Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Bob White and the Bobettes

Northern Bobwhite male
The following is a special program brought to you uninterrupted by the grace of the Kansas Flint HIlls, rated "F" for "Fantastic".  Fair warning: Prepare yourself to fall in love.

I've had the great honor this past week to be allowed to watch a nightly reunion of a large brood of quail.  They have chosen, repeatedly, to mingle in my back bed less than 10 feet from the house as they settle for the night, right where I can enjoy and photograph them at my leisure through the windows.  I first noticed them last Friday evening as a large group pecking around the ground, and now to find them all that I have to do is look for Papa Quail, shown here to the right, who keeps a vigil on my trellis (the pink rose is 'Zephirine Drouhin') while his teenagers are running around nearby.

As you may know, the Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) is a New World quail (Odontophoridae) which is pretty common, but secretive, in my neck of the world.  I often hear the familiar call "Bob-White" in the early mornings, but I seldom see the birds.  This game bird is usually monogamous and a breeding pair normally has 12-16 eggs per clutch, parents leading the young birds to food for a couple of weeks after hatching until they can fly.  I have a hunch that this group (11 birds are visible in the picture to the left) came from a nest right in the clump of bushes behind them, and they are just about large enough to take off on their own.  I feel very privileged to witness this stage of their life cycle so close and personal.

As a short sample of what I've been seeing, I'll attempt to post the two movies below to share with you.  The first shows the same group as seen above, with their stilted random movements.  The second shows the group moving out in exploration.  If you can stop the movie at the very beginning of movie #2, there are 20 quail visible in the frame, not including Dad who was still sitting on the trellis above.  This was a very large brood!


 
 


Or, the better quality YouTube link to the 2nd video is here

Just as quickly as they appear, the adolescent quail just as rapidly disappear into the shrubs and camouflage of the mulch, leaving only Papa Quail to continue to watch for danger until all are safely hidden.  I haven't picked out Mama Quail yet, but I assume she's somewhere with the brood on the ground, clucking with displeasure if the babies stray.   If all human parents were this responsible, there would be a lot less teen mischief and gang violence in our world.

Sometimes, I feel so lucky to live on the prairie that I could just melt into a puddle of happiness.


Monday, August 11, 2014

Happy Surprises

Gardening is full of surprises.  Although I've just said it, I think most gardeners already know that.  I've been both pleasantly surprised and unpleasantly surprised,  however, by the notion that the longer I garden, the more surprises I get.

This "Surprise Lily", hidden behind a dwarf Alberta Spruce and in front of a struggling clematis, is an example of the mixed benefits of garden serendipity.  I love Surprise Lilies because they pop up and glow at a time of summer here when everything else looks tired and worn out.  I also enjoy the slightly naughty feeling that this old man gets from having "Naked Ladies," as they are sometimes called, randomly showing up in my garden.  I didn't get any titillating joy out of finding this clump, however, because I'm pretty sure that I never planted any bulbs here.  And I've never heard that they can self-seed and spread themselves around a garden, other than by lateral bulb-lets.  So that leaves me the choice of either accepting another bit of evidence that my memory is fading, or that I've witnessed a garden miracle of reproduction.  Because neither of these are likely explanations, I think I'm going to settle the mystery and tell others that a squirrel dug up some bulbs and transplanted them here, even though the nearest tree large enough to support a squirrel is over 1/2 mile away.   

I've also been surprised this summer by the performance of a pair of $5 misnamed roses purchased at Home Depot.  As I mentioned previously, I saw this striped rose mislabeled as 'Love' back in May on a "two for $10" sale, took a chance, and bought two.  Both bushes have settled in, are repeat blooming their heads off, and have no blackspot at all.  I don't know what they really are.  I initially thought they were two different striped cultivars, but now I think they are the same variety.  Their rebloom cycle is too rapid for any of the remonant old garden striped roses I've grown.  They're fragrant but not as tall nor as fragrant as 'Honorine de Brabant' and they are also shorter and more Floribunda-bush-form than my 'Ferdinand Pichard'.  Regardless, if they make it through winter unprotected, for $10, I've got two great garden roses that I will always enjoy.  Now there is a surprise without any reservations to spoil it.


Saturday, August 9, 2014

Fifty Tools

Somewhere in my busy summer, I found time to read this recent tome, A History of the Garden in Fifty Tools, by Bill Laws.  I actually paid full price for this recent release (February, 2014), rather than my usual modus operandi of browsing the used book shops for garden reads.  I tend to like to read about gardening tools and their variations, and I was pretty excited to get hold of it.  

In A History of the Garden in Fifty Tools, Bill Laws covers the history of just about every garden tool you can imagine and some that you probably didn't know about. The history and information presented about each tool was interesting, and Laws covered the development of most of his chosen tools from the Stone Age to modern times. The tools are organized into 5 chapters, the flower garden, kitchen garden, orchard, lawn, and ornamental garden, which sometimes made me feel that some tools were a bit misplaced in order because I use some differently than Laws placed them.  I also have to admit that I was disappointed by the time I finished Fifty Tools.  I think my biggest issue is that the info was dryly presented and began to drag a bit for me a bit as I got used to the format.   I'll tell you this, I didn't count them, but by the time you finish the book, you'll think you've read about more than 50 tools.


I confess that I had built up a lot of anticipation for this book, and to give the author the benefit of doubt, perhaps the problem lies with me, rather than the reading material.   I just never got into it; reading page after page like it was material from a textbook, rather than a summer novel.  It's one of those books I finished, but I struggled to maintain interest, somewhat like I've done  in the past with long Stephan King novels.  By the time I'm too far in to quit, I'm thinking, "God, just let me get it over."  If you're just nuts on garden tools, you may like this book, but my suggestion first would be to read Tools of the Earth by Jeff Taylor and Rich Iwasaki.  I read the latter years ago and it is so good that I will probably read it again soon.

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