Going Native

May 2, 2009 · Filed under Wicomico County · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s been nearly a year since I last posted.  Shame on me.

In my defense, it’s been a busy and very demanding year (but who among us hasn’t had a year like that?).  However, enough, already, with the excuses.  Let’s talk about something I have done:  I’ve been busy planting native plants.

Big deal.  Well, it’s a big deal for me.  I became interested in native plants because the soil here is sandy (the Eastern Shore is essentially a big sandbar) and has excellent drainage; a little too good, if you ask me.  I didn’t want to have to water the garden constantly through the hot, muggy summer.  I had read that using native plants, which are already adapted to the local environment (duh), require much less water (and less care in general); a no-brainer once you think about it.  As a bonus, most of them have flowers, berries, or other visual redeeming value and it turns out that the local fauna prefers the local flora (duh, again).  By planting natives I would be effectively issuing an invitation to all the birds, butterflies, and furry creatures to gather ’round for a healthy nosh.  I was sold.

Finding nurseries in our area that sell natives turned out to be nearly impossible.  If you want crape myrtles, day lillies, nandina, and Bradford pear they can accommodate you.  But just try to find a serviceberry or gray dogwood.  Eventually I discovered the Adkins Arboretum, which has a mission of preserving and teaching about the ecosystems of the interior Delmarva peninsula; it’s a wonderful place with terrific classes and other programs.  Twice a year they have a native plant sale, with a discount and an option to pre-order plants if you become a member.  I joined.

I’ve been to two sales now, with the third coming up next week.  It’s sort of near Easton, a bit of a hike from Wicomicoville at nearly an hour and a half drive, but it’s by far my best (and closest) resource for native plants.  I’ve enjoyed driving up there early on sale days to pick up my pre-ordered new family members, and am looking forward to this upcoming sale and what will be the newest additions to our natives clan.

So far I’ve focused on shrubs and trees, trying to “build” a hedgerow between our property and NDN2.  I’ve planted 3 serviceberries (Amelanchier canadensis), 8 viburnums (dentatum and nudum), 2 southern bayberry (Myrica caroliniensis), 5 gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa), 2 silky dogwood (Cornus amomum), 3 inkberry (Ilex glabra), 3 winterberry (Ilex verticallata), 2 red chokeberry (Aronia abutifilia), 2 spicebush (Lindera benzoin), 7 New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus), 2 fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus), 3 tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), 3 blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica), 2 hawthorn (Crataegus spp.), 1 redbud (Cercis canadensis), and 4 loblolly pine (Pinus taeda).  Also, I’ve planted 3 blackberry bushes (no idea what the botanical Latin is but they’re the varieties called Apache and Navaho); they are not natives, just a treat for the human fauna that live here as well.

When I write it all out like that it sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t look like a lot when I look out the window.  It will take a few years for the hedgerow to look like a hedgerow; at the moment it looks like a bunch of spindly bushes unevenly spaced out in a loooong row.  I’ll continue to fill in the blanks with others of their ilk until I can no longer see NDN2’s driveway (which he has run just inside the property line so that at night, when he pulls into his driveway, the headlights scare the daylights out of me because it looks like someone is driving straight toward the middle of my yard).

This spring I’ve branched out a bit, getting bold by planning on some wildflowers.  Even bolder, I’ve purchased some plants by mail order, something I’ve been afraid to do until now.  But with native plants so hard to come by down here I’ve been forced into new practices.  I ordered butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) and the Ceanothus americanus (a shrub, really, but it only gets to be about 2-3 feet tall) from a place in Wisconsin called Prairie Nursery.  The Asclepias are still dormant so I don’t know how they’re doing yet but the Ceanothus arrived looking hale and hearty and seem to be thriving.  From Adkins Arboretum I’ve pre-ordered 2 lowbush blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium), another Lindera benzoin, and another Pinus taeda.  For flowers I’ve pre-ordered  2 foxglove (Penstemon digitalis), 2 wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), 2 ox-eye daisy (Heliopsis helianthoides), 2 whorled coreopsis (Corepsis verticillata), 3 false indigo (Baptisia australis v. “Purple Smoke”), and 3 boltonia (Boltonia asteroides).  The last two I’ve grown in our garden in the DC area and have loved so I’m happy to have a chance to grow them here.

