Author Archives: Steve

Winter softly, coldly slinks away


The advent of Spring at the Bluecircle brings its share of surprises, from a (? last) burst of lake-effect snow to an outbreak of small tornadoes and nightly visits from a portly skunk.  Meanwhile, the greening of buds and grasses proceeds.  A new batch of hybrid poplar cuttings rests in the greenhouse and awaits more sun and fewer frigid nights.  The first bare-root trees of the year are planted and today’s soaking rains are just what they needed to settle in their new rows.

The Bluecircle hens have agreed that Winter is over and egg production is back to normal.  They are happy that most of the coop window covers were removed to restore their view of the big world.  Fortunately the red fox of the Woodland Conservancy who brought a feathered chicken dinner home as “take out” last week enjoyed his meal a few hundred feet beyond their coop.   Now the winds of March have scattered the feathers of this unfortunate prey.

 

Visiting a prairie beyond the circle

Six hundred or so miles southwest of Paw Paw Lake lies Prairie Village Kansas were you can walk wagon ruts from the 200-year-old Santa Fe and linked Oregon Trails. Beyond the community park that preserves the “Prairie Highway” heritage older, well-preserved homes fill this southeast suburb of Kansas City. Only in your imagination can you see the gently rolling hills spread with prairie grasses, now dusted with a little snow or trampled by freezing rains.

This eastern terminus of the frontier trails to the West is far from the sheltering ring of the Bluecircefarm, but free of lake-effect snow drifts. Visits totaling weeks here have let Sophie establish her daily route of neighborhood inspection and nap times. But she looks longingly at her space in the back seat of the truck and will be glad to leave this one house, two dogs neighborhood.

She’ll be bringing a member of the Bluecircle family to interim residence in the guest house, widening her choice of people to love and protect. I think she’ll enjoy keeping track of a bit larger family. The orange “U” trailer behind us will be as big as the prairie schooners outfitted here in the 1820s but our journey will be shorter, and far easier.

Fallen leaves, needles and temperatures at season’s end

img_1995Bright October afternoons of oak and maple leaves swirling in the wind are gone for another year.  The last red raspberries and tomatoes have frosted away so only b’sprouts, tiny broccoli and milkweed pods persist in the garden beds.
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A few yellowed needles drop from the Bluecircle pines but it will be many years before they make a layer of mulch under a mature canopy.  On a recent hike near Gun Lake fallen needles from the tall pines decorated the still-green maples.

But now the first gusts of lake-effect snow have brought shivers to the hilltop. Bronzed leaves that evaded the mulch pile blow randomly between the trees, finding company in the piles that grow by fences and shrubs. And the sun sets low in the almost-winter sky. img_0164

Trees of the Bluecircle after Six Summers

dsc00875The months roll by on the Bluecircle and soon the last of the Fall colors will be under the first blanket of lake-effect snow.  Mowing is almost done for this year and both the machine and mower are ready for a break.  The red oak grove and Douglas firs pictured here hide the spruce and pines behind, but the last leaves remaining at the top of the poplars show them towering over the field.  After six years of planting, sun and rain this area of the farm is beginning to mature.

dsc00871North Watervliet Road at the bottom of this hill marks the east edge of the property.  Two-year tulip poplar, maple and oak seedlings here will eventually define a path into the older plantings above.   White plastic “grow tubes” around some of the maples are needed to discourage grazing by the doe and fawns that traverse this entrance to the farm.

dsc00870Looking northwest over a recently cleared and planted area with hybrid poplars and tiny pines in the foreground.  Taller Scotch pines and wind-bent poplars are beginning to hide the storage barns.   Behind this clearing rows of white and blue spruce seedlings will mark a corner of the Bluecircle.

A walk in the Wilderness

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A week’s camping in Wilderness State Park at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula was highlighted by warm days, cool nights and virtually no biting bugs.

The large stands of mature red pine and hemlock in the park are linked by lightly used hiking trails and abandoned logging roads. The dune terrain is gently rolling and for the most part unblemished by public access.

At the western end of the park a peninsula of conifers, sand and gravel beds extends far into Lake Michigan and is reserved for pedestrians, birds and its native species.IMG_0087

Looking up into the canopy of mature pines, oaks, firs and a few maples reminded me of the future of the Bluecircle trees, a forest in its early days. IMG_0094

Beauties and the Beasties

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First, the beauties of mowing in midsummer include the scents of flowers and cut grass. The Queen Anne’s Lace is beginning to fade with goldenrod soon to come. The garden beds are overgrown with tomatoes ripening faster than they are needed and a few summer squash are still filling in the ground level. We’re impatient with sweet corn that isn’t quite ripe enough to pull.

And then there are the risks of the field when the weeds have grown tall. A hidden groundhog den neatly trapped the rear wheel of the Snapper mower, bottoming the deck and adding a
“tow out” break to the afternoon chores. Another good assignment for the Gator.

A hornet's nest on a maple seedling lurks in the weeds

A hornet’s nest on a maple seedling lurks in the weeds

The pink tree flag in this picture marks a second-year maple seedling in the weeds. Just below it, and with its bottom nearly touching the ground, is a very active 10-inch hornet’s nest. The photograph fails to capture the path the lucky author used to speed away from the beasties, leaving these weeds (and the nest) to the frosts of October.

Pomona Point Neighbors

My neighbor shared this crisp late-summer view of the Bluecircle Farm from recent aerial photography of the Pomona Point area on Paw Paw Lake.  Pines, spruce, poplars and oak march like ragged battle lines across the grass.treefarm

As Pomona Point approaches its 150th anniversary Bluecircle Arts recently tried its hand at publishing and crafted a brief history of the Point and its neighborhoods.  This is now an e-book: “Pomona Point Neighbors at Paw Paw Lake”   http://www.blurb.com/ebooks/586338-pomona-point-neighbors-at-paw-paw-lake .  The book expanded a March, 2015 post on this blog about the history of the Bluecircle land to tell the resort history of the peninsula.

Snow on the roses

Snowy Bluebird Sophie the snow-loving dog was a lot happier with today’s April snow than the bluebirds in the woods. A stiff north wind and freezing temperatures for a second day brought 4-5 frosty inches to the Bluecircle. The Spring greens of lilac buds and the daffodil patch are already re-emerging in the noon sun but it’s too soon to put the snow shovel away in Watervliet.Greens in the snow

Ashes to ashes, chicks to hens

With apologies to the Book of Common Prayer that directs “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” many of the tall but dead ash trees on and around the Bluecircle were felled last week.  All were victims of the emerald death (ash borer) a couple of summers ago.  When the first 10″ trunk snapped in two in a recent storm, leaving a fifteen-foot stump and thirty-foot mass of broken limbs across the path, it was time to get the rest safely down and converted to firewood. That second step will take a lot longer than the first.Peeps 1 mo.

Meanwhile, first in the cottage kitchen and now in the coop five little hatchlings have grown feathers, big feet, tiny combs and a little courage.   “The peeps” are buff Orpingtons and I’m sure they are looking forward to  weather warmer than we’ve had the last few days.  The coop is connected to a wire run but so far the little flock hasn’t ventured more than a few steps from the security of their coop and its heating pad.

 

 

Shadowed snow invades inland

IMG_1833Downwind of Lake Michigan Winter brings many kinds of snow … tiny grains like white millet, wet flakes that hurry down, or light, dry rafts of giant flakes that swirl around the trees.   When the air is cold,  dry and gusty and the blue sky is cloudless the sun can burst from behind a lake-effect snow band bringing sudden blinding whiteness.  Just as quickly it can be enveloped by the snow cloud and dimmed – temporarily.   Yesterday a brilliant morning sun encountered the lake effect and painted gray shadows on the shaded side of falling flakes, making them silent grey invaders headed for the pristine drifts below.