I was on the couch yesterday morning when I heard a loud thump outside. Tuck barked. I ignored it. Then I heard another thump, and Tuck got up and went to the front door, where he went crazy, growling and barking and whining. Of course I got up and when I looked out the front door, I saw my neighbor’s two horses at the end of my front walk. Looks like my neighbor had forgotten to close her gate and they’d escaped, again.

I knew my neighbor wasn’t home. While I called both her numbers and just got voicemail, the horses made their way to the back field by the garage. For the next hour or so I kept an eye on them to make sure they didn’t head for the road, and I waited for my neighbor to call to say she was on her way over to capture them.

Well, I was still waiting when the horses came up around the house garden and started to nibble my landscaping. When one of the horses shoved his muzzle into a container of just-sprouted lettuce, smushing the baby plants into a pulp, I got a bit annoyed and realized that if I wanted my plants unscathed I would need to remove the horses. Easy, right?

Except I am at best uncomfortable around horses, and at worst very afraid of being near them without a fence in between us, especially when I am all by myself. I have had enough scary experiences around and on horses that I don’t really feel the need to hang out with them ever again. But I had to do something, not only to save my garden but also any unsuspecting motorists that might be driving up the road when one of these horses got an idea to bolt.

When another neighbor had captured these horses the first time they escaped, she led one by looping a huge horse rope around its neck. And horses, being herd animals, will tend to follow each other. If I could get one horse home odds were the other would follow. Only trouble is I didn’t have a rope that was stout enough to lead a horse. So I grabbed Tuck’s longest, heaviest leash and hoped it would hold.

Tuck was still going nuts on the porch, his order-loving mind just blown by these very large, very alive, and very out-of-place creatures that had suddenly appeared in his domain. Something was. not. right, and with every language he had Tucker voiced his concern, eyes round as saucers and ears pinned back flat to his head.

While Tuck paced and whined and watched with the most consternated expression I’ve ever seen him make, I offered the black and white horse a couple of placating carrots as I gingerly petted his head. Then I looped the leash around his neck, holding both ends in my fist, and started pulling him toward home. It took some persuading—the appeal of lush new grass is high—but I got him moving. I had to walk with my hand basically against his neck because the leash way too short to properly lead a horse. But I got him going at a pretty fast clip and held his head up so he couldn’t dally and snag more grass. This put me walking uncomfortable close to him, but I just tried to stay aware and away from any of the parts that could kick me, rear up, smash me against the fence, or otherwise bash in my skull, which was feeling very tiny and exposed next to this giant mass of twitchy muscle.

I got the horse all the way home and into the gate by his barn, which sure enough was open. I had to push him pretty hard to get him through, as he didn’t want to leave his freedom. The brown horse had galloped along side of us, frolicking in the newly hayed pasture. Unfortunately, he didn’t follow his buddy into the gated pasture, and instead headed further out to graze. I knew he was the more spirited of the horses, according to his owner, and he’s also bigger, so I had to steel myself to approach him.

I got the leash around his head and had to pull with all my might to get him to stop eating grass. It must have been a pretty silly scene, me trying to move a stubborn horse with what amounted to a shoelace. But after digging my heels in I got his head up and got him moving along toward the gate. He tried a few more times to stop to graze, but something about my militant march must have made him realize I meant business. I got him in the gate, where he and his friend kicked up their heels and laughed at their little adventure as they took a victory gallop around the field. Then I went home, left my neighbor a message that I had gotten her horses in, and spent the next two hours shaking from all the adrenaline that had just flooded my body. And I have to say, this little experience emphatically confirmed that I prefer my horses as beautiful lawn ornaments in my neighbor’s field, with the gate firmly latched.

Once I had all the Glass Gem corn picked, it was time for the best part: opening each ear to reveal the multicolored kernels held within. I set up a little shucking station in the garage and got to work. It was kind of like Christmas as each ear exposed a new and different surprise. I separated and saved the best looking corn silk, in the basket below, for tea.

Of course I had company, though one companion grew pretty bored when the shucking stretched into a multihour endeavor.

