Maggie's Farm

As long-time readers know, Ducks Unlimited is the official charity of Maggie's Farm. Read about them at their site.

It is very possible to be a conservationist without being a Greenie nutjob. We love the work that DU does to protect wildlife habitat in North America and Mexico. If conservation matters to you, and you are not afraid of guns, and want to support an organization (over 800,000 US members) that acts rather than talks and lobbys, consider getting involved with your local DU Chapter. DU now helps protect over 11 million acres of wildlife habitat.

DU's expertise in marsh restoration led to their being called in as consultants on the restoration of Iraq's famous marshes - Mesopotamia, probably the real Garden of Eden -  drained by Saddam Hussein in his campaign to erase the cantakerous and independent Marsh Arabs.

Maggie's Farm is a state of mind, and doesn't really represent a single literal farm, as The Barrister has said.

At the same time, to add some ambiguity to the idea, it is partly inspired by a literal farm which was given as a land grant by King George lll to my ancestors, many of whom are buried in the graveyard by the side of the road. It is in the Massachusetts Berkshire Hills, and close enough to Tanglewood for convenience, but I will not say where.

It is remarkable that a place should be in the family, fully intact, after all of these years, although the original farmhouses burned down (cellar-holes still in place) and many of the barns, buildings, and the marble-cutting mill by the river have fallen down over the years.

Much of our stone is marble up here, and much of it was quarried in the first half of the 1800s and pulled by oxen to be floated down the Housatonic River for shipment to NYC, Providence, and Boston for their fancy buildings. All of our barns and buildings have marble foundations beneath their rickety structures. Even the diving "board" at the stream's swimming hole is a 6x4x4 block of marble sticking out into the water which must have been left behind when the last load of marble departed.

The marble was surely a nice income supplement for thse hardscrabble dairy farmers.

One of the two surviving, and gradually being renovated, liveable quarters on the farm was originally built as a rustic and simple dwelling for the mill workers in 1820.

Well, not exactly poisoned, but the majestic and beloved Eastern Hemlock (aka Canadian Hemlock) groves of the eastern US (range map here)  have been under lethal assault by the Wooly Adelgid, a tiny bug native to Japan whose presence is obvious from the white cottony material on the bottom of the Hemlock needles. (photo below)

According to a report in Science Daily, the adelgid has killed 90% of the Hemlocks in the Shenandoah Valley.

Help may be near in the form of a Japanese beetle that lives on adelgids, but maybe too late to save many of the groves.

Thanks reader, for this photo of a late-blooming wild Beach Rose (Rosa Rugosa) yesterday on the New England coast. This tough import from Japan loves beaches, tolerates salt spray and dry, sandy soil, and its large ripe hips are good for making Rose Hip Jelly. Birds like the hips too, especially Robins.

We have acres of Wild Thyme in the fields on the Farm, and some parts of the front lawn have more thyme than grass, making mowing a pleasant  olfactory experience. We have too much really, because it prospers in areas where the soil is poor, dry, and gravelly, and where there is full sun. When you walk across it on a hot day it fills the air with fragrance and annoys the bees on its purple flowers. No need at all to grow thyme in the garden. You can drive over it occasionally and it doesn't seem to mind. Here's one of our smaller patches, carpeting the entrance to an old rickety shed:

Spent the afternoon fishing on Long Island Sound with Maggie's Farm contributor Gwynnie. We managed to boat (and release) just one schoolie Striper - but we were using lures, not bait. There were large schools of Snapper Blues flipping around, but we were looking for dinner. We much admired the master fisherman below (the story of the return of our New England Ospreys is close to a miracle), who was using a nesting platform as a dining room table for his or her sushi:

Our wild Black Cherries are beginning to ripen, and the trees are filled with robins with purple cherry-stained beaks. I counted 17 happy Robins in one tree this morning. Many of them still have their immature plumage.

Black Cherry is a common "pioneer tree" in New England. Some people call them "Chokecherry," but Chokecherry is a different species. Ours tend to be tall, gawky, with a brittle rust-red wood which is great for fires, smoking meat, and for furniture. Here's a low branch of one of mine. The robins have already eaten most of the ripe ones. Not edible for humans: you will choke on them.

Ours are in bloom now, and will continue through September. These small trees will survive up through Zone 6, but in Zone 6 they prefer some shelter from the winter winds, and they are slow to emerge from dormancy (they look dead).

They are common in the South, but up here people are stunned by such a brilliantly summer-blooming tree and don't know what it is.

They like to be pruned properly, and heavily mulched, and need full sun to produce those blooms. A little fertilizer, too.

This is a young plant, with three main stems. I much prefer them with multiple stems rather than with a single trunk.

The exfoliating bark is interesting too.

51 varieties here, with photos. Most of our cultivars are of Asian descent, but there are native species. More photos, and how to grow them, here.

Growing plants on or above their zonal limits is always an interesting challenge for us gardeners. A fully-rational person would not bother.

