Good News from Unexpected, July 2009
The really great news from Unexpected is that we finally received the NJDEP Green Acres Program grant for the Dalessandro Farm acquisition. In March I joyously sat down at Landis Title Company and paid off the Open Space Institute loan sixteen months early, saving thousands in interest payments. More good news is that our application for the Federal Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program was accepted, and we will be planting the Codario fields with indigenous warm-season grasses and wildflowers. This project has been broken into two phases; the first phase will begin this fall when we disc and plant roughly half the fallow fields. Phase two will begin next fall when we mow phase one and then disc and plant the remainder of the farm.
Remembering artist, author and Refuge founder
Hope Sawyer Buyukmihci,
here feeding wild beavers in 1997.
Speaking of planting, I finally did get that cow manure spread in the Butterfly Garden. Between that powerful elixir and this rainy spring weather, the plants are healthy and beautiful. The hollyhocks I planted for Hope almost a decade ago are now six feet tall with magenta flowers spiraling all the way up the leggy stalks. Yesterday, her beloved beebalm began to bloom in blood reds and plums. The early sedum is pale pink surrounded by a ring of brilliant yellow tickseed. The expansive daylily bed is a sea of bobbing orange flutes. I think of Hope often when I am in the garden, especially when the daylilies are blooming; she passed away on the last day of spring eight years ago, in the peak of their presence. That spring, she planted the Butterfly Garden through me, directing and advising what, when and where to put everything. (She also told me to turn that supine garden rake over lest I step on it and break my nose — I’ve done that, you know.)
I also thought a lot about Hope in March. Sam MacLeon, the seventh Boy Scout to complete his Eagle Scout Leadership Project here, recovered Cedarbridge Trail, one of Hope’s favorite walks. Sam cleared the forgotten trail and installed Prothonotary Warbler nest boxes along the small watercourse that entertains the footpath. He constructed benches out of logs, reconstructed the "bridge" and marked the trail with green blazes (Hope’s favorite color). Although Hope was very ill when I met her, she give me directions to find the trailhead, and she always teased me because it took me about seven months to finally find it. Obviously, it wasn’t in very good shape when I found it, and I never did get on top of it. I am so grateful to Sam and his crew for bringing it back to life.
Babies are everywhere right now. New dragonflies are drying their wings. Thousands of tiny peepers are hopping all over the garden, trails and driveway. Birds are teaching their demanding fledglings to fly and catch food on their own. Young squirrels with smooth, shiny new coats and full bushy tails are frolicking and chasing one another up and down trees. I watched two overhead in hot pursuit from the barn to the garden (about 200 feet) without coming down to earth.
Since the end of May, I have been on the lookout for beaver kittens, but have not yet seen any. I have spied the large beaver alone in the evening, exploring and investigating her shallow pond. Every few days I see her bumping through the spadderdock, a yellow lily whose flower sticks out of the water about two or three inches. Open during the day, the flower closes into a tight fist at night, resembling a bright yellow brussels sprout. She would approach the ball of tightly pressed petals and brush her nose across it, move back a few inches and then clutch it in her shiny wet hands. Then POP, into her mouth it went in one big bite! (From what I have read, beavers used to be diurnal, but centuries of persecution forced them to become nocturnal. Personally, I do not think their eyesight evolved for this lifestyle. Whenever I offer a treat to a beaver, the first thing they do is press it to their nose and smell it, then taste it. If you look at a beaver’s face, the nose is huge in proportion to the rest of the facial features.) This lady’s leisurely evening routine continues until she has her fill, or until she starts examining already naked stalks. When sated, she elbows her way to through the thick green lily pads to the channel and continues with her explorations upstream. I think we could learn a lot about how to live life to the fullest from these amazing creatures.
A friend of mine told me about a beaver dam on the Big Timber Creek in Gloucester Township (about 30 minutes from the Refuge). I wanted to check it out because when I get calls and emails about beaver dams, they are usually followed quickly with a newspaper article about how some housing development got flooded by some inconsiderate beaver family — the human residents up in arms with pitchforks and torches screaming for pelts. Luckily the dam was located adjacent to land the County had recently acquired for open space. There was no (and never will be) a housing development to flood. Finally...foresight!
Historically, the land was used as a horse farm and commercial riding business, and the old horse trails now made excellent hiking paths. I worked my way from the parking lot to the flood plain and then walked along a ridge above the creek, going with the flow. The flood plain was very wide and green, thick with pickerel weed and cattails with the channel meandering through the middle. The air was heavy and bugs were hovering, dive-bombing my face. Sticky and covered with spider webs, I pressed on watching for the dam and looking for tell-tale beaver signs.
I felt the presence of the dam before I ever found it. The aquatic vegetation began to thin, and give way to pools of clear, clean water filled with huge fish roiling up the bottom. I could hear the sound of water spilling over the dam, and the air was ionized and smelled clean and fresh. The temperature was cooler, and it was much more comfortable and relaxing there. The dam wasn’t very high but it was quite long and not in the least bit straight. The result was a modest impoundment; like a larger version of what our beavers are doing here below the Dike. Birds were flitting around in the bushes, singing and catching insects. Turtles sunned themselves on logs and rocks. Frogs were singing from the underbrush. I immediately sat down to join them in this beaver-created heaven, no longer aware of time or trouble.
And I thought of Hope, again, and what she always said, "Beavers turn wilderness into happiness!" They certainly do, Hope.