Goliath

This is our guard dog. I know, he looks like a slacker, sleeping in the middle of the day, but that’s really part of what makes him an excellent guard dog. His name is Goliath, but we call him Golly. He is a Great Pyrenees, also known as a Pyrenean Mountain Dog. Golly does spend most of his days sleeping, but then at night he wakes and patrols the borders of his field all night long, often sending out territorial warnings (booming barks) to predators.

The Great Pyrenees is a very old breed, used for a thousand years by the Basque in the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France. These dogs are usually employed in protecting livestock (especially sheep) in pastures. A Pyrenees pup is taken from its mother a couple of weeks earlier than normal and then put in with sheep – this causes the pup to imprint on the sheep so that it thinks the flock is its pack. When Golly sees a threat, he puts himself in-between it and the sheep and warns of the predator. All this behavior is instinctual and very strong – Pyrenees are fiercely loyal. I once saw Golly’s predecessor – Gabriel – stand his ground to a thousand pound horse with not a hint of hesitation.

Most Pyrenees males weigh in at 100-130 pounds, but Golly is a bit bigger at 140. Gabriel was even larger at 150. Golly is a working dog, protecting our five Marino sheep, but he really has an easy life. His father and mother live in southern Indiana where they guard a flock of over 100 sheep - they have fought off and even killed stray dogs and coyotes. Golly's favorite trick is to try and walk between your legs – doesn’t work even with me, I’m six foot tall and he picks me up off the ground.

The Great Pyrenees have one feature that distinguishes them from all other dogs - a double dewclaw on each of the hind legs - a sixth toe if you will.

Northern Walking Stick (Diapheromera femorata)

It’s rare to see a walking stick, even on our farm. They seem to turn up in the fall most often. I remember the first time I ever saw one. I was about seven and it seemed so alien that I got scared. But I didn’t have anything to worry about. Walking sticks are basically insect pacifist, that’s why they work so hard at camouflage. About the only defense a Walking Stick has is to release a bad-smelling liquid when attacked.

Walking sticks are nocturnal vegetarians that feed on berry, cherry and other leaves. They spend most of their days in camouflage mode – motionlessly hanging from a leaf or branch. When you see one during the day it may appear to have only four legs – but look closer and you’ll see the fore legs are held out in front (with the antenna) so it looks more like a stick. Walking sticks have an unusual ability … if they lose or damage a leg they can regenerate it after molting sever times.

Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus)

In our garden we have a Buddleja (also Buddleia), often know as a Butterfly bush. The bush is about seven feet tall and attracts all sorts of butterflies, bees, and even hummingbirds. I took this photo of a Monarch butterfly out of our kitchen window.

Monarchs are known for their long annual migration and their ability to find the same overwinter location each fall. From August through October they travel southward – Monarchs east of the Rockies migrate all the way to Michoacán, Mexico. The trip takes several generations - Monarchs born as the migration begins only live about seven weeks but the annual migration takes longer.

Aesculus trees

We have lots of Aesculus trees on our farm - probably too many. In North American we know the Aesculus as Buckeyes, in Eurasian they are called Horse-chestnuts (the word "horse" meaning strength or inedibility). “Buckeye” comes from the similarity to the brown eyes of male deer.

Buckeye nuts contain a concentrated saponin-class toxin called Aesculin (which destroys red blood cells). Only a few animals, such as deer and squirrels are resistant to this toxin and can eat the nuts.

A Kentucky arborist once told me that buckeyes were totally useless trees, but in the past they did have uses. Native American tribes knew how to make a wholesome starchy porridge out of the nuts by leaching and pulverized them in boiling water – which neutralized the saponin toxin. In addition, Horse-chestnut seeds were used in France and Switzerland to make a soap for whitening hemp, flax, silk and wool fibers. And of course because of their size and beauty, most kids love buckeyes. Perhaps that’s why children in Britain and Ireland use them in the game conkers.

Allegheny mound ants (Formica exsectoides)

We have ant mounds on our farm – this one stands almost three feet tall. I think they are Allegheny Mound Ants – which range from Nova Scotia to Georgia. They don’t cause us problems since they are out on the far edges of our fields, but they can be damaging – these ants inject formic acid into plants and vegetation to clear the area near the mound. A mound this size can support a colony of up to 6,000 ants.

