This year, small snails everywhere! My best effort at identifying them (posting pics to the iNaturalist app on my phone) suggests they’re in the amber snail family (Succineidae). Wherever the ground is sheltered and moist, like under rocks or piles of uprooted weeds, and on some veggie leaves and stems, you’ll find a bunch. Here, they’re on the garlic. Voracious leaf munching doesn’t seem to be what they’re up to, so that’s good (and I read that they aren’t likely to be a veggie problem). For better or for worse, no damage, no problem is my motto, and that usually works out!
Animals
Thin white lines
Two lines of electric fence rope, one for deer, one for groundhogs, running through the so-very-healthy grass, perfectly illustrates the nature of the war on weeds. Maybe I should use less militaristic terms, but that’s what comes naturally—guess it’s my cultural upbringing. And it does feel like a battle. On the ground, face to face, against a well-adapted indigenous…opponent. Spraying herbicides would be like an impersonal aerial war, bombing from on high. In this tiny farming, it’s hand pulling and snipping, and using the pulled weeds as mulch to hopefully smother reinforcements that are ready to spring up. Here, letting the grass swamp the fence lines would be bad for the system, draining the battery and reducing the strength of the all-important ZAP!
Chipmunk at work
Ahh, my favorite rodent. Another member of the around-the-field cast of characters. Charismatic, curious, always busy, quite friendly—what more could you ask from a wild woodland creature. Oh yeah, no threat to the market garden, at least, not in my experience so far, which is the biggest point in my book! Chipmunks are in the ground squirrel branch of the squirrel clan, and I’ve met the tireless, relentless backyard garden-raiding urban squirrel, so no doubt the ‘munks have it in them to mini-ravage crops. But they seem to stay away from the open field, hanging out near buildings, so all good on this garden’s veggie threat list!
Orange-breasted, worm-eating buddy
One of my annual garden companions. First met the American robin when I started veggie farming. I thought it was a sign. The bird was quite near me, darting a ways, then stopping, seeming to follow me, not looking worried when I turned towards it. Other than urban pigeons and scavenging seagulls, I wasn’t used to birds being so on grounded. It soon seemed clear that it was following me, probably resonating with my kindred earthy spirit, recognizing a fellow field worker, accepting me into the tribe. Turns out that spending a lot of time on the ground, running around looking for bugs and earthworms, especially in open, freshly tilled fields, is just what the American robin does. I was only a part of its landscape. Oh well.
These guys are here every year, keeping company in the field. Later in the season, I sometimes see the chicks zooming around, cuter than kittens. I read that American robins are known to gorge on berries that have fermented, get drunk, and topple over as they dart around. Hope they don’t drink and fly (but they apparently do)!
American crow
A crow on a post. This is called an American crow, I believe, to be specific. I kinda, well, not envy them, exactly, but would like to try it out. The flying and casually perching on high for a look around. I’m in the field for the better part of most days, and practically none of that time is spent feeling immersed in nature. It’s more about whatever the task at hand. When the work is repetitive, which it mostly is, thoughts are floating around in my head, or I’m listening to a podcast or music. All through the day, though, the everyday intricacies of nature nudge to the front. I’ll stop to gaze at a hawk lazily circling (and think about which veggie-devouring critter it might be eyeing for lunch). Or suddenly notice the busy hum of bees and sit back from weeding to watch them at work. Or be slightly startled by the way tiny zucchinis have grown to dinner-size literally overnight.
Turkey vulture on patrol
A turkey vulture lazily circling way up, looking for dead flesh. I’m not entirely sure of my bird ID, but pretty sure. These guys circle all the time, barely moving their wings. I used to happily imagine they were some kind of hawk, on patrol over the vegetable patch, the clear, weeded rows a perfect background for spotting rabbits, maybe even zeroing in on seedling-munching field mice and voles. It was a pleasant thought bubble, burst when I eventually looked into it. The overall boxy shape, the fingered wingtip feathers, the patient gliding loops with little flapping, all seemed to say, “Vulture! Turkey vulture!”
Wild turkeys in a field
Wild turkeys foraging in a field. I see them all over, all seasons, always looking quite alien as they dart across the road, make their way in a straggling line across fields, take off on short bursts of flight for whatever reason. They haven’t bothered the veggie garden over the years, so I think of them as fellow travelers, their own separate tribe, in a near orbit that hasn’t intersected with mine. (I do hear their meat is excellent, lean and flavorful, though I haven’t properly tasted it, only in homemade meat pie.)