Slugs

You know it has been overcast, cool, and raining a lot (this is supposed to be June not April) when the slugs are gliding through the grass at mid-day. Slugs are interesting, but if you search for information on the Internet all you get is how bad they are and the various ways to kill them because they will eat your garden. Many of the sites include chemical controls, which I ignore. My favorite recommendation was for "good garden sanitation." More on that later.

First, let me introduce the slugs in our yard. I tried to determine the species, but could not find a good source on slug identification. When you Google "slugs" you get a lot of unrelated stuff. Anyway, this may be a common garden slug, and it may be native to Europe, not the U.S. If anyone reading this is a slug expert please comment on your best guess for species.

Okay back to the slugs, these snails without shells. Here "it" is. Yes, they are or can be both male and female. They are hermaphrodites or better known today as "transgender." Alright, here is the smooth, yellowish-brown naked mollusk.

The head is to the left. The two dark blue antennae or "optic tentacles" are used for smelling and seeing. The top half by the head is the "mantle," which in other mollusks is what creates the shell. Somewhere underneath is a guillotine jaw and a scraper-like set of teeth for chewing through plants, fungi, and decaying matter. They are true composters. A blowhole for breathing, more scientifically known as a pnuemostone, is located somewhere on the side of the mantle.

In Spanish they are called "babosas" from the verb "babear" meaning to drool. And that they do. They excrete a mucus or slime that serves many purposes. It helps them glide along without harming their tender feet; remember no shell. It prevents them from drying out and leaves a slime trail for mates to follow and so they can re-trace their "steps" to a food source.

Slugs move slowly and mostly at night, except when they move on cold, wet June days.

Okay, on to the tips for good garden sanitation....

• Avoid watering gardens at night, since slugs like things moist; morning watering allows plants to dry before nightfall

• Plant veggies and flowers with good air movement and ventilation between plants; crowding invites slugs and they especially love hostas

• Stake tomatoes and other fruit-laden plants to keep leaves and fruit off the ground

• Encourage robins, toads, turtles, ground beetles, shrews, and garter snakes, all predators of slugs, as are ducks and chickens

• Apparently containers filled with stale beer buried at soil level are effective at capturing slugs

• Since slugs move so slowly it seems quite easy to pick them up and dispose of as necessary if creating havoc in the garden, otherwise seems fine to let them be

As the rain and clouds persist, this might be Slug Fest Week in New Hampshire.

Toad Stops Traffic

I just read Tom's post at Tom and Atticus, and had to link to his recent entry. Great story and well-narrated as always. A must read.

Living 02

While driving home at suppertime this evening, I heard the letters section of All Things Considered on NPR. I always enjoy these, as the writers or callers often express my own sentiments about a previous story. Tonight was a comment about toddlers playing with hi-tech gadgets, a story that ran last night, and which I missed.

Apparently toddlers these days are playing with cellphones, iPhones, smartphones, blackberries, and other hi-tech gadgets, often without supervision, which means they sometimes end up in toilets, crawfish fryers (really!), and just plain lost. Well, a listener submitted a comment about that story, writing to say that the commentators failed to provide the obvious recommendation to avoid these snafus. Ahhh I knew what he was going to say.......and I chuckled.

The NPR host went on to read the letter....."The obvious recommendation is to keep the gadgets away from toddlers." Well, shoot, that is not what I was thinking. Even I know that toddlers want things that adults are "playing" with, so that isn't the solution. In the original NPR piece the hi-tech guru talked about "toddler locks" on phones, a toy smart phone for kids, multimedia bedtime stories for kids. Egads!

Talk about all children left inside. The NPR commentators did laugh about going back to tin cans with string, the calling method for children of yore. That would be me.

Here are my ideas. For multimedia bedtime stories -- open the window. Listen to bullfrogs, barred owls hooting, coyotes howling, the train rumbling in the distance, all the night time sounds in your neighborhood. And for the adults -- here is my blackberry in the toilet solution..................

This is my calendar for work and home. I can pull it out anytime, see a month at a time, it works without batteries or charger, it doesn't even need the sun. My mother gives us calendars as Christmas presents; calendars that she has gotten free in the mail from some organization that she has contributed to or not. So, they are free, are nice presents, are recyclable when the year is over, no toxic materials to dispose of when the gadget fails. I have had a calendar fall apart, but really a calendar can not fail.