We brushwack each half of this meadow only every other year, for the benefit of the wildflowers and the wild critters. It is full of milkweed, goldenrod, daisy, Black-eyed Susan, Queen Ann's Lace, Indian Paintbrush, asters, etc. It is also full of large protruding boulders which which make mowing a challenge. It is best to have somebody march in front of the tractor to spot boulders, turtles, stumps, and other hazards. I am gradually planting junipers, apples, Chinese Chestnuts, etc. next to each serious boulder, to mark them.

If it were fenced, it would make a decent cow pasture or, as the yougest daughter opines, a good llama pasture.

Our next project in this meadow is to push back the White Pines which were invading the meadow like Burnham Wood during a period of lazy mowing a while back. At this point, it's a big chain-saw job: probably need about 50-100 trees down to restore the meadow's original edges.

Trickled home last night and found an alarming, sulfurous odor in the office wing of the house.

Electrical fire? Sniffed all around the place. Noticed it was strongest where the windows were wide open. Stepped out into the backyard. Aha!

The powerful rotten-egg odor of skunk discharge had been wafting in the windows. I should have known.

We enjoy our local Striped Skunks. We have watched Mom, with her kits, dancing and prancing in the spotlight on the lawn out back. Skunks were thought to be members of the Weasel family, but there is doubt about that now. Probably related to the European Polecat. Ours are nocturnal, omnivorous, and solitary except with their kits. Their main predators around here are probably Great Horned Owls.

I think we have two local skunks: One lives under a small outbuilding, and one in an abandoned woodchuck hole. They are good neighbors if you leave them alone.

And yes, the dog did get skunked. His first time, and probably his last. He did not sleep on my pillow last night, and, if it's still bad today, he will get the traditional tomato juice shower/bath.

We like all of the DR products (a great Vermont company) but the one we use the most on the farm is our sturdy and indestructible 17 hp Field and Brush Mower.

The machine really does take down 2" saplings and chews them up, and it can run faster than a weary, sweaty, dirty man can walk.

The only downside is that using the thing is hard work: you have to muscle it around to turn and maneuver it, and it is heavy. Using it for a few hours ends up being a good work out, unless you are just mowing tall grass on a flat surface. I hate saying it, but it isn't a machine for most females. 

We tend to use it in places that the tractors can't get to with the brushwacker, and on slopes that are too steep for the tractors.

Mostly Joe Pye Weed and Goldenrod on this tiny sand island in our trout stream. The butterflies love the Joe Pye Weed, mostly Monarchs and Tiger Swallowtails.

On Maggie's Farm, our Jewelweed (aka Touch-Me-Not) is now in bloom everywhere there are damp, semi-shady spots. Where there is Jewelweed, there will be Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds if you sit down and watch.

Gen. Philip Sheridan, an avid hunter and ornithologist, played a large role in the early conservation movement, especially at Yellowstone.

Painting: Sheridan's famous 20-mile ride from Winchester VA to Cedar Creek, on his war horse Rienzi. The Union victory at the Battle of Cedar Creek helped an unpopular Lincoln gain re-election by a war-weary nation. Every school kid once knew this poem.

We posted this well-known presentation by Michael Crichton a year ago, but I was recently reminded of it by the Assistant Village Idiot who cops to finding complexity to be complicated.

If you haven't read it, please do. It's an excellent discussion of how complicated nature is, and how readily our human good intentions can produce serious unintended consequences. Good graphics, too.

I cannot explain why we are re-posting this bit from last year's Bovine of the Week Series. Just accept that there is a good reason.

Yes, unlike the Musk Ox, the Yak is a bovine, and a cousin of the ancestor of our Western domestic cattle, the mighty Auroch.

Yaks come in a wild and domesticated form. 85% of these cold-climate creatures are said to be in China, and are still used for plowing, meat, milk, wool, and as beasts of burden. They are capable of hybridizing with domestic cattle, yielding a breed which is commonly used as a pack animal in Tibet.

Why yurts with yaks? They begin with a Y. Yurts are Mongolian houses, of course, but I recently learned that you can buy plans for them, and the structures, from several American manufacturers, such as Pacific Yurts. Cozy dwellings for snowy places, cheap and practical - but I'll take a log cabin.

You can't really find vast fields of wild Lowbush Blueberry south of Maine. They especially seem to grow where there has been forest fire or clear-cutting. Always keep an eye out for bears in a lowbush blueberry field.

And Rightly So has a little photo essay on the subject. Here's one of her fine photos:

This moth on a window (thanks, reader) reminds me of Billy Gibbons, with the RayBans and the dirty beard. I think I'll post a ZZ Top tune (below).

Correction: That is two moths, facing in opposite directions, mating. It's more farm p*rn from Maggie's Farm. I did think the leg count was strange.

Blackfish Creek is a tidal inlet which runs from the harbor through the town of Wellfleet, MA. Photo borrowed from this Wellfleet photo site.

Regular readers know that Maggie's Farm has a strong conservationist orientation, but if anyone tries to call us Greenies we will shoot you in both kneecaps with our Colt Python.

