Veronica and the fornicating deer (11/18/2025)

On our walk this morning we saw a gorgeous (at least 8 point) buck humping a doe in the woods. This made me think about a wool hat that a friend of ours knitted for me. We always call this hat “The Fornicating Reindeer Hat”.

Ever since we met in April 1994, Veronica was special to us. She was an archaeologist at the company I joined, she was half Dutch and still had a grandmother (oma) in the Netherlands. Her father was a Mennonite from Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and her mother was half Indonesian and half Dutch. Her dad was ultra conservative, a chiropractor, alternative medicine doctor and anti-vaxxer. Mom was a traditional housewife and somewhat of a homesteader. Veronica had a lot of fights with her father but often showed the same conservative streaks that he had. She was an amazing fiber artist and an expert spinner, knitter and weaver. Lastly, Veronica was grossly overweight.

She left her profession and moved to Burlington, VT right after we left Cincinnati for the Hampton Roads in Virginia. We did not lose touch, especially early on. We exchanged monthly phone calls, and her job required her to travel all over the place, so she made an effort to visit frequently. Veronica became her mother away from home when our daughter moved to New England. We had fun visiting her one autumn to coincide with the famous New England leaf-peeping season.

Eventually, the phone calls became scarce and when we spoke, she seemed out of it, or even drunk. At times we spoke the day after and she did not remember that she had called us the day before. Veronica lost a couple of jobs, but it was never her fault, and we never clued in that it could be alcohol related. After a hiatus of a half year, she called us and told us that she had used her frequent flyer miles to fly to Rio de Janeiro to attend the Olympics, in particular the rugby games which she loved. Not long thereafter we got a phone call from her mom telling us that Veronica had died.

Veronica was 55 years old when she died, and we learned she had a thyroid issue but like her stubborn father refused to take the regular medicine that could keep it under control. Our daughter went to look for the obituary and googled her name. It was then that we learned that Veronica had a couple Driving Under the Influence (DUI) convictions (for drunk driving) and actually was sentenced to a half year in jail. This was during the time she was supposedly in Rio (the lies alcoholics tell). A combination of thyroid disease and alcohol abuse must have killed her. We suspected alcohol before but never figured it was that bad. We still often kick ourselves that we did not clue in and did not drive up to intervene. We miss her terribly and often talk about her, even some six or seven years after her demise.

Crazy what a couple of screwing deer brings back. While Veronica technically did not commit suicide, she did it in her own way. She hated her father and loved him at the same time. Some famous person once wrote that hate and love are the same emotion. We knew that a lot of her drinking was about her father. Every time our friend called while under the influence, she spoke about him. If you suspect that a friend is in trouble, go out and help him or her. I do not think we would ever make that error again, and neither should you.

This is the cap that Veronica knitted for me.  She told us that she would go to a bar and knit one of these in an evening and when a guy would tell her that he loved it, she would sell it to him on condition that he would pick up her tab.

Embraced (7/18/2024)

In the more recent posts, I have mentioned that we had a contractor install a fence around our backyard. It was finished a little more than a month ago and we are really enjoying it. I have always been somewhat against fencing the backyard; however, now I am a convert. Our dogs Jasper and Radar enjoy the freedom of being able to roam our albeit small back yard chasing squirrels, howling at the trees that the squirrels escape into, as any good treeing coonhound should, and at deer outside the fence. Radar dapperly joins in, although he does not howl. In addition, the dogs have rip-roaring wrestle matches. I think at least three or four per day.

Since part of the backyard is in the shade we had a lovely cover of moss instead of grass. Well, that was completely torn up and destroyed by our canines and their wrestling matches. Oh well, as they say; we all enjoy a good fight. Us watching it and the dogs performing it.

We built an additional fence with sticks that fell out of all the trees in our backyard. It serves somewhat as a divider in the yard and a place for birds to hide and hang out. We planted pollinator plants along a path that I put in along the stick fence in the hope that one day it might resemble something like an English cottage garden. The area is being overtaken by a gourd of some kind. It was in our compost and based on our dietary habit, I expect that it will be acorn squash. Our green tunnel is being colonized by tomatoes and green beans. We have been eating grape tomatoes and snacking on the miscellaneous green been. It is an experiment that we will repeat next year.

I have noticed that we spend a lot more time in our backyard, now that we have a fence. The major reason is that the dogs can be with us. Jasper the hound is a runner and hunter. Radar cannot be completely trusted, and we were afraid that would attack people and other dogs that wander by. Before the fence we would either put them on a running leash or leave them inside when we went out. Inside, they would be barking to let us know that they wanted to join us. Outside on the long leash they would constantly wrap themselves around our seats, shrubs or trees. Now they are free to roam and wrestle.

