A small lesson from the climate change front.

My tongue hurts.

Because?  Well, because blackberries (the berry kind) don't grow in Minnesota; it's too cold.  We have black raspberries, red raspberries, lotsa other berries, but the true blackberry- nope.  They're all over Wisconsin (the southern half) and Iowa (the southern half) - but - none of my neighbors know what a blackberry is.

Which I've usually been very thankful for.  Raspberry vines/canes are thorny- but blackberry vines will tear your shirt, your jeans, and your skin, bigtime.  I've fought through blackberry tangles enough in other places that I'd rather not have them around.

But.  Now- they're here.  Seed dropped by birds, most likely- and they've been getting established near the Little House for a couple of years.  Almost fruited last year- but the drought really kept anything from happening.  This year is wet- and so-

Looks yummy, huh?  And there are tons of them.  Could be making two pies a day.

They're wild- but they're big.  Like 3 times as big as our wild black raspberries ever get- so; very tempting.  My hand, which takes an XL glove.

I've been feeling fatalistic about it- if the birds are dropping seed- they'll drop more next year.  If the plants are surviving - then, they'll survive.  So.  Might as well enjoy this luscious free wild fruit, right?  Of course!  Going to lose the fight to keep them out anyway.  I go out in the morning, pick 5 or 6 handfuls and inhale them for breakfast.  And lunch.  And dinner.  Why wouldn't you?

Now it's been years since I've eaten many blackberries.  They are a bit seedy- but you just crunch up the seeds, and it becomes part of the whole "sweet/sour/juicy/crunchy/wild berry" mouth experience.

And, I'm sure I knew this as a kid, in Indiana and Ohio- but I'd forgotten.

If you eat fast- NOT ALL THE CRUNCHY BITS ARE SEEDS.

I know this for a fact; because- one of the crunchies got to me before I crunched it- and bit me on the tip of my tongue- hard.

I spit him out- but not fast enough, and my tongue still hurts.

I'm still shoveling them in.  But I do now, usually, give the various critters also enjoying the berries just a little time to scurry out and away, before inhaling.

One little bit of good bee news.

This started out as a comment over at The Crusty Chicken; but it kept growing, and got to comment-clogging proportions.  So I moved it here.

Basically, Ruchi  sent out a plea for some good news to cheer her up; things looking just a tad depressing out there these days.  We are, indeed, scrod, in many ways.

But, Ruchi, I do have a very nice piece of happy news for you (and I suppose everybody else, too.)  I haven't written about this event elsewhere, been kind of saving it up.  

I have about 150 apple trees; 30 years old; grafted them all myself, on random seedling standard rootstock. (And for those horticulturists out there who are shaking their heads and asking "Why??!!" - I had excellent reasons; now borne out perfectly.)

Last year; Spring of 2008, I went out to see how the bees were doing. I'm sure everybody here is aware of the Colony Collapse Disorder problem.  There has been loads of media coverage, all heading towards "This is it, then, we're all going to die."  All our food will disappear!  All our professors are clueless!  (no comment, there...)

Like any orchardist, I've watched the bees every year. Most years for the last 20, my apple trees have been full of wild European honeybees; many many thousands.

It depends on the day, of course; on a calm, warm, sunny day, the bees are hard at work. If it's cold, windy, and cloudy- they may still be there, but in much lower numbers- if the whole flowering season is stormy, apple orchardists worry about poor pollination cutting the crop.

Last year, on a coolish but calm and sunny day, with the orchard in full bloom- I watched 4 apple trees, for about 15 minutes, and couldn't find a single bee- of any kind. Not only no honeybees, but no bumblebees (we have about 5 species, I think); no carpenter bees, and none of the tiny wild ones that you overlook when the tree is buzzing.  Not one bee.  Not even a bee-fly.

