Tom McCall Statue at Riverfront Park, Salem

Yeah!  The Tom McCall Curriculum is launched!  I am so excited.

Please take a look! I am so proud of this piece of work. 

I look back at my first  attempts, and want to gag.  They were so bad.  I just couldn't find any kind of voice for the project.  I couldn't decide on a format.  Then slowly with Matt Love's very strong opinions of what had to be in there, and Tom Olsen's commitment to the video piece of the project.  It started to come together.

I was emailing back and forth with Dwight from the Oregon Historical Society right up until launch time last night, working to get it right.  In spite of that, I am sure that there will be some typing errors and other needed modifications.  Too big of a project to have everything perfect at this point.  BUT we will just keep working to make it better and better.

Okay, enough of my rambling! Please, take a look at Tom McCall: A Better Oregon.

Rubber Boas!

We know that spring is around the corner when the rubber boas pop out of the hillside.  Jackson was rooting around on the only sunny day we have had, and there it was.  The first rubber boa of 2011.

They have tails that look a lot like their heads and will try to fool their predators into thinking that they might be a rattlesnake by shaking their tail, while their head is neatly tucked under their coiled body.  I am not sure what that might fool.




Their main food source is a nest of baby mice or baby voles. Not satisfied with one or two, they will attempt to eat all in the nest, and fend off the mother with their tails.  (Those tails again.)  Often their tails will be covered with scars.

We love that their main food source is voles.  Heaven knows that we have enough of them. 

The boas look kind of slimy and somewhat intestinal, but are very soft, and when picked up will wrap around your wrist, in a nice kind of way.

The rubber boas like to be touched.  Probably like the body warmth.  They are much sought after by reptilian lovers (probably a name for them), because they are so docile.  They have never been known to strike or bite a human.

They have been used to help people overcome fear of snakes.  I have seen pictures of people walking around with rubber boas like they were a piece of jewelry.  Iccckkkkkkk!!!!!!  Though I have to admit that since the first of April, I have been keeping my eyes peeled to see them.

AND the porcupine is still munching around up on top of the hill.  I am thinking that it is a female and that she has either had her baby (ies) or is about to.  Considering that porcupines are nocturnal, I can't figure out why else we see her during the daytime.  Maybe packing in all the food so that she has milk to feed the young during the night when they are active.  Just my best guess.  Does anybody really know?

I just have to share what we saw today!!

Can you tell what he (or she) is?

 

This is the first time that either of us have seen a porcupine here on the farm.  He was up the hill and just munching away at little plants.  Was not concerned at all about our presence.  I guess with his defense mechanism, he does not need to be too concerned.  We were able to get very close, well, as close as we wanted to be, and he just ignored us.

Let's take a walk!

In spite of the rain and the cold, most every day we take the dogs and walk through the woods.  Sometimes I just want to stay in a warm house and sink into my winter (still feels like winter) lethargy.  "You take the dogs!" I say.  I have things to do.  Important things.  Work that must be accomplished immediately.  "You take the dogs!"

And then I look at Libby's face.  She really doesn't want to go without me.  And I look at Jackson, who gets so excited when we all go together.  And then I take a look at Mr. Shoulder to the Grindstone, and I say, "Hey, let's go!"  And never, never, never, am I sorry that all my so-very-important stuff is set aside so that we can take a walk in the woods.

"It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts
as for the subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees,
that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit" -Robert Louis Stevenson

Common Mergansers

Well, we are pretty happy that the previous visitors have left.  Those hippos had no business in Old Moore's Valley, and they were way too large for our small ponds. 

We had common mergansers in the pond this morning.......................having sex!  The male holds the female underwater, satisfies his urges and then swims off.   No cigarette, no sweet kiss, just takes off to catch another crawdad.

Easy to identify by the bright orange beak.

Cute punk hair cut.

Strange Visitors to the Ponds

We were really surprised to wake up this morning and see visitors to the pond never before seen in Old Moore's Valley.  Spent most of the morning watching their playful antics.  Today is the first day that felt like spring, so maybe that's what caused them to surface. Not sure how long they stuck around, but definitely a joy to see this kind of diversity here on the farm.

April Fools!

The Great Sunflower Project

My friend Emily got me some Lemon Queen Sunflower seeds so that we can participate in The Great Sunflower Project.  www.greatsunflower.org  We know the value that domesticated bees provide as pollinators. But the value of  wild bees is often overlooked, and not just in rural areas. People from all over the country plant Lemon Queen Sunflower seeds and then count the bees that are attracted to their backyards, gardens, or patios. They send the numbers and descriptions into The Great Sunflower Project.

Last year was the first year that I had planted sunflowers that did well. I planted them right in the middle of the garden, and they liked it.  The bees did too. I would go out in the mornings and there would be all kinds of bees that had spent the night on the big sunflowers. 

I think this would be a great project for kids, daycare centers, after school sites, etc.

From the Great Sun Flower Project web site.....
To maintain biodiversity and to meet the increasing demands for ecosystem services, we must move conservation science into cities (Rosenzweig 2003). Cities are important for conservation for two reasons. First, 80% of the United States population already lives in urban areas (United States Census Bureau 2003). Second, cities encompass about 3% of land (59.6 million acres) in the United States and 230,000 additional acres become urban each year. Because of their large human populations, cities are the places where many ecosystem services, such as environmental quality of life, are delivered (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Given the growth of the urban population, it is clear that we need to develop the knowledge necessary for maintaining natural habitats in the urban setting and find a way to give urban dwellers access to nature. 

We know that pollinators are declining in certain wild and many agricultural landscapes. However, little is known about urban pollinators. Our recent data on bumble bees in an urban setting suggests that urban bees may also be declining (McFrederick & LeBuhn 2006, Fenter and LeBuhn submitted). While the loss of these pollinators is important, it is more important to understand what effect these losses have had on pollinator services"

Last year the sunflowers were a haven for all kinds of wild bees, so it will be fun to document it this year.