But I’ve saved the biggest and best for last.  This year I optimistically took an enormous leap of faith and ordered 40 seedling shrubs from the New Hampshire State Nursery.  God, that’s a lot of planting!  They haven’t arrived yet but I expect them soon.  I ordered 10 wild roses (Rosa virginiana), 10 Cornus racemosa, 10 Viburnum lentago, and most exciting of all, 10 wild hazlenut (Corylus americana).  The roses are largely to keep NDN1’s dogs from roaming onto our property; the flowers are a pretty pink but the stems have thorns.  The dogwoods and viburnums will help fill in the gaps in the hedgerow–eventually.  The hazlenuts are for the turkeys which roam around from time to time, that is when NDN1’s dogs don’t chase them off.  I think that turkeys also like rose hips when they can get them, but if the turkey’s don’t care for them there are plenty of other birds that will.

Why 40?  Well, I would have preferred to order less but there’s a minimum order of 10 for each type of plant.  And at $1.00 per plant, even if I lose a few I’m still doing well.  Honestly, it’s the best deal going.  And I’ve heard nothing but good things about the New Hampshire State Nursery so I guess I have good reason to be optimistic!

To paraphrase my old Girl Scout oath, “On my honor, Iwill try, to do my duty, to God and my country…” and to try to WRITE MORE OFTEN IN MY BLOG.  At the very least I can let the world know how my hedgerow is doing.

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Birdland

June 24, 2008 · Filed under Wicomico County · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday morning when I stepped outside to get the newspaper I discovered dozens and dozens of tiny little toads (or frogs?) hopping across my driveway, all in the same direction.  They were less than a half inch long and at first I thought they were tiny black crickets.  But when I looked at them more closely I realized that they were perfect, miniature dark gray toads all hopping toward the south.  I bent down and watched them, transfixed, for a minute or so until I realized I was hunched over in the driveway in my pajamas.  I carefully stepped among them out to the street to get the paper, where I discovered yet more tiny little toads.  I’m going to have to look up the life cycle of the toad on the internet so that I’ll understand the amazing site that greeted me yesterday morning.

Amazing things are all around me here in Wicomicoville, although people that have grown up here will not likely be impressed.  Birds are what usually grab my attention:  A few days ago I saw a couple of Bobwhite strolling around in the field across the road.  I often see Great Blue Heron down by the river and one day was astonished as a pair of Redwing Blackbirds flew at and attacked an enormous heron flying up the river- even more astonishing was the sound that the heron made, a very loud “Cronk!” and I realized that I had never heard one utter a sound before.  The sound was so comical and seemed so incongruous to the elegant grace of the heron that I had to laugh.

I hear common, everyday birds all day long like the honking Canada Geese, Mockingbirds and brilliant Cardinals that sing their hearts out, and cooing Turtle Doves with their squeaky wings when they fly.  A pair of Ospreys nest not far from the river bank, and I love to watch them hover as they scan the river for fish.  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen Bald Eagles (although the number is probably less than 15; I’m always so astounded that I forget to keep track).  Two sets of Barn Swallows have built nests on the house; a set on each porch.  I adore them because they eat quantities of mosquitos and they’re enormously entertaining flyers, swooping into the porch area between the columns and out again, skimming over our heads.  Especially loved are the wild turkeys; last year a group of three hens often led a flock of fuzzy gray chicks up our driveway and into our “back forty” to graze, the hens keeping a watchful eye throughout.  They were difficult to count because they kept sort of bobbing around but I counted as many as 19 one day.  It was a treat to watch them grow over the summer and into the fall and I’ve looked forward to seeing them again this year but they have not come around, I suspect because some new neighbors on the lane let their dog run loose all the time.  Turkeys are naturally shy, it seems, and dogs seem to make them nervous.

Woodpeckers are both seen and heard fairly often although the size of the Pileated Woodpecker always catches me off guard; I never expect them to be that big.  Twice I’ve seen (and heard many times) a Great Horned Owl, and have been delighted to hear Screech Owls (which don’t screech at all, it turns out) at dusk although I’ve yet to see one.  In the spring I’ve seen Killdeer running through the grass on their skinny, long legs always looking as if they’re late for an appointment.  And when Next-Door-Neighbor-2 mowed our field recently a Cattle Egret started to follow his tractor at a distance, gulping up insects disturbed by the mowing.  Amazing.

