Coming home one day, while living up in Freshwater Cove, I crossed the low water bridge and saw a critter in the creek. I stopped and watched as a beaver played around in the water. Hmmm.
“Wonder where he’s headed?”
Two days later there were two up at the pond. They started cutting down trees and dropping them in the water. It took them only two days to gnaw through a Tulip popular that was probably 24 inches in diameter. We started to worry about all the trees on the North slope of the pond. A lodge was built pretty fast and then the tree cutting slowed up. Winter came and went. In Spring, cutting began again and baby beavers emerged. It drove the dogs crazy, seeing those beavers swimming around out there in the middle of their pond. Geshen attempted to outswim them a couple of times, but a dog is no match for a beaver in the water. They would circle around the dogs, making them turn and turn, and eventually exhausting them. I had to go out in the canoe and bring Gesh in before she drowned. She would not give up. When I got her back to shore she lay heaving and gasping on the shore for a good while afterwards.
When the water got warm enough for us to go swimming , the beavers were still there. I could get within about three feet of them if I swam quiet with my eyes right at water level. It was kind of cool to swim with the beavers. Then they started expanding their universe. They built a dam right next to the driveway where the feeder creek came in. The water rose and then started swamping the road out. It was getting really mushy and muddy to drive through. Jimi tore the dam down numerous times but they kept building it right back where it was. He even had a backhoe come in a dredge the creek back out to clear it. We would find him down there , waiting with a gun, daring them to rebuild it. They just waited until he went to bed.
I went down and had a little talk with the beavers.
“If you all want to live, you should try heading on down towards my barn and build a little dam on the creek down there. I could use a little drinking pond for the horses.”
They seemed to understand that and they walked over in that direction directly.
“Wow. That was cool. Didn’t know I could talk beaver.”
Unfortunately, the dogs didn’t get the same message, or not in the right way. Before the beavers had managed to get their new dam finished, and a protective pool around them in the process, Gesh and Poss had ganged up on them and taken them out. They were trying to be good dogs. I felt bad for the beavers but at least the trees were safe again. The rest of the beaver family moved on out shortly thereafter. We didn’t see them again.
It was such a long way up the hill from the pond, and it took her all morning to finally reach the shady dogwood up on the lawn. There had been a drought going on for weeks now and she knew the ground was going to be really hard to dig in. It couldn’t be put off though. She was not in control of the weather or her body. The sharp edged rocks scattered all over the slope had scraped her belly and probably removed an entire layer of skin. She lay gasping, trying to get up enough energy to dig a proper hole. It mattered, if her family was to survive. The dirt was so hard and dry though, that she had to pee on it just to be able to loosen it enough to claw away a shallow depression. Water would have been nice, but of course, it was now six hundred feet back the way she had come. She tried again. Rested. Scraped some more, using her legs, her nails, all her energy. It would have to do. She felt movement in her innards, a sliding, heaving mass, oozing out of her. One, two, three, rest. Four, five. She collapsed in relief. Started digging again, covering them up as best she could. Not deep enough. She knew that, but it was all she could do. As the hot June sun sank lower behind the hills, she turned and started crawling back down to the pond.
The lawn got mowed once a week by guys on fast, zero-turn mowers. They rolled efficiently over the acreage kicking up dust clouds wherever the grass was thin. Their noise was overpowering on such a quiet day. They had not seen her digging out there and would probably drive right over the spot without realizing anything was there. I stood up, stretching my hunched over back, and walked over to get a closer look. Two of them were not even fully covered. There was no way they would make it through a mowing pass. Grabbing an old flower pot and some fresh soil from the truck, I carefully lifted the two outliers, and shoveled a little extra dirt on the rest, leaving the other three to their fate of either a mower or a skunk.
