Tag Archives: cutting

Meadowlark

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Blurry but an Eastern Meadowlark Nonetheless

When we moved off the mountain to our home in the valley a few years ago, it gave me a chance to learn some new birds. I knew most of the birds I saw and heard when we lived a couple thousand feet higher, but those birds do not live down here. I learned the bobolink, flitting about the fields, and was happy to know they were fairly abundant. I learned the song sparrow. I got to know the barn swallow. This year I heard a song I had been missing, either because it was not there, or because I simply wasn’t paying attention. I thought it was a meadowlark.

So I looked it up with the power of the internets. Sure enough, at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and its All About Birds web site, I checked the song I was hearing with a recorded one. Eastern Meadowlark is what we had. I kept looking for them and not seeing them. I would hear the yellowish rascal but not see it craftily hiding in the tall grass. See See SEE-yeer. I saw one today, however.

I sat drinking my foamy coffee drink, eating raspberries and peaches with yogurt and granola, when I heard the call. I mean, I literally heard the call, of the meadowlark. So I scanned the field with binos and eventually saw the little dude poking his head up and singing. It kept popping up and down in the grass but I got a good enough look to get a visual confirmation of the species.

Meadowlarks are ground nesters, so now we have a dilemma. We plan to cut the field more than once this summer but I would hate to destroy a nest. They take around 4 weeks from laying eggs to the young flying solo, so I guess as long as we give over a month between cuttings we might save a nest or two. Or maybe not, depending on the timing of things. First bobolinks and now meadowlarks. These field nesting birds make for some mental figure eights. We want to cut the field to provide, eventually, hay for local cows. We also want to cut it to reduce the amount of wild parsnip we have. That plant pretty much takes over and is a nasty invasive that can cause terrible skin burns, so we want it gone from here if we can help it. But the birds…

I do not want to drive away the meadowlarks (or bobolinks or song sparrows) but I do want to cut the field. We will have to monitor the birds to see that we do as little damage as possible. It is good to know that these birds are definitely here. I would hate to push them out just as I am getting to know them.

Trimming the Trees

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Yesterday my wife mowed the lawn.  That was a bit of a messy task, given how wet the lawn has been.  She left tire tracks all over the place.  But it had to be done.  It is raining again as I write this.  The amusing bit, however, was when she tried to mow under the silver maple tree.  We have this beautiful tree, maybe 25 years old, and it grows, like all silver maples, faster than most trees.  The branches have been hanging lower and lower, some of them almost reaching the ground.  The mower has taken a wider and wider path around the tree.  It just gets too scratchy trying to blast through the low branches.  So I took some action.

I started yesterday, clipping the lowest branches.  I had a good pile of branches going before I quit.  Today I busted out a ladder and finished the job.  Well, I finished the trimming part.  I had a big honking pile of brush by the time I was done, and my son was having a blast playing in it.  He has the peddle ride on tractor and he started by hauling the branches into the woods.  He got tired of that after, I don’t know, one load, and then just romped in the leaves and sticks.  He sat neck deep next to his “crashed” tractor.  He wanted to have a picnic in the pile.  I got him a cup of pretzels.

Later, once the sun had dried things a little, I started in on the endless house painting project.  One corner of the house has some lovely lilac and pine trees surrounding it.  It looks nice but it was a bear trying to move around them.  So I busted out the saw.  I have been meaning to prune these anyway.  Last winter we would be kept awake by the pines scraping the side of the house whenever it got windy enough.  Those wily branches needed to go.  I lopped and sawed and now I’ve got some room to work.

I had one other issue, however.   We had two bushes on the south side of the house, the same one I am trying to get painted first.  One of them succumbed to what we think was some kind of fungus.  I cut that puppy down in the spring.  The other one is now kicking the bucket and I need to cut it down before it gets too far gone.  It right in front of a window I need to get at.  The problem is that is it an evergreen with needles.  When the needles are green, they are smooth and soft.  When they get dry and brown, each tiny needle is just that–a needle.  Those babies are so sharp and so persistent they make me just about cry.  Getting one of those in a shoe is painful I tell you.

I started in on this bush but I had to be careful.  I was wearing shorts and Crocs, of all things.  This was fine for scraping and sanding, but not so fine for cutting back the needle bush.  I did manage to cut enough that I can now maneuver at the window.  Of course, the thing looks truly wretched now–a hacked and mangled, jagged, green and brown protrusion.  Now I really need to get that thing out of there.

Since it is raining again, I won’t be able to sand first thing tomorrow.  Looks like I’ll need to slide into some pants, put on my heavy jacket, don the gloves and goggles, and have at that bush.  It’s tough, but I’ll show it the what for.  I’ll make sure to wear some better shoes.