I always try to keep a Birds of Maryland and Delawarefield guide handy when in Wicomicoville; you never know what you’ll see when you walk out your front door.

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Neighborly love?

June 15, 2008 · Filed under Wicomico County · Tagged , , , , , ,

We have two next door neighbors, one on either side, and each is a piece of work.  Next Door Neighbor 1 (NDN1) lives to the northwest side of us and has an extensive collection of semi trailers, travel trailers, house trailers, old buses, and sheds which are largely hidden behind a row of tall reeds growing in the ditch between our properties.  This allows us to maintain an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude which in turn fosters good neighbor relations with NDN1.  He’s chronically short of funds and periodically hits us up for loans, but has a Wicomico County country charm that always seems to make us smile regardless.

NDN2 lives to the East of us.  He’s a retired chicken farmer who, I think, wishes he were still a farmer (although I don’t think he misses the chickens much).  He has about an acre in front of his house that he has been alternately mowing, disking, and dragging for months with a really large (for one acre) tractor and so far has only planted a modest vegetable garden in one corner of the field.  We’re still waiting to see what all of the other activity has been about.  He seems to adore his tractor because several times after has finished mowing his property he has proceeded on to mow our adjoining back field (which we may not mow as often as he mows his own back field but it is always mowed at least once a month – it’s a field, not a yard).  There’s no apparent rhyme or reason to it, it just seems like he wants a reason to ride his tractor.

He and his wife moved to our little lane about a year and a half ago after putting up a neat and trim little modular house, and we were pleased to have them as neighbors.  We have grown gradually dismayed as their property became increasingly cluttered with broken farm machinery, implements, and God-knows-what else.  But they are elderly and moved here from their much larger chicken farm and we understand that it might be difficult for them to part with so many of their things (we do wish that they would exercise a bit more restraint in collecting additional things, however).  They don’t chain their dogs or burn their trash so they’re easier to like than some of the other families in the area, and we’ve gotten along with them most of the time.

Sometimes when we’ve been swamped with work his mowing has been a help.  But other times he has mowed down a field of wildflowers and really upset me.  Not once has he asked us if it would be all right with us to mow.  We just look out the window and there he is, driving his tractor and bushhog back and forth across our field.  My husband doesn’t want to upset the apple cart by complaining about the mowing for two reasons:  One, he wants to maintain cordial relations with NDN2 because we’re neighbors.  Two, it’s my husband who usually does our mowing and there have been times when NDN2 has saved him hours of work so he’s understandably reluctant to tell NDN2 to cease and desist.  It’s not ideal but in the interest of family and neighborhood harmony I haven’t wanted to push it.  Not, that is, until I came back from being out of town for four days recently and was greeted with a soldierly row of white PVC pipes sticking out the ground, marching from the road all along and through the middle of my recently planted hedge, courtesy of NDN2.

It turns out that NDN2 has a different idea of our property line than we do.  And it’s not just our opinion that he takes issue with – he thinks that the boundary marker that was set by his own surveyor is in the wrong place.  What do you do with a mind set like that?   If it were a matter of inches or a foot I would probably shrug my shoulders and not worry.  And at the end of the property line near the road it IS only a few inches off.  But by the time you follow his line to the rear of our adjoining properties he’s off by 10-12 feet, too much to ignore.

Worse, it runs right through a line of shrubs that I planted to create a hedge between our property and his.  I was careful to plant them 4-5 feet inside the property line so that they would intrude very little, if at all, onto his property once they grew to full size (at the moment none of them exceed 2.5 feet in diameter; they’re just babies).  I’ve been nursing them through the winter and spring; now I’m worried that he’s going to run his bushhog right over them.  We’ve told him that the boundary line is as marked by a licensed surveyor, end of discussion, but he remains adamant that the marker is in the wrong place.  Conversations have become strained.

