For the love of nature, let's go kill something.
We bought our land fully intending to give it over to Nature. We wanted to let the wild plants and animals live in their natural ecosystems, so we vowed to keep our human interference at an absolute minimum. Back then we thought we could let Nature do its natural thing by instituting a few hands-off-oriented rules: our house would be as small as possible, we would disallow hunting, and we would refrain from feeding any wildlife (except for one bird feeder). Oh, how naive we were.
It turns out that the definition of "natural" is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. What is natural to one person - or plant or animal - is likely not considered to be so for another. We came to this realization when we noticed that certain plants and diseases were competing with, and in some cases eradicating, many of our native flora and fauna. We soon learned that our beautiful, native species are under constant attack by non-native and invasive ones, and if we wanted the native plants and animals to survive, we would have to roll up our sleeves and give Nature a (human) hand.
So now, throughout the year, we find ourselves killing things (mostly plants and insects) around our property, all in the name of Nature.
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| Garlic mustard |
At the beginning of each calendar year, we do battle with the Garlic mustard. It is a non-native invader from Eurasia that emits a toxic chemical in the surrounding soil that prevents other, native flora from growing near it. It arrives in early Spring and is relatively easy to spot, so the month of May is Garlic mustard spraying season around here.
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| Japanese stiltgrass |
A few years ago, we noticed large patches of a tall, Asian-looking grass coming up in our lovely wildflower meadow, along the driveway and along all our grassy trails. After doing a good bit of research, I learned that its common name is Japanese stiltgrass and, as you can tell by its name, it is not native to North America. Its crime is to displace native woodland plants and grasses and it prevents tree seeds from reaching the forest floor and therefore keeps tree seedlings from germinating. It grows tall and fast, but not until late in the season. After several failed attempts at pulling and bagging it, spraying it with weedkillers, and burning it, we have discovered an herbicide that's particularly effective at killing only grasses while leaving the other woodland plants intact.
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| Emerald ash borer devastation |
The Emerald ash borer is a rather striking iridescent green beetle, native to Asia. The female lays her eggs in the crevices of the bark of our beautiful Ash trees. The larvae feed underneath the bark to emerge as adults one to two years later, and by then, the tree is dead.
Last Spring, I noticed the telltale EAB holes in the bark of several Ashes. We tried treating them with a systemic insecticide but to no avail. Over this past Winter, dozens of our Ash trees finally succumbed and simply broke off mid-trunk. The landscape here look like its been logged, which means we have a good bit of clean up to do in order to reclaim the hiking trails.
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| Little brown bats |
But there's a glimmer of hope to be found in the eaves of our covered patio. For the past six years, from Spring to Fall, a Little brown bat has appeared in our eaves where he (or she) roosts throughout the day. Last Fall, about a month before he went away to over-winter in a nearby cavern or tree snag, a friend joined him. That the same bat keeps returning - and now has a friend - is hopefully a sign that our population may be recovering (or at least holding its own). So far this year, just the one LBB has returned. Fingers crossed that his little brown buddy is not far away.
