Rhubarb and runaways

[altivo]

Runaway asparagus. Happens when we fail to check for new shoots and cut them every couple of days. They have turned into small trees, so I guess we will leave them for this year now.

Making rhubarb pie again for Gary, realized that the rhubarb I had sitting in the fridge was getting rather tired so went out to cut some fresh. Only when I got out there, sharp paring knife in hand, I was greeted by one of the Brit neighbors' horses who started to come right up to me in the middle of the garden. He had obviously gotten through their flimsy fences (not the first time.) He nickered at me but was not afraid apparently.

I didn't want to deal with being nosed by a friendly horse while I had a sharp tool in my hand, though, so I turned back toward the barn to get Gary and a lead rope and unload the knife. Of course when we came back the horse was gone. Or so I thought until I saw him trotting down the fence line on our side. He disappeared on the edge of the wood and when I got up to the spot I couldn't figure out how he got through. I expect he'll be back, though. Runaway horse.

Haven't seen the fox for a couple of days, but heard her at night and we have been finding chicken parts again. Gary says he found a foot. I keep finding stray feathers that are odd colors and definitely not from any of our usual wild birds. Oh, and coming back from looking for the runaway horse, we heard a woodpecker in the woods and hunted him down on a dead oak about 30 feet up. It was a large hairy woodpecker, I'm pretty sure, though I only heard him and saw his back. Gary thinks he went into a hole in the tree. I suppose that may mean he's a she. We'll have to watch.

Time to sample that pie...

Comments

[moonhare]

I loved our little asparagus trees, though some were hardly little. My mom always blamed my dad for killing off the beds by mowing through those every year.

Not quite runaways, but a day after the RI DEM asked for 'turkey sighting reports' I came across two hens with a brood of 13 poults. Well, one hen was with the chicks, and they were foraging under the feeders next door, and the other hen was 100+ feet away, watching a deer graze. I spooked both of those, the deer bolting into the woods and the hen trotting down to join the other birds.

[altivo]

I've been disappointed by the lack of turkey sightings here. I see them along the roads, especially in autumn, and friends say they have them on their land, but we never get any here even though I think the habitat should suit them. Probably too many dogs running loose. Thanks, irresponsible neighbors.

[moonhare]

That's a shame that they don't come around. Turkeys were re-introduced in Rhode Island as a restoration project in 1980, and we saw our first here in the early nineties.

Another aside: I saw a heron today in the pond next to my mom's house. These birds are becoming more visible as their numbers are increasing (or maybe their habitat shrinking). My sister tells me there is a swamp about eight miles from here where she's seen a colony of them nesting in trees.

[altivo]

Definitely. We are seeing more great blue herons here as well. We also seem to have greater numbers of sandhill cranes than in the recent past, and I've been seeing great egrets with greater frequency than what I used to expect.