Sometimes you're driving down a road in Maine...

...and the cars ahead swerve out of their lane, but you can't see anything in the road. When you get up there, you see why: a snapping turtle is trying to cross!

This happened to us on Saturday. I find them to be fearsome beasts; luckily Doug is braver than I & gave this grande dame a lift across the road. If there was any doubt where the name comes from, it became very obvious, as she tried her damndest to bite his fingers off. He lifted her by placing his hands as far back on her shell as possible, just forward of her hind legs, and still she almost got him.

Once safely across the road, she continued to glare (in a dignified way) but stayed long enough for a photo before lumbering away.

Blue Dasher, Apple Valley Pond, Winthrop, Maine

Also called the Blue Pirate!

Be Yourself...Unless You Get A Chance To Be Batman

My husband got a chance to be Batman, and he took it.

Not, you know, the Dark Knight...that guy's got a screw loose anyway. Don't be that Batman. But if you get a chance to be a hero to a bat, do it.

A few nights ago, I got up in the wee hours to check on my kiln (I'm a potter.) My husband Doug was kneeling beside the low flame of the burners, with what looked like a wet black washcloth cupped in his hands. As I watched, the washcloth extended one leathery wing.

It was a wet little bat! Well, technically, it was a wet big bat - Maine has Little Brown Bats & Big Brown Bats, and this one was the "big" variety, although clearly that's a relative term as it was only about 4" long. It had gotten in the house somehow, and then had the misfortune to land in the soapy water in the sink. At some point in the night Doug got up & discovered it struggling, and scooped it out of the water. He held it near the burner flame until it had dried off enough to fly.

I'm greatly relieved that it did, because I could see him gearing himself up to ask if we could bring it inside & nurse it back to health. I'm a big bat fan, as it happens, and I think we should encourage their population...in the wild. Bats charm me less in the house! But that proved unnecessary, as this little (big!) guy eventually made his way to the eves of out garage, and was gone by morning. Hopefully it's now busy eating mosquitos!

Unexpected Visitor

Saw this little cutie in Augusta today, on the bank of the Kennebec. To be on the safe side we called the Maine Warden Service, but they said it's not unusual to for seals to swim as far up as Augusta.

Sonance of the Lambs

I spent some time yesterday at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts. Watershed is itself an adventure, with the additional dollop of joy brought by its proximity to Straw's Farm. Sheep and lambs have charmingly human voices; the "baa" of a sheep sounds a lot like a human imitating a sheep! In the spring there are always lambs, making a very picture of Maine idyll.

Monarch in Maine

Female Monarch Butterfly

I saw this little lady (yes, a lady for sure!) on Macworth Island about a week ago. Because I am blessed with the kind of friends who not just notice things like butterflies, but stop and photograph them, I am starting to wonder if monarchs are making a comeback? I have seen a few more this year than last IRL, but I have seen many more on social media. In addition, my brother, who lives near a wooded area and has a large patch of milkweed on his property, says he and his wife & their little sons have seen chrysalises everywhere.

We so rarely get anything like good environmental news. The globe continues to warm, idiots continue to pretend it isn't, pesticides and habitat loss and even devices like hydro dams, which are meant to do less harm by replacing coal burning electrical generation, all contribute to species loss. Maybe, just maybe we are not going to lose this beloved beauty.

Male Monarch butterfly

I know this butterfly is a female, because the males have oval shaped black dot on their inner wings. Here's one a friend posted:


Yes, that's a marijuana plant it has landed on. Legal in Maine!

Batty McFly

For the third time this month we've entertained a bat visitor, in our living space. We're not sure how they are getting in, but it's an old house and most likely they are living in the attic and squeezing through some tiny hole into the living room. I like bats. I think they are cute - look at Batty McFly's hilariously fierce little face! In actuality he is not trying to intimidate, he was making those echolocation squeaks that bats use to get around.

I did a little reading and discovered that McFly is probably a Big Brown Bat, as opposed to a Little Brown Bat. "Big" is a relative term, and he (she?) was not at all a large animal. Both kinds are found in Maine. Big Brown Bats have longer fur and are more likely to be living in barns and attics.
Big Brown Bats are born in June, and the ones we are finding may well be the young of year, attempting to venture outside for the first time. Bad luck for them that they find themselves in the House of Many Cats, although none has been killed yet.
I captured McFly (and our earlier visitors) by putting on my work gloves ( I doubt they would bite but why take the chance?) and placing a wastepaper basket over them, then closing up the end with a bit of cardboard, and bring the lot outside. McFly seems tuckered out, because he didn't fly away right off the...bat, but hung out 😄for a while - long enough for me to snap this photo.