The other night I had decided to go outside to urinate and was struck by an epiphany. Like every other full-blooded man, there is nothing better than pee against a tree and ruminate at the same time. Yes, I announced recently that we had a powder room again and my forays into the backyard to micturate were over. However, I still enjoy going wee-wee in the natural environs. One evening while taking a leak against a tree I had a flying squirrel scamper down the tree to see what all the rustling noise was all about or maybe it was protesting my use of its tree as a urinal. We met eye-to-eye and after further inspection the squirrel climbed back up the oak.

Back to the subject at hand, the epiphany. So, what was that realization that I had? Sitting on the concrete garden bench in the dark in front of our Buddha statue, for the first time I felt like the garden was embracing me. While I could not even see the statue in the dark, I felt one with nature, the world, with the yard and everything in it. I suddenly realized that without a fence our backyard had no limits; there was no cohesion to it all. Somehow that night, the fence gave me a feeling of a hug, of keeping me in her bosom and not letting my mind and spirit wander all over the place.

Now you all know that I am a strong believer in and practitioner of “Forest Bathing.” I have given a sermon on the practice and written 54 posts on the subject. I love wandering in the woods behind our home and absorbing nature. In other words, this feeling of being embraced by the fence came as a surprise and I have not been able to shake it. Three of four times per day I enjoy walking a circle through the yard, inspecting things; pulling a weed or just sit on a bench or a chair to take it all in, fantasizing bout what to do next in the yard or just meditating. It is an amazing feeling and I guess it is still forest bathing since the yard has many trees and we still border the woods. I am enjoying it; let’s hope those feeling does not go away.

Our volunteer gourds

Night in the yard, it was at that time I had the feeling of being embraced!

Black-eyed suzan and the stick fence on the left.

Optimist to a fault (6/3/2024)

Soon we will be having a contractor put in a fence around our back yard. We signed the contract 6 weeks ago and they are finally coming to install it this week. We have lived here without a fence almost 24 years, so the delay is no big deal. We wanted the best fence that will be put in by the best contractor. The fence will be around 5 feet tall, and it is meant to give the dogs more room to play; allow us to train our dogs; and to serve as a deterrent to the deer in the woods behind our home. I understand that deer can easily jump over a 6-foot-high fence, in other words, I do not expect them to totally stay out of our yard, but I hope it will serve as a deterrent or discouragement for them to enter our garden. We fully expect our dog Radar to patrol the fence and bark his head off.

You can see a lot of deer behind our back yard; the other day I counted about a dozen walking behind our home around dusk. Kim, the lady next door, gave one of them a name (Daisy). She calls her and feeds her peanuts by hand. Last night I could approach a herd within 6 feet when they entered the back yard. In the past, I have complaint about the over-browsing or over-grazing in the woods and in our home landscapes. In addition, I have written about the impact this has on the ecology of the area and on the deer themselves. I realize that discouraging the deer from entering our yard makes their habitat even more limited, but that would only reduce their habitat by a quarter acre. We are stealing their habitat for our use and enjoyment, and they are not giving up, they are adapting to live among us.

Being the eternal optimist, I have started planning the hopefully deer free landscape that we could finally be able to establish back there. I am hoping for a few display stands for some of my more prized bonsai; a vegetable patch that may receive more direct sun; some fruit trees and bushes; and a pollinator garden. I have already planted tomatoes and they have started to flower. I have not seen one insect on these flowers and most plants need pollinators to maximize their yield, even tomatoes. We used to have a bee hive or two in our back yard, but colony collapse got them. The other day, Bob our neighbor asked about them. He had trouble with his cucumbers not want to fruit because of the lack of pollinators. This is why I planted a pollinator garden: to attract them.

At the moment I am trying to keep the deer away from it all untill we have that fence. I am fanatically spraying a deterrent called “Liquid Fence.” We have had some success with that and I really hope the deer will leave the plants alone for the next few weeks untill the fence is in. However, we will keep spraying the Liquid Fence realizing deer can jump. Subsequently, we need to start worrying about the dogs not tearing through the planted areas. They are wild and crazy players, so we will find out. As you can see, I am planning for it all to go right, but I am prepared to embrace failure.

Here you have it, an explanation for the title of this short post. Will my yard work be a success? Only time will tell. At least now I have more time to dedicate to landscaping since I am retired.

We constructed a "decorative" stick fence and put in a wood chip path between it and the old vegetable garden.  I have planted pollinators plants, an elderberry and strawberries.  There was already a spindly blue berry along the fence.  Hopefully it will all spill over into the path.  

On the side (in an north to south direction, I created hoops for a green tunnel.  Currently I have tomatoes, green beans, Achorn squash and snap peas (a failure) growing in them.  I planted some basil between the tomatoes and some marigolds. 

