Monday, April 13, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Barking Birds
We feed our cat and dog outside. Although they come in the house as they wish, they spend most of a day outdoors. That’s their half of the bargain: we feed them, they patrol the environs. A neighbor taught us years ago that if we feed our cat half of what we were then providing, he’d satisfy the remainder of his appetite (and even better, his nutritional needs) by hunting mice and voles. The dog spreads her scent around the area, hopefully deterring deer.
The dog gets fed pretty much what she finishes in a few hours, except in deer season, when the woods are full of remains that hunters leave behind. We quit feeding her entirely for a few weeks then, as she scorns our offering for those tasty venison parts she gleans from the woods. It’s a little messy having legs and other offal stuff lying around, but it’s better for her than store-bought, slaughterhouse food.
So the cat gets a little dribble of kibble in a dish, twice a day—hunting the rest for himself. Several months ago, however, we began to notice that his food was disappearing faster than usual. Even when he had been napping on a chair for several hours, it seemed as if his dish was emptying. A mystery. Another cat lurking in the woods? A squirrel sneaking in? The dog thieving cat food?
Then I caught a titmouse red-clawed, as I watched it swoop down, grab a kibble and fly off. Half an hour later, after watching other feathered thieves make off with cat food, the dish was empty. No wonder the cat had been pestering us for more food! That’s a fine development: feed those ungrateful birds with ever-present sunflower seeds and some of them will want to broaden their diets. Give them an inch of bird seed and they’ll take a mile of cat food.
Over the next couple of weeks I tried moving the cat’s dish to other, less visible locations, but those clever titmice quickly caught on. (Never did a sweet little chickadee steal food—just devilish titmice.) I eventually had to cut a small cat-access hole in the door of an outbuilding and put the dish inside. That finally foiled the birds—although I suspect a mouse inside that building is very pleased with its new windfall.
The birds went back to their feeder; all was honest and well in animal land. Then one day I looked out, and caught another titmouse, as it swooped down to the dog’s dish, picked up a soggy gob of dog kibble the size of its noggin, and triumphantly struggled into the air again—it’s head drooping slightly from the weight.
Well this time I’m gonna let the dog engage in her own food fight. She’s not going to starve. Maybe it’ll teach her to eat all her meal when I put it down, rather than walk away and return later. What’s the worst that could happen if I take a laissez-faire food attitude—will the titmice start barking?
The dog gets fed pretty much what she finishes in a few hours, except in deer season, when the woods are full of remains that hunters leave behind. We quit feeding her entirely for a few weeks then, as she scorns our offering for those tasty venison parts she gleans from the woods. It’s a little messy having legs and other offal stuff lying around, but it’s better for her than store-bought, slaughterhouse food.
So the cat gets a little dribble of kibble in a dish, twice a day—hunting the rest for himself. Several months ago, however, we began to notice that his food was disappearing faster than usual. Even when he had been napping on a chair for several hours, it seemed as if his dish was emptying. A mystery. Another cat lurking in the woods? A squirrel sneaking in? The dog thieving cat food?
Then I caught a titmouse red-clawed, as I watched it swoop down, grab a kibble and fly off. Half an hour later, after watching other feathered thieves make off with cat food, the dish was empty. No wonder the cat had been pestering us for more food! That’s a fine development: feed those ungrateful birds with ever-present sunflower seeds and some of them will want to broaden their diets. Give them an inch of bird seed and they’ll take a mile of cat food.
Over the next couple of weeks I tried moving the cat’s dish to other, less visible locations, but those clever titmice quickly caught on. (Never did a sweet little chickadee steal food—just devilish titmice.) I eventually had to cut a small cat-access hole in the door of an outbuilding and put the dish inside. That finally foiled the birds—although I suspect a mouse inside that building is very pleased with its new windfall.
The birds went back to their feeder; all was honest and well in animal land. Then one day I looked out, and caught another titmouse, as it swooped down to the dog’s dish, picked up a soggy gob of dog kibble the size of its noggin, and triumphantly struggled into the air again—it’s head drooping slightly from the weight.
Well this time I’m gonna let the dog engage in her own food fight. She’s not going to starve. Maybe it’ll teach her to eat all her meal when I put it down, rather than walk away and return later. What’s the worst that could happen if I take a laissez-faire food attitude—will the titmice start barking?
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Apple Woes (and Hope?)—Part 2
So we were eventually reduced to one reasonably productive cherry tree and two pear trees that the local non-human mammals felt they owned. We’d pretty much thrown in the fruit towel and had turned to alternatives such as strawberries.
Then I read Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire. He describes the origin of apples to be Kazakhstan, where they still grow wild and bear large, tasty fruits. In contrast, America’s wild apples are usually crabby, little, nearly inedible things. Pollan also described a research program being conducted by Cornell University in Geneva, New York, in which Kazakh apples and their seeds are being introduced to an American environment, allowing them to cross pollinate with native varieties.