The pot sat by the water garden at home all summer long, getting watered by an occasional rain or a passing garden hose. It never looked any different. I finally tipped the pot upside down to check on them in late September, figuring they had died. Two quarter sized baby turtles spilled onto my hand and slowly started to move their legs. They were alive! There was no sign they had ever emerged but there they were. photo credit: http://www.hiltonpond.org/images/TurtlePaintedJuv01.jpg
Now I had to do some quick research on what to do next. When I Googled “caring for Eastern Painted Turtles”, I got a ton of information. It turns out they had hatched and then hibernated without ever coming out of the soil. I hadn’t known that was a possibility. When they hit my warm hand and started moving, they had broken hibernation. Not a good thing. So now I needed to put together a terrarium for them and care for them until spring, when they would be able to feed themselves.
I had a twenty gallon aquarium in the basement and started to get creative, while they scritched and scratched around in a cardboard box lined with grass clippings on the kitchen counter. Half the space I decided to make a swimming area and half a gravel bed with a miniature stream with plants. I went to the local pet store and got a little water pump, heater and filter, some turtle food, and a fluorescent light with a timer. It was fun to put together and Wallace and Grommet (after the English clay-mation characters) moved right in. They quickly learned to paw at the glass when they saw me come down the stairs in the mornings and I would feed them. They basked under the light, swam in the pool and even floated down the stream over the waterfall. It was nice having them in the house all winter and they grew from the size of a quarter to about two inches across by Spring.
When the water outside in the water garden seemed like it was finally warm enough, I took them outside and set them on a rock near the edge. Our pond is about thirty inches deep, twenty feet long and six
Water Garden
to eight feet wide with a waterfall at the shallow end. There are frogs and plants and a goldfish living in the water and trees and plants all around. It is a fine place for turtles to live. After a bit, one turtle slid into the water and started paddling around, checking it the new home. The second one ( I could not tell them apart) slid in and then sank right down to the bottom of the deep end and did not move. At all. No bubbles. He was dead. He must have gone into shock when he hit the slightly cooler water temperature. I had to reach in and grab him back out. Luckily, during my research on the internet , when I had first discovered them hatched, I had read about how to resuscitate a turtle. Not something you would ever think might actually be necessary to do. But here we were. The poor thing had drowned. I held him on my knee and got hold of his tiny front legs with my fingers and proceeded to gently pump his arms forward and back. Water started coming out his nose and mouth. I held him in my cupped hands to warm him up some and repeated the procedure. He sneezed and shook his head and then started moving his feet. I warmed him up a little more then set him on a flat rock in the sun near the water. He was breathing and looking around and then walked over and got back in the water. This time he swam over to his brother and was fine. Who knew? I was so happy he made it. And so glad I had read how to do that in advance of needing it.
Wallace and Grommet lived happily all year round in the pond and we saw them on a regular basis during the warmer months when we would sit relax there. We did not feed them. They found their own food and were not tame. They went back to being wild as soon as they moved outside.They and the frogs hibernated in the mud in the
Green Frogs
winter and emerged each spring to grow some more. For four years all was well and they grew to about 4 inches across. Then, one night, a raccoon came in and fished them out, leaving me the shells as evidence. I have since tried putting other turtles I have found in there, but they are never seen for long. I don’t know if they walk away or something comes along and eats them. It is sad. I love turtles and I miss Wallace and Grommet, but at least they had a few good years and were not run over by a mower.
05/05/14- Bees ship out from Kentucky, Ron and Carrie Spille, Spille Honey, 3 # bees and a queen @ $126.00 for Italians, $129.00 for Russians, including shipping. Shipped a week later than originally planned (April 28th) due to cold weather.
05/07/14- Bees arrive 6:30 am at Post Office, Suit up (jeans, ball cap, raspberry colored raincoat with hood, Velcro sleeves, drawstring waist; net gnat hood, leather work gloves) Install bees in 2 Hive bodies, from Mann Lake, Minnesota, cost =$627.40 (includes 2 hive bodies and 2 supers for each hive). Feed 1:1 sugar water mixture-boil 1 ½ gallons water (appx 12#), add 12 pounds sugar, stir till dissolved , cooled over night . Remove 2 frames from outer edge, insert 1 gallon frame feeder w/ bee ladders, fill. Remove cork end and hang Queen cage in between 2 center frames. Install queen excluder, top board, roof, use small section of entrance reducer.