Looking back up to where the first two pictures were taken.

Adventures in bonsai 2: Azaleas (5/21/2019)

What the heck, I will continue writing about bonsais today. For one, I have been really into them since it is somewhat the height of the season. Secondly, we went to visit the club show of the Virginia Bonsai Society at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens this week. The show was nice, I may have one complaint and that was that the trees were shown in front of open windows and you had to squint to really look at them in detail. However, it was fun and there were some beautiful trees. 

A nice 22-year old Japanese black pine in the exhibit at the Norfolk Botanical Garden show.  This was a nice example of one of the older trees in the exhibit.

Coming back from the show, I was inspired and I knew it was time for me to work on my azaleas. These plants have a somewhat interesting history. 

As some of my readers know, our back yard runs into Newport News Park. A quick search on the internet shows that our park is the largest city park in the country, totaling 8,065 acres (3063 hectares). It connects to the Colonial National Historic Park (no fence in between) which is another 9,349 acres (3751 hectares) making up a connected natural area that is more than 47 square miles (70 square km) in size. This is great for us, we love nature and to hike and bike, but as you can imagine, nature is full of all kinds of pests including deer. These deer have found a highway through our and our neighbors’ yards into our subdivision. Even this morning while walking the dog, you could watch them scurrying back into the woods behind our home after a night of debauchery on our landscaping plants. Finally, an additional problem has become all the ticks that these deer drop in our neighborhood. When watering my plants, I have to be vigilant and make sure I did not pick up a few of these critters; Lyme is always lurking around the corner.

The woman that we bought our home from had planted azaleas throughout the yard, and if there is an ice cream plant for deer, well it is the azalea (and maybe the hosta). Considering we have been living here for almost 19 years, these poor plants have been hit by deer for more than 20 years. The only way they were able to survive was either to try to grow out of the reach of the deer or to hide themselves and grow as low as possible and creep through the plant litter. Over the past few years we discovered a few plants that held on for dear life (pardon the pun), and so I decided to dig them up, save them and torture them in a completely different way! I dug up three, three years ago. One did not make it, but the two that did rewarded me the next year with a full canopy of white flowers. This past spring they did it again and finally this past weekend I worked a bit on some preliminary styling and removing all the spent flowers. Because of the creeping habit one is a natural cascade, while in the other, I am trying to encourage a new leader or main stem.

This azalea has been in this pot for two years.  As you can see it is very one sided, and I therefor decided to make it a cascade.  I pruned it to develop four foliage pads and clipped off all the spent flowers (very meditative).

This azalea is two years out of the ground.  I am trying to develop three foliage pads and hoping to develop a main leader (that crazy shoot in the middle).

This winter I decided to save one more azalea. To my surprise, when I started digging, the plant had spread itself over the ground through the litter so much that some of the branches had air layered themselves. Air layering means that they had rooted into the soil while still connected to the mother plant. Two of the branches only had a few roots, but they did have some. Feeling brave, I cut those branches off stuck them into a pot with my soil mix, figuring I had nothing to lose. I am happy to report that I now have four happy azaleas growing. It will be some time, before I have something to show for, but it sure is interesting. Never a dull moment. 

This is the mother plant that I dug up this winter (early spring).  I did some heavy pruning and stuck it in a pot.  It is really doing well.  Based on the leaf color, I expect this guy will be blooming red. unlike the ones from two years ago which are white.

One of the air layers.  This one had a long bare branch with a lot of roots along it so I needed a large pot to put it in.  It is thriving.

These two air layers just had a few roots coming out of the branches and I thought what the heck, I might as well try it, I have nothing to lose.  Well, they took.  Not sure what the root system will look like in the long run.

The Green Wall (6/7/2018)

Sitting in our gazebo and looking at the late May/early June woods behind our home, I am awestruck by what we euphemistically call our “green wall.” It is a pallet of different levels of green and different textures being contributed by different species of trees and shrubs. Sitting here I see a pyracantha that we are training up the gazebo. Behind it there is our red maple tree that survived hurricane Isabel in 2003 as a mere sapling, but now is a big tree. Next to it is a strange blue spruce that we got as a life Christmas tree one year and is completely out of place here in southeast Virginia. I also see azaleas, dogwoods, a redbud, a red tip, sassafras, a yellow popular (also known as a tulip poplar), white oaks, red oaks. more red maples, sweet gums, loblolly pines, American hollies, a winged sumac, beauty berries, paw paws, viburnums, one butterfly bush, a fringe tree, two magnolias, a Carolina jessamine, and a hawthorn bush. That is only in our small backyard; no wonder we had a shade garden. I am really hunting around to find sunny spots to put my bonsai trees. They really need sun to thrive. You can see that in the understory of our yard where we have a lot of ferns. However, in one sunny spot we have native sunflowers, goldenrod and milkweed. I hate to admit it, but we have a horrible invasion of Japanese stiltgrass.