A peculiar quality of the apple is that it strongly exhibits a botanical quality called heterozygosity. (Hetero = different; zygote = a cell born from the union of two adult cells, i.e., cell sexual reproduction.) Heterozygosity means that every seed in an apple will bear a tree that is genetically different from either of its parents. So the only way to plant an orchard of identical apple trees (such as millions of Red Delicious) is to clone them.
This genetic variability is what has allowed the apple tree to mutate into so many varieties in America so quickly. Thus, if you plant some seeds the offspring will create wide variations—and some of those saplings will possess the qualities to prosper in that location. It’s a fine example of Darwin’s survival of the fittest. So if apples deliciously thrive in the wilds in Kazakhstan, why not some of their grandchildren in my backyard?
Maybe this was another chance for us to get fruit! I contacted Cornell and they were happy to send me a couple dozen Kazakh scions (of proven high-quality apples) to graft to my wild apple trees and 125 Kazakh seeds, from which I could try creating my own homegrown varieties. I carefully sprouted the seeds (getting 120 seedlings!) and grafted the scions. Just maybe this would lead some day to healthy, hardy apple trees that would provide the harvest I’ve been hoping for all these years—trees that could withstand the assaults of frost, bugs, and disease; if not marauding mammals.
As Mother Nature would have it, there’s no facile solution to my apple woes. Of the original 24 grafts I’m down to eight survivors. It’ll be another few years before they grow large and robust enough to bear fruit. I cross my fingers. Of the 120 seedlings I planted, I’m now down to 43, thanks to repeated attacks from voles and deer. Voles burrow underground and nibble off the roots, until the poor, rootless sapling topples over. Deer nibble leaves and branches—not killing the sapling as a vole does, but performing an overly enthusiastic pruning job. It will be several years before these saplings bear fruit—if I can hold the voles and deer at bay.
I hope to live long enough to see a hardy, tasty apple come from my experiments. I sure hope I’m not old and toothless by the time a fantastic, crisp apple grows in my backyard. In that case, maybe my grandkids will enjoy them.
Then I read Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire. He describes the origin of apples to be Kazakhstan, where they still grow wild and bear large, tasty fruits. In contrast, America’s wild apples are usually crabby, little, nearly inedible things. Pollan also described a research program being conducted by Cornell University in Geneva, New York, in which Kazakh apples and their seeds are being introduced to an American environment, allowing them to cross pollinate with native varieties.
A peculiar quality of the apple is that it strongly exhibits a botanical quality called heterozygosity. (Hetero = different; zygote = a cell born from the union of two adult cells, i.e., cell sexual reproduction.) Heterozygosity means that every seed in an apple will bear a tree that is genetically different from either of its parents. So the only way to plant an orchard of identical apple trees (such as millions of Red Delicious) is to clone them.
This genetic variability is what has allowed the apple tree to mutate into so many varieties in America so quickly. Thus, if you plant some seeds the offspring will create wide variations—and some of those saplings will possess the qualities to prosper in that location. It’s a fine example of Darwin’s survival of the fittest. So if apples deliciously thrive in the wilds in Kazakhstan, why not some of their grandchildren in my backyard?
Maybe this was another chance for us to get fruit! I contacted Cornell and they were happy to send me a couple dozen Kazakh scions (of proven high-quality apples) to graft to my wild apple trees and 125 Kazakh seeds, from which I could try creating my own homegrown varieties. I carefully sprouted the seeds (getting 120 seedlings!) and grafted the scions. Just maybe this would lead some day to healthy, hardy apple trees that would provide the harvest I’ve been hoping for all these years—trees that could withstand the assaults of frost, bugs, and disease; if not marauding mammals.
As Mother Nature would have it, there’s no facile solution to my apple woes. Of the original 24 grafts I’m down to eight survivors. It’ll be another few years before they grow large and robust enough to bear fruit. I cross my fingers. Of the 120 seedlings I planted, I’m now down to 43, thanks to repeated attacks from voles and deer. Voles burrow underground and nibble off the roots, until the poor, rootless sapling topples over. Deer nibble leaves and branches—not killing the sapling as a vole does, but performing an overly enthusiastic pruning job. It will be several years before these saplings bear fruit—if I can hold the voles and deer at bay.
I hope to live long enough to see a hardy, tasty apple come from my experiments. I sure hope I’m not old and toothless by the time a fantastic, crisp apple grows in my backyard. In that case, maybe my grandkids will enjoy them.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Apple Woes (and Hope?)—Part 1
In the quarter century that we have been occupied with our country living experiment, we’ve had countless failures and successes in the plant cultivation department. We’ve tried growing scores of varieties of vegetables, trees, bushes, flowers. Most of our failures can be attributed either to ignorance or arrogance—either by not knowing that a particular plant simply will not grow here or by having the impertinence to think that we could pull it off anyway.
