Frosty fog

It has been socked in for the last couple days with freezing fog.  Pretty but kind of chilly...its a wet cold ya know.

This is Layla

So It occurred to me that the last post was kind of a downer... I miss Jada but life moves on.   Here is the new pup for the farm.  This is Layla.  We are going on a year (in February) since we got her.  She came from a shelter that brings dogs from southern California where they put down a lot of animals.  We were told she was boxer mastiff mix-likely the boxer but probably not the mastiff.  The ears point toward American Staffordshire terrier.  But I guess we will never know.

This is her in the first month we had her around

The rest were taken today.

She is a lot "muscleier" now eh?

We have had several sessions of training and she does pretty well.  Unfortunately she is a chicken chaser so doesn't have free run of the place just yet.  She does like chicken poop though...  She is much smaller than we thought she would get but in a way it works better.  She likes riding in the truck and is great at jumping in on her own.  She chases the deer but hasn't caught one yet.  At about 45 pounds she can really pack a wallop at times.

One year ago today...

Jada met her demise on the road in front of the house.  We got Jada while living in Albuquerque NM.  She was a nervous city dog moderately afraid of cars.  We taught her to swim in the Peralta river drain that was Ariel's study site.  She got to do some good hiking along the way.  When we got the farm she kind of was in her element.  She would swim circles in the pond by herself, roam the grounds and likely kept the coyote and deer to the edges, both became problems after she was gone.  She knew to leave the chickens alone, and the cats, but some how manged to find several possums to harass.  She was a good dog.

But she decided that part of her area was the road ditches, full of food wrappers, dead animals and all kinds of good stuff.  She would stop at the gate if we were around, but go on through if we weren't.  In the end she jumped out of the ditch at the wrong time.  She died quick.  The freaked out kid driver stopped and apologized. We buried her near the edge of the pond, possibly her favorite place.


Rest In Peace Jada

Some more chicklets on the ground

Well, Little Red stayed tight and hatched 6 of 7 eggs we gave her.  Nothing from the golf ball...

Cranky chicken gone broody

Little red went broody really fast, but was incubating a golf ball.  We gave her 7 eggs to sit on, but she still looks unhappy.  Check back in 21 days to see if they hatched.

A Day at Gold Beach

 
Ariel had to work for a day at gold beach putting a creel survey together, so I got to tag along.  Lindsay came up to dog sit (thanks Linds) and we left on Sunday.  I went to Otter rock beach and wandered there for most of the day.
It kind of secluded and pretty neat the tide was out so there was a lot of beach.

After the beach I looked around town a little, checked out the Mary B Hume historical site. Unfortunately the boat is rotting into the bay due to a unclear notion of ownership and a bunch of lawyers.

This western gull hung out on the rail of the hotel balcony.  We didn't feed him.

After Ariel was done we just kicked around the area a little and hung out for another night.  We had dinner from the Barnacle Bistro which was great.  All in all a nice little trip.

New crop of Norther Flickers almost ready for harvest

Flicker chick begging-its 2 siblings are still in the hole

We have a fir tree near the house that was gradually topped and is largely rotten.  Various birds have tried to use it.  I've seen black capped chickadees, sapsuckers and flickers investigating this tree.  The first year we lived here there were starlings in the hole...thus the chunk of plywood nailed to it.  The current residents are Northern Flickers and the 3 chicks are getting pretty close to fledging.  The adults have been busy at all hours keeping them provisioned.  Neat.

Trip to the east coast

Well, we decided to take a trip.  My niece Jade was graduating from high school, it had been at least 10 years since I visited the east coast.  I'd never met Savannah, my second niece.  Lots of reasons to travel it seems. In the past I would have had time to spend road tripping and making my way to a destination, but no longer. We booked a couple tickets on Delta Airlines and off we went.

After dinner of standard pub fair with Blair at the Alameda Brew house we boarded our plane on time for a 2248 departure. There isn't much to say about flying these days.  The planes are cramped, and full.  We kind of slept on and off but managed to see the eastern shore line of Lake Michigan as we approached Detroit for our plane change. Kind of neat. Perhaps it isn't fair to judge a city by its airport.  The funniest exchange after living in coffee land for a while was at the coffee kiosk that wouldn't take my coffee cup behind the counter..."You know health department" was the only retort.  We changed planes and arrived in Norfolk without any issues.  Our bags even arrived as well.  All in all a smooth uneventful series of flights.  Thanks Delta!  My sister Annmarie picked us up from the airport.  Since we arrived largely wonked out from lack of sleep, we mostly just hung out and took an actual nap for a few hours.  Lauren was at work, but we were deposited at her house to stay for the first couple days.

