From West by Northwest.org Voices of Spencer Creek Spring into Summer By Reida Kimmel Jun 15, 2006 For the last six weeks, every day has brought some new sight or surprise. The summer birds are finally coming in, far later here than down in the Valley. The Rufous hummingbirds arrived on a Sunday in April. I had just put out the porch feeder a few days before, and celebrated their arrival by getting my spinning wheel and sitting on the porch spinning and watching the little gluttons devour sugar water. They were so hungry at first that the two males shared [!] the feeder. But not for long, for soon each started looking around, and discovering the Enemy on the other side of the feeder, took off in a fury of humming buzzing defense of the precious territory. Several weeks and several feeders later, the little warriors are pretty content, with blossoms and tiny gnats to plump out their diets. The goldfinches and black-headed grosbeaks arrived within a day of each other this weekend, so now I am keeping busy pouring sunflower seed into their feeders. Most people find sheep dull or worse, but let me tell you, they can be hilarious! In March I moved our sheep off the hill into the pond pasture for the first time since last summer. One of our sheep is still less than a year old. She was far too young to breed last fall, and as far as she is concerned, she is still a lamb, but, poor thing, she is condemned to live with a bunch of very old and sedentary aunties who would never dream of playing. Imagine Fiona's joy when she came down to the pond pasture and discovered Chickens! The chickens, busy tearing up manure piles, wallowing in the dirt, and generally oblivious to danger, were stalked and then pounced upon, repeatedly, by a Sheep. They just could not believe it, so back to business as usual for them. But Fiona is not easily bored, and she spent several afternoons playing her chicken games before moving up to the really exciting stuff, Horses. Now our horses are used to being bullied by the sheep, who will steal their food and poop on their hay if they get into the barn, but Fiona's game was a totally new assault on equine dignity. Once or twice a week if I am not riding much, I like to exercise each horse on a thirty-foot longe line. It's a wonderful way to improve suppleness, responsiveness to voice commands, and also to give each horse a good gallop if the arena is not too muddy. Both horses love longeing, but sometimes our buckskin mare Angy can be a little lazy and I have to run with her all over the arena to inspire her. I was doing just that, when to both our surprises, up the bank and into the arena came Fiona at a dead run, bouncing along beside Angy for a few strides and then popping back out of the field. "Cute" I said, "and rather weird". Then it happened again, and again. Angy was not feeling a bit lazy anymore and Fiona had finally found someone to run with her! Now it is May and there are three new lambs in the field. Their very possessive mothers try to keep them close at all times, but already the eldest, Maude, is going off and leaving her mom very vocally annoyed. Fiona will have some real sheep playmates soon. It's a really good year for wildflowers, especially orchids. Southeast of our property the land rises sharply and the trees on the slope, second growth, crowded and skinny, are harboring veritable bouquets of calypso orchids [Calypso bulbosa] amongst their mossy bases. After last week's heat and sun I would have expected the Calypso orchids to be fading, but not at all. Now there are spotted coral root orchids [Corallorhiza maculata] in bloom too. Often the deer eat all the blooms of the latter, but this year seems to be a lucky one. At the top of the hill, violet-green swallows are swooping and twittering around the old snags. The snags have numerous holes, perfect for nesting. There is room for many families and that is surely why this hill, even though it is far from any water, is so popular with the swallows. There are also martins flying high above in the summer. It is interesting to contrast their high stately soaring flight with the noisy erratic flights of the violet-greens. Closer to home, one of the big snags overlooking our hill pasture snapped in half during a windstorm in February. We heard the boom, like an explosion of thunder, but did not know what had happened until the next morning when we saw that our beautiful snag on which the vultures warmed themselves in the early morning sun was gone. Not entirely gone, as we discovered after walking up the hill. Several large live branches remain. The tree will grow for more years, becoming ever odder in shape, its new top growing up from a limb, less strong, less stable, but still alive. There had been a wild honeybee hive high up in the rotten trunk of the snag. Honeycomb, washed clean by the rainstorm, lay all about the base of the tree. Poor bees. Old dead trees are such wonderful things, yet it's hard to justify keeping one in the yard. For one thing they look dead, neglected, messy. They reflect badly on the homeowner, who must surely be shiftless. And of course, they are dangerous. They can and do fall over, often with tragic consequences. Now we have three dead or dying trees on the place. In the Fox Hollow area all the mature grand firs are dying from insect damage and the effects of the last five years of drought. Our dead trees are all at the far edge of the fields, not particularly dangerous to people. I am adamant about keeping them and looking forward, patiently, to seeing woodpeckers feasting and swallows nesting in these trees in the years to come. In the meantime, I expect to hear quite a few rude remarks about unsightly objects about the place. Copyright © 2006 by Reida Kimmel This article first appeared in Nature Trails, the monthly publication of the Eugene Natural History Society in an slightly different version. Reida Kimmel is a nature writer, board member of the Eugene Natural History Society and an organic gardener/small farmer in the rural backwaters we know and love as Fox Hollow, southwest of Eugene, Oregon. Visit more Reida Kimmel articles at West By Northwest.org: Fish Story by Reida Kimmel To Spray More or Not to Spray More, That Is the BLM Question by Reida Kimmel Aerial Pesticide Assault: The Never Ending Story? by Reida Kimmel Of Forests and Frogs by Reida Kimmel The Last Wilderness: Can the Whales Be Saved in Time? by Reida Kimmel Frog Season by Reida Kimmel Catkins, Mushrooms and Water Spring, Birds, Frogs and West Nile Virus by Reida Kimmel © Copyright 2000-2004 by West by Northwest.org