I was outside in today’s 14-degree morning knocking ice out of the guinea waterer when I heard a sharp, distinct call. One I hadn’t heard yet around here, at least not so close. I scanned the woodline and who should be sitting in the giant oak but this big guy.

A quick visit to the excellent Cornell Ornithology Lab’s beautifully designed Web site led me to believe that this morning visitor is a red-shouldered hawk. Correct me if I’m wrong! And he was huge. Here he is in the giant oak, and though the tree is humongous, you can tell this is not an insignificantly sized bird.

Though it’s definitely cool that he chose my oak for his sunbath, I can’t help but wonder what he could do to a guinea. Unlike during the kestrel attack of last summer, I think this bird may be large enough to make off with a guinea or at least put some serious hurt on the poor dear.

And it turns out he wasn’t the only one enjoying the sun on this very chilly morn. Skittish Neighbor Cat was camped in the meadow, and darted away into the woods right after this shot. It’s a jungle out here.

More winter color for you.

I was talking with a friend the other day about the seasons when I realized I am craving color in the landscape. As much as I have grown to love the muted palette of winter with its shadowy violets and cool bark tones, what I am missing is bright. Like hot-pink bougainvillea blossom bright. Or golden zinnia or tomato red. As I thought more about this, and looked around outside, I realized that in the absence of summer flowers, jewel green grass and warm blue skies, the only really brightly colored natural things in winter are the birds:

Of course birds are here year-round, but in the winter, against a canvas of taupe and grey, they are the quite truly the brightest spots in my natural world.

Quickly, before I lose my satellite internet connection again, I wanted to toss up this post about the intense snow we’re getting right now. What started as rain has switched over to a rapidly accumulating wet snow. The view off my porch now:

And less than an hour earlier. The speed with which the landscape is morphing before my eyes is incredible.

It’s so quiet out but for the sound of the wind, which is blowing the snow in horizontal billows. I just saw my neighbor skid past his driveway on his way home…he slowly backed up and made the turn. The hay in the field is weighed down, and I worry about my young trees.

And I can’t help but thinking about wet snow + high winds maybe = power outage. But no real worries: I have the woodstove burning hot and a gas range. Is there any better feeling than being tucked up warm and cozy next to a fire, with plenty of food and no place to go, while a blizzard rages outside? I think not.

I refilled my bird feeders and the little guys are going nuts. They don’t have the luxury of a woodstove, but at least they will not go hungry!

I am looking forward to what the morning will bring, and hope that you are safely enjoying the weather where ever you are.

Rises over Buck Ridge

After a year of playing landlord to generations of starlings, I’ve finally given them their notice. The birds took up residence among the rafters of the unfinished back porch, and though I love birds these particular birds are no friends of mine. Because they leave the porch looking like this:

And, when their nests are full of tasty eggs, they attract gigantic black snakes that try to crawl up my house and scare me to death.

I thought the starling residence was going to be seasonal in that they’d make their nests, raise their young and leave. But that didn’t turn out to be the case as even in the dead of winter they are having a racaus party on my back porch and trashing it in the process. Time for an intervention.

I got some of the deer netting I’d used around my young trees, trimmed it to size, climbed on a ladder and began the long process of stapling it to the ceiling and rafters in an attempt to seal out the birds. Midway through I went into the well house to grab a wad of old netting I’d stashed there after removing it from some trees. It wasn’t until I was back on the porch that I noticed a suspiciously familiar dark shadow deep in the black netting.

Last summer I had a rangy stray cat appear around my well house. He was wearing a collar, but wouldn’t let me get close to him. Even though I put out food, he stayed skittish and one day disappeared. Shortly thereafter I noticed a smell of rotten flesh in the well house. I figured the cat had climbed into the roof of the structure, got hung up on his collar, and died. It stunk to high heaven, and I fully expected to find a feline skeleton if I ever dismantled the well house. After a few months the smell abated and I figured whatever it was had decomposed.

But, after today’s discovery I am revising my story to say that the source of the stink was this black snake who had the bad luck to twist his way deep into the pile of netting and die. It was a sad discovery, but part of me is relieved to have figured out the mystery.

I cut away the part of the netting that wasn’t covered in dessicated rotten snake guts and with it finished finished sealing off the starling apartments.

So I woke this morning and stepped out on my front porch to find this:

I opened the card:

Moonshine! What a perfect surprise for Christmas morning! And the great mystery is that I have no idea who my secret santa is!

We’re back on track for another snowstorm tonight and tomorrow, but I can rest easy knowing I am well-provisioned for any eventuality—including snake or spider bite—thanks to this fantastic gift. Merry Christmas from Bonafide Farm!

All of my weekends in October and November were devoted to putting in the front landscaping, a job that was so tiring that I am just now getting around to writing about it. Obviously these photos are a few months old, since everything now is covered in snow and ice! The fun began by ordering a few dumptrucks full of materials: topsoil, compost and mulch. Then my dad tilled the compost and topsoil into the front yard area while I graded and moved piles of dirt around with a shovel. Then the real fun began as I started planting shrubs and ornamentals that I’d been collecting for a long time—some of which I’d had so long that I had temporarily stashed them in a pit in the field over the summer.

I envision an untraditional front landscape for my house. I want to use this space as a dynamic garden that changes through the seasons, instead of typical landscaping which I view as as bunch of boring evergreens lined up underneath the windows. Thus, I chose only a few evergreens that I hope will fill in and provide masses of color and texture that will anchor more ephemeral annual and perennial material. The centerpiece of the garden is a small ornamental evergreen, the Horstmann Blue Atlas Cedar, which I chose because it won’t get too big nor will it block my view from the porch to the garage/guinea coop. This small tree has an intriguingly architectural shape and a blue gray color that reflects my trim and porch colors. In fact, I chose several blue gray evergreens, including Grey Owl Juniper, to reinforce this color palette.

In between drifts of Juniper, which also include the beautiful Gold Lace variety, I did a swath of Nandina ‘Chardonnay Pearls,’ which is a modern chartreuse that I hope will brighten the garden, particularly in spring when the plant sports tiny white flowers. Other shrubs include Albelia ‘Rose Creek,’ which I enjoy for its vintage cottage look and flower clusters that continue to provide interest well into the winter.

On the front corner of the house I planted a Doublefile Viburnum ‘Igloo.’ This plant has amazing double white flowers in the spring that look like butterflies, and it also keeps its interest throughout the fall as its leaves turn red. I plan to prune this plant into a small tree to anchor this front corner of the house. I also indulged myself with a few ornamental elderberries, ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Black Lace.’ These shrubs resemble Japanese maples with their fine, dark foliage, and they also make pink berries for the birds to enjoy. I have very much enjoyed learning about shrubs and trees through this process. I had only ever had the space for vegetable and cut flower gardens, so a whole new world of plant material opened to me when I finally got land to spread out upon.

The garden doesn’t look like much now, but I considered it a huge victory to just have some plants in instead of looking at the bare dirt that had been there all summer. There are all sorts of other neat plants tucked in, including Japanese anemones, inherited iris, Korean lilacs, and perennial ‘Kent Beauty’ oregano. I also stuck my prized Pat Austin rose close to the porch for safekeeping—we will see if it survives the winter. Oh, and I also spent a weekend planting more than 200 daffodil, snowdrop and lily bulbs in this yard with the hope that in the spring they will fill in the bare spots where the plants have yet to grow.

So that’s the front yard—a project that consumed many hours and much muscle strength. Next spring I will tackle the side of the house that faces the road and the back yard. I’ve got big plans for both those spots!