I know some readers are inclined to disagree with us about this, but we do believe in certain sorts of planning, and even certain sorts of government "taking," Kelo notwithstanding.

For two examples we like, JFK's Cape Cod National Seashore took the development rights to broad swaths of the Lower Cape (which is the upper Cape). This action not only preserved the feel and aesthetics of the Cape but preserved the unusual Cape environment - and ultimately raised land values through the roof. Without the National Seashore, there would no longer be anywhere on the Cape to hunt, the salt marshes would be filled in, and the place would look like the worst parts of the Jersey Shore. (Photo is a view of Wellfleet's Chequessett Neck).

Another example we like is Britain's Town and Country Planning Act of 1947. Without that act of Parliament, Britain would not be a tourist destination: it would look like Indianapolis. It protected the towns, and it protected their farmlands and open spaces. Yes, it essentially confiscated development rights - with the voters' approval. (Photo below: A view of English countryside, just outside of town.)

 So, while our pure Libertarian readers grouse and grumble, let's get to the point. The good Prof. Pat Deneen recently hosted Roger Scruton at Georgetown, which speech is now Scruton's most recent published essay, A Righter Shade of Green, in The American Conservative. Scruton isn't so much in favor of government taking - he is in favor of a local sense of trusteeship. That's the right idea, but I haven't seen it work in practice too often: local politics are not the highest form of human civic evolution or future-orientation.

As Prof Deneen notes, and as we have frequently noted here, poor stewardship of our precious land in the US is made possible by the "externalization of costs" to other people and to future generations. Example: highways. Example: development of good farmland for 1/2 acre zoning.

Read Pat Deneen's piece here. He quotes Scruton's conclusion:

What then is the conservative solution, if there is one? A revival of trusteeship is the only hope for the future, and this attitude is natural to human beings. They enter the world through no choice of their own, to be greeted, as a rule, by the love of parents and the security of home. The trustee is the one who recognizes that his home, and all that it means, are inherited things, things to be safeguarded and passed on. This attitude exercises itself at the local level in the voluntary associations and small institutions of civil society. It is the core component in that associational genius that Tocqueville discerned in the American people. It is the legacy of a political order that regards people, not rulers, as the source of authority and the fount of responsible decision-making.

Environmental movements on the Left seldom pause to consider the question of human motivation. It is so clear to them that something must be done that they leap to the conclusion that it must be done by state power and imposed by law. The problem with that approach is that it makes mistakes into permanent legacies and provides no incentive to ordinary citizens to do what they are told. Conservatives, on the whole, are more respectful of human nature and will recognize in the attitude of trusteeship a feeling to which we automatically tend, when given the freedom to exercise it.

Read Scruton's whole essay at American Conservative.

Morning mist rising at 6 am in New Hampshire's White Mountains on Sunday. Thanks, reader.

All summer we see and hear the sturdy Belted Kingfishers rattling up and down the stream with their dipping flight pattern, hunting for minnows and small water critters. During migration, I have seen them around salt water inlets too, but I think they prefer freshwater streams.

I have no idea where they have dug their nest: they dig nest holes in banks, and are highly territorial.

Our Belted Kingfisher is found across the US and Canada, and there are a number of species of Kingfishers found around the globe.

Another bank-nester is the drab Bank Swallow, which nests in colonies near water. I have only seen a couple of Bank Swallow colonies in New England - one of them had about a hundred nests - and they are very local in distribution, unlike the Kingfisher. Apparently man has expanded their distribution because road-cuts provide good cliffs for their nest holes.

Photo: A female Kingfisher. The males don't have the red band.

We linked the article at Science Daily about how golf courses can, with a little effort, turn their vast open spaces into wildlife sanctuaries without damaging the golfing. Turns out 70% of a golf course isn't really walked on.

Well, it's a movement. The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System now includes 78 golf courses worldwide. Maybe it is many more, now. Here's an OSU Extension piece on the subject. Here's an Audubon International piece.

The idea is great because it is both modern and old-fashioned: golf evolved on the wild moors of Scotland in harmony with the native scenery, and not in a sterile environment like a glorified version of miniature golf.

Image: 16th hole at St. Andrews

We have written many times about how using ethanol (alcohol, aka moonshine) as a gas additive is a scam, and nothing more than a massive farm subsidy which is raising the cost of food.

But I just learned more. When you use gas with ethanol, it can destroy your gas-powered power tools and mowers. I just had a conversation with my local Stihl and Scag dealer yesterday - my Stihl hedge trimmer needed a new carburetor. Guy said the ethanol kills these machines - their lines, their carburetors, etc. He says it's also murder on outboard engines.

He explained that it's less of a problem for pros who use their tools daily, but if you use your tools occasionally, the alcohol - being water-soluble - separates from the gas and makes a mess. The new carburetor cost me $97.

His advice: Run the machine down to empty if you aren't going to use it for a while, and always use fresh gas - don't use two-month-old gas.

If you are like me, you have five gallon containers of vintage gas-oil mix left over from last fall. Get rid of it, somehow.

Here's one article on the subject.