Two photos from our back yard.  The bottom one gives the view from the gazebo.  As you can see it is pretty darn green out there,  with the sun peeking through the holes in the canopy, also known as sun flecks.   It is woods as far as they eyes can see.  The bottom photo may be a little fuzzy because the gazebo is screened in and I am taking the photo through the screen.

I am probably forgetting some plants in our yard, so be it. Our yard surely is not master piece of landscaping, that will come once we retire and can spend more time out there, and work on the design. But one thing will be for sure, I do not expect that we will change the aspect that our yard runs right into the woods behind our home. Having such a yard that runs into a forest, we hardly can see the edge between the two, and so does the wildlife and nature that lives in the woods behind our home. Although often frustrating, deer make our yard one of the first stopovers in their daily migration into our neighborhood. Tasty plants don’t stand a chance. Over the winter, they even pulled one of my azalea bonsais of the 5-foot-high table to nibble on. Oh well, they did to that tree what was long overdue and what I did not dare to do. In addition to all the plants and the deer, we have so many different bird species visiting our little plot; we have skinks everywhere, frogs, toads, a couple of snakes, bunnies, turtles, squirrels, mice, moles, voles, just to name a few. And let’s not talk about all those daddy longlegs that are out there in our yard right now.

This is the azalea bonsai that was pulled of the table this winter.  It is currently blooming, but as you can see the left side was completely defoliated by the deer that got to it before I got to the deer.  Anyway, the defoliation is probably long overdue.

But one thing is for sure, the green wall in our back yard is in contact and communication with the woods behind our home. Others in our neighborhood have cut all the trees in their yards, turned their yards into managed lawns, hit them with fertilizers and pesticides. They created a biological and ecological desert.

In his wonderful novel “The Overstory” Richard Powers writes a short story about a Ph.D. student who discovers how plants communicate with each other by releasing volatile chemicals in the air, warning each other of pending insect attacks. She gets vilified by the establishment to be proven correct years later after she has dropped out of science. While this is just a story or fiction, it probably comes very close to how communication between plants was discovered. It seems that the Soviet scientist Boris Tokin was the first to describe in the 1920s and 30s that trees gave off volatile chemicals. Boris had an inkling that this was for self-defense, but I do not think for communication between plants or as he called them “phytoncides.” On a side note, it seemed he was an interesting character and being a politically correct communist, he published about his effort of integrating the philosophies and thoughts about Darwin, Marx and Engels. As I mentioned in previous posts, researchers in Japan, among them Tomohide Akiyama and Dr. Qing Li discovered in the 1980s that some of these phytoncides were actually beneficial to humans and introduced the world to the concept of “forest bathing” or “shinrin-yoku.”

But it is not only through the air that plants communicate. We are finding that even through the roots and by way of mycorrhizal fungi plants can communicate with each other over large distances and even exchange messages and even food like carbohydrates with each other in times of need (watch this great YouTube video). I would therefore not be surprised if the trees or the plants in our yard are communicating with the others in the woods. I also wonder if people who put all those pesticides on their lawns, in particular fungicides are severing those connections and isolating the few remaining trees on their properties; making them weaker and more susceptible to insects and diseases, let alone weakening them by pumping chemicals into them.

I guess for right now I will not be able to prove any of this, but all I know, our backyard teams with biodiversity: the trees, shrubs, animal life, and as I described in one of my posts even the little spiders with their iridescent eyes that reflect light from our headlamps at night. I know that our backyard looks pretty darn healthy (with the exception of the stiltgrass); it has not seen many chemicals in a very long time and it seems that nature is thanking us.

Forest bathing II (12/22/2017)

The other night we went out into our back yard after dark to show my wife what had excited our dogs today.  We put on our trusty head lamps and went to take a look.  Right on the other side of the fence, in our neighbor’s yard were the dismembered guts of an animal and some fir laying in the leaves.  We surmised it was most likely a rabbit or a squirrel that had become prey of a hawk or an owl.  We do have coyotes in the woods behind our home, but they would have had to jump over the fence and there was very little disturbance of the leaves; much more likely that the guts were dropped from the tree above.  I am not sure if either a hawk or an owl does not eat the guts or if they simply had their fill.  Anyway, the smell of the (rotting) guts had excited the dogs earlier in the day.