05/11/14- Check for Queen release. OK. Do not need feed yet.
05/15/14-Open hives, spray sugar water to calm, use stick to get a few drowned bees out, feed sugar water using funnel, Remove a few frames and search for queen. Cannot see her but see eggs laid.
05/20/14-Feed bees 1 gallon to Russians, ½ gallon to Italians ( throw out moldy batch in clear jug, check for mold in feeder -OK), shuffle full center frames towards outside, to even out drawing of comb. Open entrance reducer to larger size and opposite side from feeder. Russians have filled more frames than Italians and eaten more as well. Also, Russians seem calmer to work with. One Italian stung me- add duct tape to pants legs next time.
05/29/14- Feed bees ¾ gallon each, adjust frames again, add Hive body to Russians, move feeder up to second story. Move queen excluder to top of second body.
06/06/14- Russians- Feed 1 gallon, remained calm after one spray of sugar water. Built some comb into second story but it was sideways on frame and bottom of frame. Trimmed it off with hive tool. Keep building wax on queen excluder too. Italians –agitated, and seem to have enlarged population- sprayed three times to calm, one got under my face net but I got him out. Pulled feeder out from bottom hive and inserted into second hive body above, filled ½ to ¾ full. Have not tried smoke and would prefer not to, but maybe it would work better on the Italians? Also might have to get a bee veil that closes better and does not shine with glare in the sun. Used half chaps (leather gaiters) instead of duct tape at ankles, easier to take off.
06/06/14- Buckwheat patch I planted for the bees is starting to bloom
The toothless old horse trader told us down at the stock sale, “She’s a good working mule, not a day over 14 years.”
Well, we knew better than to believe that, but she looked fine to us anyway. We hemmed and hawed awhile, asked about throwing in the harness, maybe a single tree, her halter. We managed to get him down to $300 for the whole mess, and got her delivered to our place for free besides. It wasn’t our first time dealing with the cranky old so and so. The stock pens were right next to the feed store where we spent a fair amount of time hanging out talking to Brooks Fleming, the owner. He was full of useful information about farming, weather, putting food by, training border collies and such. Brooks was up in his eighties then and didn’t seem to mind sharing his experience with us newbie’s at all. Eck worked there part time unloading train cars of feed when they came in and we bought all our feed from him.
We tried not to wander on down to the stock pens too much because we always felt sorry for the horses down there. Some of them had welts from being whipped and most of them were underfed and skittish. They got them cheap at farm and stock auctions and sold them for whatever profit they could get. We had already bought Barney, the donkey, and Daniel, the pinto pony from them the year before. Let’s just say they were much better off with us. Barney and Daniel weren’t all that useful but they weren’t much trouble either. We had plenty of grass and it didn’t take much of a fence to keep them in.
I rode Daniel bareback all through the woods and over the hill to visit
Daniel in his work harness
friends even though I don’t think he was ever really trained for riding. He had a harness, and was supposed to be a work pony, but he wasn’t all that big so he couldn’t haul a lot of weight. He was very good at hauling one log at a time down from the top of the hill though. We would walk him up, back him up to the log, hook the chain to the single tree, and I would walk him down for the first trip. Once we got down to the bottom and unhooked him, all I had to do was get him headed in the right direction, smack his rump and tell him to go on back up for another, and he’d go plodding off up the hill. Then he’d get another log hooked on and come on back on his own. It didn’t take long to wear him out though. It was a pretty steep hill and the logs were heavy. Then he’d just quit.
So we decided to buy a work mule when we saw Kate down at the stock pens. She was a whole lot bigger than Daniel and had a history of pulling logs. So he said, anyway. She was a good tempered mare mule, about 15 hands tall and 1200 pounds, and got along with Barney and Daniel just fine. Her harness was beautiful, with brass knobs, red and white trimmings, in decent shape. Eck could ride her without worrying about her running off with him, and she was more comfortable bareback than Barney, who was kind of small anyway.
