Screams Of Terror In The Forest

Birds in these trees were screaming!

This forest is owned by New York State and they log their forests on a regular basis. This one hasn't been logged in this spot since we moved here in 1999. It is directly across the road from our house. So when they started their process, it became VERY noisy. I am keeping my windows closed, even though it is very hot too. I would have no problem with this, in fact, I am hoping the logging project will increase the sunlight to our solar panels in the winter. I think those trees blocked it quite a bit.

Many critters live in this forest.

My complaint is really about their method of logging now. The new modern way. It is super fast and that is why they do it that way. The trouble with that is, it does not give the critters and birds who live in this forest time to flee. They awoke yesterday singing like usual. Then a little later as the machine made its way through the forest knocking down trees in its path, the screaming started. I could not listen. There was not a thing I could do to help these little critters. I don't know how the ones on the ground would be able to survive.

Normally, a quiet spot!

Many of the birds in this forest and the ones around us, are birds who do not fly south. They gather food all year waiting for winter when they will feed on it. When you cut down trees one by one, slowly cutting them and loading the truck with them, they have more time. This type of logging is cruel to them. I guess it is like waking up in the middle of a tornado or a fire and having to run for your life. I am only thankful that most of the baby birds have been out of the nest for a long time now. The bats! You should have seen the sky with bats who had been awakened from their daily sleep by their trees being knocked over. I never saw anything like it.

"Razor Robot"

The squirrels that lived in this forest are usually quite vocal. They never come into our yard or our garden. I am sure they were busy storing food too. Of course, many will not have survived. I have seen them hop from the tops of the trees, so I hope they were able to get out too. This morning though, this forest was incredibly quiet. Kind of spooky.

Copyright © 2013 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2013  Kathleen G. Lupole

What Happens After They Grow Up?

Last night we watched a movie I had recently ordered from Amazon, Cross Creek. It starred Mary Steenburgen, Rip Torn and Peter Coyote. It is a movie about best selling author, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who wrote The Yearling. If you are not familiar with this story, (it is about a young boy in the book), in the movie, Cross Creek, it is about a young girl who has a pet fawn. The fawn starts getting into gardens and creating trouble as it grows up. After all, it is wild animal. The father warns his daughter that the pet fawn has to be kept fenced or it will have to killed. He tells her it does not know how to live in the wild now because she made a pet of it. People depend on their gardens to live, and a deer will destroy their gardens and people will starve. Of course, the deer ends up having to be shot.It destroys the father and daughter's relationship forever.

This movie made me think about a situation I am in at present. A wild animal that is taken in as a baby and treated as a pet does not know how to go out into the wild and live like it is supposed to. It may go out into the wild and then come back to the home and try to live in both worlds. But it cannot. In my own life, children in my family were not really parented in the normal way. As much as I loved my mother, she spoiled all her grandchildren and would never punish them or ever make them face up to anything they did wrong. I don't know why she was that way with her grandchildren as she was not like that with my brother and me, her own children.

I raised my own son so he was taught right from wrong, even when my mother excused him from something wrong he had done. He has turned out to be a honest, caring adult. I am proud of him. The other grandchildren are another story. My parents parented them on week-ends and school vacations and all summer. In fact, they came to my parents' house as soon as school was out for the summer and did not return home until it was time to go back to school.

I am not making judgement on the parents involved, but it makes me see the comparison. A child that is not taught right from wrong, will grow up causing trouble and hurting people. Stealing, lying, among other traits not usually smiled upon in our society. Not to mention becoming a parent themselves and not knowing how. If parents or grandparents think they are helping a child by not punishing or reprimanding them when they are young, they are sadly mistaken. Not nurturing them to become an adult who genuinely cares or feels compassion for others is the worst thing a parent can do.

Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2012  Kathleen G. Lupole

Saving The Wild Critters From Our Cats

 

Chippy, the chipmunk

This little chipmunk lives in our rock pile along the side of our raised beds. It is a shaded area and really pretty. All the rocks give little critters like this places to live that are safe. The rocks don't move and protect them from the elements outside. Before living here, I always thought chipmunks lived in trees.

Chippy's home area

We have been putting rocks here ever since we moved here so the pile has grown over the years. If one of us need a rock for some purpose, we can go pick one up pretty easily. My husband has done a lot of digging work and this has given us a huge amount of rocks and stones. They can be used for many things. It is handy having them available when you need some.

The rock piles

I have noticed my cats, especially Patches and Hobo stake out this area. Now I know why. We found one dead chipmunk in the backyard so far. Yesterday I managed to save this little one, that I now call Chippy. Hobo had him in her mouth and was on her way to torture him. But I made her drop him. He laid in my hand and looked right into my eyes. Pretty soon his heart beat slowed down, and he felt safe. Then we were able to let him go again.