(click on pics for bigger view)

That got me pretty worried. We've had other years where the honeybees were down- but the wild bees were always abundant. From 2003-2006, we'd let a beekeeper place around 10 hives on the farm; he got basswood and clover honey; we got a little honey for ourselves, and the apples were loaded with bees. But in 2007, he couldn't afford the gas for the travel anymore, and pulled his hives.

I made a point of looking the next day. No bees.   Understand, now- I was really looking hard for any bee.  And finding- zero.  I'd never had that happen before, in 20 years.   And I looked the next day. On the third day, I did see a couple bumblebees, and one of the tiny ones.  In 15 or 20 minutes of searching- an abysmally low number of pollinators.

At that point I got distracted by some emergency or other, and was not able to keep tracking the bee behavior in the apples.  I was pretty sure we were going to be toast, crop-wise.  For most of the spring, I was not figuring on the apples for any real food, or money that year.  I thought there'd be a few apples; but nothing like a crop.  

And- I was wrong.  We had a huge apple crop; maybe our biggest, though it's hard to compare them, because our 30 year old standard trees are still dramatically increasing their yield, year by year.

This is one of our Golden Russet trees, in 2007; in 2008, the crop was much heavier, probably at least double.

Somehow, Ruchi, the apples got pollinated.

My strong belief is it was the wild bees, and other insects; they just weren't flying on the 3 days I looked, but somewhere in the week and a bit pollination window, they must have had a day they liked, and they got the work done- just fine.

There's actually an article today in the NYT kind of suggesting this "might be possible" - since it looks bad for the honeybees, the author says: 

At present, wild bee populations are too small, too few and too far between to take on the task of pollinating our crops. That, of course, is why fleets of domestic honeybee hives must be trucked in to do the job. But if the wild bees were provided with habitat of the right kind and in the right geographic arrangement, they could achieve pollination both reliably and effectively.

You may notice that the writer is excessively pessimistic - on all points.  At least here- where we use no pesticides, and always keep habitat diversity and complexity high, as a matter of good practice.

Gosh.  It works.    Not in some distant future- last year.  Somebody might want to tell the Times...

So, Ruchi.  Does that help?  :-)

A good part of the lesson, I think, is that the mainstream media is now in a doom feeding frenzy- it's the trend.  So where they were all denying doom 6 months ago; now they all want to be in the forefront; and have a slight tendency to expand the doom quotient in their stories now.

Nature can find a way- if we let it.

Death to the Weasels!

Ha, I bet you're expecting another diatribe about the Wall Street Grand Casino.  Nope.

At the moment, anyway, we're talking about actual weasels.  So, I'm getting ready to finally put the guinea pen together- and as I walk out by the windmill- here on the path is- a dead weasel.  

My first reaction was- "oh, no; the damn dog has killed a weasel!" - because- in the larger scheme, weasels are our friends on this farm, big time.  They eat mice.  And more mice.  Tons of mice.  Mice are huge pests and crop thieves.  Big bucks.  I love weasels, mostly.

And this one was beautiful- a full grown male Short-Tailed weasel; also known as an Ermine.

Then it dawned on me (not too much later, and before I really started chewing Bruce (the pup) out) - this weasel had been in the perfect place to wipe out our guineas- in one fell swoop.  They are known to kill more than they can eat- they're really good killers.  And the guineas are all babies- no adults to fight back, at all.

And, though this is a serious predator, one our cat would never think of attacking- it's so slender it might actually be able to just squeeze right through regular chicken wire.  No kidding.  Which is what I had just been about to install.  Did I know that already?  Yes, I did.  Idiot that I am, I seem to have needed the additional reminder of having a dead weasel in my hand in order for that to truly strike home.

Ah, reality.  This weasel was in the wrong place.  And Bruce, who is turning out marvelously, with more common sense than most people, had just been doing the job we hired him for- protecting us.  There's plenty of room on the farm for weasels still- just not so close to home.

I'd been murmuring "no, no- don't do this, Bruce..."  (he understands English perfectly) - but when I realized - he'd probably saved our entire guinea flock; with no instructions needed, that changed to loud "GOOD dog, Bruce; good dog!"  He understood.