During the next few months Kate worked out pretty well, hauling
Kate
logs for us and letting us ride her. One day, we rode her and Daniel up to our new house site and tethered them loosely to some trees nearby while we were working. The dogs, Geshen and Possum, came up with us, always staying about forty feet ahead, and looking back to see we were still coming along. They got bored when we stopped, so they kept on up the hill and ran into some deer, which they commenced to chase back down the hill, right into the horses. Kate and Daniel startled and yanked back on their ties, which gave way, and they headed off downhill, cross country. Daniel knew where he was going and he moved a lot faster than Kate and was soon out of sight. Kate was trying to follow him but didn’t keep up too well. We tried to head them off but Daniel was gone and headed home. We saw him at a distance, cross the creek at the neighbor’s car crossing, and head down the county road to the barn. Then we saw Kate. She didn’t see where Daniel crossed and she tried to take a shortcut. It was a really bad choice. Over on Tessie’s place the oil well sits right at a bend in the creek, with a low marshy area on the far side and a steep clay bank about four foot high on the other. She hesitated, we were shouting at her to WHOA, but she jumped anyway. Her front legs made it but her back legs got stuck in the mud and, in slow motion, she fell over backward in the creek. We finally got caught up to her and she was thrashing around trying to get herself upright. Panic was in her eyes, with the whites showing all around, breathing hard. We tried to calm her down, talking and patting her down. She finally got her legs under her but they all four sunk in deep mud. There seemed to be no bottom to it. It was like quicksand. Every time she moved she got deeper. Then it started to rain. Hard.
Bunnels Run is a creek famous for flooding very fast, and it had been raining a lot lately. The red clay ground was totally saturated. Any more rain was going to just run right off into the creek. There was seven miles of creek above us and it came through town first. That means a lot of rooftop and parking lot runoff water headed our way. We got down in the creek and were pulling and pushing and digging trying to get Kate loose. She would thrash around, panic, go still, thrash some more. She just kept getting deeper in. Eck finally ran off to call for help, get a rope and bring the tractor to pull with. He managed to get a few neighbors to help, too. We scrambled back down in the mud to get the rope around her middle and tied off to the tractor and started pulling with that. Kate freaked out when the rope started to pull and rub on her and we tried padding it with shirts. Somebody was beating on her but to get her moving, while we were cajoling her with pleas to try, but she finally just rolled her eyes up in her head and gave up entirely. The rain was coming down hard all this time and creek was starting to rise. Her head was stretched far out on the mud, not moving. We got shovels and started digging frantically; trying to make a hole in the mud and get the suction broke, pulling with the tractor, digging some more, pushing from behind, lifting her legs. Nothing was working. Another neighbor showed up with a second tractor, got it rigged up and both were pulling at once, slipping in the mud. The rain continued to pour down. Finally she started to break loose from the mud with a sucking noise and we all jumped in and worked together to bring her out. We got her pulled a little ways to a solid spot but Kate was not able to stand. We started rubbing her legs down, feeling for broken bones, and realizing she had lost her circulation in them, massaged the blood flow back into them. She started to try and stand up and with all of us helping she finally was standing again. Her head was hanging down low, though, and she seemed to have lost her will to fight. We got her moving, walking real slow, and looking back, could see the water was already up about a foot and rising fast. She would have drowned in another few minutes. It took us almost half an hour to get her back to the barn and rubbed down. We tried to feed her and gave her water but she didn’t want it. The goats and Daniel and Barney all stood close by looking worried and did not leave her side for days.
Poor old Kate never did fully recover from that ordeal. She wouldn’t eat, didn’t pay anyone any attention, and just started to waste away. I think she aged 15 years in one day and she lost the will to live. Her hooves developed a soft depression ring and started to peel. It hurt her to even stand. We didn’t know what to do to help her. We found a guy who thought he could nurse her back to health and we gave her to him about a month later. When he loaded her up in the truck, she swung her head down low, back and forth, like a vision of Dumbo the Elephant going to slaughter. It made us cry. We felt terrible. She bellowed as he pulled away and we went inside and sobbed. We heard she died not long after.
photo credit: http://www.hiltonpond.org/images/TurtlePaintedJuv01.jpg