Places for little critters to live.

I saved him so far. The cats are outside all the time, hunting and killing, as cats do. It is their nature and nothing you can do to stop it. I keep my eyes on this area now. It is tough for these little critters when you have cats patrolling the area, ready to pounce on whatever moves. I wish they would just stick to mice and moles.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

Wild Critters Around Peaceful Forest Homestead

Tawny, Georgie Girl and Dark Shadow snoozing in the sun!

Living out in the state forest we are surrounded by huge trees, scrub land and much new growth, as they are constantly logging different areas of the forest. As I have said before on here, when we first moved here the forest came right up to the house. Now after the years of being here, my husband has pushed those boundaries back. We have lots of garden area, lawn, paddock for the horses and their barn. 

The one thing I am asked a lot is what about wild animals out here? Aren't you scared of them? Well, the honest truth is the only wild animals that seem to be on our property are those three girls above, in that picture! They seem to keep even deer out of our garden and yard. All the gardens I pass when going anywhere, have fences all around their gardens as protection from wild critters. Most especially, the deer, as NY has an abundance of deer. I live right in the middle of the forest and do not have even the littlest fence for protection. I don't need it! They never come in our garden or yard area. We know they are in the woods around our property. And in the woods directly behind our paddock and yard. But they do not venture out any further.

Nikita in my raised herb bed!

I used to think it was due to our dog, Nikita. She patrols the property on a  regular basis. But now at twelve, she has slowed down and doesn't go quite as far as she used to. Gone are the days of her hearing a noise in the night and waking us up to let her out to check it out. She is much more cautious now that she has some health problems. And one being she can't walk as well as she used to.........or run. She used to be able to outrun even the race horses at the barn my husband worked at training horses. They would run around the arena there and she would go right in with them and she loved it! No more.

We have seen signs of bear, and we hear the coyotes at night when they run along the creek. Never have we seen either on our property though. One time someone knocked over our composter and we suspected it could be a bear, but never knew for sure since it was Halloween time too. So it could have been a prank. It is known that we have a variety of wild cats, such as mountain lions, bobcats and some say cougar around NY state forests. I can't say for sure on that. I just hope I don't see them around my homestead!

These girls are not the afraid of much!

Our horses are pretty active girls, at ages 15 and 14. They run and jump and roll often. Especially if anyone, man or creatures, come up the road, or especially onto our property, that they don't know. They will run, and believe me if you are sleeping, and you hear the hoof beats of three horses, it will wake you up immediately! Especially my husband, as he is a very light sleeper. So any critters that comes to our house will probably be scared off.

Horses can kill a coyote with no problem. Especially if they are big and healthy and not afraid, as mine are. Our neighbor recently had his horse kill his own puppy. It was horrible, the puppy was barking at the horse and growling, the horse turned around and kicked him. Broke his back. I don't know why dogs seem to do that. We have had dogs come here before and they did that. We had to tell the owners get them away from the horses or they WILL kill the dogs. Our dog knew horses since she was a baby so she never had a problem with them.

Photo Credit: Jon Sullivan

The one time my husband did run into a bear, he really did run into it......literally, he hit it with the car driving out of a small town down the road a few years back. It just came up out of the ditch and it happened so fast he couldn't even hit the brake in time. He felt bad as he heard the bear crying and whimpering in the ditch. But we have never seen evidence of one in our yard or garden. Not even racoons or smaller critters. One time we did have an opossum try to chew a hole in the floor of our kitchen to try to get in and get my pet red hen, Lil' Red. Owls, hawks, falcons, eagles, etc. seem to be plentiful around here too. That is one reason I make sure my cats are inside the house before dark. They can't go out in the morning until it is light. I have seen owls in daylight before, but not right here on our property.

There used to be some kind of critter that would make a laughing sound, that would come in the middle of the night. My husband would go out after him, mainly I think, he wanted to know what it was. By the time he'd get outside you could hear him much farther off making that same weird sound. So we never did learn what or who he was. Erie sounding........... I feel if you walk in the forest the best thing is to talk and make noise to let all critters know you are there. I think the bears who live around us, just stay away. They are not like the bears who live in the towns and around houses who get into garbage and bird feeders. Basically all our neighbors are either farmers or hunting camps and don't have much for the bears to get into.

I feel we are pretty safe out here. Lots of hunters come during hunting season, but I don't see them getting too many deer or anything else. I like it best when hunting season is over, winter sets in and it is so very quiet that you only hear the snowflakes falling..........then it is my Peaceful Forest!

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole unless otherwise stated.