The Quarry Farm

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.

Leave a comment Posted on May 26, 2013 Public Events

That, Sir, is How One Uses PowerPoint

There is a goat at the door. As I write this post, I am watched by that goat, another goat, a turkey, a goose, and a little red hen. They are all looking through the glassed front door. If I sit very still and shield my typing fingers with the laptop, maybe they’ll cut me enough slack to finish this post.

I’ll keep it short. Mostly because Jonelle is going to do the talking for the Quarry Farm this time. Marvelous Quarry Farm Volunteer Jonelle did a presentation for one of her high school classes this week. The topic was “Volunteering with Animals.” Not only has Jonelle given a year of her time to the animal ambassadors here, but this inspiring woman has logged over 350 hours as a Toledo Zoo Teen. She most likely has every volunteer-oriented scholarship in the bag, and she’s only a high school junior. One day when she is observing and recording ground-breaking discoveries about pinnipeds, we can say we knew her when.

Here’s a clip from her class presentation. I have a door to answer.

Posted on May 12, 2013May 14, 2013 Public Events

Walk on the Wildflower Side

Oh, yes I did.

I titled this post what I did a) to get an eye-roll from you and b) because that is just what several of us did last Saturday. Cameras were slung over shoulders as intrepid amateur botanists crossed Cranberry Run to record spring wildlflowers on the Quarry Farm.

The “first really good time walking through the woods taking photos of pretty things” Spring Wildflower Photo Shoot and Sketch Walk resulted in a good list of the showiest wildflowers that Northwest Ohio has to offer in May. At least those that we could identify.

A late blooming season resulted in here-and-gone bloodroot blossoms and trout lilies, but we did see the distinctive foliage. The same cool conditions did mean that ramps were still green and a few Dutchman’s breeches were starched white and puffed. There is a new trail cleared for visitation around the old oxbow, a site rich with engraved brackets, soft moss and woodduck calls. An expanding forest of mayapples lines the ridge of this young path.

Here’s the list, common names only, and a few photos of flowers and other wild things seen that day. The gauntlet is down, Becky. Let’s see what you’ve got on your box.

Bloodroot (foliage)
Toadshade
Wood Violet
Cinquefoil (Common?)
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Dutchman’s Breeches
Mayapple
Wild Ginger
False Solomon’s Seal
Spring Beauty
Cutleaf Toothwort
Dandelions
Creeping Jenny
Wild Geranium
Trout Lily
Ramps (stems and leaves)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

1 Comment Posted on April 27, 2013April 27, 2013 Public Events

This One’s for the Dogs (and the Opossum)

It’s been a bit longer than we like between posts. But since spring is finally here (knock on wood) you will forgive us since you, like us, are probably running around in today’s sunshine before tonight’s predicted rain.

Silence on the web does not mean it’s been quiet for The Quarry Farm. The new chicks are growing, as is the grass for Buddy and the goats. Fezzik and Inigo are displaying for every female fowl that could conceivably give them the time of day. Inconceivable? Not so for the little red hen that follows Fezzik around. The wild turkey hens on the nature preserve could care less, however.

Eventwise, The Quarry Farm has been on the road for the last couple of weekends. Saturday, April 20 took us up I-75 into Michigan for the Monroe Conservation District Tree Sale. Tim Kwiatkowski, good friend and conservationist for Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP), invited us, and an assortment of aquatic macroinvertebrates from Cranberry Run as well as an opossum that matured overwinter here, to be part of the Monroe County Earth Day celebration that was held alongside the tree sale pickup.

It was cold and the wind blew. Despite the weather thousands of trees were sold and the buyers learned a little about biological indicators and that Virginia opossums are fantastic garbage collectors. Some even decided the little guy was cute.

He was cute. And we assume he still is, wherever his nomadic opossum ways take him. Once the evenings warmed toward the middle of the week he finally ventured out of his open hutch and into the wild.

Cassie poses

Today, we had a short drive to the 6th Annual Mutt Strut and Craft Market sponsored by Putnam Pet Pals to benefit the homeless and neglected dogs of Putnam County and Northwest Ohio. They do good work and put on a great, loud show every year at the Putnam County Fairgrounds. Last year we set up a table at the Strut; it turned out to be one of the best offsite events that The Quarry Farm has ever been part of as we handed out packs of newsletters, talked to some amazing, compassionate people, and produced more canine caricatures than we could track. Although this year’s weather was sunny and warm, a day for breeding garage sales and other such competitions for public attention, the fairground was still hopping.

Better make that barking.

Good times.

7 Comments Posted on March 24, 2013 Educational Ambassadors

Talking Turkey

Ready For Love

It’s spring, the time of year when love is in the air, or, as Walt Disney put it, when all the animals are twitterpated. Insofar as The Quarry Farm is concerned, noboby shows their love quite so dramatically as the two bronze turkeys we recently took in. The fact that both birds are male hasn’t dampened their ardor. Not one bit. They strut about the property, feathers fluffed and tails fanned, gobbling for all they’re worth. But it’s their heads that provide the real entertainment.

Not in the mood

Turkeys, both wild and domestic, have two prominent features on and about their heads: wattles and snoods. The wattle hangs below the beak while the snood sprouts from the cere just above the bony part of the beak. During peak periods of romantic interest, both the snood and the wattle fill up with blood and turn bright red. Contrarily, when they’re scared, tired or simply don’t find you attractive, both features turn a grayish blue.

Leave a comment Posted on March 18, 2013March 18, 2013 Uncategorized

Signs

I woke up this morning with this in my head:

[In Just-]
by e.e. cummings

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

I have a passion for poetry and cummings is one of my favorite artists. Inevitably, this particular piece of work comes to mind at some point in March. While not the first sign of Spring, it is a significant one for me. Still, you needn’t look to the page, or even delve into the convolutions of my sleep-addled mind to find the artistry of onrushing Spring.