Shucking more than 100 ears, plus the time required to marvel at each beautiful ear, added up as I worked through sundown and into the evening. The rest of the crew got more and more curious as I lined the shucked cobs up on the garage floor, sorting them by size and condition. I was very pleased to see what I consider to be pretty good pollination and kernel set in most of the ears. I found only one insect, a little worm, in all 100+ ears, which seems remarkable to me given how much I struggle with bugs on some of my other crops. Perhaps I have the bluebirds and their nightly visits to the corn patch to thank?

A few of the ears contained kernels that looked as though they were starting to pop. I will have to do more research to figure out what causes that. But in all, I was pretty pleased with my harvest. Maybe it’s just beginner’s luck, or the blessing of an unusually rainy summer, but it’s not too bad for my first corn-growing experience!

Though they were intrigued, the chicks hadn’t yet figured out that corn is one of the most delicious chicken treats around. And this wasn’t just any corn—it was the famous Glass Gem!

Up next, a closer look at the Glass Gem harvest…and all the pretty pictures you’ve been waiting for!

Yesterday morning, around 7:30, I was awoken by Tucker barking, once, down in the laundry room, where he sleeps. I have been sick all week, with nights spent swinging between illness-induced, jolting-awake nightmares, insomnia, and mouse killings. When I heard Tucker bark again, a single bark, I swum to the surface in a daze. Then he barked again.

In the two and a half years that we’ve lived together, I can count the times Tucker’s barked from his sleeping room on one hand. In fact, I have him sleep in the laundry room, instead of loose downstairs, because I believe it’s the only way he feels like he’s “off duty” and can relax from his job of relentlessly keeping tabs on everything. But this morning he was definitely telling me something, very clearly, and by that third bark I was already on my way downstairs.

I walked into the kitchen and saw this:

Ah, insomniac online shopping—looks like that horse I ordered had been delivered!

And apparently it was a buy one, get one free deal:

All joking aside, I had a serious situation on my hands. These are my next door neighbor’s two horses, and they were loose. Again. On Monday morning I’d woken up and seen them grazing outside of their fence. By the time I’d made a call to determine my neighbor wasn’t home, these two horses were on a heel-kicking joy ride up the road. A horrible situation for all involved, particularly any unsuspecting drivers who might be on a collision course with two revved-up, slightly panicked, thousand-pound blindly running animals.

I’d gotten dressed and run outside to try to get the horses back in, but they were out of sight by the time I made it across the pasture. I wandered the woods in the direction they’d gone, but no luck. I was just about home when another horse-owning neighbor came walking up the road, leading one of the horses with a rope gripped around its neck. The other horse followed behind. Apparently yet another neighbor had seen the horses on the road and called the neighbor who caught the horses, and they were back home safe for eight hours before their owner returned to question their chipped-up hooves and get the story. She said she’d been distracted and forgotten to fasten their gate the night before.

And now, here we were four mornings later with the same horses on the loose again. I left a message on my neighbor’s cell phone, and was calling Monday’s horse-catching neighbor when the horses’ owner returned my call. She came right home and with a whistle had her horses back in their pasture. She called to thank me, and again said she’d been distracted and left the gate open. Wow. In four years I have yet to see these horses get loose, and here they went twice in one week.

The animal drama around here just doesn’t stop. But thanks to my farm dog, who wasn’t sleeping on the job, the horses were collected before traveling further afield or into the road. Tuck got an egg cooked in bacon grease on his breakfast, and lots of hugs for a job well done.

For the past week or so, the chicks’ new trick is to fly out of their broody coop when I open the lid to feed them or fill their water. At first they were shaky and tentative, but now they explode up the second the lid’s lifted, and fly from rim to rim, occasionally overshooting their landings and meeting the concrete garage floor. It’s cute, yes, but it makes a pretty ridiculous scene as I try to grab each chick and toss it back into the coop before another flies out before I can shut the lid. It makes me wish I still had the big garage brooder my dad put together for the guineas.

The only chick that has yet to fly out of the coop is the white Coronation Sussex. This bird is more stout than the others, which may be part of it, but I find it interesting that my homegrown barnyard mixes are more daring and precocious.

