daylily

peony

daisy

moon flower

fiirestick

columbine

stella d'oro daylily

rose

dandelion

dandelion

clover

blackberry

iris

With the passing of each week, Galena Creek continues to grow cleaner and healthier. The freshwater snails are more abundant and I’ve found what appear to be brown trout minnows swimming around. Though I haven’t been able to photograph any yet, there are also crayfish. New aquatic plants, some quite beautiful, are growing and it looks like we’ll have a nice crop of watercress soon.

Muskrats are all over the place. For some, these water loving rodents are cute little creatures. For others, like my neighbor James, they are destructive nuisances. Their burrowing damages his pond, and they are laying waste to the fish he keeps. In parts of the United States and other countries, Muskrats are considered a delicacy. They are said to taste like rabbit or duck. Personally, I don’t see a breast of Muskrat with a side of fava beans in my immediate future.

There a few things that I haven’t been able to identify. If anyone knows what this worm-like little creature is, please let me know.

For me, the creek has become my place for quiet contemplation. It’s a rare day that I don’t spend time along its banks as Anne says, “contemplating my navel.” In a few days, the irises in and along the creek will be in bloom so you can expect to see more pictures soon.

Earlier this week, I made a rather exciting discovery. Clinging to several of the rocks in the Creek were colonies of freshwater snails. The reason this is exciting is because these particular pleuroceridae are endangered and can exist only in unpolluted waters.

The previous owner of Our Little Piece of Paradise raised goats. Galena Creek was, in places, more of a muddy wet spot in the landscape than anything else, criss-crossed with metal fence posts, wire fencing, and shallow railroad-tie dams and bridges. All of that was removed when we purchased the place six years ago, and the Creek has been left to recover mostly on its own. We have done some judicious rock placement to create a couple of short rapids-runs and planted both irises and cat tails. For the last few years, watercress and wild mint have returned in great abundance, acting as a natural filter often requiring care in the late summer to maintain a good flow when water levels are down. Additionally, my neighbor’s cows no longer use the Creek and the late winter snow-melt and heavy rains combined to flush the Creek of any lingering pollutants leaving it in its current, nearly-pristine state.

Also seemingly in greater abundance this spring are the ubiquitous water sliders, a graceful insect whose study by the Chinese may lead to changes in the way water-proof fabric is made.

A bit more interesting, and possibly troublesome, the study could also lead to the “…designing [of] innovative miniature aquatic devices with drag-reducing [properties] and fast propulsion.”

I plan to investigate the introduction of fresh-water mussels and crawfish into the Creek, hopefully leading to an increase in bull frogs this year (read sauteed frog’s legs, they really do taste like chicken!)

According to a Virginia Tech study published in Science Centric (click reload after this link loads), streams such as Galena Creek, “…are natural filters that help remove and transform pollutants that drain from surrounding watersheds, including excess nitrogen from human activities.” The study goes on, “Nitrogen removal in streams is important because it reduces the potential for eutrophication – the excessive growth of algae and aquatic plants in downstream lakes and coastal marine waters,’ said Jack Webster, professor of biology at Virginia Tech. ‘Eutrophication in the Chesapeake Bay has damaged the oyster industry in Virginia…”

Despite the predictions for unusual weather patterns this spring and summer, we expect this to be a good year in the continued return of the Creek to its natural state.

To listen to an excerpt of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, click here.

I don’t know if the seemingly inordinate number of morning spider webs I’ve been seeing lately means anything, like a hard winter, early frost, or anything like that, but they make some cool photos. Here are a couple for your perusal.

The Grits Mess

Anne tends to eat healthier than I do, particularly when it comes to breakfast. She favors whole grain cereal and fruit or juice, while I prefer a more cholesteral laden country breakfast. On those rare occasions when she does have something sturdier in the morning, it’s usually the grits mess, a creation she credits to her Uncle Mac. You start with a bowl of grits and add whatever you wish to it. Eggs, cheese, sausage, bacon, ham, onions, peppers, mushrooms, whatever blows your hair back.

When I went back to college after the army, I joined the Vets Club, a fraternity like social/service organization of military veterans who, like me, had returned to school to complete their education. We did good work, volunteering in a number of areas to benefit the school and local community. We also partied……hard. Some of our parties were legendary, like the time Anne and several other wives mooned the governor, senator, and state attorney general of North Carolina. Parties aside though, we were a fairly responsible group. We used designated drivers long before it was the fashion. And we generally ended our parties with a grits mess, one that included all of the ingredients listed above and then some. If you’ve never tried a grits mess, I highly recommend one.

One of the least pleasant aspects of country life is the variety and number of critters with whom we often share our humble little cottage. For the first couple of Decembers  when I came down for the weekend, I found the place overrun with mice and ladybugs. The mice I expected, but the hundreds of ladybugs, both living and dead were a surprise.

Other parts of the year bring all manner of flying insects, ants, naturally, fleas, ticks, and one of my very favorites: wood roaches. The sight of one in the house causes Anne to display that most Southern of conditions known as the “hissy fit”, and the pile of mulch next to the house is full of them. {Note to self: Make sure they dump the next pile further from the house. Better yet, hire someone to distribute the stuff as soon as it is delivered.}

Our current plague seems to be spiders. I’m not talking about black widows or brown recluses, the ones that can turn your switch off permanently if you’re not careful. I’m talking about your average, run of the mill webslinger, the kind that, overnight, can spin a web the size of a pickup truck in the bathroom. Now, intellectually I know that spiders are very beneficial to the control of other insects, and that we shouldn’t kill them indiscriminately. And I don’t as long as they stay outside. I’ve watched the spider in the picture above work on that web for two days now. The architecture of a well built spiderweb is one of nature’s engineering miracles, and this one looks particularly well done.

But, should the little dude who built that beauty decide to move inside, it’s squash-city for him. I’ve been bitten by spiders twice in the last four years. Both times at night while I was asleep, and both hurt like the dickens when I awoke. They also took several months to heal and left permanent scars. So my live and let live policy with the natural world doesn’t apply to spiders in the house. I take no chances, and I take no prisoners.

Here are a few comforting thoughts. No matter where in the world you are, you’re usually no more than six feet from a spider.  And those daddy long-legs we used to let crawl on us as kids….those daddy long-legs have a very dangerous venom, one of the most dangerous venoms to humans. Luckily, their mandibles (jaws) aren’t strong enough to break our skin. Now, isn’t that special?

Our largest sunflower, which we have dubbed Audrey II after the man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors, seems to be taking forever to bloom. We’ve been waiting and waiting………

Ok. Good winter or bad winter? I haven’t a clue. And despite everything the Ol’ Wives and the various almanacs have to say, I don’t think this guy does either. Nice coat though.

This morning after sawing a 2 x 12 for a raised bed of lettuce, I flipped over one of the pieces and this guy jumped out of the hole at me. I didn’t make the hole; I think he did. After a few minutes of trying to shake him out, he finally left of his own volition. Whereby, I squashed him.