French Broad Hollow Ramble

It seems as though fall weather has arrived—at least for a few days. Yesterday morning it was 34 degrees, and the highs have been only in the 60s. As you can see, some of the mornings have been very foggy.

Although we experienced dry weather and temperatures that were more like summer than fall, the trees that haven’t already lost their leaves are beginning to turn. The maples and sourwoods are getting redder and redder, and the some of the hickories are turning golden brown. The sycamore leaves are beautiful,  and some of them are even bigger than these.

The deer continue to come to the meadow, but there are plenty of acorns, persimmons, and other things for them to eat. I think the does have run off the male fawns; several of this year’s fawns seem to be alone rather than with their mothers or others in the herd.

The turkeys continue to come around, too, and the squirrels are gathering the abundant black walnuts and run away when I get near.

I haven’t seen a hummingbird in over two weeks, but the butterflies are still around and enjoy the flowers that remain in the garden.

The weather is wonderful, and this is a beautiful time of year for rambling in the Hollow.

Although Nate left only about an inch of rain in the Hollow, it dumped several inches upstream. I use the rocks in the river as a gauge of how much rain fell elsewhere. Of course, the river is much louder when it is high, and I can sometimes hear it roaring in my little part of the Hollow.

I try to be aware of what is happening in the nature around me on my rambles. I know that I am being watched as I walk, and sometimes I am able to get a photo before the watcher runs or flies off. (Yes, one of the neighbors recently scraped this part of the road.)

And sometimes I’m glad to see only what was left and that the scat was old enough that someone ran over it. (The bears like persimmons, too.)

We have been experiencing near-record high temperatures, and it hasn’t been cooling off at night as it usually does. The low temperature has been warmer than the average high on several occasions recently. And we’ve had high (for us) humidity; since Nate passed, we’ve had many very foggy mornings.

It’s been a while since I last posted. My sister, who lives on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, went through both Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and we were lucky to get her a ticket here for a brief respite. Then the remnants of Nate came through the Hollow with a few pretty powerful winds gusts (but barely an inch of rain), and she got to help me prop up a broken post on the grapevines and rehang a bird feeder. She has had more than her share of hurricanes this year!

I am working on catching up with the Hollow and will take a few posts to do it. As you can see from the photos, the  leaves are turning, but the temperatures make it feel like summer.

The autumn equinox arrived Friday afternoon at 4:03, but it still feels like summer. The birds and butterflies use environmental cues besides temperature to know when to migrate. Hummingbirds are on their way and are busily feeding and fighting at the feeders. Most of the butterflies from earlier this summer have been replaced by other kinds, such as this Cloudless Sulfur (Phoebis sennae). The Gulf Fritillaries are still around, and I spotted this Common Wood-nymph (Cercyonis pegala) in the meadow.

Gulf Fritillary

The deer in the Hollow don’t migrate, although the bucks haven’t been around at feeding. Last year’s male fawns have left the family herd; the mature does chased Buttons off several weeks ago, and I haven’t seen him in the meadow since. Meanwhile, this years’s fawns continue to grow, and the spots on the older ones are fading.

It seems to be a good mast year, and the deer, squirrels, etc. are enjoying the abundance of acorns. The deer especially like the acorns that fall from the white oak near my compost bin; maybe the acorns are easier to find in the little bit of lawn that I mow.

Sometimes I am lucky enough to see deer, turkeys, and other animals on my rambles. Sometimes they watch, and sometimes they run.

It’s been foggy lately on my walks…

It’s been a busy week with summertime temperatures, fall foliage, and falling leaves. Now that school is back in session, my rambling is sometimes hurried so I can get to my volunteer “job” two days a week at a local elementary school. But there is still time to admire the flowers

and to wonder at the wildlife

and what they leave behind. (More bear scat—I am not the only one that eats persimmons!)

The woods and meadows are full of spiders, and the fog this time of year makes their webs easier to see (but not to photograph). I usually see them before I walk into them but have had plenty of spider silk in my face!

This is the time of year when the butterflies are migrating. Yesterday I was lucky enough to see a Monarch, and I see lots of Diana Fritillaries.

That’s all for today!

Although Irma was first predicted to hit the WNC (Western North Carolina) mountains with several inches of rain and tropical force winds, we were spared the brunt of the storm’s fury as it took a more westerly course. Nonetheless, many parts of Buncombe and nearby counties to the south experienced high winds and heavy downpours, resulting in power outages and cancelled schools. The rains south of us caused the northerly-flowing French Broad River to rise, although there was no flooding. The Hollow received less than 0.5″ of rain, and the wind blew off a few extra leaves but didn’t down any trees or even large branches.

I helped a tractor-driving neighbor work to clear the ditches along the road in preparation for the rain and discovered this screech owl in the creek. I was (am) worried that it was hurt and climbed down to check. The photos are poor quality, but I was trying not to frighten the bird. Before I could reach it, it flew into the nearby culvert, which was a good sign. I often hear screech owls (and call to them), but I have never before seen one in the wild.

