflies and a host of other little biting beasts.

But the berries themselves make the challenges worthwile, not to mention the sights that come along with the raspberries. Things like dragonflies and damselflies seesawing back and forth as they chase their meals, those same pesky insects that are intent on syphoning blood; little black toads that scurry from spot to spot; robberflies pursuing the same kinds of prey as the dragons and damsels, but in a much more “point A to point B” kind of way; turkey vultures soaring across skies of blue and grey, catching thermals and various drafts that send them scooting to the horizon; and ropes of grapevine and poison ivy.

The berries, though, are the goal, and this year’s crop is bountiful. Speaking of which, the telephone just rang and it seems there’s a pie cooling on a counter not too terribly far from here.

Time to go.

If you’re lucky, we’ll save you a piece.

1 Comment Posted on June 16, 2013June 17, 2013 Public Events

Setting Up The Quarry Farm at Toledo Botanical Garden

Photographing a nymph

One of the programs offered through The Quarry Farm is something we call Small Streams. The program gives us the opportunity to talk about aquatic insects and other macroinvertebrates and their importance to all living things, water quality and what each of us can do to help keep Ohio’s waterways healthy. Small Streams can be as complex as setting up a freshwater stream

First look at a crayfish

microhabitat in a classroom, or as simple as a plastic bucket half-filled with water and teeming with clams, snails, crayfish and the larva of dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies and a host of other insects with larval forms that start their life cycle in the water. This past Saturday, June 15th, we had the opportunity to take our show on the road to Toledo Botanical Garden as part of Nature’s Nursery’s Walk for Wildlife.

To be honest, this is the kind of presentation we like best. While a classroom setting provides the chance to really get in depth about some very important issues, it frequently lacks spontaneity. That’s never a problem when we set up in public and have people from all walks of life wander up and ask us what we’re doing there. And while we love the kids, the adults who have never seen a dragonfly nymph, never held a hellgrammite…well, they’re our favorites. Most people never completely lose their childhood curiosity and when it’s piqued, the child they were comes instantly to the fore. We were lucky enough to witness several such transformations as parents found themselves just as fascinated as their children.

The only down-side to an event such as Saturday’s is the inevitable loss of at least one of the insects in our charge. Typically, when we’re standing at a folding table with a couple of buckets, there is no electricity available. No electricity means no bubble stone. No bubble stone means that the only oxygenation the water these insects are trapped in is what’s provided when we stir the bucket. So, as is typical at one of these events, we lost two of the dragonfly nymphs we took along. But, since our primary goal is education, we took that calamity and turned it into a teaching opportunity.

See, there’s this thing about dragonfly nymphs…Have you ever seen any of the Alien movies? The monster in these films has a unique feature. It has this mouth within its mouth that shoots out and chomps the unsuspecting. Well, that’s not entirely true; it chomps the suspecting, as well. While not exactly like that, dragonfly nymphs have a similar set up. Their lower jaw are hinged and fold up under their heads.

Lower mandible of dragonfly nymph, extended

When something tasty wanders by, the nymph is able to extend its jaw well out and away from its body, snatch up its soon-to-be dinner and pull it back in. Getting a live nymph to cooperate, to actually extend its lower mandible out to its fullest, is pretty much impossible. The dead, however, know no fear. So, with a couple of dozen people looking on, we were able to pull that jaw out and show people just exactly what we were talking about. That’s when the Alien and Predator conversations started, culminating in the question, presented by a man of roughly my own generation, “I know this sounds strange, but how do Predators kiss?” (For those of you with more highbrow tastes, who are confused by the nature of the question, try this: http://www.alexvisani.com/monstergallery/predator.jpg

Chris and the crayfish

Nature’s Nursery’s
Linda and Icarus

We’d like to extend a special thanks to Chris,a Natural Resources student in the Toledo Public Schools system, for all of his help. We’d also like to thank Nature’s Nursery for inviting us to participate in the event.

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