Ants are one of Earth’s most successful insects and are found in all types of climates including deserts, rainforests, mountains, valleys, and even the Arctic Circle. Estimates suggest that there are more than 20,000 species of ants on Earth.

This little ant is carrying the world on his shoulders…don’t believe me? I once heard a noted entomologist explain how ants are more important to the Earth’s ecosystems than perhaps any other living creature. Ants, by their digging and foraging, aerate the soil, putting them at the foundation of all advanced land animals. Without aerated soil, plant life is very poor, so there is little food for grazers, and so on up the food chain. Think of it this way: if human beings went suddenly extinct, Earth’s ecosystem would actually improve. If ants went extinct, the entire ecosystem would collapse resulting in a mass extinction – perhaps the largest ever.

Box turtles (Terrapene)

Turtles have lived on earth, in one form or another, for 230 million years. Box turtles have been documented to live over 100 years. The turtle is about two inches long (note the nail head at the bottom right), so she is very young, perhaps less than a year.

In North America we often call them box turtles, but Terrapene is a better name since “box turtle” also refers to two types of Asian turtles (Cuora and Pyxidea). You can usually tell males from females by the eye color – males have red eyes, females yellowish-brown eyes.

Box Turtles are omnivorous, eating everything from slugs, earthworms and insects to blackberries and mushroom to carrion.

A turtle's shell is made keratin (like your fingernails) but beneath the bony plates you’ll find the ribs and vertebrae (backbones). You can see the backbone in this shell which is about five inches long.

In cold climates many turtles “hibernate” during winter – that’s really not the right word, mammals hibernate, reptiles “brumate.” This process is very interesting with water turtles, which snuggle down into mud and leaves at the bottom of ponds. As their bodies cool, their hearts slow down and they stop normal breathing – they absorb the oxygen they need from the water through the skin of their tails.

Green Stink Bug (Acrosternum hilare) aka Green Soldier Bug

This is a Green Stink Bug … really! Stink Bugs are so named because they discharge a foul-smelling fluid when disturbed. These bugs are found in crop fields, orchards, and gardens throughout North America. They love juices of foliage, flowers, and fruit and are considered pests because they damage apples, cherry, orange, and peach trees, eggplant, tomato, bean, pea, cotton, corn, and soybean crops. I found this stink bug on our tractor shed - it is an immature nymph (so it’s not green yet) and is about half an inch long. Who would think that a "Stink Bug" could be so beautiful?

Merino sheep

Maureen is a spinner and so we have five Merino sheep.

Merinos are the world’s most numerous sheep breed – millions populate Australia and New Zealand. The breed is prized for its wool, which is considered the finest and softest wool of any sheep. The merino breed originated in Spain during the 14th and 15th centuries with the crossing of local breeds and Berber sheep. Merinos are a skittish breed – almost wild – which makes them very difficult to work with. Just my luck.

Merino sheep have lots of Lanolin in their wool – also known as "wool fat" or grease, it is chemically akin to wax. The greasy qualities of Lanolin attract dirt and dust. To keep a sheep’s fleece clean we put “coats” on them. A coated sheep can look light brown or gray on unprotected areas but black under the coat. In the photo, there are two black and two white sheep. Can you tell the difference?

Cope's Gray tree frog (Hyla chrysoscelis)

Each Spring we eagerly await a new generation of tree frogs on our farm. They fill the night with calls that sound very much like the cheeping of baby chicks. This is a Cope's Gray tree frog and his call is a bit more traditional - hear a sound file of his call (University of Kentucky). The pink pole this frog is sitting on happens to be the base of my ring finder.

Sleepy Bumbles

In the fall as clear, cool evenings become the norm something special happens in our garden. Bees of all sorts - Bumblebees (Bombus), honeybees, sweat bees – work furiously in the garden during the day gathering nectar from fall flowers. As the evening falls, they all return to their hives, except the Bumblebees. For some reason, they are compelled to continue working – they just can’t pull themselves away. As the temperature drops they move slower and slower until they go torpid (fall into a deep sleep). And there they stay, all night, exactly where they stopped work. As the morning sun raises and warms them, the Bumbles resume work right where they left off. These photos are of Bumblebees I found this morning in gourd flowers. In the spring, we see the same thing happen on Lambs Ears (Stachys lanata) flowers and the Bumbles are often so sleepy we can pet them.