The chicks, now four weeks old, have reached “the awkward stage.” Their baby down is quickly being replaced by prickly pin feathers, and their legs are now thick and scaley. But they are all healthy, and growing quickly thanks to their forays into the garden for free ranging. After having only raised chicks in a brooder, not with the help of the broody hen, I am noticing how much sturdier these chicks are. I attribute that to the more varied, natural diet they receive while free ranging, and to their being able to live a more natural chicken life, scratching in dirt and bug-hunting, much earlier than other chicks I’ve raised indoors.

As an unrelated aside, I just realized this is my 400th blog post at bonafidefarm.com. For some reason that number seems so big to me, and I am glad to have kept up with this journal for so long. I wonder if I will get to post #500 before getting fed up with country life?!

Are gross.

On Saturday I was doing some cleanup in the garden and went to clip this dead branch out of the giant rosemary in the front garden.

As I was reaching toward the bush my spidey sense twinged, and in that instant I caught sight of a quarter inch of shiny black skin wound up around the plant.

And this guy came out to say hi. He (or she) is just a little black snake, probably one of the 16  born under the front sidewalk, yech. I know they’re good to have around, but I don’t want to reach into a plant and grab a snake instead of a stem. Needless to say I gave the rosemary a wide berth as I finished cleaning up the garden.

Then later that night I called Tuck in from his before-bed rounds. I had his topical tick medication all lined up to apply, and as I squirted it on the back of his neck I noticed he had what looked like cinnamon powder all over his head around his eyes. I brushed at it and instantly dozens of teeny tiny ticks started marching up my arm. Oh, the irony! There are few things I find grosser than seed ticks, so I ran for the office to grab my packing tape.

I deticked myself with the sticky side of the tape, and then set about pressing strips of tape to my poor dog’s eyeballs, trying to get the ticks out of his fur. He was a patient champ, but it was not a brilliant way to wind down before bed as I found my skin crawling all night with (hopefully) psychosomatic bloodsuckers.

It was one of those nights (which happen pretty often here, actually) when I felt like I’d had quite enough of country living, thank you very much.

I was walking with Tuck near here the other night and came across the most beautiful butterfly in the middle of a gravel road. It was one I didn’t recognize, which is always exciting.

It was dark in the woods so this butterfly’s colors are hard to see, but it was the most amazing shade of navy blue fading into bright, iridescent turquoise. I’d never seen a live butterfly in this particular color. True blue (not purple-blue) is such a rare color in the natural world that it doesn’t seem real when one sees it.

I very gently coaxed it on my hand so I could move it off the road, and saw its underside was equally beautiful. Sorry for the unintentional flip off—that was the finger it chose!

After taking these shots so I could ID the butterfly later, I put it on the bank and went on my way, very, very happy to have seen for just a few minutes something of such incredible beauty on my evening walk.

The trip was made even more joyful when I flushed a few quail out of a hedgerow beside the road. This was wonderful to see as quail are really in trouble in Virginia. The Department of Inland Game and Fisheries reports, in their Northern Bobwhite Quail Action Plan for Virginia:

Populations of northern bobwhite quail and other bird species with related habitat requirements have experienced severe long-term declines in Virginia over the past 50 years. In colonial times, farming created habitats that began to favor quail. As land was cleared and farmed, quail populations flourished. For perhaps 200 years or more, quail were one of the most common birds of the rural Virginia landscape. During the first half of the 20th century, as a shift from a rural-farm to urban-industrial economy began, idled and abandoned farms continued to support quail populations. However, since then major land use changes have taken place. Virginia’s agricultural landscape became dominated by large, intensively managed crop fields, fescue pastures, and hayfields.

Total farmland acres declined. In 1900, approximately 80% of Virginia’s landscape was in open agricultural land. Today agricultural lands make up only 34% of our landscape. Many of the formerly open farm fields are now dominated by intensively managed pine forests. While cut-over timber lands still provide some early-succession cover, plant diversity is low and productivity for quail is poor. The loss of early succession habitat, particularly nesting cover and brood range, has been identified as the most significant factor limiting quail populations. The bobwhite is a legacy species in Virginia and their decline has led to concerns about ecological, economic, and recreational impacts throughout rural Virginia.