A few years ago while at a professional meeting with my wildlife peers it was time to schedule a meeting. I pulled out my trusty wildlife calendar given to me by my mom. And my colleagues laughed as they pulled out blackberries and spent several minutes turning them on, poking them to locate the month and date. Meanwhile I was waiting patiently (or not), pen in hand, to record the date on my calendar.

Keep those calendars coming mom.

Snapper

While on a walk through a local state park, I had stopped to look over a large pit full of brush and wood chips left by the snowmobile club after clearing trails from winter blow downs. My companion on the walk commented that turtles love to nest in these mulch piles in his yard.

Just then I looked across at the berm.......and there just above the bare slope....

was a snapping turtle. We walked across to take a closer look. This good-sized snapper, with a carapace about a foot long was not moving. She was silently laying eggs. Given that they lay 20-40 ping-pong ball-sized eggs, she was going to be there awhile. Click on the photo above to see if you can pick her out.

She did not move a muscle, or hiss, or snap. This gave us time to admire her long, prominent tail with the saw-toothed ridge, the smooth edge to the carapace, except at the rear where it looks like jagged teeth.

Snapping turtles have muscular legs with 5 sharp claws and a sharp powerful jaw. The carapace and plastron are joined only by a narrow bridge. So, unlike other turtles, they can not pull their head and legs completely inside their shell. This makes them vulnerable on land and a reason for their aggressive behavior when out of water.

Snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina

This female, peacefully laying her eggs, reflects their behavior in water. Snapping turtles are shy and docile when in water, slipping quietly underwater. They hang out in all kinds of wetlands, feeding on small fish, snails, frogs, ducklings and other birds, carrion, cattail shoots and other plants.

This reptile is often maligned, yet it evolved 60 to 100 million years ago. Despite this long existence, most snapping turtle nests are lost to predators such as skunks, raccoons, foxes, and coyotes. We moved on, leaving the female in peace to finish laying her eggs. When done she will crawl down the hill into the wetland that borders the headwaters of the Lamprey River.

If the nest is successful and the eggs hatch, the sex of the young turtles that emerge will have been determined by temperature. Warmer temperatures produce females, cooler temperatures produce males. The eggs won't hatch for another 2 to 4 months so who knows what this summer will bring for temperatures and snapper offspring.

Killdeers Hatched

Four fluffy killdeer chicks are scurrying around one of the plowed and mostly planted fields at New Roots Farm. Their parents are pulling any potential predators far away by feigning a broken wing and calling loudly. Perhaps the reason for their Latin name, Charadrius vociferus.

I took this photo of the eggs on May 17th.

The nest was a small scrape, a slight indentation lined with a few pebbles at the edge of a plastic covered row. This row was left unplanted until the eggs hatched. The big day was Wednesday, June 3rd. As soon as they hatched and dried their feathers, the precocious young walked out of the nest.

Farmer Renee took this photo of two chicks
still in the nest the day they hatched. Cute.......

It is fun to watch the chicks move about just like the adults. They run a few steps, stop suddenly, do a slight bob, look about perhaps for a flushed insect, then run again. When still, they are nearly impossible to see. The mobile chicks remain dependent on their parents and do not formally "fledge" for another month. At that point, the adult pair, which both incubated the eggs and feed the young chicks, may raise a second brood.

For now they are busy searching for grasshoppers, earthworms, beetles, snails, and seeds to feed four hungry chicks. And the New Roots farmers (and their helpers, such as me) can finish planting the row.

Long Lunch at Longmarsh

Yesterday I spent much of the day indoors researching documents for two different work projects. As I drove from The Nature Conservancy office to the Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge around mid-day I was casting about for a place to stop for a picnic lunch, where Bella could stretch her four legs. I drove on Durham Point Road along the shores of Great Bay and turned off on Longmarsh Road, a dead end dirt road that leads to one of my project sites. As I parked, a local passed by in her truck warning me about the ticks, beware of the ticks she repeated. I am always prepared for ticks and as it turned out we did not see a single tick on this walk.

Longmarsh Road, an old town road that is now closed to vehicle traffic in the middle section, is aptly named as it passes by (and sometimes through) a series of wetlands, influenced by beavers. This wetland drainage is known as Crommet Creek, a focus of land protection efforts by public and private groups. As a result, much of the area is permanently protected.

