Category: The land

Yep … I’m in the woods


A drone 235 feet directly above the abbey. Click here for high resolution version.

I’ve been interested in photography drones for a long time. But only recently did drones become halfway affordable. Smaller and smaller computer chips, improvements in battery technology, and smaller and better cameras have made it possible to build drones that weigh less than half a pound but which can shoot excellent 4K video. The drone I bought is a DJI Mini 3.

I took the photo above by putting the drone on its landing mat in the driveway in front of my house. There are trees all around me, so the driveway is the safest area for avoiding trees. I flew the drone straight up to an altitude of about 235 feet, then pointed it southwest to shoot this picture. The low mountains are the Sauratown Mountain chain, a small chain of mountains in Stokes and Surry counties (of North Carolina) about forty miles south of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. The three bumps to the right include Hanging Rock State Park, and the bump to the left is Sauratown Mountain.

It will certainly be a while before I have the skill to shoot any dramatic video with the drone. Learning to fly drones takes a lot of practice. Some of the YouTube videos shot with drones are amazing. There are lots of people who have been flying drones for years and who are very good pilots as well as good photographers and video editors. And it seems that a great many of them live in picturesque places such as the coasts of the U.K. (including Scotland) and Ireland. I have a lot to learn. But I’ll certainly have drone videos, and more drone photos in the future.

Into the woods, and more each year


Click here for high resolution version

Fifteen years ago, after I cleared an acre of elderly pine trees for the house, the landscape looked like a huge red gash in the earth. I moved as fast as I could to restore ground cover and to start planting. Growth takes time, but nature moves fast. Though there is a band of grass on all sides of the house, this is woodland, and if I didn’t like woodland then I wouldn’t be here.

I planted a great many arbor vitae trees, as well as ornamentals such as deciduous magnolias, camellia, rose of Sharon, abelia, and rhododendron. But mostly I’ve let nature take its course, as all sorts of native trees volunteered and I left them alone to grow — poplars, persimmon, beech, maple, and oak. There was even a magnolia grandiflora already here. It was a spindly, shapeless thing that never got any light. But, once the pines were gone, the magnolia has grown into a very grand tree, as tall as the house and with a perfect magnolia shape.

You would think that the people in these parts would welcome a natural woodland landscape, but they fight it. They prefer huge, square, easy-to-mow lawns, with nothing to stop the eye. I have done everything possible to stop the eye, with a yard that is more like little ponds of grass that meander around the trees. Such a yard is a pain in the neck to mow. But now that I have a zero-turn mower, I can get the mowing done in less than two hours. That’s still a lot of grass, none of which is visible in this photo because so many things stop the eye.

There is another very welcome advantage to welcoming the woods into your yard. The cool air from the woods flows into the yard as the new trees gradually link up with the woodland canopy. Even a slight breeze is surprisingly cooling. The day will come when there will be shade on much of the roof even at midday, but we’re not there yet. And because the trees are deciduous, there’s plenty of sun in winter.

Few people see my house, because I’m near the end of a unpaved private road. But, of the people who have seen it, the abbey landscape is starting to inspire some envy, and a few country folk — country folk, who ought to know! — have asked me how I did it. That’s actually pretty easy. The first thing is make sure that there’s something growing everywhere, that no sun and no water are wasted. Even the ditch along the road in front of the house is a beautiful thing — tall grasses, some wildflowers, blackberries (which get out of hand and must be restrained) and persimmon trees. Not only do ditches channel and preserve runoff, the water makes them lush. They’re a path for wildlife, especially the rabbits, of which there are a great many. Except for the difficulty of mowing a yard in which nothing is flat and in which you can’t walk more than ten yards in any direction without bumping into something, a natural landscape is an easy landscape, suitable for lazy people. A minimum amount of time is spent fighting nature. Another thing I emphasize to the country folk — and the birds agree — is that you can’t have too many arbor vitae trees. Arbor vitae trees are hotels for birds, as are the dense thickets of honeysuckle and jasmine that grow along the top of the orchard fence.