Anytime you can spot a threatened species in the wild is encouraging. It makes me glad to live in an area that’s still suitable to sustaining important wildlife biodiversity.

But back to butterflies…at home I got out my field guide and opened right to the page with this butterfly on it. Weird. Anyway, it is a red-spotted purple, which is supposedly common in this area though I have never come across one until now. Strange name, too, for a blue butterfly with orange spots!

And then yesterday I was walking in the house and saw a red-spotted purple flying in my flower garden. Now that I know what it is, it’s easy to identify by its more rounded lower wings that lack the extended hind wings that identify swallowtails, below:

(Image source: http://www.edupic.net/lifecycle.htm)

And that’s your daily lepidoptery lesson, with a little quail digression!

I was vacuming near the laundry room today when I noticed a musty damp smell that I traced to the pocket door opening. I couldn’t figure out what it was until it suddenly hit me. I was smelling…summer crawlspace.

Which made me realize that it is that wonderful time of year when I get to enter the crawlspace and jiggle/threaten the dehumidifier into voiding into the sump pump tank instead of just filling up and turning off until I empty it of collected water. For three summers this dehumidifier has had a checkered past of sometimes behaving properly and draining on its own, and other times it just shuts off when filled with water, its red alert eye blinking in the dark. Meaning it’s not working as it should to help keep the crawlspace dry.

My crawlspace is supposedly conditioned space, which means that its air is maintained by my HVAC system just as the air is in my house. That, and a sump pump, work pretty well to keep things fresh and dry until summer sets in and the rain, heat and humidity gain the upper hand. Thus the supplemental dehumidifier.

I suited up in my usual home maintenance outfit of tall boots, work gloves, and a skirt, and opened the crawlspace door, flashlight in hand. Thanks to some hard labor with my dad, I have a really nice crawlspace entry. Every time I go in there I think of mixing and shoveling 1,000 pounds of concrete in a heat wave. Good times. At least this time I wasn’t chasing an angry black snake!

With my flashlight held out front like a sword, I took a deep breath and plunged across the threshold, wiping spider webs from my face. The crawlspace is deep enough that I don’t have to actually crawl—I can penguin walk most everywhere, ducking under ducts, trying not to touch anything. I made it to the dehumidifier, which as expected was sassing me with its “tank full” light.

I took out its tank and dumped the collected water in the sump pump tank close by. Then I replaced the tank and the dehumidifier started right up. All good. Then I had a flash of insight whilst feeding the drain hose from the dehumidifier into the sump pump tank. I think the reason why it occasionally wasn’t working had to do with the the lower end of the hose not being low enough to create enough drop to drain. It’s a close call, I could tell that much. So I did my best to create the greatest possible distance between the dehumidifier outlet and the end of the drain hose, and sat back to sweep the crawlspace with my flashlight, checking to see that the mouse poison trays were still filled and whatnot.

As the flashlight beam hit the bottom edge of one of my two water heaters, at left in the photo above, I saw an unmistakable dark shape. Growing up in the country you don’t need to see a red triangle to know a black widow. Once you learn it, her shape and inky gloss are unmistakable, and they trigger a dilute version of the feeling you get when surprised by a snake.

Closer, but not too close, inspection revealed that this widow was a mama, and was guarding an egg sack. Great! Because what’s better than one black widow? Hundreds, of course!

Now let me just stop here to say that I know that spiders (and snakes too) are important cogs in the ecological wheel. They have great value, and I was impressed by the boneyard underneath Ms. Widow’s web—made up mostly of desiccated stink bug carcasses. However, I have value too, as do my pets and livestock, and I don’t want poisonous spiders or snakes living in, or even right next to, my house.

So I beat it out of the crawlspace to gather supplies. I grabbed a can of wasp spray, reading on the back that it kills scorpions. I knew scorpions are arachnids, just like spiders, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. Plus it’s one defensive tool that can be applied from a distance, in case the spider should run! Then in the kitchen I grabbed a butter knife, because it was the first thing I could think of that was about the shape and size I judged I’d need to fit in this little crevice.