I read once that many old town roads pass across wetlands where beaver dams provided a narrow and somewhat flat place for horse drawn wagons to cross. Along the base of one of the longest beaver dams in Crommet Creek the town built a boardwalk. The dam and the boardwalk lie over the old road.
On the impounded side of the dam, a band of light green, that looks like scum, is actually thousands of tiny plants commonly called duckweed, the smallest flowering plants in the world. They are free-floating and eaten by ducks, hence their name.

Spirodela polyrhiza, common duckweed

In this same wetland I caught a snapping turtle napping, with all four legs draped around a floating log.

Bella and I walked on to the next large wetland. Here we rested and watched an osprey carry a fish to its mate and young in a nest on the far side of the wetland. The osprey called and soared, appearing to give the fish, clutched in its talons, a ride around the wetland before dropping to the nest. Just behind and above the osprey nest sits a rookery of 8 or more active great blue heron nests. I could hear the young herons, their croaks carried across the water. The rookery is visible in the photo below, the osprey nest is atop a dead white pine just in front of the herons.

Stonewalls abound in New Hampshire. As beavers alter water levels over time the stonewalls lead into the water, where once they bounded a pasture.

By now it was well past the time that Bella and I should retrace our steps. We passed back by wetland after wetland. Just as my mind started to wander back to my afternoon work I looked up and saw a red fox trotting toward me on the woods road. She was probably on her way to catch some frogs at one of the ponds. She darted back into the woods once she caught sight of me.

At the next wetland I caught the movement of a beaver swimming along the wetland edge. He crawled over stones and logs to get to a stand of sedge. Shortly he swam back with a beautiful bouquet of fresh green sedge in his mouth and swam off, I assume to present the fresh food to his young and mate. As I peered through my bins an object rose up out of the water like a spaceship; it was a painted turtle covered in duckweed. At the same time a red-shouldered hawk screamed and soared overhead.

As we passed the last wetland a symphony of animal sounds accompanied our last steps to the car. A scarlet tanager scratched out its five notes, a pewee whistled a plaintive pee-a-wee, a chipmunk chipped from the stonewall, and the baritone bullfrogs croaked out their rum-rum-rum.

Now that was a fine long lunch at Longmarsh.

Living 01

Today I am starting a new once a week post on my search for a simpler life, called Living. For me a simpler life is one that uses fewer fossil fuels and extracted resources, relies on more local foods, restores a balance to nature's processes, maintains my (and my family's) health, promotes peace, and supports efforts, both local and global, that allow others to do the same.

I have actually been on this quest for several years, certainly since I left a full-time job to begin consulting. That is one of the conundrums of this search for a simpler life, as it takes time to live in balance with nature given our current culture. Most people are working long hours, in part to buy things that don't support Living, but instead are harmful to our health, our community, and our planet. I am not immune to buying such things, hence my continued quest.

Here is one personal dilemma that I am mulling over. Most of the nature blogging community would likely concur that photos, beautiful photos, enhance the written story. The digital camera that I use is getting old and does not take great photos (I know that it is more about the operator than the equipment, but sometimes equipment does matter). So, I have dreamed about getting a new digital SLR camera. I am not so much debating the cost of such a purchase, but the resources that go into making the camera, extractive resources and processes that are arguably harmful to the planet and possibly harmful to a community in some far off country. So my very purpose in writing the blog -- to appreciate and protect nature -- has me thinking about whether I really need a new camera.

This debate goes on in my head every day. Do I really need a new camera? Of course not, so today I lean toward sticking with my current camera. Perhaps this is also the time to take up drawing.

One aspect of Living where I have achieved greater success is relying on more local foods. I have written about my gardens and helping at New Roots Farm in previous blogs. Planting, weeding, harvesting, and eating your own food is a cornerstone of Living. This week we are enjoying the "fruits" of our labor -- rhubarb, Swiss chard, asparagus, eggs.

Swiss chard, asparagus, and eggs from New Roots Farm.

New Roots young farmer Caleb feeding Swiss chard to the free range chickens.

Bright Lights Swiss chard, one of the best foods.

Hey, those pictures aren't so bad!

No one likes to be told what to do, whether they are my 6-year old niece or a large country at odds with the U.S. My belief is that you can only show by example and by offering positive alternatives. My niece is a great artist, I think I will ask her to teach me to draw. They do say that everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten.