Corporate crime: Poisoned bird seed

"The Scotts Miracle-Gro company pleads guilty to knowingly selling poisoned birdseed, and lawn and garden care products containing undocumented pesticides, to an unsuspecting public."

See complete story at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/grrlscientist/2012/mar/21/2

The spring thing

In keeping with the erratic weather we've had for the past two years, this year's transition to spring has been, well, erratic.

The big surprise was the heat wave. Mid-March, temps in the 60s and 70s! A full month early! Dry and gorgeous, day after day. It was a gift for everyone who like to be outdoors -- or, like us, who needs to be outdoors, in order to take care of huge yard and garden projects. We got a month's head start on what's normally a cramped season. We also put our canoes in the water on a record early date.

(That was weird . . . after the paddle, we went for lunch at a pub at the base of the local ski hill, where we sat inside in wetsuits with canoes and kayaks on top of the cars outside, while people trooped by in boots and parkas carrying skis and snowboards. The ground was brown, the hill was white, and all bodies of water were mixed ice and liquid. Typical March!)

Anyway, during this heat wave, the first perennials broke through and the earliest migratory birds returned and most everyone went nutty with spring fever. Meanwhile, while celebrating wearing T-shirts and shorts before equinox, we never stopped looking over our shoulders, haunted by the five feet of snow we got in the last ten days of March some years ago. Another year, an April blizzard. And another year, a killing frost on June 1 after everyone had planted their gardens.

And so it goes. We haven't gotten any blizzards yet, but we've swung back to "normal" weather, three weeks now of mixed precipitation, biting blustery winds, and blazing sun. The emerging perennials put on the brakes and are hanging in a state of suspension, waiting for the warmup to resume (though one crocus dared bloom and got away with it).

Real spring is just around the corner, and both mud season and maple sugar season are definitely over. Now gardeners are eyeing their plots, wondering if the seeds they've started can go out under cover, or if we still have to wait until Memorial Day to be sure . . .

Weird winter

Most everyone in the country -- heck, most everyone in the world this year! -- will agree that it's been a funky season. Several funky seasons in a row, in fact.

And so it's been here, where this winter has been the weirdest one of the 14 we've so far experienced in Vermont. It's brought the least snow, not even accumulating 2 feet since October, versus the norm of 1-2 feet per month. Long strings of days above freezing, instead of the reverse. Short strings of subzero days instead of the usual week of same per month, December through March.

As people who heat with wood, we appreciate such a mild winter! So much easier to haul firewood in from the stack out back, and so much less needed to warm the house. The downside is:

Ice.

Weird winter weather has meant freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw, turning the dooryard into a skating rink and driveway into a luge run. These make simple tasks like bringing in the bird feeders at night, or walking out to the car, death-defying risks (never mind hauling wheelbarrows full of firewood!). I've only fallen once this season, though it did require a trip to the chiropractor to straighten out. In previous years, hubby and I have both taken falls that either created or solved chiropractic issues. It's amazing how exciting and dangerous living can sometimes be!

Thus the season has passed, to the point where we're suddenly on the cusp of spring. March, historically, is when winter gets its wackiest. The deepest snows have occurred in this month, along with the oddest mixes of weather. I recall one day when I passed through rain, sleet, snow, sunshine, wind, deep mud, and thunderstorm with hail and rainbow inside 20 minutes and 15 miles. This year, less dramatic -- but in 4 days we've had 10 inches of snow, followed by temps in the high 40s that melted away half of it, followed a hard freeze returning the yard to skating rink/luge run configuration, then rain, sleet, high winds, blinding sunshine, and clouds/fog, with single-digit temps forecast overnight and a bounce back to the 40s within 48 hours.

Meanwhile, the birds are starting to move and changing mix at the feeders. Woodpeckers, owls, and ravens have been doing the mating dance for weeks. First robins have arrived, looking very confused. A platoon of geese landed on the river not far from here, clearly resting from migration. And the sun, when it shines, is so strong that it's hard to believe the spring bulbs won't pop up tomorrow through the crust they've lain beneath for months.

What makes this all exciting is the crapshoot factor. Forget the weather forecast -- what arrives is almost always different from what's predicted, so that every day is an adventure. And only 16 more before it's officially Spring!

Like greased lightning . . .

. . . That's how fast a flying squirrel runs when chased through the living room by two cats.

And it's as hard to catch as a greased pig, as the kitties learned after romping through the house after it all night long -- and as we learned the next evening when the chase resumed during dinner.

It took a day to figure out what the thing was. Mice are common, especially in winter, but this guy was too big. We kept seeing it streak across the floor between furniture, too fast to identify. Finally my husband got a glimpse that told him it was bigger than a chipmunk with a similar tail, but not russety brown, no stripes down the back; gray or beige, smaller than a squirrel. Definitely not a rat.