My biggest disappointment is that the deer will eat almost anything. For example, azaleas can’t live through the night. I’d like to have more blooming things, but the deer won’t allow it. Defending my beloved daily lilies has been almost impossible, though I haven’t yet given up. Fortunately there are a great many green things that don’t taste good to the deer.

Every year, the house will be a little more hidden in the woods. I’m like a deer, or a rabbit, or even a cat. There have to be places to hide.

The upside of summer


Dandelion pesto, made with Gorgonzola cheese

Summer pesto:

One of the best ideas I know for making the best of summer is: Eat more pesto. Already this season I’ve had pestos made of basil, kale, dandelions, and mixtures including parsley, dill, cilantro, and thyme. I was afraid that the dandelion pesto would be bitter, but it wasn’t. I did my best to counteract the strong taste of dandelions with other strong tastes — a little malt vinegar, and Gorgonzola cheese. I’ve realized that parmesan doesn’t have to be the default cheese for pesto.

Summer reading:

I always like to have some good fiction and some good nonfiction going at the same time. I had high hopes this summer for Tad Williams’ The Dragonbone Chair, which was published in 1988. I stuck with it for 125 excruciating pages and finally flung it. Why did this book get so many fans and so many good reviews? It’s embarrassingly overwritten, lame in its attempts to be ever-so-clever in every last sentence. Nothing ever happens. There is scene after scene in which new characters are introduced, and dozens of other characters are named but never seen. There is scene after scene in new settings in an old castle, and dozens of other places are named but never seen. A database would be required to track it all. But there’s no motive to track it because it’s so boring. Who could possibly compare something this bad with the work of J.R.R. Tolkien? I’m not even going to waste shelf space on this book. On my next trip to the used book store, I’ll sell it. Until I can scare up some new fiction, I’ll stick with Peter Turchin’s new book, which I mentioned in a recent post.

Traveling persimmons:

For years, Ken and I have grieved over the abbey’s orchard. The peach crop always fails, early on. The squirrels steal all the apples exactly one day before they’re ripe. We do get some figs. But the trees that never let us down are the persimmon trees. They’re natives, so they’re not finicky and never sickly. For some reason, none of the wildlife raid the trees while the persimmons are still on the tree. They wait for it to drop. There are more persimmons in the yard each year than a single household can use. I do believe that Ken does his best to time his American college tours to persimmon season, which is late October. Last year, when he returned to Scotland, he took some persimmon seeds, which we had saved while making persimmon pudding. He planted the seeds in his Scottish greenhouse. He got lots of promising seedlings, some of which he took to Germany as a gift to his wife’s sister. In a few years, we’ll know how the trees are coming along. Our guess is that the German trees will like their climate better than the Scottish trees.

Summer watchables:

Because I don’t really watch broadcast (or cable) television, I had missed the long-running PBS series “Masterpiece Endeavour.” Just last month, the series had its ninth, and last, season on PBS. Having missed the earlier seasons, I decided to keep watching all of it, in order. I’m now on season 6. It is some of the best television I’ve ever seen. It’s intelligent, and made for adults. It’s not here-and-now. It’s set in Oxford in the late 1960s. The characters really grow on you. Each episode is complete in itself, but there are longer-running plot elements. I made a brief visit to Oxford in 2019. At the time, I didn’t know that the pub that I wanted to visit is the Lamb & Flag, which according to Wikipedia has been operating since 1566. Now I know. I’ll need another visit to Oxford to correct my mistake.


⬆︎ My coneflowers have perennialized. Lucky me!


⬆︎ Dill, bolted


⬆︎ Rose of Sharon


⬆︎ Baby persimmons, which won’t be ready until fall

In flagrante delicto

When one lives in the sticks, it is not uncommon to come upon wild things in flagrante delicto. These are eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina). These turtles are very common here and are often seen crossing the road. Roads are very dangerous for them, because their instinct is to close up and stop. More and more people stop their cars and move them safely out of the road.

