One of the virtues of not cutting the lawn....
- A gang of wild turkeys. (Added March 23, 2008.)
3/23/08 - Oh dear: Mice! (Added March 6, 2005. Revised: February 25, 2006.)
- Walkingstick not walking. (Added March 2, 2005.)
- The birds around the house. (Added December 23, 2004.)
Herby, the woodchuck. First there was Woody. Then Chuck. Herby stuck around for two summers. She blessed us with kids, but we suspect the fox ate them eventually.
By the end of the summer in 1991, after having lived in my house for four years, I realized that I was cutting the lawn exactly twice a year. Once in June; the second time, a week or three before Thanksgiving. Both times, it was a pain in the butt because I had a very old, very used, very noisy, very cantankerous rider mower.
There’s nothing like being inspected by a hummingbird.
The last time I cut the lawn was in the fall of 1991. My neighbor across the street, having just bought a new rider mower, cut the lawn mid-summer 1992. Since then, nothing... except me pulling weeds, goldenrod, and such.
Not that there’s a lawn here. The soil is mostly sandy. The front “lawn” is packed sandy stuff. Yeah, there’s a 3-foot swatch of grass abutting the house. That’s where I planted a couple of rhododendrons and azaleas, neither of which are growing well because they’re on the north side of the house. (However, the hummingbirds seem to like this area. They’ve been coming back here each summer since 1997.) But the rest of the front lawn is a fine crop of dandelions and other kinds of weeds. Joann recently pointed out (in 2001? 2002?) that we have two varieties of dandelions.
Side view of a very small frog lying low in the straw door mat to the front door. Joann discovered it while filling up the hummingbird feeder. This frog patiently sat while I took several photos.
The left side of the house, when you’re facing it, is the septic field. For obvious reasons, that area is thriving. And some of what’s thriving is grass. The right side of the house is the driveway.
Top view of the very same small frog.
The back lawn is where most of the activity is happening! Over on the driveway side, we have a bunch of bird feeders. In back, center, are some other bird feeders. To the left is an outcropping of birches, saplings, and low-bush blueberries, and such. And in between, what constitutes The Back Yard, is a mass of lichen, mosses, grasses, dandelions, trailing arbutus, goldenrod, hawkweed, wild raspberries. And more.
A brazen raccoon at the back bird feeders. Usually they come around at night and empty out the bird feeders.
Surrounding this property on three sides is forest. Mostly pine to the right and back; pine and deciduous trees on the left. There’s also a buffer of trees on the fourth side, the front, between the house and the road. In amongst the pines, and also in some spots of the back yard, are Lady Slippers, which start blooming in late May.
Vixen with pups in March 1998. They stayed in Herby’s (the woodchuck) hole for a week. Amazing to watch.
When Joann moved in, she quickly established some order in the backyard. She created a path. This path is along the right edge and back, from the driveway to the first set of bird feeders, then onwards to the back set of bird feeders—being careful to walk around the crop of wild raspberries. Walking on this path protects the flora and fauna that root, grow, spread, munch, and otherwise run around most of the backyard.
At Joann’s feet is a domesticated rabbit that visited us in August 1998. Nice, calm fella. He endeared himself to three families on this block. We found out he was domesticated when the neighbor put him in the horse tack room for his protection... and he pooped in the kitty litter box!
The amazing thing is that we’ve been visited by woodchucks, fox (vixen and pups), and raccoons, plus the usual complement of squirrels, chipmunks, and cats. For the most part, all of these animals follow the path when going from the back to the front of the lawn, and vice versa—even being careful to walk around the crop of wild raspberries!