Snake!

I had a surprise this evening when I was changing the sheep’s water – under the bucket I found what I believe was a rat or garter snake. It was definitely not poisonous but very aggressive.

We use to see lots of snakes on our properly before we started regularly cutting our fields. Snakes love tall grass and thatch to hide in. I once stepped on a black rat snake hidden in thatch – big surprise. Snakes like tall grass because it helps them hide form their prey and from hawks. I once saw a hawk flying over our farm with a live snake in it’s claws – if only Eden had had hawks.

Consider the lichen

“Lichens are just about the hardiest visible organisms on Earth, but among the least ambitious. They will grow happily enough in a sunny churchyard, but they particularly thrive in environments where no other organism would go – on blowy mountaintops and arctic wastes, wherever there is little but rock and rain and cold, and almost no competition. In areas of Antarctica where virtually nothing else will grow, you can find vast expanses of lichen-four hundred types of them-adhering devotedly to every wind-whipped rock.”

Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p. 335.

There are more than 20,000 species of lichens. People use to think they were stones turning into plants, or as Dr. Homschuch noted in 1819, “Spontaneously, inorganic stone becomes living plant!”

In reality, lichens are a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae. Fungi acids dissolve rock and free minerals - the algae convert the minerals into food that sustains both. Beatrix Potter, a naturalist and author of the Peter Rabbit children’s books, first proposed this symbiotic relationship.

Aphids (Aphidoidea) aka greenfly/blackfly or plant lice

This little plant is supporting life, there on the stalk below the flower - aphids and more.

Aphids live in colonies and most gardeners considered them pests. Aphids feed on the sap from plants - in this case a flower in our garden - which causes leaves to wilt or turn yellow.

Some interesting facts:

•There are about 4,000 species of aphids
• Aphids are born pregnant
• Aphids give birth to live offspring - see photo
• The basic species has been on earth for about 280 million years
• Common predators: ladybugs (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and hoverfly larvae (Diptera: Syrphidae)

As I was watching these aphids I realized that my timing was rather lucky. There on the flower stem was a female giving birth to a “baby” aphid. Aphids produce continuous generations rapidly through live birth. The mother and baby stayed close together after the event. Click the photo for a larger view.

Now, aphids are phloem-feeders (phloem is living, sappy plant tissue that is full of organic nutrients, especially sucrose). Aphids ingest food in excess and secrete "honeydew” which is rich in carbohydrates and which some ants love. So, long ago, ants and aphids formed a symbiotic relation- ship. Ants "farm" aphids, protecting them from predators and eating the honeydew that the aphids secrete. Some ants even move aphid herds into their nests for the winter.

There near the bottom of the photo is the proof... an ant feeding on sweet honeydew from an aphid’s posterior. Click the image for a magnified view.

Oreo (Felis catus)

This is Oreo. Isn’t she sweet? You wouldn’t know it to look at her but Oreo is a serial killer.

We have three cats: Oreo, Ginger, and Genji (named after the Japanese novel). Ginger and Genji are indoor cats. They are both mentally unstable.

Ginger is nervous and paranoid – scared of people, noise, shadows, and the outside world. She spends her days either sleeping or sitting on a stool in our sunroom, staring out the window. When she sees a bird, she chatters. She threw up in my shoe once.



At 15, Genji is a cat Blanche DuBois. She believes the world should adore her – maybe that’s normal for a cat. Genji tends to caterwaul late at night, mournfully, while carrying around socks or stuffed toys. We figure she is reflecting on the kitten she never had.

But what of Oreo, the serials killer? Well, it’s not entirely her fault. I taught her. Oreo is an outside cat, a barn cat. We got her to keep down the mice around the barn. Unlike Ginger and Genji, Oreo has a full set of front claws and knows how to use them. We use to catch mice in a humane trap, take them far away from the barn and release them. A couple of times I let mice go in close proximity of Oreo. It’s a hunting technique many predators practice with offspring. Oreo caught on quickly. She now hunts birds, moles, mice, and other small creatures. She sometimes shows us affection by leaving her catch on the front doorstep. One morning she left us something very special – the body of an adolescent rabbit, no head. Isn’t strange that a serial killer is our most mentally balanced cat?