In contrast, many of our successes have, in hindsight, been luck. Looking back, we can see, for example, that it was a serendipitous choice to decide to plant a particular kind of tree where we did. Last but hopefully not least, there’s also been a learning process: by dint of our mistakes (and prodigious reading), we begin to make informed choices. I’m convinced that, if we’re granted another half century here, we could cultivate an Eden.
One of our more consistent failures has been fruit trees. I’ve had more of them pine away or provide a miserable crop than I care to remember. Chief lesson: I’ve learned that attempting to grow an orchard in a hollow at our latitude is an exercise in perennial frustration. Early spring sunny days warm the fruit tree, enticing its buds to bloom; then an errant cold night sends its killing frost flowing down the hollow, ruthlessly slaughtering most every blossom. Without viable blooms, the tree will be fruitless, and so will we.
If it wasn’t the frost that stopped us, numerous varieties of insidious bugs would enjoy our fruit—either greedily removing leaves or invading the tiny fruitlets and rendering them inedible to humans. And if it wasn’t bugs, it would be some ugly fungus or disease that would transform a potentially gorgeous peach or apple into a gelatinous black mess.
And finally, if a tree happened to survive all these menaces, it was still vulnerable to the midnight invasion of larger beasts. The local deer and squirrels and raccoons seem to be in possession of this amazing psychic talent of knowing exactly when I consider pears to be harvestable, and then beating me to it by about 12 hours. It is demoralizing to watch a pear tree slowly ripen its crop of several dozen fruits over many weeks, only to go forth one morning with picking basket in hand, to be greeted by the sight of a completely fruitless tree. How did they pull this heist off in one night? Why didn’t they wait until tomorrow night?
Certainly we could have had more success in our fruit-growing endeavors if we’d opted to spray the trees with various chemical witch’s brews. The bugs and fungi and diseases could likely have been held at bay with the support of Dow Chemical. That would have evened the odds a bit more: just us against the invading fauna. Maybe it would have even tipped the scales in our favor, but at what cost to the environment and to our health? No, it’d be fruit without nasty chemicals or no fruit at all.
The one (the only one!) fruit tree that has been successful is a sour cherry tree. Is it the in-your-face tartness or the tree’s robustness that helps the cherry to do well? Even the birds—normally being accomplished cherry pickers—have left our cherry tree pretty much alone. We do lose some cherries to them, but are willing to share with these less greedy poachers. Maybe the local critters are having a little pity and allowing us a wee bit of success?
On to apples next time…
In contrast, many of our successes have, in hindsight, been luck. Looking back, we can see, for example, that it was a serendipitous choice to decide to plant a particular kind of tree where we did. Last but hopefully not least, there’s also been a learning process: by dint of our mistakes (and prodigious reading), we begin to make informed choices. I’m convinced that, if we’re granted another half century here, we could cultivate an Eden.
One of our more consistent failures has been fruit trees. I’ve had more of them pine away or provide a miserable crop than I care to remember. Chief lesson: I’ve learned that attempting to grow an orchard in a hollow at our latitude is an exercise in perennial frustration. Early spring sunny days warm the fruit tree, enticing its buds to bloom; then an errant cold night sends its killing frost flowing down the hollow, ruthlessly slaughtering most every blossom. Without viable blooms, the tree will be fruitless, and so will we.
If it wasn’t the frost that stopped us, numerous varieties of insidious bugs would enjoy our fruit—either greedily removing leaves or invading the tiny fruitlets and rendering them inedible to humans. And if it wasn’t bugs, it would be some ugly fungus or disease that would transform a potentially gorgeous peach or apple into a gelatinous black mess.
And finally, if a tree happened to survive all these menaces, it was still vulnerable to the midnight invasion of larger beasts. The local deer and squirrels and raccoons seem to be in possession of this amazing psychic talent of knowing exactly when I consider pears to be harvestable, and then beating me to it by about 12 hours. It is demoralizing to watch a pear tree slowly ripen its crop of several dozen fruits over many weeks, only to go forth one morning with picking basket in hand, to be greeted by the sight of a completely fruitless tree. How did they pull this heist off in one night? Why didn’t they wait until tomorrow night?
Certainly we could have had more success in our fruit-growing endeavors if we’d opted to spray the trees with various chemical witch’s brews. The bugs and fungi and diseases could likely have been held at bay with the support of Dow Chemical. That would have evened the odds a bit more: just us against the invading fauna. Maybe it would have even tipped the scales in our favor, but at what cost to the environment and to our health? No, it’d be fruit without nasty chemicals or no fruit at all.
The one (the only one!) fruit tree that has been successful is a sour cherry tree. Is it the in-your-face tartness or the tree’s robustness that helps the cherry to do well? Even the birds—normally being accomplished cherry pickers—have left our cherry tree pretty much alone. We do lose some cherries to them, but are willing to share with these less greedy poachers. Maybe the local critters are having a little pity and allowing us a wee bit of success?
On to apples next time…
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
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