I hope, hope, hope that he has the presence of mind to call his surveyor and to accept what his surveyor says (if it turns out we’re in the wrong we will be happy to admit it and will certainly apologize for the misunderstanding).  But I’m doubting his presence of mind; this afternoon we looked out the window toward our back field and there he was on his tractor with his bush hog driving back and forth, mowing our field.  He’s left the baby shrubs standing for now, but what on earth is next here in Wicomicoville?

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A little excitement.

June 12, 2008 · Filed under Wicomico County · Tagged , , , , ,

We’re fortunate to live on a little lane off a secondary road, just a mile from the only firehouse for miles around.  It is a volunteer fire and EMT company (as most of Wicomico County’s fire companies are) and we’re grateful for all that they do.  Although we’re within earshot of the firehouse siren (which sounds whenever there’s an emergency) it’s far enough away that it doesn’t scare the daylights out of me when it goes off.  And, in fact, it doesn’t go off very often – I don’t think it even sounds off weekly.  Things are PRETTY quiet at this end of the county.  It’s rare to hear a siren of any kind, and so when an ambulance drove up the secondary road past our lane on a sunny Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, it got our attention.  But it had been an odd day in the neighborhood already, so perhaps we shouldn’t have been all that surprised.

Earlier in the afternoon I had called my husband to the window.  There was a group of about 5 kids (sort of urban-slick looking “youths” that looked out of place on our street) congregating in the lane who we’d never seen before, and we know all the neighborhood children by sight (most by name).  They seemed to be just generally hanging out, rough housing a bit, and walking up and down the lane.  We didn’t know what to make of this wandering tribe but no one else in the neighborhood seemed to be concerned (and all the neighbors keep an eye on every car that drives up our cul-de-sac).  We kept one eye on the tribe while we worked on our weekend chores; they seemed to be well-behaved for the most part and seemed to be interested only in each other.

After an hour or so of wandering the kids grouped together in front of a house down near the secondary road.  The family that lives there has only been here a few months and, as other families in the neighborhood point out, “they rent.”  I’ve met them and they seem to be nice enough, but no one on the street knows them well.  A few minutes later we watched as our “wild” neighbor from the other end of the street drove up to the tribe in his pickup truck and stopped to talk to them.  Then he uncharacteristically peeled out leaving a patch of rubber on the road, fishtailing his truck a bit as he left.  This seemed a trifle odd, but he is the “wild” one on the street (when he’s not exhausted from working full time in construction) and everyone down here is proud of their pickup truck.  So we watched with only mild interest as he screeched around the corner from our little lane onto the secondary road.  We didn’t even notice that the tribe walked around the corner too, up the road and out of sight.

A few minutes later we heard the strange sound of a siren coming up the secondary road from the firehouse.  We looked out the window to see something we had yet to see in our two years of living here:  an ambulance.  Moments later the cars of both Next-Door-Neighbor (NDN)1 and NDN2 came flying out of their respective driveways, down the lane and around the corner in the same direction that the ambulance had just gone.  These events had finally gotten our full attention but as we gazed out the window with puzzled looks on our faces there was nothing to see on our little lane; all of the activity seemed to be down the secondary road and out of sight.  After standing at the window stupified for a minute or two we shrugged our shoulders and returned to the chores.

After about ten minutes we noticed “wild” neighbor walking up the road toward his house.  On his heels were NDN1 and NDN2, returning home in their cars; moments later the phone rang.  It was NDN1 asking for my husband (down here men mostly talk to men – it’s just understood), who asked what was going on and then began to laugh out loud.  Well it turns out that many folks here abouts have fire department radio scanners and so can hear the emergency calls as they are broadcast to emergency personnel.  Thus, NDN1 and NDN2 both knew what had happened around the corner:  Our “wild” neighbor had just raced the “rent” neighbor in HIS pickup truck while the tribe, who it turns out were acquaintances of “rent” neighbor and had come from a neighboring town just for the race, cheered them on.  Unfortunately when “wild” neighbor got to the end of the race (which coincidently was also the literal end of road) he lost control of his truck as it plowed into the field straight ahead, flipping it three times.  Fortunately he was not hurt (although it’s hard to see how he managed not to be).  And the way that NDN1 described the ensuing hullaballoo to my husband was, apparently, pretty funny.

