On the eve of Halloween, we are half way between the beginning of fall and the beginning of winter. The weather so far has been reasonably benign with enough rain to bring an end to the drought conditions which afflicted my area this past summer. Minor frosts have gnawed away the tender vegetation, though as yet no deep freezes to harden the ground.
The brilliant fall foliage which made an excellent display this year has dropped away, literally, giving me an opportunity for aerobic exercise in the yard. I do not use those noisy abominations called leaf blowers. A conventional rake is my tool of choice along with an old beat-up plastic garbage barrel for collecting the leaves. The leaf litter gets deposited in a variety of spots around the house including as mulch for my gardens. All will rot down eventually, returning the nutrients they contain back into the soil for future trees and plants to take up in their turn.
The hawthorn trees in my front yard have dropped a percentage of their leaves, revealing bright orange-red berries. The berries reputedly have medicinal properties, being a source of antioxidants, anti-inflammatory substances, and may lower blood pressure and cholesterol. I haven’t tried them out, but the lovely glossy color does make it tempting.
They are popular with squirrels, turkeys and robins though my hope is that they will attract other berry-loving birds such as mockingbirds, cedar waxwings or the ultimate Holy Grail; ruffed grouse or bluebirds.
Turkeys have been trekking through the neighborhood recently. The flock I saw a few days ago numbered about fourteen. I couldn’t get close enough to determine if they were males or females, as in the fall turkeys will congregate in gender segregated groups, toms with other males and hens with their female offspring in their own group. The turkeys I photographed on my front lawn several weeks ago appeared to be females.
The usual fall invasion of mice into the house brought out my mouse traps. I show no mercy to these little rodents as they gnaw incessantly, can damage wiring and spread disease to boot. With a good crop of acorns this year, their population has boomed along with that of gray squirrels and chipmunks. Good pickings for the red fox I have seen occasionally short-cutting through the woods in back of the house. I can usually tell when he’s about by the shrieking crows which follow him as he goes.
Another predator of mice and rodents showed up recently in my garage. As I was returning from a walk and stepped into the garage, something scooted rapidly by near my feet. I caught a glimpse of a reddish back and assumed at first it was a red squirrel. But the movements weren’t right so I retreated back outside to see what would pop up.
Turned out it was a short-tailed weasel, a long lean creature, still in his summer colors. Attempts to capture a picture of this ferocious little beast for my blog were futile as he moved so fast, all I got was pictures of a blurry brown smear. So I had to cheat and download a little picture from the Internet.
I had wondered where the chipmunks disappeared to and I guess this answers my question. Weasels are relentless hunters, generally devouring anything smaller than themselves and, if they can, anything larger they feel they can tackle. They are the bane of chicken farmers everywhere as once inside a coop, they will kill any bird they can grab, often eating only a few internal organs or perhaps the brains, leaving the rest for the unhappy farmer to curse over. But if he will clean out the mice, I won’t begrudge him a few chickens (I don’t own chickens anyway).
That’s all for now. Until next month. Happy Halloween!