These turtles were safely on the side of the unpaved road I live on.

If you were a deer, would you be scared?

It irks me that I have to uglify my day lily bank to try to keep the deer from eating the day lilies. This year, they started eating them very early, without waiting for the flower stalks and blooms. With luck and good rain, this bank will be a green jungle of day lilies by early June.

The lilac bush has struggled, but each year it looks a little better. It probably needs a good feeding and a little pruning. Speaking of pruning, I pruned the apple trees fairly aggressively this winter, but the pruning has really improved the shape of the trees, not to mention my ability to mow under the trees without getting scraped off the mower. The fig trees, which are doing well, have just started putting out their leaves, but there’s already a baby fig. I have never seen a baby fig this early.

The annual spring poem


The bay window faces the south ridge and is the best-lit place in the house. The light makes it a poor place for a computer, but it’s perfect for a typewriter. This room is rarely needed as a bedroom now, so I’ve turned it into a little library and parlor, with a sleeper couch.

After a cold winter that froze the new gardenia bush, for which I had such high hopes for someday having gardenias, a blustery spring is blowing in. Has the weather been swinging wildly everywhere?

From Scotland Ken writes, “Our magnificent sunny and warm spell has come to an end. The temperature is now dipping below freezing and there’s an arctic chill in the air, even when it’s sunny. I need to determine whether to cancel our first spring training [softball] this evening.” From southern France, Lise writes: “Here it’s storming so much so I couldn’t close the car door — had to step outside going to the other side of the door — and push HARD to get it closed.” Two days ago, I wrote to Ken: “Winter has returned here, too, though today is warm with a windy, wet squall blowing over. The wind buffeting the house kept me awake last night because of my habit of worrying about the roof.”

The birds are delirious. There seem to be more of them this year than ever, particularly bluebirds. Apparently I don’t have enough bluebird housing. A pair of bluebirds keep trying to break into the house and the car. I put up a new bluebird house for them in the sycamore tree out front, but I’m afraid they’re not going to move in. I had worried that I wasn’t seeing many rabbits this spring, but recently, at dusk, I’ve seen a rabbit eating clover near the front steps. There are coyotes in the woods, so smart rabbits will stay close to the house, which the coyotes avoid.

There seems to be a worsening of the madness abroad in the world at present, from war to petty forms of violence such as the slap at the Oscars. If I were a poet I’d type up a poem asking who has opened Pandora’s Box. I feel luckier than ever to live here in the woods, compelled to go out only for necessities. I have not posted about the American political situation recently because it seems to me that things are mostly (though slowly) moving in the right direction, toward justice, accountability, and the defense of democracy, though the media are as usual determined to keep us in a state of demoralization and anger.

I have been afflicted with a kind of mania for finding just the right typewriter on eBay, a reliable everyday typewriter in perfect working condition that does not require a Ph.D. in typewriter repair if it ever needs fixing. For that reason, I use my IBM Selectric III lightly. I greatly prefer electric typewriters because they are fast, and I’m a fast typist. I’m also partial to IBM and Adler typewriters. Adlers are German typewriters, as well made as IBMs. I believe the Adler Satellite 2001 in the photo, made around 1975, will be my everyday typewriter now, though I also have a Facit (made in Sweden) typewriter that is in like-new condition but which isn’t as fast as the Adler.

A thought for the day: Why did we older folks abandon our typewriters so quickly and thoughtlessly after computers became affordable? I am extremely guilty, and I feel a certain shame for it. I can’t even remember what became of the last of several typewriters I owned. It was a massive old Underwood office machine made in the 1950s that worked perfectly for me for years. Why didn’t I keep it? What was I thinking?

The poem below was typed with the Adler Satellite 2001.

The Sierra Club

I felt a little irritated when I found in my mailbox a thick envelope from the Sierra Club. I had not renewed my membership, so of course it was a solicitation. The thickness of the envelope was clearly meant to give the impression of something valuable inside, as encouragement to open the envelope rather than just toss it. I opened it.