Turning around, my wife spotted two very bright emerald sparks in the leaf matter at her feet: “Wow, crystals?”  On further investigation, there was a small black spider scurrying around the leaves and the light beam from our headlamp reflected from its eyes and those were the sparkles that she saw.  It was 38˚F (3˚C) and the spider was still active in the leaf litter.  I don’t know what the little guy was hunting for, as I write in my spider blog, most spiders are hunters, but he or she was pretty safe.  Come day time the spider may become the hunted by all the birds in our back yard that scurry through the leaf litter.  As you know that makes me so frustrated watching all these people bagging leaves.  They are so important in our ecological cycle.

One of our bagging neighbors.  In addition to mining nutrients, getting rid of nutrients for birds etc, they also are exposing their topsoil to erosive forces.  Yes, they may have less mice, ticks and chiggers, but at what cost?

 I have learned a lot of things in 2018.  I have learned a new term: “Forest Bathing.”  I used to use the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” and while they are closely related, I think forest bathing describes a more intimate nature experience.  You linger in nature, absorb it all, take it in.  I guess you can forest bath to take care of that nature deficit disorder; although I read that even nature wall paper on your computer screen may take care of the disorder to some extent and that is not forest bathing.

That little spider with its reflective emerald eyes was part of such a forest bathing experience.  So were the guts of a dead animal.  It can really only be 5 minutes of observations, but longer would be better.  When walking through the woods behind our home, I always discover something unique, something different; at least when I am not in a hurry (see the photos below).  Even our dog Jake finds new things.  He often happens to roll in something very stinky in these woodsWe regularly flush a barred owl in the area and now I wonder if an owl discards the guts of its prey and that is what Jake rolls in.  He also feasts on deer pellets or as we call it deer pro-biotics for dogs.  Oh well.  

Regular readers know my writings about the discoveries in woods behind our home.  I have written about Washington’s shovel.  Well, it is still there, I saw it this morning.  I wrote about the over population of deer and signs they leave behind, but just look at my keyword on deer and there is much more.

The photos below were taken on this morning’s walk in the woods.  Just a quiet slow walk, observing what is around me.  It is just great to be out there, to take it all in.  We were not in a hurry.  Jake (the dog) was apprehensive this morning, "what was daddy doing, just standing around looking at things, taking pictures and taking his time?"   We were observing.  Just read the caption with the pictures.  Go do your own forest bathing, it does not have to be spiritual or mystical to enjoy it or to learn from nature. Remember any nature is good. 

Lastly, if you enjoy this and some of my more naturalist posts, I am reading a great book by David George Haskell called “The Forest Unseen, A Year’s Watch in Nature.”  It is a great read and even this biologist is learning a lot.

Most of the trees in the woods behind our home are sticks, indicating it is a fairly young forest, but this oak was able to take advantage of an opening in the canopy to spread out wide.

This pine appears to have been hit by lightning but as the next two pictures show it is holding on to life, unlike many trees that are hit do.  However there is a dead streak going up all the way.  The bark is pealed off and woodpeckers have been busy.

The dead streak going up.

And up.

I am not sure what happened to this maple but it is holding on too.  The hardwood is dead but it seems to be doing fine.  You can see the live vain thickening on both sides of the cavity.

Not again ... Oh Las Vegas (10/2/2017)

Well, it happened again.  Another mass shooting.  What the fuck!
It is a horrible thing that happened, a thing that should never have happened.  I am absolutely devastated.

At least the gunman was not Muslim, nor some other minority; it seems to be a lone wolf.  Maybe an angry white guy (64 year old), who knows?  Not that this make it any better, nor that this is a thing to celebrate.  Actually, for me being a white guy of 64, it makes me feel horrible.  I know I am writing this way too early to come to real conclusions but I need to get this off my mind.

While I am glued to the TV trying to find out more about the crap that went on in Las Vegas, these two guys have not worry in the world.  They were fed and walked.  Daddy is home with a migraine and the news does not help.

It is amazing to watch TV and watch what went on and how everyone analyze it.  I just hear the automatic gun fire and wonder how people get these guns.  Honestly, you do not need them to hunt but you can use it to mow down people like I mow my lawn, but then he did it from a high-rise motel room.  

Readers of my blogs know that while I am not a hunter, I am pro hunting.  I am a naturalist/ecologist who believes like my hero Aldo Leopold that because of the extirpation of the natural predators we need to hunt deer, but we do not need automatic rifles to hunt for deer.  We use those to kill people as we saw last night!

Newport News Park (3/24/2015)

In his essays on conservation ethics Aldo Leopold wrote about how the removal of predators from the landscape was detrimental to nature.  The removal of the wolf in the western US by ranchers to protect their sheep eventually led to an explosion in the mule deer population and tremendous over grazing by the deer which resulted in a decreased food supply for the sheep and an eventual decline in income for the ranchers.  (Yes, I already wrote about this, but it is worth repeating.) It is amazing how interconnected our life is with the natural world.   It is even more amazing how humans now reached a stage where we can influence and alter the natural wold as opposed to the natural world impacting us.