Like Little Brown Bats, Big Brown Bats can be infected with White Nose Syndrome, although their populations are not crashing like their smaller cousins.

Loon Chicks, Toddy Pond

Totes adorable, right? I snagged the photos from Avian Haven's Facebook page.
Avian Haven is a bird rescue and rehabilitation organization in Freedom, Maine. They have extensive facilities, including compounds for owls, other raptors, and aquatic birds, including a dedicated indoor pool for loon rehabilitation.

Though these guys were born on Toddy Pond, their next stop is the ocean, as loons typically spend their first two years as marine birds, before returning to their fresh water origin point to nest and raise chicks of their own.

Success!

In the spring I drilled holes in some wood blocks, hoping to attract Mason Bees - native pollinators far more effective than honey bees. I wasn't sure we'd be able to house masons, at least not this year, because I had read they nest early - when the trees bloom.

Turns out there are several kinds of mason bees, and one of them has found our bee condo! She carefully visited several of the holes before settling on this one, and is now in the process of removing the splinters and bits of wood inside the hole, in preparation for her eggs.

I'm excited all out of proportion about this.

Kennebec Ant

♫

Ohh, everything comes in its own special size
I guess it can be measured,
by where you put your eyes
It so big when you're close,
it looks smaller back a bit
That's about the size of it.

That's about the size;
where you put your eyes
That's about the size of it.

Oh the big becomes the little
when you see it back a bit.
The huge becomes the dinky
which is just the opposite
of the larger that gets smaller,
it never seems to quit -
That's about the size of it.

That's about the size;
where you put your eyes
That's about the size of it.

Let the Big become the Little,
that's the way it seems to go,
that they make up a larger thing
is something good to know.
It's nice to know that though it's small
there's always room to grow
and that's about the size of it.

That's about the size...
where you put your eyes.....
That's about the size of it.

To Bee or Not to Bee

Every year, long about in February, I start to think about keeping bees. I google a few kinds of hives: Kenyan top bar? Flow hive? Occasionally I even take a book out of the library before I remember: oh yeah. This is a shit ton of work. You have to clean the hive. You have to inoculate the bees. You have to treat for mites. You get propolis all over everything. And that's before you think about harvesting the honey. I'd probably have to take an extension course.

I'm not really up for a shit ton more work, or spending my little disposable income on a class. I like honey but not that much. I'm more interested in supporting pollinators.

In my annual internal soliloquy - to bee or not to bee? - this year I discovered the perfect compromise: mason bees! These are tiny native bees, about the size of houseflies, but they are power-pollinators: they 4 -5 times more efficiently than their non-native cousins the honeybees.

They are also a lot less work. Basically make a suitable home for them, and they take care of themselves. There are supplies you can buy - paper tubes to go in the holes, to make cleaning the nest out easier - but I went with basic this year. They want holes, preferably facing south or east, and tehy want a source of mud (I can do that - I'm a potter!!) They want some protection from rain and wind. The holes I drilled are a little shallow, probably only about 4 inches; apparently 5 or 6 is better, to protect against the predation of woodpeckers.

A 5-16th inch drill bit works best. Wood should be untreated.

I knew I was keeping those old license plates around for a reason. 

It turns out I may be a bit late for my little friends this season - everything I am reading is that they make their nests while the trees are blooming, which is late March & April here. But maybe we'll get a late bloomer or two! In any case, if they have need of a home it'll bee here. 😉

Freeport Belted Galloways

Photo by John Bourassa

More belties.

I like belties, a breed found mostly in Maine, on this side of the Atlantic.

Snowshoe Hare, Newcastle, Maine

All photos by Carrie White

I was leading a group firing at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts last weekend, when we encountered this guy! This is a snowshoe hare. They are found throughout Maine but not commonly seen. They don't want you to see them.
It did what hares do: froze in place when it saw my student, and then sprinted away. Here are a few more shot she took:

I've seen them before in other years, at Watershed. Meaning no slur on the rabbit, it always strikes me how un-cute they are. Like, this is NOT the Easter bunny, or a bunny of any kind! Its proportions seem off, compared to rabbits we are used to seeing. Its head is small and legs long. A few other fun facts about snowshoe hares:

• They aren't really rabbits at all! They belong to the same order of mammals -  Lagomorpha - but they are different species, like foxes and wolves are both canids, but different species. 
• These are the kind you've heard about which turn white in the winter. 
• They eat meat! They don't hunt of kill but will eat dead animals if they encounter them. That gives me the creeps, a little - it just seems so wrong. 
• Eastern Cottontails - Maine's other lagomorph - are endangered but apparently snowshoe hares are still hanging in. 👍

We see all kinds of cool things at Watershed! I'll detail the firing adventure over at my other, pottery-specific blog, once the pots are out of the kiln.