Tuesday was another day of just kind of kicking around.  We started the day with pan cakes and enticed my Dad to go for the aerial flip of the last cake.  The dogs rejoiced with the end result....We saw Annmarie's house for the first time, and eventually made it to the beach at Sandbridge. The day was a bit brisk but the water was fine.We jumped waves, and splashed around for a while.  After a while everyone was a bit cold and very hungry so we left and went looking for lunch (it was bout 1530!).  We stopped at Sandbridge Island restaurant  The Oyster PO-boy was decent (get it without the fries on the sandwich).  Eventually we worked our way back to the house and settled in for the evening.  Tomorrow we had big plans.

 Wednesday morning Ariel, Me, TOG (my dad), Lauren, Vinny, and Paul Craze (Laurens neighbor) headed down to the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, near Roanoke Sound North Carolina.  We had scheduled a half day fishing trip on the Sea Era with Captain Dean Johnson and his mate Ladd Bayliss.  Ladd worked with me on the bird project here in Oregon but over the winter had migrated back to her natal waters along the east coast.  The trip was great, mildly rolling water, perfect temperature.  We were after bluefish and Spanish Mackerel and started fishing right out of the inlet.  We had 4 rods out and everyone was diligently watching for the tell tale twitching of the rods, looking off the stern of the boat.  Vinny caught the first fish. But everyone had to agree that my dad had the best form in bringing fish aboard.

  Eventually fishing slowed down in the inlet and we headed south in order to fish our way back.  The Sea Era is a very neat boat.  Steady and fast, and super efficient only using 15 gallons of diesel per hour. We cruised south for about 30 minutes trolled slowly back north with everyone taking a turn pulling in a Bluefish.  Eventually we picked up a few Mackerel with only the Battaglia's on the boat (TOG, Lauren and Me) catching the only 3 caught.  It was a nice chill day on the boat, a good day to be on the water.                  

 

After returning to dock with our catch, a total of 24 bluefish and 3 Mackerel, we handed them off to the efficient if not all together pleasant fish cleaning crew (who can blame them really...cleaning the fish of drunk tourist all day).  They made quick work of our catch, for the ending of a really great day on the water.  Lauren herded her drunk charges back to the car and got them safely home.  Ariel and I wandered around the docks looking at other catches, while waiting for mate Bayliss to finish her duties.  Ariel and I had decided to stick around and talked Ladd into taking a day off to show us the sites. Eventually we made our way to Ladd's house, up highway 12 from the fishing center and across the bridge to Roanoke island and the town of Manteo.  She rents a quaint little house along the western edge of the island that backs up to marsh land.  It is a sweet little pad, really nice and quiet. With black ducks out back and several species of flycatchers kicking around.  Wednesday evening we hung out made some linguine with pesto. Ladd's friend Dave came by and fried up some soft shell crabs, which are blue crabs that recently molted on the latest full moon.  Excellent!     
 After a pleasant and not too hot night we started Thursday with a hearty breakfast, of fried eggs.  Then headed out to see the local sites. We started at Ladd's parents place and met her mom, Hilda, and dogs. It is really neat spot under the trees along the water on the east side of Manns Harbor NC.  Straight across the bay from where Ladd lives this summer.

From here we went back across Highway 64 to and down cape Hatteras to Pea Island.  There we took a walk out into the wildlife area.  We saw royal terns, common terns, tricolored herons, little blue herons, least terns, peeps, eastern kingbirds. The temperatures were good and it was a really nice walk.  Of course we were hungry eventually and we headed north to Tortugas Lie.  I never intended that this be a food blog or entry, but is seems that while on vacation you tend to eat at lots of different places.  Safe to say this is likely the best place we ate on this trip.  I had the Blacked yellowfin tuna with mango salsa and goat cheese, along with a shared side of seasoned fries.  The food was stellar!  The fish was perfect, and critical here the bread was a decent hearty roll, not that typical gooey, white bread found at most American sandwich shops.  I highly recommend this place for the food.  Ladd had the same as I did, and Ariel had fish tacos, which too were excellent.  From here we did a little shopping and eventually made our way to Wanchese NC home of Bayliss Boat Works.

 I'll let the boat works web page tell the story http://www.baylissboatworks.com, but suffice to say it is impressive and a bit hard to fathom.  These boats are built for people with more money than I can really imagine, but John Bayliss clearly takes pride in building the best boat possible.  The attention to detail is incredible, and the boats are rather epic. There is a disconnect though in the fact that the folks building the boat take pride in the craft of building the boat, while the eventual owner simply takes pride in the fact he has the cash to commission the boat.  One is clearly a higher quality position, but the two are inextricably linked.

After a whirlwind tour of the shop we tried to go for a boat ride in one of the first boats built by the works and recently restored.  Ironically engine trouble (air in the fuel line) sidelined the whole thing.  Oh well, next time perhaps.  Instead we went back to Ladd's house and finished the day with more food, hard crab, salad, and beer.  Full again.

On Friday Ladd had to work a morning trip so Ariel and I wondered to downtown Manteo. We found coffee and a bagel.  Kicked around for a while, birding etc.  Eventually we stopped into the Outer Banks History Center.   Turns out that Ariel is relative royalty on the outer banks.  Her great grandfather   (on pops side) was Robert L. Wescott, a very well known name in the region.  It turns out that he apparently owned the Kill Devil hills where the Wright brothers worked on their aircraft, and made their first powered flights. We have only scratched the surface, but it seems that Ariel has some pretty neat links to some very important history.



Ladd got back from the trip around noon and we again went out to eat. This time to a place in Manteo called Ortegaz.   While the chips and guacamole were good.  The Tuna sandwich I had was pretty lame, especially considered against yesterdays fare.  Remember that gooey white bread...find that here. After lunch we were going to go to the beach, but Ladd got called in for a random drug test that the Coast Guard does of captains and mates.  So Ariel and I went to the beach and got caught in a thunderstorm.  Ladd made it back and we went up to Kill devil hills for the final hour of operation where we got to see where the Wright brothers made it all happen.  After absorbing the history of the Kill Devil Hills site we headed back to  Manteo.  Chilled out for a bit, got some Lemonade, and Walked around down town.  We need to get back to Chesapeake to help out with party prep etc and attend the actual graduation party.  We bid our farewells to Ladd and Dave and headed North.  We were navigating a bit by feel but managed to make our way back.  It is really interesting to note how flat the region is...in sharp contrast to the Willamette valley.

Saturday started with lots of prep.  Running errands to pick up food and supplies etc.  Vinny and Paul had most of the tents, tables, and games set up.  It was all pretty smooth.  The DJ showed up, the music got loud.  Jade was the center of attention as it should be.  We drank and ate and chilled. It was a good, fine time.  Lauren handled the logistics well and everything was pretty smooth.  I think that this party was also for Lauren and Vinny as well.  Jade will be off to college in the fall and while only 2 hours away, it will be nice for them to have a bit of a life change.  Jade seems to be a pretty thoughtful, intelligent kid (for her tender 18 years) so her parents have little to worry about.


Sunday, was another down day.  Ariel and I went to the beach early. It was quiet and chill with only the metal detector guys walking the beach. We looked for breakfast but found nothing but starbucks in the vast urban sprawl of the region.  It really takes leaving to realize how homogenized this country has become...and searching that much harder for the little differences and unique experiences that are still around.  Later in the day TOG and I went to a small private Airplane museum, we looked at planes, talked about stuff.  It was a nice chill day.  For dinner we went to Annmarie's house for one last family affair. A good ending of the day and trip.

Monday June 20 we flew out after a morning of chilling with Lauren.  We got a final ride in her fancy new convertible on the way to the airport.  Now I have to note here that Lauren LOVES her convertibles.  For years she had my Dad's old 72 Skylark, which has largely gone beyond serviceability. Recently she acquired a VW EOS, which is a fancy hard top convertible.  It is pretty slick with all the bells and whistles.  If you want to see Lauren grin BIG just ask for a demo and she'll take you for a ride. Anyway she dropped the top after leaving us at the Airport and we headed home. This time through Minneapolis, again largely uneventful, except for getting a good view of hood and other southern mountains of the Cascades as we arrived.  With this view we knew we were back.

Predator in the henhouse...dilemma

One rather difficult aspect of trying to farm or keep animals is dealing with the critters that reside nearby.  Whether its mice tracking feces all over everything, birds eating fruit, chipmunks stashing seeds in inopportune places; there always seems to be some issue to deal with.  Most of these are minor.  Generally a fix is patching up a hole, cleaning up a mess, moving some things around, or putting out some dissuasion in the form of noise makers.  Our latest and most difficult predator to date has been one depredating the fowl during the day.

In late November, or early December (the precise chronology has been lost) one hen turkey was eaten.  This was a little more than a month after our first dog Jada had been killed (a different story but perhaps a contributing factor in developments).  Not too long after the first turkey was taken the tom turkey was killed and mostly eaten.  Our first error in this process is that we left the carcass out, the next day is was moved and almost all consumed.  Without any clear evidence of what could be taking the turkeys we really didn’t know what to do.  Fortunately after the tom turkey was killed the hens had learned to fly to the trees for safety.  The chickens were another story.

Our chickens are free range during daylight hours.  At night they are safely tucked away in the coop.  We thought this arrangement would work with most common chicken predators who are nocturnal; generally raccoons and skunks.  The chicken house is pretty stout, and has a door that opens on a timer in the morning.  They then get to range around the property and still enter the coop for egg laying.  While they have total access to the entire property the chickens tend to stay north of the creek and between the orchard on the west and the eastern fence. They often hang around the house, to the north.

Several weeks after the tom turkey had been killed we lost the first chicken, big red.  She was found just south of the coop under the fig tree-totally consumed except for some feathers and a bit of egg shell that was one of the first after a winter hiatus.  The next day I caught the first glimpse a coyote.  He was just south of the coop heading west.  He paused, looked at me then trotted off to the west.  It was the late morning, solid daylight, and this coyote wasn’t concerned, with me...trouble.

We decided that we need to shoot this coyote.  Given his apparent lack of concern of humans, diurnal habits, and possible habituation to the chickens, I didn’t figure he would leave on his own.   I double checked and tuned up the rifle- a Ruger model 10/22 with a scope.  A clean kill was necessary here.  I verified with ODFW that this was legal-it is, as a land owner losing livestock, you just can’t possess any parts afterwards.

Trying to find a coyote part time is difficult.  After the next chicken was taken I staked out the place for 2 cold days in February- to no avail.  I saw the coyote about 4 more times, generally he saw me first.  I tracked him in a rare snowfall, which provided a glimpse in to possible ways on and off the property.  On February 24 our new pup Layla picked up his scent, she got worried and stuck close- I then saw the coyote about 50 yards away watching us.  Most of these situations I either wasn’t armed or the situation wasn’t safe for shooting.

In early March we were clearing brush near the coop, heard a commotion and Ariel got there first to see the coyote, she yelled at it and it ran off...again no gun near by.  About a week later we were at the house, again heard the chickens making a commotion and Ariel got there first to find the coyote grabbing Mary the Maran, I ran to the west/southwest to try to intercept his path...but to no avail, he slipped by again.  After this we did some further brush clearing to limit his cover onto and off the property.

On April 18 the coyote killed our white rooster and ate every thing but his spurs-I was out of town on what was to be my last work related trip and Ariel was at work.  The frustrations were pretty high.  It is very hard to work around the place, keep the gun at hand, and one ear on the chickens for any commotion.  Innumerable times I went running down to the chickens making a fuss with the gun to find nothing.

May 4 we were walking around birding, Ariel, Layla and myself, and had a pretty crazy day.  The dog was out front near the garden and seemed to pick up on something, Ariel looked up and saw the coyote running off.  I ran back to the house for the gun, came back and Layla and I set about trying to track the coyote.  She was strong on the scent of something and scared up 2 deer.  Now I was confused, deer and coyote in a dense little spot?  I asked Ariel if she was sure it was a coyote- she was 100% sure.  The pup and I crossed back to the south to keep looking.  Layla picked up another scent and went off- I followed her uphill to the south where I saw another deer- a little buck.  Just then the coyote came out of the trees and streaked off to the northwest.  I managed to click off the safety and get 2 shots on the coyote missing both- he was moving fast and dropped below the hill very quickly.  We looked for the coyote for another half hour or so but never turned him up.

This past Sunday May 15 came the nest encounter.  I was in the green house picking Kale for a late breakfast.  Ariel came out just as I did we heard a commotion.  I grabbed the gun and trotted off toward the coop.  The chickens were headed for the house pretty quickly but were still spread out.  The rooster was calling an alarm. As I rounded the wood shed about 35 feet from the house I caught of glimpse of grey fur in the bushes about 3 feet to my left. The coyote vanished to the east.  I dropped in along the north side or our metal shed heading east then around the corner of the shed. There about 50 feet away the coyote paused.  I could see his head and shoulders framed by vegetation.  I clicked off the safety, aimed and shot.  The coyote ran.  I thought I missed, I heard a sound I thought to be the bullet hitting the vegetation.  I ran to the south and east hoping to intercept him but could find him.  After getting caught in some blackberries I decided to go get dressed and the dog and I would try again to track him.

I went to the spot at which he was standing when I took the shot, with the pup, she got the scent and got to business she was moving strongly to the south.  On the north edge of the oak patch I saw the coyote first (Layla is pretty short and couldn’t see the coyote).  He had died about 100 meters from the shot site...I hadn’t missed.  The coyote that looked so large, standing on the horizon or in the sights was quite small.  He weighed less than my dog.  I checked the coyote for the bullet wound.  There was an entry wound just above the right fore limb, into the chest cavity.  It wasn’t an instantly mortal wound but was as clean a kill as possible.  He died fast.

I don't relish this killing.  There is a strange empty void left.   There is sense of a slight, barely perceptible change in the universe.  Perhaps it comes from chasing this critter and learning about him...then it is harder to accept removing it from the earth.  We decided it was something that needed to be done.  We do it either for the “safety” of ourselves, our resources, and our home space.  It isn't easy and I don't really want it to be.  The least  I can do is be thoughtful about the process and take care to do it well.  I hope that I have done that.

At 11:38 last night I was awaken by a sound.  It was single coyote somewhat nearby, barking couplets, for a few minutes.  This was a bit over 12 hours since taking the shot. Perhaps the mate was coming by to find its partner, checking his last known location, picking up his lingering scent.  How long ‘till she know he is gone.  Our chickens might still have a problem.

Spring might be on the way...at least the birds think so

This spring has been largely colder and wetter than usual.  Frankly I'm looking forward to some hotter temps...cross your fingers.  We have had some great bird observation over the past couple days.  Pacific slope flycatcher, dusky flycatcher, olive-sided flycatcher, Nashville warbler, lots of Wilson warbler and orange crowned warbler as well.

Ariel found a red-breasted nuthatch nest in one of the large oaks, and there is a house wren using the "grape pole" which is a rail road tie upright in the ground near the grapes.  This is the third species of bird that it has housed since we have been here.  Both black capped and chestnut backed chickadee and now the wren. Last night we saw a green heron on the pond as well.

At least one of the houses we put up might be occupied-tree swallows in the house by the pond

The inaugural post...Welcome to Sapsucker Farm.

Why Sapsucker Farm?  As cool as it might be to be harvesting sapsuckers from the ground (imagine rows of corn) we named the farm after this bird simply because of the extensive sapsucker sign around the place.  Sapsuckers generally bore shallow holes into trees, in remarkably linear fashion.  The sap leaks out and the birds come back to the holes, to “suck the sap” thus the name.  Actually, they are likely more interested in the insects that are attracted to the sap...but sapsucker sounds better than bugsucker so I guess we can go with it. 

Our particular flavor of sapsucker is the Red-Breasted Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus ruber), one of 22 woodpecker species in North America and year around resident of the western part of Oregon.  They are pretty striking little buggers.  This time of year they are initiating nests, with lots of drumming and bantering about.  The sapsuckers are one of several great resident birds in the area.

So what will this blog be about?  That’s hard to say really.  I plan to talk about the comings and goings on the place, plans and changes to the farm.  I guess what I realized in my previous lives I spent much more time taking notes and recording observations; something I don’t do too much any longer.  It just slipped away and wasn’t any longer much of a habit.  Perhaps this blog will server to rekindle that aspect of life again, but perhaps not.  I’ve often thought that life was about reinvention.  I was an itinerate wildlife biologist for many years (I credit Pete Goldman with planting that seed); more recently I have been involved with supervising similar research/monitoring work.  While not without some really good things about it, and some great people to work with, in the end management really isn’t my thing.  I missed the daily outdoor work, the more basic observation, hearing the birds.  Hopefully this farm will develop into something productive and sustaining, but at least it is outdoors and active.