Inside I found five bifold cards, nicely printed, and five nice envelopes, white on the inside but tastefully washed in a pale yellow on the outside. How could I throw that away? A mailing like that must be very expensive. Not only is there the cost of postage, the cost of printing also would be high. It made me wonder if the Sierra Club spends an excessive amount of money to raise money, but I found at Charity Navigator that the Sierra Club has a four-star rating and that their fundraising expenses are 11.6 percent, which is not bad at all. The mailing worked. I’ve sent them a check to renew my membership.

The Sierra Club must be the oldest environmental organization in the United States. It was founded in 1892 by John Muir. In its long history, it has done a lot of good work and has not made many embarrassing mistakes. (One such mistake was accepting money from Chlorox and donations from the gas industry.) According to Wikipedia, the Sierra Club spent just over $1 million on the 2014 elections, all of it to oppose Republicans. Good work, that.

After I thought about it, I was glad to have renewed my membership, and I was impressed by the effectness of their direct mail appeals. With mailings like this they are, after all, providing much-needed revenue to the U.S. Postal Service. It’s also flattering to Sierra Club members (or former members) that the Sierra Club regards them as people who continue to use the U.S. Postal Service and who even send cards in the mail.

Don’t forget to feed the birds


Cat prints and dove prints on my porch

It’s alarming how hard the snow is on the creatures who live outside. While the snow was falling hard yesterday and the temperature was 20F, some doves were sheltering on my porch. Unfortunately they saw me and flew away. After dark, I heard Lily downstairs meowing in such a way that I knew she had seen a cat at the door. This morning there were paw prints. Either a neighbor somewhere is not looking after their cats, or there is a stray. I often think that even the wild animals instinctively look to humans for help when they’re cold and hungry. “So many hungry mouths,” as my mother used to say. Nothing ever went to waste if there was a hungry mouth outside that might eat it.

I put out 45 pounds of seed for the birds a day ahead of the snow, and they worked it all day as the snow fell. During the night I saw three deer pawing the snow to get at the seed. Now I’m afraid it wasn’t enough, but I’m snowed in for at least a couple of days.


This little guy looks like a yearling.

Tomorrow: first feeze

The National Weather Service has issued a freeze warning for tomorrow night. I made my rounds this evening as the birds were bedding down in the arbor vitae trees. Some blooming things will bite the dust in tomorrow’s freeze. Others, such as the camellias, will survive, but winter shabbiness will start to set in. I lit the pilot in propane fireplace. I had the last fresh pesto from the garden’s basil before it freezes. Summer is gone. Here in the Appalachian foothills, it was a good summer.

Late summer


Abelia

Those of us who live in southern climates are usually glad to see cooler weather return after a hot summer. But there’s also something melancholy about the idea of summer’s end. As Shakespeare wrote (sonnet 18), “… summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

The abelia bush is in full bloom. The bush is huge. I could hide my Fiat 500 inside it. And though the bees don’t seem to be all that interested in the thousands of little trumpet flowers, there often are a dozen butterflies at a time working the bush. Meanwhile, the fig trees in the orchard are looking good. But the true bumper crop of fall tree fruit here comes from the persimmon trees, wild trees that volunteered in the yard 12 years ago and that now are producing lots of fruit. There will be many persimmon puddings this fall, and, I hope, enough persimmon pulp to freeze.

Abelia is a relative of honeysuckle. It’s an old-fashioned shrub that one doesn’t see as often anymore. I wish I had entire hedges of it. Unlike honeysuckle, it doesn’t climb and choke things. It grows quickly, and though I have never pruned my abelia bush, I think abelia doesn’t mind being shaped a bit.

September is the season of yellow flowers. Soon — and almost overnight — the rural roadsides will be lined with yellow flowers. We’re starting to have nighttime temperatures in the 60s (F), a sure sign that September is on the way.


Green persimmons, four to six weeks away from ripening