I have seen this as well.  In the late 1990s, I conducted some research in Valley Forge National Park and noticed how small the deer were.  I am not sure if it was caused by malnutrition or whether evolution was at work here.  What I do know that the National Park is completely surrounded by residential areas, which have forced the deer into a smaller and smaller area to find their food.  Naturally,  they do browse in the neighborhoods, but it seems that they most likely consume native landscape plants while they leave a lot of the exotics alone.  With the lack of hunting and predators the deer population in the park must have exploded resulting in a lack of food.  Either the deer a scrawny because of that, but given enough time you can expect that there will be an evolutionary pressure for smaller deer that can survive and thrive on less food.  But mature deer in the park looked like they were miniaturized, or as I called them bonsai deer; mature deer stood two to three feet tall.

Zoom in on today's picture.  In my opinion we are creating a similar issue in Newport Nes Park as I encountered in Valley Forge.   We are allowing the deer population to increase without culling by predators or through hunting.  Deer have so overgrazed the park that most palatable plants have been pushed out.  In addition to the overgrazing the lack of forest management has resulted in a dense leaf bed through which very few plants can germinate.  As a result we have very little understory and the only plants that remain in the understory are unpalatable to the deer.  Deer are now invading our neighborhood.

That brings me to idyllic picture of a doe and her fawn.  It was around night fall and they were slowly migrating towards our yards for their evening meals.

Newport News Park (2/17/2015)

So here I write a blog post on the 27th of January about my experience with snow as a kid, and while I did not really meant to complain, nature had a different understanding and dished out some snow this week.  Just to get even with me complaining; nature has a way to get back at you.  On top of that it is supposed to get really cold.

The photo above is actually from one of the Grafton Ponds out back.  The ponds were mostly frozen over before the snow hit.  However there were enough holes in the ice and the weight of the snow (5 to 6 inches or 12 to 15 cm) was heavy enough to force pond water to intermingle with the snow and turn is yellowish.  This is a good thing, at least you can see where the ice is, because I'm sure that the ice was not hard enough when the snow started falling.  So no wienie roasting on the ice as I did as a kid in Canada.

It was beautiful though, the white world and the sun after a day old cold and cloudy.  I'm also thankful that the boss (or the Governor I guess) gave us an extra day off to dig out and to enjoy the snow.  For me it is a great chance to explore great out doors and nature.

I guess we are slightly different, we get of the beaten path and we "bushwhack."  Knee deep beagle snow was a bit too much for our small (12 year/old) beagle, but she was a trouper.  Like us she enjoys it a lot and that's what counts.  Both dog were smelling every hoof print that all the deer left in the ice, which was hilarious to watch.  Quality of life, enjoying the outdoors, getting in touch with nature and living in the moment are all very important.  And living in the moment we did; there is always something fun and new around every corner. 

Here we are walking away from the edge of a pond, through a wetland; hence the sedges. To the right you can see an area with some recent tree fall (recent being probably caused by hurricane Isabel 12 years ago).  The gap in the forest is now starting to fill in with some small loblolly pine saplings.  The natural succession as we see here is a good thing.  Generally after logging you have a very even aged forest, and it is the occasional tree fall that makes a forest more dynamic and diverse.  Now if we could control the deer, we would even have more diversity, especially in the understory.  Looking back this is what we saw:

Sitting behind my desk and behind my computer, I already miss being outside in nature, and experiencing this beauty.  The virgin snow covers all imperfections and even the litter you sometimes find in these far flung places.  The innocence of this landscape under a white blanket is amazing to me.  It is so peaceful and fun.  This was also evidenced yesterday by this little winter wren which was darting from trunk to trunk over the ice, pecking the bark for bugs and other food items.  The diminutive bird did not care about us and our dogs.  It came close to us and for a while just stood there on the ice and watched us. I generally find them very secretive, but this little guy had no worry in the world and was having fun on the ice.  A fun peaceful place to spend an afternoon.

(this post is part of my contribution to Cee's Fun Photo Challenge)

Newport News Park (2/7/2015)T

This morning we again experienced that sometimes the road well traveled is not the most exciting road.  It is great to bushwhack through the woods and see where it leads.  We decided that the trails we always seem to walk was just not for us today.  The sky was blue, the air was crisp and we were not interested in finding the straightest line or the fastest ways between two points.  This was also evidenced by the mountain bike trail we crossed at times bushwhacking this morning.  Mountain bike trails seem to wind back and forth through the woods, not making much headway, but who cares.  It is the exercise that counts, or it is the trip that counts in my eyes, not the destination.

