Weather Shift, Seedlings, & Beehive
Friday, August 12th, 2022 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioIt is just my luck that right after installing the canopy hoist, all the cicadas have fallen silent! I'm talkin, not a single peep out of the cicadas for two days straight!.. dead in the middle of August!
We've had a miraculous cool down, that began yesterday. Suddenly it's a mild 74F outside, with overcast skies, and cool breezes! Just exactly the kind of weather that cicadas hate!.. so they don't make a sound.
Meanwhile, at night, it's been getting down to 60F, with even stronger breezes, which means the field crickets aren't doing much either, and the air is too turbulent to record them anyway!
It's like we fast forwarded from August 10th, straight to October 1st!
So, I do plan to record back there at ground level again tonight... IF... nobody in the neighborhood is partying and playing music, which they proably will be, because it's a nice, cool Friday night in the summer!
--<>--
I finally listened to the noctournal canopy recording I did the other night and... it's not bad?.. but it's not great!
Not a single wing tapper on the track, even though they definitely are out there in the early evening. And while you can hear field crickets, the bush crickets are much louder from that height.
Also, the trains and dogs are way louder from up high, at night.
I'm a little mystified as to what's going on because I see huge crickets now everywhere! My two rock gardens... the SCOP rock garden, and the brick pile in the old fire pit, are both crammed with big fat crickets.
You can see them scurry if you lift up a rock.
Yet you don't hear any in, or around those spots at night.
Also, my huge brush pile in the back by the fence has crickets living inside it that you can hear chirping during the day... because it's so dark in there... but then you don't hear them at night???
I dunno!
I just have to keep trying, I guess.
------------{=0=}------------
In other back yard news, those locust seedlings I transplanted are now noticeably bigger!.. and they're green and healthy, and standing bolt upright!
they're still seedlings, only about four or five inches tall, but they're healthy, and they've grown some. So that makes me feel good.
As you'll recall I planted them in a shallow hole filled with the humus that they sprouted in. But since then I've been replenishing the top layer of that with grass pulp scraped out of the mower after every lawn mow. Wet grass pulp, and then a layer of dry grass clippings over that.
There's always bugs and worms crawling around in the stuff, so it seems they're doing a good job of turning that into plant food for the seedlings. And we've gotten enough rain that I haven't had to water them much.
--<>--
From what I'd read about the wood wide web, this is the best possible way to grow a new tree in your yard, because nursury trees are essentially lobotomized!
The trees root system is it's brain, and to have a fully functioning tree brain, it needs to grow naturally and establish ties to the fungi networks of the native soil. But nursury trees don't form those fungal ties, and their root systems are clipped, to keep them in a tidy little ball!
Thus, a nursury tree is... for lack of a better term... a vegetable!
It's kinda like wheeling a coma patient into the middle of downtown and saying, "Hey look! He's having a great time socializing with everybody!" but really, he's still in a coma and has no idea what's going on.
And if that sounds horrific... well, it is!
--<>--
And I kinda lucked out with these seedlings, because... long ago, a dog who is now dead, dug a big hole in the dirt. I then raked leaves and locust pods into that hole for years, until it all decomposed into humus, and a few of the seeds, from a few of those pods finally sprouted there.
That made them easily transplantable.
But other seedlings, popping up around the property lines are usually popping up out of old roots of bigger trees that were cut down. So, you can't separate it from that old root system without killing it.
So... I guess my advice would be, if you want a naturally occuring tree in your yard at a specific spot... dig a hole there and rake crap into that hole for about three to five years. When stuff finally starts growing there, don't mow over it. And eventually you'll have a tree!
------------{=0=}------------
In other back yard news, I discovered a bee hive... in a hole in the ground, near the SCOP!
I just spotted it yesterday. A hole in the dirt, with bees flying in and out of it! I don't know how the hell I did not get stung mowing over that spot back on Tuesday!
So... I happened to have a square cinder block... essentially a hollow concrete cube... and I put that AROUND the hole. So, don't worry, they're still flying in and out of the hive with no problems today.
But the block will keep me from accidentally stepping on the hive entrance, and also marks the spot so I can give it a wide berth with the mower from here on out.
I am highly averse to using pesticides outdoors, especially for bees that really went out of their way to not be anywhere near the house!
------------{=0=}------------
Okay!.. that's my little news roundup for the second Friday in August 2022.
Weather is presenting recording challenges, but the seedlings are doing good, and I'm advocating for some bees by the SCOP.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
We've had a miraculous cool down, that began yesterday. Suddenly it's a mild 74F outside, with overcast skies, and cool breezes! Just exactly the kind of weather that cicadas hate!.. so they don't make a sound.
Meanwhile, at night, it's been getting down to 60F, with even stronger breezes, which means the field crickets aren't doing much either, and the air is too turbulent to record them anyway!
It's like we fast forwarded from August 10th, straight to October 1st!
So, I do plan to record back there at ground level again tonight... IF... nobody in the neighborhood is partying and playing music, which they proably will be, because it's a nice, cool Friday night in the summer!
I finally listened to the noctournal canopy recording I did the other night and... it's not bad?.. but it's not great!
Not a single wing tapper on the track, even though they definitely are out there in the early evening. And while you can hear field crickets, the bush crickets are much louder from that height.
Also, the trains and dogs are way louder from up high, at night.
I'm a little mystified as to what's going on because I see huge crickets now everywhere! My two rock gardens... the SCOP rock garden, and the brick pile in the old fire pit, are both crammed with big fat crickets.
You can see them scurry if you lift up a rock.
Yet you don't hear any in, or around those spots at night.
Also, my huge brush pile in the back by the fence has crickets living inside it that you can hear chirping during the day... because it's so dark in there... but then you don't hear them at night???
I dunno!
I just have to keep trying, I guess.
In other back yard news, those locust seedlings I transplanted are now noticeably bigger!.. and they're green and healthy, and standing bolt upright!
they're still seedlings, only about four or five inches tall, but they're healthy, and they've grown some. So that makes me feel good.
As you'll recall I planted them in a shallow hole filled with the humus that they sprouted in. But since then I've been replenishing the top layer of that with grass pulp scraped out of the mower after every lawn mow. Wet grass pulp, and then a layer of dry grass clippings over that.
There's always bugs and worms crawling around in the stuff, so it seems they're doing a good job of turning that into plant food for the seedlings. And we've gotten enough rain that I haven't had to water them much.
From what I'd read about the wood wide web, this is the best possible way to grow a new tree in your yard, because nursury trees are essentially lobotomized!
The trees root system is it's brain, and to have a fully functioning tree brain, it needs to grow naturally and establish ties to the fungi networks of the native soil. But nursury trees don't form those fungal ties, and their root systems are clipped, to keep them in a tidy little ball!
Thus, a nursury tree is... for lack of a better term... a vegetable!
It's kinda like wheeling a coma patient into the middle of downtown and saying, "Hey look! He's having a great time socializing with everybody!" but really, he's still in a coma and has no idea what's going on.
And if that sounds horrific... well, it is!
And I kinda lucked out with these seedlings, because... long ago, a dog who is now dead, dug a big hole in the dirt. I then raked leaves and locust pods into that hole for years, until it all decomposed into humus, and a few of the seeds, from a few of those pods finally sprouted there.
That made them easily transplantable.
But other seedlings, popping up around the property lines are usually popping up out of old roots of bigger trees that were cut down. So, you can't separate it from that old root system without killing it.
So... I guess my advice would be, if you want a naturally occuring tree in your yard at a specific spot... dig a hole there and rake crap into that hole for about three to five years. When stuff finally starts growing there, don't mow over it. And eventually you'll have a tree!
In other back yard news, I discovered a bee hive... in a hole in the ground, near the SCOP!
I just spotted it yesterday. A hole in the dirt, with bees flying in and out of it! I don't know how the hell I did not get stung mowing over that spot back on Tuesday!
So... I happened to have a square cinder block... essentially a hollow concrete cube... and I put that AROUND the hole. So, don't worry, they're still flying in and out of the hive with no problems today.
But the block will keep me from accidentally stepping on the hive entrance, and also marks the spot so I can give it a wide berth with the mower from here on out.
I am highly averse to using pesticides outdoors, especially for bees that really went out of their way to not be anywhere near the house!
Okay!.. that's my little news roundup for the second Friday in August 2022.
Weather is presenting recording challenges, but the seedlings are doing good, and I'm advocating for some bees by the SCOP.
°¦}