Once hubby joined the fray, which moved into the basement workshop, he got close enough to look the critter in the face, up in the rafters -- big black button eyes looked back -- and to get a hand on its hindquarters before it squirted free and sailed past his head about ten feet to the floor, disappearing again under the machine tools and engine parts.

A flying rodent! That was the big clue. A year ago summer, we found a flying squirrel climbing up the basement wall in broad daylight. Until then, we'd been unaware that flying squirrels lived this far north. But we had been aware of critters living in the roof gambrels and the walls, scurrying around between floors now and then, and driving the cats nutty. We'd always thought the noisemakers were chipmunks or mice.

Neither critter is as bold (or tame? or tired?) as this one, which kept sticking its face out right in front of the cats, allowing us to get sooooo close before it shot away. I finally donned gloves and followed the cats around until they had the little guy cornered. Then I pounced! -- and caught him before the cats could and scuttled him outside. He fit with room to spare between my cupped-together hands.

End of excitement. We hope he found a warm place to crawl into, plus some food. Most likely, he's back in the gambrel through that hole we can't find, and the scurrying we next hear will be him running his usual route.

As long as he stays up there, we'll live and let live. And the cats will keep sitting on top of the refrigerator, staring at the ceiling.

The switcheroo

12/10/11

The switcheroo


Twenty-four hours after my last post discussing season change, the season changed. Thump, just like that.

We're accustomed to early snows that don't amount to much and disappear quickly. This one was only 4-5 inches, but it was heavy and wet, and bowed over all the trees from the weight of white coating. We worried about power outages -- some leaves were still up, and this is the condition that snaps branches and karate-chops wires -- but nothing happened. What a relief! The longest power outage we've ever suffered was an October storm some years ago that left us juice-free for five days.

This time, it melted away within twenty-four hours.

Same thing happened a few days later. Another 4 inches of wet snow, no biggy for us but it walloped southern New England, which was still in full foliage. Tore down trees by the acre and left that heavily populated urban/suburban area out of power for a week or more! We felt for them, having recently endured the effects of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. But our life went on as normal, for which we were grateful.

And then it melted off yet again, restoring clement conditions that allowed a final race against the calendar to get outdoor work done before getting snowed in for good. That finally happened with an 8-inch snow dump this week -- again, wet and heavy -- but this time not melting off. Sun came back strong but temperatures didn't follow. What's underneath the snow now will stay there until April. Or May . . . however long it lasts.

I suppose that's appropriate, given that we're now into December. It's rare to go snow-free this late into the year. We're now in full heating season and the longest hours of darkness, wearing parkas and boots and hats and gloves, mounting snow tires, scraping off cars.

It's the time of year when I begin my countdown. Only eleven more days 'til solstice, when the sun resumes its northward path and light starts returning to the land.

Can't wait!

Down to brown

Something that surprises me every year, no matter how often I experience it, is the speed of the season change. You see and feel it coming . . . you watch for it, record the signs . . . but then overnight the switch occurs, and you’ve jumped from summer to fall. Or fall to winter and so forth, as the case may be.

It just happened this week, the flip from foliage to stick season. The foliage change came late this year, and peak was short. A few days of wind and rain finished it off, and the cold rolled in. But there’s a lingering blend of colors that belies the seeming onset of winter. Grass is still green -- bright emerald in some places -- while the fields have turned beige and mustard, and the late-dropping trees glow with every variation between gold and brown.

Beeches, oaks, and birches paint the landscape around the naked trunks of maple, ash, and others. At the tippy top of the canopy, vivid yellows, almost lemon, stand out like blonde afro hairdos above the russets, coppers, ochres, siennas, and terra-cottas of the mid-story hardwoods. The understory features maroons and clarets and burgundies of burning-bush and sumac. All these are set against the somber purples and grays of the hills patched with dark evergreens, interrupted in sharp slashes, like exclamation points, by the bright amber larches.

Such colors become almost neon on the gloomy days of hanging moisture, then gain a celestial dazzle when the sun breaks through in columnar beams. The nice thing is, even when the last of the yellow leaves finally fall and the grasses wither, the midstory browns hang on, often through spring. This gives the landscape color and texture even during winter’s starkest months.

It all happens in reverse at the other end of the calendar. Then the bleakness suddenly gets fuzzy with incipient color, and next thing you know, the world is green and vibrant again.

A favorite seasonal poem

I’m not a big poetry fan, but there are a few simple, lovely poems I learned when young that have stayed with me. This is one of them. Was reminded of it this morning when I heard Canada geese gathering overhead.

Enjoy.

**************************

Something told the wild geese

It was time to go.

Though the fields lay golden

Something whispered, "Snow."

Leaves were green and stirring,

Berries luster-glossed,

But beneath warm feathers

Something cautioned, "Frost."

All the sagging orchards

Steamed with amber spice,

But each wild breast stiffened

At remembered ice.

Something told the wild geese

It was time to fly.

Summer sun was on their wings,

Winter in their cry.

--Rachel Field

“Something Told the Wild Geese”