Category: The land

I am flattered that such a variety of wildlife want to live close to Acorn Abbey. Too close. Last summer, the groundhogs moved into new digs less than five meters from the house. I harassed them (by throwing things and making noises) until they moved back to the edge of the woods.

This year there was a bumper crop of bunnies. They live in the thicket just downhill from the house. We see them in the yard almost every day in the morning and evening, eating clover. This evening a bunny came up onto the steps of the side porch at Acorn Abbey.

I’m particularly happy about the rabbits. Three years ago, before I cleared away an acre of pine trees to build the abbey, there was really no nearby rabbit habitat. I never saw rabbits. Now there’s a large area of thick brush — a thicket — between the house and the woods on the lower side of the house. It’s perfect rabbit habitat: Good cover in the thicket, with lots of nearby clover and such for grazing.

Ken Ilgunas took these three photos.

Ken waters the straw bale garden

The vegetable garden this year is both small and late, because of time spent putting up the garden fence and planting permanent fruit trees. In future years, I intend to have a much larger vegetable garden. But the plants are all developing. The blueberry bushes and grape fines actually will have a little fruit this year.

The first tomato

Baby grapes

Wild blackberries

Late yesterday afternoon, a thunderstorm dropped almost one and a half inches of rain here. So all the growing things are very happy this morning. The first railroad lily opened this morning.

This terrapin slowly wandered across the driveway.

A baby bell pepper

A couple of the straw bales have a crop of mushrooms each morning. As soon as the morning sun hits the mushrooms, they turn black and dry up.

Ken and I made a run this morning to Mitchell’s Nursery and Greenhouse at King. We came back with the trailer loaded with: Another fig three, two peach trees, 3 blueberry bushes, two grapevines, a rhododendron, 2 crepe myrtles, a dogwood tree, and two emerald green arbor vitae trees. I wanted a couple of cherry trees, but unfortunately they didn’t have that.

This nice man answered all our questions at the nursery.

Ken among the shrubbery

Mitchell’s is one of the biggest nurseries in the area.

After the nursery, it’s off to Sandy Ridge Landscaping Materials to get more compost. Ken has used three loads of compost already, and we’re not nearly done.

This old mattock couldn’t stand up to Ken’s demands.

Though we used a rented gasoline-powered augur to drill the holes for the fence posts, and though we frequently use a battery-powered drill and screw driver, otherwise we are using hand tools this summer. Ken is strong and doesn’t mind the work, and in most cases the hand tools are much safer.

Ken saws a post.

Ken planting a post for a hose rack