Yesterday I took these shots – of a modest group of plants that nevertheless look stunning in mid-January – as I was walking through my back yard and into the woods. First you see the boulder stairs that lead from my basement door down into my garden.
Then the two mosses above (names, anyone?) adorn the path through the woods. I've written before about this wonderful woodland that my property sits on the edge of, but continue to marvel over it – even after 25 years of walking through it. Yep, after living in eight different places around metro D.C., I found my spot and decided to stay put.
Totally off-topic, I have to give some link love to a blog called Cute Overload, especially this collection of sleeping cat photos. See, I keep up with politics and global warming and all that, and if it weren’t for a daily dose of adorable animals a girl could get downright grumpy.
For as long as anyone can remember, the wooded valley that my back yard is part of has been covered with English ivy. Not just on the forest floor but even up into the trees where it matures and produces berries, berries that are then spread far and wide by the birds. But then came another vine that – can it be? – managed to win the battle of primacy with the ivy – the five-leaf akebia. It now has a lock on the lowest, wettest parts of the valley.
Then suddenly the fastest spreading invasive plant EVER landed in our valley - the lovely garlic mustard. Its beauty (of sorts) is important to mention because when I’ve shown it to neighbors I’ve discovered that it’s been picked, brought indoors and admired! Oh well. Even if they removed it by its roots it wouldn’t slow the steady march of garlic mustard across the woodland floor.
It’s really no wonder this plant is so successful. It likes the sun, it likes the shade, it seems to like every damn location in North America.
So thank to Barbara Lucas and her pals in the Midwest for this video that goes a long way to showing exactly what mustard garlic looks like and then how to get rid of it. I think I’ll forward this to my neighborhood Yahoo group with the broad hint that we make ridding our valley of this one plant our New Year’s Resolution for the lovely woodland we share.
A tipping point has clearly been crossed because all of a sudden the need for sustainable fishing practices is everywhere. And not just at The Slow Cook, which I read religiously, despite my lack of interest in cooking. It’s also here,here and – oh, everywhere.
So I was primed to try the new Georgetown hot spot Hook, the first restaurant in D.C. that adheres strictly to sustainable fishing practices. Chef Barton Seaver, called a "visionary" in this Washington Post review, visits all his suppliers to make sure they’re not using such widespread practices as overfishing, collection techniques that destroy habitat, or farming with the use of antibiotics.
So how do sustainable fish taste? Like real food, the real meat of
creatures of the sea, but with a touch of Barton’s culinary magic. I’m no food critic but yum!
Each customer receives a wallet-sized brochure outlining in detail the fish to avoid and the fish to eat with impunity, a brochure brought to us with the help of Patagonia and the Blue Ocean Institute. (The brochure’s supposed to be on line here, but that link isn’t working at the moment.) And Earth Echo International is also involved somehow and my dinner companion was their secretary-treasurer, the charming Jan Cousteau, whom I’d met at the DC opening of "The Green" on the Sundance Channel.
So that’s what I was doing at a "glam new watering hole" that’s "swimming with the young and pretty." A little off my usual beat.
Photo of Jan Cousteau and Chef Barton Seaver, taken with a camera whose flash wasn’t working at that particular moment.
Okay, there’s nothing new happening in my garden this time of year and I need diversions. Netflix is a big help but what I miss most on frigid days is connecting with nature, so I recently purchased a bat-house. It holds up to 100 bats and cost $45 (part of which goes toward conservation efforts, I’m told.)
But buying the house brought so much more than this lovely tree ornament; it revealed to me a whole world of bat conservation. There’s the Organization for Bat Conservation out of Michigan, from which I ordered my bat-house. Their site holds a wealth of great info, including how to arrange an in-person program for school kids – too bad it’s only available in Michigan (not to mention only for kids). The site has a bat-house-owner forum, too, where I found tales of owners counting the bats return to the house in early morning, using their binoculars to identify the species, and more wildlife excitement. See, I’m such a lousy birder that I’ve experienced only failure at identifying birds, but there are so few bat species in my area, I have a fighting a chance.
Another amazing site is produced by Bat Conservation International, based in Austin (there it is again, one of the coolest city in the U.S.) On their site you can join their Adopt a Bat program and receive an "endearing letter from your bat." Okay, that’s not my favorite part, but how about learning about their backward-facing knees and locking claws make hanging upside down easy? And then there’s the Latin American bat that eats only blood, the legendary vampire. So legendary, in fact, that the Wikipedia entry for vampires is about the legends, not the actual animal. Hey, bat conservation people, how about amending the entry?
Best of all, I learn that a small insect-eating bat can eat up to 2,000 mosquito-size insects in one night – GO TEAM!
I’ve committed to writing a bunch of columns about wildlife as part of my town’s campaign to become certified as a Wildlife Habitat Community, so you’ll be reading more soon about bats, pollinating bees, and good old butterfly gardens.
ADDENDUM, in response to a commenter, about WHERE TO PUT THE BAT-HOUSE. From the Organization for Bat Conservation site:
In the Northeast: Where you mount your bat house plays a major role in the internal temperature. Houses can be mounted on such structures as poles, sides of buildings and tall trees without obstructions. Houses placed on poles and structures tend to become occupied quicker than houses placed on trees. Bat houses should face south to southeast to take advantage of the morning sun. In northern states and Canada, bat houses need to receive at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight. It is also advantageous to paint the house black to absorb plenty of heat (when baby bats are born, they need it very warm). Use non-toxic, latex paint to paint your bat house and only paint the outside. Your bat house should be mounted at least 15 feet above the ground, the higher the house the greater the chance of attracting bats.
Bats return from migration and awaken from hibernation as early as March in most of the U.S., but stay active year-round in the extreme southern U.S. They will be abundant through out the summer and into late fall. Most houses used by bats are occupied in the first 1 to 6 months (during the first summer the bat house was erected). If bats do not roost in your house by the end of the second summer, move the house to another location.
MORE ON WHETHER THEY WORK: I once heard a wildlife gardening expert say that it may take a while for the bats to discover the house, but once they find it, it works well.
Then the two mosses above (names, anyone?) adorn the path through the woods. I've written before about this wonderful woodland that my property sits on the edge of, but continue to marvel over it – even after 25 years of walking through it. Yep, after living in eight different places around metro D.C., I found my spot and decided to stay put.