During our walk today we went through an area that was obviously cut over 20 or 30 years ago.  It is mostly covered with hardwood trees, and to our surprise there are some really large trees left.  Most of them are large beech trees.  The following is one between the "abandoned road" and the golf course.

But as I said we soon stepped off the "abandoned road"into the nature preserve, to just enjoy the trip, and nobody cared about the destination.  The dogs just love smelling everywhere and Jake, our pseudo lab loves deep pellets, which we now have coined doggy probiotics.  We just walked keeping the sun in mind, and figuring that if we kept the sun at a certain angle we would eventually make it to a trail that leads directly to our home.  We did not care if it was straight or what we would be running into.  Naturally it was one of the biggest beeches out back (I know of one or two more out there) that made us deviate from the course we had plotted in our mind, but that's the fun of it.

In the background you can see the general circumference of the other trees in the area.  It makes you really wonder why the foresters did not harvest these few beeches when they were at it.  Currently, with the advent of mechanical tools beech trees seem to be favorable trees throughout the world; they have very hard weed, and even here in the U.S. they seemed to be likes as lumber.  But I thank whoever for not harvesting these beauties.

The weeds behind our house have remarkably much relief, with some of the low areas occupied by the vernal pools that I write so much about (look in the labels for Grafton ponds, ephemeral ponds or maybe the Mabee salamander).  The last photo here shows a picture of Jake (one of our dogs) on a root crown of an oak near a pond.  I was impressed by the burl on the oak.  It seems that they are actually preferred by specialty wood workers and can fetch a lot of money,  

Amazing all the things you learn walking out back and when you are looking and enjoying yourself.  Sometimes not traveling the shortest distance between points give you the most bang for your buck anyway in enjoyment, relaxation and just fun.

Newport News Park (1/4/2015)

Wow, 2015.  Happy New Year to all my readers.

Today's blog is a multipurpose posting first of course it is a wish to all to make the best of it all and enjoy 2015.  I am sure that some readers may think something like: "this guy had 11 days vacation, and all the time to take the perfect picture, and now see what he shows as his first of 2015."  I'll explain this below.  Remember, one of my favorite sayings is: "It is what it is", and there is not much we can do about certain situations, but to enjoy it (or maybe grin and bare it?).

So why this picture.  It is about unintended consequences.  Lets start: I believe in the inherent goodness in all and everything, and that we as humans are capable in screwing it up (or sometimes misinterpreting it).  I am often reminded of Aldo Leopold who made a 180 degree turn after he shot a wolf (in the early 20th century) and later on came to the conclusion that exterminating wolves was not going to save the sheep ranchers, but that it was actually going to hurt them since the deer no longer had any predators.  The loss of predators resulted in the explosion of the deer populations and overgrazing by the deer, which in turn resulted in the loss of food for the sheep and actually crashing sheep populations.  In other words exterminating wolves actually hurt the sheep farmers.

A lot of human interference in nature has unforeseen consequences, but wolves are great examples.  After their reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park, the ecology of the riverbanks and wetlands improved.  When the wolves were exterminated from the parks, elk became bolder and started grazing in these areas and greatly impacting the vegetation.  The reintroduction of wolves really helped in the restoration of these areas.  This link provides some great information on that.

So why this picture?  During our walks out behind our home, a sight such as this is very common.  The bark is stripped from the small pine tree, and I can guarantee that the tree will most likely not survive.  This is not necessarily bad in this case, you can see in the background that the the tree density is very high and killing some trees would be very good.  But there is a deeper issue here.  What is this stripping of the bark all about?  Well, bucks (male deer) shed their horns in the late fall, and they start growing out around this time of year.  You can imagine that horns that try to poke out of your skin hurt or at least are a little itchy.  That is where these small trees come in.  A buck can not ask one of the girls in his harem to give him a scratch on the head, and so he has to do this himself.  In that process they scratch so hard that the bark comes off the tree.

But briefly coming back to those deer.  We have no (or very few) predators in the woods out back.  We have sighted a few coyotes, but that's it.  Moreover, no hunting is allowed in the park.  As a result the deer have proliferated. eating everything in sight.  The woods very impoverished; seedlings are eaten as soon as they germinate.  (It is actually so bad that the deer are running out of food, and they have invaded our neighborhood.  The other night we almost witnessed a crash between a deer and a car).  So now, the woods out back have very little understory and they are not very diverse.  The only plants that grow there are the ones deer do not eat.  Although I understand we cannot reintroduce the wolf in our back yard, or allow hunting, I wish we could somehow keep the deer population under control, thus keeping the biodiversity in the woods behind us (and allowing me to grow nice plants in my yard).  As you can see, our actions have all these unforeseen consequences in nature that may show up much later and sometimes too late for us to do something about.