The turkeys and deer continue to come to the meadow and are not always patient.

The fawns are losing their spots, and one of the single fawns has been hanging out with the triplets.

My ramble generally goes as far down as the river and then over the ridge to where I turn around at a gate that leads to a different set of neighbors. I thought showing the changes in that field would be a good way to end posts.

7 September 2017

9 September 2017

Early mornings in the Hollow have been in the mid-40s and foggy, and my walks have been later than in the warmer weather. The plants are getting ready for fall, as the yellows and purples fill the fields and gardens, and leaves begin to fall. This is the field “over the ridge” where I will ramble more after the weather changes.

The persimmons are “coming in” now; I have shaken three or four off the tree every day. These still have their “caps.” I ate a couple while walking today; one of them had a spot that wasn’t ripe, and, man!, it sure made my mouth pucker! (No photo of this!)

Last year I saved persimmon seeds and was able to grow some plants, which I potted in the spring and are now ready to be put in the ground. I planted a couple of the larger ones (about 8″) in the “orchard” behind my house. On the way up the hill, I saw a hole in the ground, maybe about the size of a tennis ball. As I stood (several yards way) trying to figure out what critter had dug it, I realized that yellow jackets were flying in and out! YIKES! I gave the nest a wide berth as I finished planting and watering the persimmon trees, but I don’t plan on checking up there very often until we get a freeze.

Two years ago I realized there was a yellow jacket nest about 8 feet up in the steep bank by my driveway (another tell-tale hole). Fortunately, it was up high enough that comings-and-goings didn’t seem to disturb the yellow jackets. Nonetheless, I was happy when I went out one morning and saw that something (a bear?) had dug up the nest during the night. The remains of the nest were at the end of the driveway. If I wake to find a hole in the orchard, I’ll happily post photos!

And in case you have been missing the critters, here is a fawn and a turkey sharing some corn…

and a buck (not Buttons) that has wandered through a couple of times.

Oh! And the writing spider moves to the screen door.

I found the last pawpaw on the ground the day after I posted the photo, and I ate it yesterday. It tasted much better than the other two—maybe like a cross between a peach and a cantaloupe and very smooth. And it had four seeds!

Today I found a wild American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) that had just fallen in the road. (It wasn’t there the first time I walked by.)  I have been watching the persimmons change color on the tree and have shaken the branches several times without success. You—or at least I—can’t simply pick persimmons from the tree; they need to be really, really ripe.  (Never mind that I need a stick to even reach a lower branch!)

September 4

Persimmons make me think of my late cousin Peggy, who made delicious persimmon pudding and always sent leftovers back up the mountain with me when I visited her and other of my mom’s family in Hickory. (My mouth is watering as I write this!) It would take a lot of these wild persimmons to make a pudding, and I simply eat them. I saved seeds last year and grew several small trees that I will write about in another post.

Summer continues on the way out, and autumn is coming. You know these are the Blue Ridge Mountains, don’t you?

The outermost bands of rain from Harvey reached the Hollow last night, but we aren’t expecting much rain here. It didn’t start raining during my walk until just as I reached the river. It rained for a few minutes as I walked back up, but the overhanging trees kept me from getting very wet. (I took this photo earlier in the week to try and show the steep slope of the walk.)

There hasn’t been too much new activity lately. The dog days of summer have passed, and things seem to have slowed as we wait for the cooler days of autumn. The fall wildflowers are blooming while the summer blossoms fade.

Goldenrod (Solidago rugosa)

Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)

Wingstem (Verbesina occidentalis)

I’m keeping an eye on the remaining pawpaw in the meadow and the persimmon tree along the road…

August 28

and, of course, feeding the deer and turkeys in the meadow at least once a day!

It looks (and sounds) like a much larger band of rain has arrived, which means I’ll be pulling on my “shrimper’s” boots when I head down to the meadow later.

As I noted in an earlier post, it’s hard for me to stay inside and write this blog when the weather is nice. However, I am making myself rest after working outside yesterday and then raking gravel back in the road this morning. (A neighbor scraped it with her tractor blade yesterday, but it needed to be “touched up” with the rake.)

It’s gorgeous outside right now—it’s about 80 degrees and sunny with a nice breeze from the west. A few leaves have begun to fall, and late summer/early autumn flowers are blooming. I’ll be posting more later, but here are a few. Clockwise from top left: Passionflower aka Maypop (Passiflora incarnata),  Wild Ageratum (Eupatorium coelestinum), Carolina Elephant’s Foot (Elephantopus carolinianus), and Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia) aka yellow ironweed with New York Ironweed aka Tall Ironweed  (Vernonia noveboracensis)

The butterflies are still plentiful. Some of them may be migrating, but these were busy creating the next generation. (I think these are Gulf Fritillaries (Agraulis vanillae)).

The fawns continue to grow, as do Buttons’s antlers.