Of late I’ve seen the return of turkey vultures and red-winged blackbirds and American robins in arguing masses so large that they’ve painted an acre of the big back field nearly white with their droppings. I’ve heard the buzz of a woodcock and the whickering of its wings as it flew toward the moon to prove its worth to a potential mate. Skunks and ‘coons and squirrels quarrel and fight in the woods and Canada geese and mallard ducks, in flocks and individual pairs, holler from the quarry.

In the lowest lying areas of The Quarry Farm, back in the woods and well below the quarry itself, on the ground referred to by locals as Coburn’s Bottom, vernal pools have already formed. These temporary ponds serve as habitat for a host of ephemeral animals: fairy shrimp and salamanders and mayfly nymphs and dragonflies. Within a few months, the pools will have evaporated, but their inhabitants remain in burrows underground or as eggs, tiny packets of a potential future.

And then there’s the greening of the woods, with mosses already climbing up the trees and laying soft blankets on the ground. It’s easy to forget that this whole area was once rainforest. It’s easy to forget, that is, until you take the time to walk into an Ohio woods and take an honest look around. And if it’s not a matter of forgetting – if, in fact, you didn’t know – then the realization of where you are is an epiphany and you’ll never look at a stand of trees in Northwest Ohio in quite the same way again.

(e.e. cumming’s [in Just-] was originally published in The Dial, Volume LXVIII, Number 5: May, 1920)

2 Comments Posted on March 5, 2013March 5, 2013 Educational Ambassadors

The Unbearable Lightness of Turkeys

Don’t let the turkeys get you down. Have you seen this thing? A simple drawing by Sandra Boynton of an elephant driven to its knees by six or seven of the aforementioned birds? It was everywhere for a while a long while ago (and apparently lives on as t-shirts, coffee mugs, posters and greeting cards; but, then, everything that ever was still is somewhere on the internet).

The message was simple: any troubles you have are analogous to turkeys and you shouldn’t let them get you down, those darn turkeys.

Yeah? Well, bunk. While I suppose that there are some turkeys out there that are a constant headache, that would do everything in their power to make a person’s life absolutely miserable, the turkeys with which I’ve interacted have been a pure joy. Case in point, the two newest residents at The Quarry Farm.

A couple of months ago, Laura Zitzelberger, operations director at Nature’s Nursery Center for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation Education, contacted us about possibly taking in three bronze turkeys that had been seen wandering in a residential neighborhood in Toledo. And, while three were spotted, once volunteers from the center arrived on-scene, only two were found. Of the two, one was suffering from a variety of injuries (the consequence of getting on the wrong side of a dog). So, after rehabbing the bird and determining absolutely that these were indeed domestic and not wild turkeys (bronzes bear a remarkable resemblence to their undomesticated cousins), they contacted us late last week and made arrangements for us to pick them up.

We bundled them into the back of Rowan’s Subaru Forester and made the hour long trek back south to Putnam County where we set them up in the same run as Johnny, the Canada goose, and Andi, the Pekin duck. During the whole of the trip, despite being unceremoniously lifted from the home they had come to know and dragged into a whole new situation, not once did either bird make more than an idle and near-inaudible complaint.

So here they are now, these two birds we’ve dubbed Fezzik and Inigo. And glad we are that they’re here.

2 Comments Posted on February 19, 2013January 7, 2020 Public Events

And the Tally Is…

Over the course of a lifetime, we count any number of things: the number of cars we’ve owned, the dates we’ve had, the hours or minutes left before the end of the work day, the children in a school group we’re chaperoning and on and on and on. This past weekend, we counted birds. And it wasn’t just us, the folks who showed up at The Quarry Farm for this latest event. It was people all across North America and around the world participating in this year’s Great Backyard Bird Count.

Cooper’s hawk

Sponsored by the Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada, this four-day annual event provides data about bird populations and migration to these giants in ornithological research. For us, the event has provided the opportunity to specifically record some of the birds that live here. The birds spotted and identified included: house sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, gold finches, white-breasted nuthatches, American crows, turkeys, great-horned owls, eastern screech owls, red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks, juncos, American robins, Downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, northern cardinals, blue jays, horned larks, starlings, mourning doves, rock doves, brown creepers, Canada geese, mallards, great blue herons, black-capped chicadees, tufted titmice, song sparrows, dark-eyed juncos and one bird species that, a little over a year ago, perplexed more than a few of us.

Northern mockingbird

Last year, on our annual Winter Walk, we discovered a vole skewered on a thorn in a hawthorn tree. At the time, none of us were sure how the vole came to be there, though we threw a lot of guesses around and came to the mistaken conclusion that a passing raptor had dropped its dinner and it was inadvertently pinned in the tree. Three seasons later, on yet another walk, a naturalist and amateur ornithologist told us that it was likely the result of a Loggerhead shrike pinioning the vole for later. Well, he was close. One of the birds we discovered on our walk was not the Loggerhead shrike, but the Northern shrike, a close cousin to the Loggerhead.

Although classified as a songbird, all shrikes share a behavior commonly associated with raptors: that is, they prey on small mammals, lizards and amphibians. Not only do they prey on these small animals, they store them away for later feasting by skewering their prey on thorns. So the cause of our earlier conundrum came clearly into view and was the highlight of our count this year.

It was a good weekend and a stellar bird count. In total, we identified nearly thirty different species of birds. That, and we definitively put to rest the bizarre and somewhat gruesome puzzle of the impaled vole.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: