Tag Archives: Nature

Die mosquito scum!

Nature,

I am a bit behind on posting…well, a lot behind, but there’s another story there that I will tell later.  Anyhow, I think I have mentioned that I hate winter and all things cold (except cold Mt Dew and frozen Snickers bars, and air conditioning), but I do get a special joy when we get our first frost.  Our first good solid frost came Saturday morning.  So, on Saturday morning, when I saw the sparkle of the ice on the leaves, I gave a 21 raspberry salute to all of the dang mosquitoes that died.

I am not exactly sure why, but we seem to have an extra helping of mosquitoes around our place.  We go to other places around Charleston and it doesn’t seem to bad.  I guess there must be swamp land near by…that or else my gutters are jammed up with leaves that hold extra water longer than they should even though I try to keep them clean in spite of the two gigantic trees towering overhead that shed stuff spring, summer, and fall (whew, what a sentence!)  Yeah, probably swamp land.

Anyhow, we’ve had our frost and I got to to see the pretty look of the ice on the grass.  My volunteer tomatoes and herbs are dead.  Now, let’s get back to summer, shall we?

Bugs

Nature,

I haven’t always been all that interested in bugs…at least not enough to have them as pets.  I guess I have always been curious about all sorts of bugs but it was with my bees that my insectophilia became more obvious.  Anyhow, as I was looking over some pics I have taken in the last few months, I noticed a large number were of bugs.  A few were of my kids and family, but that’s not what we are here to talk about now is it?

So, here a re a few bugs pics I found…mostly pretty ones so fear not!

Ok, this next set was pretty weird.  We have a clowder (I learned that from Big Bang Theory) of cats that have accumulated in our neighborhood.  A former neighbor sort of collected cats but never took care of them.  We’ve seen as many as 13 at one time on our doorstep begging for food (and that bugs me, speaking of bugs).  Anyhow, Abigail was outside the other day playing with Tommy and noticed he was too interested in one spot in the yard.  She called me and we rescued a praying mantis.  I like praying mantises…and turtles.  They all seem so primitive and helpless to me.  So, I braved the jaws of Tommy and rescued this praying mantis.  He was indeed praying as I picked him up.  His wings were in bad shape but he nodded his head in appreciation as I set him upon a tree out of Tommy’s sight.

Oh why not…here are a few pics of the kids…they have mixed feelings about bugs.

We took a walk

Family, Nature, WV,

As a family, we’ve been walking in the woods lately.  There may be more to say about that later, but for now, I have just enjoyed being outside and seeing what we can see.  Abigail and I took a walk together the other day.  We sort of just roamed around and skipped rocks in the river and talked and saw all sorts of stuff.  Abigail was super interested in seeing the heavy machinery at one place we were walking, but at the same time, she was terrified it would be illegal to get near it (and maybe it was?)

Isaac spooked a deer right beside him on one walk.  It was only a few feet from him in a hay field and I think he wanted to chase it down just to chat.  I suspect he was excited enough that he might have kept up for awhile.  Outside stuff is just amazing, especially when you’ve been away from it for awhile.  We saw fish and chestnuts and spiders and trees that were probably larger than any the kids have ever seen before.

Abigail was so into this...she wanted to carry it home but I thought Emily might not appreciate our wonder

My work has been stressful lately, but these walks have been so refreshing.  I need to escape technology and it doesn’t get any better than walking in the woods with the family!

Stuff…you know…things…

Nature, Thoughts,

I was looking over a bunch of pictures of stuff we’ve done/seen/enjoyed lately and I thought it might be fun to show the stuff…you know…the things…

Of course, the other day, I posted our score of grapes which we were planning to turn into jelly…real grape jelly.  We got that done.  Usually Emily and I work pretty hard together on that sort of stuff but for some reason, she did all the grape jelly this time.  She is a jelly-making fool!  I am just a plain old fool.  I was busy watching The Colony, a new show on the Discovery channel (cable is evil but that is a heck of a show…if you are into post-apocalyptic stuff)  while she did all the work.  Yeah…still paying for that.

Let’s see, we have seen lots of butterflies and moths around the house lately.  I don’t know why, but whenever I see turtles or butterflies, I like to make sure they are ok.  I stop and help turtles across the road and I always offer a frown when a butterfly gets tangled up with the car (yeah, I know…it’s not much but what can I say?)  Anyhow, we have had a good crop of butterflies around…and dang they are cool!  I am not sure I had ever seen a luna moth before but it was really cool…so beautiful!

Yeah, I guess snails fall into the same category as turtles too…snails are super cool to watch.  I love to see their antennae disappear into their bodies and I am always amazed at how they can stretch.  They’re a little chewy primitive I guess…like turtles.  I am just amazed at all the stuff that just seems to be everywhere if I look!

It’s purple…and huge!

Food, Nature, WV, ,

So…ahem…the blackberries are in full glory right now and we found a newish place to pick and this year’s berries are as big as I have ever seen (including those pretend ones you can get at the grocery store).  We have picked several “messes” of berries and I have enjoyed 2 blackberry pies that my delightful wife has prepared.  She made some good ones 2 years ago, but this year, the berries are purple and huge and AWESOME!

Of course, we live in West-by-God-Virginia where mountain goat commandos go to train.  Our new location is significantly more hilly than previous years so picking in our new secret spot has been interesting and a little prickly.  I have to wear soccer cleats so I don’t slide down the hill through the briers.  I really wish I was more successful at that.  Anyhow, because of the danger (yes, the hills are steep enough that it is dangerous), the kids are not picking this year.  They mostly run around and look for new spots for me to scale.  I think they have grown up a good bunch though.  They still fight like mountain goat commandos and mountain lions, but not while we are working on berries…and that’s worth a big hee-haw from me!

so much for focus...

Aside from the hills being interesting, our new spot is farther into the woods and we have been assaulted by a few ticks this year.  Ticks suck.  I think I hate ticks and roaches more than about anything…not sure why because bugs in general don’t offend me, but I am personally offended when I see either of my nemeses.  Alas, I shall push on in pursuit of the berry.  The blackberry pie calls to me…I must heed its call!

Time to go picking...

2010 – the year of the bee

Bees, Nature, ,

I know the Chinese have long been in charge of managing the years and their animal counterparts.  This year for instance, the Chinese calendar claims it is the year of the tiger.  I see it slightly different here in West-by-God-Virginia though.  This has been the year of the honeybee!

These bees are headed inside the house

On Tuesday evening of this week, I got a call from a couple in South Hills who had a swarm of bees on their window.  I checked it out and it seemed that the swarm had decided to take up residence inside the soffit of their house.  That swarm is still in progress.  We’re waiting to see if they are truly headed in or if they were just running from me as I tried to catch them.

Last night I got home a little before 8.  There was a message about another swarm in Dunbar (a nearby town).   My father-in-law came with me as we loaded up the van and headed out.  The homeowner and her daughter and grandson noticed the swarm in a tree that they had planted for Mother’s day this year.  The usual way to get a swarm off of a branch is to cut the branch and lower it gently into a hive.  Of course, this tree was small and important to them so we went with Plan B (cue the scary music and crazy eyes).  I always carry a cardboard box so I had my father-in-law (who was fully suited up) hold the box while I gave the tree a good shake.  Most of the bees were jolted into the box which we then dumped into the nearby hive.

Home-owner's Grandson L.

The swarm itself was really easy to catch so that part was done pretty quickly.  My favorite part of swarm catching is not really getting the actual bees into the hive though.  The home-owner’s grandson had a lot of questions and was very curious about bees and beeswax and whether they would hurt him, and how they made honey, etc.  Answering questions and talking to people who are curious about bees is my favorite part of catching swarms…and Grandson L.  really made my day.  I chatted with him for 15 (?) minutes after the bees were captured.

All-in-all, it has been a great bee week and a good bee summer…this is definitely the year of the bee!

More swarms…

Swarms and storms

Bees, Nature, WV, , ,

We have had off-and-on storms/rain this weekend which isn’t so much of a surprise itself.  What is odd though is that I got two calls to capture swarms of bees this weekend.  A nice woman in Nitro called me first as she had found a swarm on a branch near her house.  We first talked before the huge rain on Friday.  I figured that the rain surely must have washed the bees away but she called back after the storm and said they were still there so Isaac and I loaded up the bee-mobile and headed to Nitro.

We met the “finder” and some family/friends and the kids were super friendly and excited to check out how the whole “catch-a-swarm” thing goes down.  Isaac and I showed them the hive box and our equipment and talked with them about all sorts of questions they had.  We finally decided we better get busy before rain or dark made it tougher.  I held the branch and Isaac cut it and we had ourselves the first swarm of the weekend.

Sunday afternoon, I got a call from Charleston’s metro 911 service.  They reported a swarm of bees near the United Bank building in downtown Charleston.  Charleston is WV’s largest city so we have all sorts of business, medical and legal buildings here including several high-rise buildings.  Anyhow, the United building is a pretty large white building in the center of the city.  I drove around once looking for a swarm hanging from a tree in the courtyard or someplace more “typical” for a swarm of bees.  Finally I found them on a barrier in front of the building.  It really wasn’t much of a swarm by the time I got there.  I figure the real swarm had probably moved on and the remaining bees were ones that had been out scouting for a new home.  Anyhow, there were enough bees that I had to remove them so no one would come upon them and get hurt (or act stupid).

I parked around the side of the bank adjacent to the swarm.  As I was hauling my equipment out, it occurred to me that I may end up meeting the swat team.  “A bald-headed guy wearing a camo shirt carrying a ladder and a mysterious white box has been spotted walking down Virginia street…all units respond!” went through my mind given the recent stuff happening in New York City.  Anyhow, I donned my suit and moved the bees from the pole to my hive box and headed home as quickly as I could.

As swarm weekends go, I think this was a pretty good one and we had a good time catching them…nothing beats catching a swarm, especially when we have an audience!

More swarms…

It was raining…in my house

House, Nature,

I love our old house and our neighborhood.  We have lots of old and large trees on our property and the properties around us.  We also have gutters on our house.  Leaves and debris…meet gutters…gutters – debris.

Mine was worse than this...and it was raining

You see, in the spring-time, the black locusts make thousands of little leaves and flowers that fall off, oh…um…about this time of year.  They are small enough that they are not stopped by gutter guards so they accumulate in the gutters.  I clean them every year but if my timing is not right, they build up and absorb just the right amount of water from light rains to form a great organic gutter-dam when the heavy rains come.

Anyhow, the dam did its dam thing last night and backed up the gutter right above one of the window wells to a basement window.  We noticed water coming in the house and I looked up and saw water in the window.  It was like my own little aquarium!  I ran outside in the pouring rain (and I mean pouring) to clean out all of the gutters.  I really hate climbing a ladder in the rain but I was able to break all of the dams on all of the gutters which washed all of the dam junk out into the yard.

I had to go back and dip the water from the window well as best I could.  I guess I could have waited until it fully drained into the house but that didn’t seem like a good option.  By the time I was all done, I was soaked through to the bone…and then it stopped raining.

I am going to buy a new blade for my chainsaw today…

Maple Syrup…teaching the kids to work

Green, Nature,

When I was a kid, my parents fully believed in child labor.  My brother and I shoveled snow and cut wood and actually had to clean up after ourselves.  We also carried maple sap through the woods from trees that we tapped to the storage barrel where it was stored until we cooked it into maple syrup.  Every spring we’d haul gallons and gallons of sap on our backs…well, as long as I was bigger, my brother hauled gallons and gallons on his back while I “encouraged” him.  We built a huge fire every weekend and boiled the sap into syrup and generally had great times making the sweet magic from the trees.  Anyhow, with their “advanced” age and lack of kids living in the house, my parents are now, fundamentally opposed to child labor (i.e. they don’t heat with wood).

Not wanting to deprive my kids of the joy that is  child labor making maple syrup, we are tapping our tree this spring.  Yesterday the temperature fit the bill for when to tap (below freezing at night, above during the day) so we did our work.

When I was a kid, we drilled a hole by hand and tapped a piece of pvc pipe into the tree to let the sap flow into our collection buckets.  Our buckets were typically anything we could find that would hold liquid…from milk jugs to pop bottles to commercial sized grease containers.  I found a place to order taps meant for maple sugaring and they work but sort of lack that originality that I remember as a kid.

Anyhow, we tapped our tree with two taps and the sap began to flow like mad.  I only have small containers to capture the sap so I will have to get the kids out twice a day to collect it.  They only have to walk 50 feet to do their chores though.  Maple syrup for them may be waaaay too easy.  Maybe we need to heat with wood…

The rodent war of NW PA

Family, Fun, Nature, ,

My Grandpa is a pretty amazing man.  He never cured any mysterious diseases or won a Nobel prize, but he is just clever and patient and a lot of fun…and he ended the Rodent War of NW PA.

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I grew up in northwest PA where the chipmunk is the region’s mascot.  You see, it is woodsy where my people are.  There are miles and miles of trees and not a stoplight or fast food restaurant to be found.  Critters sort of run the show there.  When I was growing up, we had a bit of a problem with squirrels in the house.  My parents used extreme prejudice in the removal of over 30 in one year…inside the house…in their bed, in the bathroom, the living room…everywhere in the house.

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So folks in the area live a sort of uneasy coexistence with rodents.  Everyone has squirrel problems and war is declared regularly.  Actually, they are more like regional outbreaks and minor skirmishes, but tell that to the people on the front lines.  Anyhow, most rational people know that they should be cautious as they go to sleep at night.  The squirrels are relentless and merciless.

Picture_0011

Anyhow, my Grandpa, the pacifist, sought to end the chaos of war in the area so he extended the olive branch to a local chipmunk, a local tribal leader and the spokes-rodent in the area.  Slowly and patiently, he enticed the chipmunk closer and closer with sunflower seeds.  In time, he was able to feed Edgar Snyder, the chipmunk out of his hand.  He named the chipmunk Edgar Snyder after the locally-famous ambulance chaser who had really annoying ads on tv.

Picture_0014

Anyhow, Edgar and Grandpa struck up quite a friendship and a relationship based on respect and trust.  Edgar would eat from friendly people’s hands.  Once in your hand, Edgar could be moved around by gently lifting his tail and shifting his backside.  As long as the sunflower seeds lasted, he was happy to stick around.

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I was fortunate enough to witness this beautiful thing they had together first hand…literally.  I fed Edgar and asked him to send my best regards to his rodent friends.  In time, it was apparent that my Grandpa had broken the rodent wars of NW PA.  The truce lasted for some time and prosperity returned to the land!