Critters Cool and Cunning

Last night we saw a hummingbird-sized moth drinking from the morning glories, at dusk. It was spectacular, huge with white diagonal stripes on its back. I'm pretty sure it was a White-lined Sphinx, Hyles lineata. This photo is from the informational site maintained by Bill Oehlke.

The other day I saw an unwelcome visitor: a groundhog (woodchuck, same thing) inside our fence. He was also too quick for me to get a photo. We've seen him and/or his relatives many times since we moved in, usually along the wooded edge of the tennis court. The old rusty fence had many openings, so he could move around the yard wherever he pleased. When faced with the new chain-link, he just dug his way under. He ran out as soon as he saw me, and I stuck some rocks in his little tunnels, but now I'll have to patrol that edge of the fence for varmint holes, Carl Spackler-style.

Goodbye, Cozy Thicket

This was the area between our house and our closest neighbors. It was a briar patch, with wild black raspberry bushes that produced delicious berries, if only you could reach them among the thorns and poison ivy and mosquitoes and snakes. So the hauling guys cleared the area last fall. (We don't actually own a chainsaw.)

Here, the lilacs in the foreground have been hacked down, the half-dead silver maple in the background was removed (with a burr oak planted to replace it), and we liberated three cherry trees from the brambles (late summer 2004).

Thies borrowed a tiller and spent a few hours demolishing the giant roots that were still left in the ground. He put a big dent in Mount Mulch, then we planted some grasses and a few spirea (donated by Ann & Mark). One afternoon, I was hand-pulling a circle of weeds around one of the cherry trees. I got up for a drink of water, and Anna saw a huge garter snake slither from the weeds into the brush pile beyond.

That's the brush pile in the left-hand background. Last year we couldn't have imagined standing in this spot. The view is to the drive-through gate, with Mount Wood Chip beyond, and there's the playhouse.

Sometimes You Need Professional Help

One area demanded backhoes: the no-man's-land between our driveway and the road. Here's what it looked like before Hughes took care of it. (When we moved in it looked even worse, but Dad showed us that it was possible to mow it when he visited.)



And here's how it appeared in the spring of '04 (and now, except that everything's grown a bit). Also, note the lack of six-foot thistles: Don leather gauntlets, hack with limb loppers (that's what I call the branch-cutting tool), remove with pitchfork, spray Round-Up on stump, repeat.

Here's the ultimate "before" shot of the front of our house. Projects, left to right:
1. Lilacs with waist-high underforest of garlic mustard. Weeded by hand, edged, and mulched.
2. Maple tree, lost in big storm, summer 2003. Mom, Dad, and Great Grandma were visiting at the time, and Dad dragged it into the brush pile.
3. Barberry hedges in front of entry. Since pruned into submission.
4. Voluntary tree, roof-high! Removed with Mr. Dick Farquardt's chainsaw, spring 2003. In additional to smacking large branches against the house even in good weather, it housed many happy birds. Most notably, the nutso male cardinal who bloodied himself in repeated attacks against his own reflection in the second-story window. (When my grandmother was told about this, she said, "Is it a cardinal? Because cardinals will do that.") I never thought that birds could register facial expressions until I saw it sitting on a hedge the day after the tree was removed. He was obviously thinking, "Where the @#%$# is my @#$@#%ing tree?"
5. Evergreen (pine?), ratty and deer-bitten. Chainsawed.
6. Limestone slabs piled on well access (what is this called? The spout? The pipe?). Since replaced with fake hollow rock. When I lifted one of the stones to remove them, I found a huge toad and a yard-long snake co-habitating.
7. Redbud tree, all dead except for one branch. Dead branch just peeking into the right-hand edge of the photo. Also chainsawed.

Before, During, and After

I originally thought that I'd be able to post a lot of "before and after" photos here. But when our roadside ditch was a forest of thistles, it looked so horrendous that I didn't think of photographing it. I'm much more aware of recording the pre-beautified (butt ugly) bits now. Here's a "before" to go with the May 24 photo. It's the north end of the tennis court, just before the final section of the old rusty fence was ripped down (here the huge climbing rose is using it as a trellis), before we built the stone beds. The common element in both pictures: three potentilla bushes along each photo's lower edge.