He hasn't eaten it; though I've seen him eat bunnies.   (Sorry).  Weasels stink, pretty uniformly, and most likely taste bad to boot- few things eat them.  Owls do.

So here I am, inside, not putting up the guinea wire.  Because pretty clearly- where there is one weasel, there will be more, and the wire we have is not good enough.  Plus, we have yet another species of weasel here- the Least Weasel; which is only about 1/4 the size of an Ermine- but plenty capable of killing chicks, and maybe even adult guineas or chickens.

The darned thing is going to have to be a fortress, Bruce or not.  He did a splendid job- but even he has to sleep sometimes.  More money; and a trip to town for wire- wire more expensive than chicken wire, for sure.  Sigh.

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The guineas are an education, of course.  For all of us.  We started with 33 new keets (chicks).  We're down to 28.  That is what usually happens- a few of them just won't make it.   In our case, I successfully brought all 33 through the first 10 days- but then 5 of them just- failed.   Quit growing.  Lay down, and died.

Smidgen already knew a little about death, in the abstract- even children's books and movies are full of it.  But here was her first real acquaintance with it.  Scary, for a parent-

I think it was harder on Spice and I than it was on Smidgen, though.  She did cry, just a little.  But the reality was right there- death is natural; part of life.  The rest of the keets go on.

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Off to town; more gas, more money, more time.

Why the biodiversity in your backyard matters-

We have a perfect example today- hopefully comprehensible even to the Mortimer Snerds who profess not to care what happens to the other species on the planet of why low biodiversity will bite YOU on the butt.

This is actually closely tied to my recent post on why our farm is "beyond organic" - which is tied, of course, to the status of our water table...  gosh, it all seems to be connected.  Hm.

There's an "unknown species" of ant invading Texas.  By the billions.  Expanding.  Tiny.

A few quotes from the article:

"...the little invaders (are) now seemingly everywhere: on the move underfoot; infesting woodlands, yards and gardens; nesting in electrical boxes and causing shorts.."

"a previously unknown variety with a staggering propensity to reproduce and no known enemies. The species, which bites but does not sting, was first identified here in 2002 "

"Variants of the species found in Colombia have been known to asphyxiate chickens and even attack cattle by swarming over their eyes, nasal passages and hooves"

" 'It’s a very fecund species, with multiple queens,' Mr. Meyers said.

"The ants often eat fire ants, with which they are sometimes compared, and they “outcompete” fire ants for the food supply and reproduce far faster..."

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Ok.  This is exactly what we can expect to happen- over and over- in a world where the ecosystems have been simplified down to next to nothing.

The Texas suburbs, where these critters are currently exploding, have generally had their lawns nuked with pesticides; the full spectrum of insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides.  Instead of the wild situation where there are 10 species of grass, 100 species of insects, 10,000 species of parasites - there are 3 species of grass- dandelions - and some fire ants, and not much else.

Invading species trying to move into an ancient ecosystem have to face viruses, bacteria, predators, parasites... and on nearly forever.  The chances are really NOT on the side of the invader; something will be able to eat the newcomers, 999 times out of 1,000.  Because there are a MILLION potential antagonists.  Quite literally.

But-  in a biologically simplified system, the potential for explosive outbreaks is hugely higher.

And really, really expensive.

"Some might think the infestation an exterminator’s dream, but it is not so, said Mr. Rasberry. While an ordinary treatment might cost $85 every three months, treating for the rasberry ants costs up to $600, he said. Yet the efforts are so arduous and ineffective and have left customers so dissatisfied 'they are actually costing me money,' Mr. Rasberry said."

So, the next time you're talking with a Snerd who just doesn't get it- you can cite this one for them.  And ask if they'd really like to have a house FULL of tiny ants- that they can't get rid of.  

Or bees.  Or moths.  Or whatever else is next on the list.  A plague of frogs might be nice.