Tough Gig

Even fluffy-tailed rats have to eat! We dedicated one feeder to squirrels, not entirely deliberately, but it turned out to be too close to the house for most birds, though a few brave little chickadees use it. The squirrels now mostly prefer this feeder - no cold metal pole to shimmy up! - so the birds have rodent-free access to the other feeders.

This feeder, filled with sunflower seed, is close to the kitchen window, so provides hours of entertainment for the cats. Win-win!

*If you look close, you can just see the tip of the Banana Boat, our canoe, sticking out of a snow drift. Dreaming of a summer day - not long now! - when we again put it to use. 

The Frugalista in Winter: Sunflower Lard Cakes

Suet cakes are not expensive items, but it's even cheaper to make your own, from lard and sunflower or millet seed.
I never thought one way or the other about lard, until I started making soap. It makes a lovely soap with a rich lather. It also means I now have lard around the house. I have a block that had gotten a bit old - not rancid, but old fats will make a soap whose scent doesn't last as long. Waste is a dirty word at my house, so I found another use for it: sunflower seed cakes.

Lard melts at a low temperature - around 85°, which makes it a bad choice to feed the birds in the summer. (It ain't likely to get to 85° today, though; it's snowing like a mad bastard.) I melt the lard in a pan on the stove, and pour it over sunflower seed in a mini loaf pan. I don't know if the plastic wrap is necessary - probably not, I mean, what could be slipperier than lard? But I didn't want to have to screw around with the mess if I was wrong.

I popped the pan in the fridge, and then waited and...

I use a bit of wire to secure the cage, because the squirrels know how to get it open!

Two fit in the suet cage. Surprisingly, the one with the least lard - just enough to come to th ebottom edge of the top layer of seed - held together the best.

Hoping I see my downy woodpeckers, but even if not, lots of birds enjoy a little fat in their diet, to help keep them warm during the Maine winter.

They Always Come When it Snows

Cardinals and mourning doves. They come for the sunflower seeds; then I have finches on the thistle feeder, but they are more timid, so I couldn't even get this good a shot.

I have a suet feeder as well, but the squirrels - clever little bastards that they are - figured out how to open it, so that never lasts long.

That Awkward Moment

Near Millinocket, Maine

...when you wake up and there's a moose standing on your car.

Success Story - American Bald Eagles in Maine

I grew up in Maine. My family are an outdoorsy bunch - camping, fishing, hiking, boating - so I spent a lot of time enjoying the natural beauty of Maine. One thing that I never did see, growing up? A bald eagle, in the wild.

That's because, when I was growing up, bald eagles were nearly extinct. The pesticide DDT interfered with the success of the eggs. Their habitats were infringed and badly degraded. Their food sources were poisoned by pollution. Though the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 prohibited shooting them, there was still some illegal hunting, as eagles - pushed out of their preferred food sources - would sometimes take chickens or lambs.

In 1967, eagles south of the 40th parallel were protected, and in 1972, DDT was banned. Eagle populations did not begin to recover until after they received the full protection of the Endangered Species Act in 1978. It was listed as endangered in 42 states and  threatened in six others.

Today I live a quarter mile from the Kennebec River, and I see bald eagles almost every day. They glide over the river. They hassle osprey to drop fish

Photo by Greg Stephens

they've caught. They land on the sand bars and pick at their prize. I see them at Hatch Hill - the town dump - where they prey on the seagulls attracted by the trash.
Eagles are back. But they never would have come back if not for the ESA. This is the story for many species, and many more - Kennebec Salmon, for example - are still struggling.

Now Republican lawmakers want to roll back the Endangered Species Act. This came as something of a shock to me, because I don't know anyone who is not in favor of the act, which has been such an obvious success. In 1973 it passed almost unanimously.

But it's not 1973 anymore, and it seems like the Republican agenda has just become to roll back anything that liberals like. That's Republicans in Congress; as I said, every Republican I know personally favors the act. Anyone who hunts or fishes usually does.

If you think this is a horrifying idea, now would be an excellent time to call your Senators and Representatives and tell them so.

Woolie Bear Wisdom

I'm not much of a believer in folklore, horoscopes, fortune cookies, or any other woo-woo - unless it tells me something I want to hear! In this case, this woolie bear is telling me to prepare for the mildest winter ever.

The wives' tale tells us that the broader the brown band in the caterpillar's middle, the warmer out winter will be. I have never seen a wider brown stripe on a woolie bear, ever! Gentle January, here we come.

In actual fact, the brown strip is wider when the previous spring was earlier. But what fun is that? Even the easiest winters in Maine are hard, and long. It's good to have something to give us some hope!

Hartland, Maine

So many questions.