Outside, the thought crossed my mind that there were other things I’d rather be doing than heading back into a dark crawlspace to go head to head with a venomous spider. But the idea of her living down there and hatching tons of babies was more frightening than that of war, so with the pockets of my skirt stuffed with my weapons of choice, I headed back into the crawlspace.

Ms. Widow didn’t put up much of a fight. Upon being jabbed with the butter knife, she did fall out of her web and attempt to scramble amongst the folds of the black plastic lining the crawlspace. It’s always a heart-quickening moment when an undead, pissed-off poisonous spider makes a break for it, especially when one is squatting in a skirt in a dark crawlspace with nothing but a flashlight beam and a butter knife for defense. But I had anticipated her flight, and was able to act fast to smear her into oblivion.

Then there remained her future progeny. I prized the egg sack out of the widow’s characteristically sticky web, and examined it by flashlight. It was about a half an inch long, shaped like a teardrop, and had a texture and color similar to that of a praying mantis egg case.

When I squashed it, it exuded a surprising amount of liquid and the case itself took on the appearance of a golden raisin. At least no baby black widows poured out, which I was kind of expecting.

And with that done, I decided it was time to stop looking around the crawlspace. So, I scooted out, grateful to see this most pleasant sight waiting for me just outside the door.

Even though he wasn’t in the trenches, sometimes it’s nice to know I am not entirely alone in all the stupid shit I get into around here.

And, silver lining. Turns out this little guy had fallen into the crawlspace pit with no way out:

All because of a strange smell while vacuuming, I was able to pick him up, and send him safely on his way. (And not into Tucker’s maw, as this photo would suggest.)

But not before he peed all over my hand. As toads will do.

Despite how it looks, this story doesn’t have a Disney ending. Stop reading now if topics such as the natural order, predation, working farm dogs, and death are ones you’d rather not read about right now.

For the last week or so the garden around my house has been plagued by a nocturnal visitor. Every young and vulnerable plant fell victim, including new seedlings of rare, mail-ordered zinnias, the newest shoots of dozens of star gladiolus that were just emerging, small bedding coleus, and young red chard transplants that I’d been watering three times a day to get them to take—basically everything I’d lined up to provide summer interest in my garden. As any gardener knows, there is nothing more disheartening than to spend money and time fussing over young plants just to come out each morning find them eaten to the nub.

Because of the pattern of damage, I suspected a rabbit. My suspicion grew Wednesday morning when Tucker went nuts in the front garden, trying to climb inside some of the larger shrubs. I knew he was in pursuit of something, but I feared that in his frenzy I’d lose even more plants. So I called him off and kept him inside.

That night, however, he was outside with me and spent hours working something near the corner of the well house. Around sunset I went outside and found the scene above. There was no going back—the rabbit had already sustained significant damage.

I like this photo below because it reminds me of all those classic paintings of working dogs with their quarry: the labs with their ducks, spaniels with grouse and pheasant, hounds with deer and boar and bear, and terriers with ground-dwelling varmints.

Because I think it is important to reward Tucker for this hunting behavior, which is exactly the kind I want him to exhibit. So I praised him and left him with his kill. And he was oh, so proud. When I went to collect him for bed, at almost 10:00 p.m., he was crunching the last of the bones.

Yes, the rabbit was adorable and I think they are lovely creatures. I enjoy seeing them in the fields ands try my best to not hit them when they dart in front of my car. But this rabbit picked the wrong salad bar, and I am proud that I have an English Shepherd that is pulling his weight around the farm as a working dog as well as a pampered pet. Like all the happiest dogs, he has a job and it is a joy to see him able to fulfill his nature in such a helpful way.

The bluebird nestlings were peeking out of the nest box entrance hole when I approached today. They’re fully feathered and there are at least four babies in the very crowded box. I hope I can get an accurate count to see if all five eggs made it to fledglings—a 100% success rate!—but at this stage the birds are easily spooked and I don’t want to scare any out of the box while its open.

It won’t be too much longer until they fledge into this beautiful blooming spring outside their nest box. The tree with the white blooms is a hawthorne planted as part of the new forest installation.

I’ll have to keep an eye on Tuck in the next few days to make sure he doesn’t encounter a fledgling in the grass.