Well, the tribe had gotten what they had come for and dispersed; we’ve never seen them again.  “Wild” neighbor’s truck was towed home the next day, totaled.  “Rent” neighbor still drives his to work every day so he must have come out of the race okay.  It certainly gave the neighborhood something to talk about for a day or two.  Now we know that if we ever have a medical emergency everyone in the neighborhood will know almost as soon as the EMTs.  And that’s enough excitement for Wicomicoville for quite a while.

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Frightful weather

June 5, 2008 · Filed under Wicomico County · Tagged , , , ,

Last night one of the worst lightning storms I’ve ever seen blew through.  Fortunately we experienced only minor damage when one of our trees was (possibly – or it may have been wind) struck by lightning.  This morning I woke to an enormous tree limb on the ground, having crushed one of my young winterberry shrubs.  It missed the fence, however, and I’m grateful for that.  And thank God the house wasn’t damaged.

The rest of the immediate neighborhood appears to have escaped unscathed.  Not so with last month’s nor’easter which knocked down a neighbor’s (BIG) maple which appeared to have missed his house by a mere 12 inches or so.  He’s still trying to break all of the wood down weeks later.  Serious storms both frighten and mesmerize me; I’m often torn between seeking shelter and being glued to the window.  I’ve lived in tornado-prone sections of the country so my inclination is to identify where I might find shelter and then watch out the window to see if I’ll need it.  So yes, I’m a chicken, but with GOOD reason (and so’s my dog but I suspect she picked it up from me, poor thing).

But today is lovely; it rained hard enough last night that I won’t need to go water the plants today after all.  I’d like to do a little planting but something aggressive has invaded my sinuses and I’m trying to get some rest to save myself a trip to the doctor (fingers crossed).  The trip to town is 23 miles (each way) and there are no stores or other services here in Wicomicoville; I try to get in as much as I can when I do go and a trip JUST to see a doctor would be neither green nor frugal.  If I do go though, I can certainly make a case for picking up some canned soup!

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Life in the country…

June 3, 2008 · Filed under Wicomico County · Tagged , , , , , ,

…or how I escaped the D.C. suburbs to life in a bewildering village on Maryland’s Eastern Shore (think Green Acres).

We (my husband, my dog, and I) moved to Wicomico County two and a half years ago from a wonky community inside the Beltway.  Our plan?  Fix up an old farm house and start a vegetable garden.  We’re about 3/4 of the way done with the house but have run out of funds so it will stay this way for a while.  It’s livable.  The contractors we’ve worked with have been, to varying degrees, incompetent  and/or dishonestand from what I’ve been told by other “come heres” (those of us who have moved to the Eastern Shore from elsewhere) this is to be expected.  More about the house and the Eastern Shore work ethic another time.

We’re still experiencing culture shock two years into our project.  Our neighbors have mostly been kind and helpful beyond our expectations, especially in contrast to our inside-the-beltway community where I hardly knew a soul in our neighborhood even after 15 years.  Unfortunately our new neighbors also do things like burn tires and keep their dogs on chains – things that would never be tolerated in our old neighborhood.  More about the neighbors and village life at another date.

The garden has, alas, been delayed by the ongoing house snafus but I’m optimistic about next year’s prospects.  We’re going to try our hardest to be organic about it.  In the mean time I’ve been planting a hedgerow of native shrubs.  And we’re trying to be as green as we can afford to be; we’ve installed a geothermal HVAC system and have a special type of septic tank that reduces nitrogen run off into the Chesapeake Bay.  The State of Maryland has been very supportive of our efforts, providing a grant for the geothermal system and replacing our circa 1947 septic tank for free (although we provided the drainfield to the tune of several thousand dollars).  I love Maryland for so many reasons, and the state keeps making it easier for me to love it.

On the whole we’re satisfied that we’ve done the right thing by leaving the D.C. area – I don’t mind too much that the nearest Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods are in Annapolis (two hours away) when I look up into the night sky and am struck senseless by the broad sweep of the Milky Way.  At our old house all I could make out was Orion and the Big Dipper.  And hearing Screech Owls at night trumps sirens screaming on the Beltway any time.  More about nature later.

Our experiences in our little corner of Wicomico County, which I’ll call Wicomicoville, have been heartwarming, infuriating, confusing, funny, exhilarating, and exhausting.  And I don’t think we’ve ever been happier.

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