Newport News Park (11/18/2014)

Have not written much lately and not sure how long I'll be able to keep this up without making it sound like too much of a diary.  Moreover, I've been asked to write a (text) book and I assume that when you start writing for a living your armature writing languish.  We'll see.

Fall is definitively here.  Tonight we get a major frost (early for this time of the year) courtesy of another year with a polar vortex.  I expect that all or most of the leaves will start raining down tomorrow after a night time temperature in the mid 20s.  Taking the dogs for a walk this morning I was struck (as most falls) by the variety of leaves on the forest floor and all the different colors.  An absolute gorgeous sight, made even better by the fact that I don't have the rake these leaves.  Leaves that I saw included those of the sassafras, sour wood, maple, sweet gun and some of the oaks (all shown in the picture below) on top of pine needles.  Further down the trail you see black gum leaves, persimmon and the sycamore.  Naturally in the woods behind our home there are a great number of oaks: red, white, water, post, laurel, overcup, and swamp chestnut oak.  I probably miss a few.  To me a great publication is booklet by the Virginia Department of Forestry on our common Virginia trees (click here for the link).

Of all these trees I mention I have a sweet spot in my heart for the sassafras and the overcup oak.  I like the trident leaves of the sassafras, it delicate yellow flowers in spring and its yellow leaves in the fall.  On top of that, when crushed, the leaves smell like root beer.  Not my favorite drink, but the smell is indicative of the plant's assumed medicinal value.  I've read somewhere that, in the deep south, the roots were ground up and drank as a tea.  Tradition tells us that the tea makes it easier for you to tolerate the southern heat and humidity.  The leaves are also used in Creole cooking.  I like the overcup oak just because the acorn is almost completely covered by the cup, and because it grows in the wettest locations.  They have been fruiting copiously, and I am sure the deer just love it.

Home (4/9/2014)

My travel schedule has lightened up somewhat, so I will be posting fewer pictures of the state and more from around what we call the Virginia Lower Peninsula and Richmond.  My travel schedule will pick up in earnest around the middle of June.  But it is so nice to be home and lay my head down on my own pillow for the next month or so, especially now spring is just around the corner and it is time to work on my sailboat and our home, in particular the garden.

It is also good to telework and every time you look up from your computer screen you see the yard, the birds on the feeder (maybe not the cowbird that is feeding right now) and even sometimes a deer under the birdfeeder.  I guess it should not be unusual to see cowbirds and deer at our feeders.  We live on the edge of a large forest, and cowbirds are edge species.  They are nest predators, meaning that they lay their eggs in the nests of unsuspecting birds.  It is kind of sad and funny at the same time to watch a tufted titmouse feed a much larger young baby cowbird, thinking it is their offspring.  Cowbirds do not go too far into the woods and it is the forest fragmentation caused by our increasing urbanization that creates so much forest edge.  As a result the cowbirds are slowly replacing all the songbirds that depend on the interior of the forests such as vireos and warblers, by laying their eggs in the nest of these forest birds; something they could not do (or did not dare) in the past.  It is the same thing with the deer; they are running out of room and food in the woods and are therefore invading the neighborhoods at night, eating plants and spreading ticks (lyme) at night.

Sitting here at the dining room table I can see the sassafras and the flowering quince in bloom; redbud is about to start, as is the dogwood.  I think by the weekend they will be at their best.  Soon it will also be snowing pine pollen, which is amazing in our area.  I am wondering if any of our plants did not make it through our unusually harsh winter, only time will tell.  This picture is of the quince in our bag yard, and you can probably see the dogwood starting to bloom.  Thanks goodness the deer don’t like the quince; that is very different from the azaleas which they strip. 

Yorktown Battlefield (2/7/2014)

This is what is called a “widow maker”, or one of those trees you do not want to cut down. This photo was taken in the Yorktown Battlefield National Historic Park.  Interestingly I am here near the border of the National Park and Newport News Park.  On the Newport News side trees like this are cleaned up, in the national park only the trails are kept open, but parts of the woods look like pick-up-sticks.  I don’t mind that at all, since it is more a natural appearance and provides a lot of habitat from birds and critters.  It may even provide some protection for plants from the ferocious deer we have in our area.  These deer will eat anything they can find and there is very little regeneration (except for plants they do not like) and very little herbaceous understory.  I kind of wish there was a way to cull the deer so close to the neighborhood.  On the other hand all these fallen trees make for an immense fuel load, and if we get a fire this will be the crown fire of the year and I fear for my home and that of our neighbors.  One of those Catch 22s.  One day I spent some time in an old growth forest stand in Ohio, and I still hope our woods would look like that, but the accumulation of leaf litter, the lack of ground fires and the deer seem to make further evolution of these areas into an old growth forest more difficult.