Up until recently, I would say we have been city folk or at least town folk. It has just been these past four years that we have lived out in the country and have been truly experiencing country life.
In town, if you left your lawn unmowed for a season it may get a few feet tall. The grass and ferns at our place can get as tall as me if they don’t get cut. That is in areas where the spring runoff sits for a good month and it is shady through the heat of summer. On a year like this one where we actually had few good rains, our willow thicket has grown like weeds.
As I notice how things are growing from year to year there seems to be a pattern. From winter up until now, the weather and precipitation has been very similar to our first nine months on our property. A good dumping of snow over winter, not much heat over summer and a few rains. The Saskatoon picking is much like that year, 2022.
That being said, the moose were fairly destructive on the Saskatoons this past winter especially the bushes in our yard. A mama moose and her two babies spent a few nights in the yard waking up to eat our bushes. It was so dry the last couple years that the willows were not their first choice. I am hoping that with all the willow growth this summer, the moose will spend their energy this coming winter eating that instead.
The moose also seem to have a pattern and likely spend winter in areas where what they like to eat is plentiful. In the winter of 2022-2023, we had moose in our yard almost every day. Some days we would see many moose. My guess is that the willows were nice the previous summer. I expect many moose again this winter.
Berry picking seems to also be different from year to year. Precipitation, wind, temperature, animals and even us humans can factor in. Since we have been here, one year I got 25 large ziplock bags of Saskatoons and another year only 3 bags. Oddly enough, the year with the bumper crop, it was smoky from wildfires almost every day and hot. This year the berries have been bigger, especially today after the rain but not as plentiful. The amount of precipitation and the timing of it makes a big difference in the size of berries. We had a half inch/12cm of rain yesterday in about an hour. This morning the Saskatoons were like small grapes for the first time. I picked two ice cream pails!
When my brother Russell stayed with us for a month in 2023, he decided to clear brush one afternoon. He cleared in this small area of trees and, at the time, I had shaken my head thinking that I would never need to go into that area as there were no berries to pick there. Since then we had more trees fall down in there. I noticed while out picking that there were in fact saskatoon bushes in that spot. Upon further inspection, I discovered that there were actually A LOT of berries. They had been smaller bushes now grown larger and they were getting more light after removing leaning trees and other trees falling to the ground.
We get different birds from year to year depending on how things are growing. The Robins, Cedar Waxwings, Northern Flickers and Eastern Kingbirds are all looking for berries. After putting in raspberries, strawberries, haskaps and sour cherries we see these birds almost daily visiting the garden. We have a “murder” (group) of Magpies that are here in winter that get replaced by a “plague” of Common Grackles in summer. Though both group names suggest a negative bird, I read recently that Grackles is a common species in a steep decline with over a 60% population loss in the last 40 years. Both groups come to the feeder but the Chickadees and Blue Jays still get their fill and the squirrel gets seeds that fall to the ground.
Even the weeds we get are different from year to year. Thistle seems to grow no matter how dry it is. Things like pineapple weed and purple asters seem to flourish more so in years with some regular rain. The dandelions also come no matter how dry it is but seem to have a bigger second flowering in wetter years. I am not sure that wild roses would be considered a weed but they like moisture as well. The rose hips are bigger this year than I have seen them so far.
Our Poplar/Aspen trees will have one year with the white fluff like it is snowing and the following year there will be small trees coming up everywhere. Sometimes, in the spring, by the time we cut the grass for the first time, a new tree will have grown over a foot tall in the grass. I find small trees in the garden, the wildflower garden, in the lean-to shed and under the deck. We do lose trees to the strong winds we get and animal traffic so it is a good thing that the species propagates on its own.
Although we are not farmers, a small piece of me feels like one as I try to predict the weather and how well our berry crops will do from year to year. My youngest son Thomas bugs me that I always mention the weather in our text chats. And to that I say, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!”
I am enjoying seeing how our landscape changes from year to year. I am always excited to find a new bird species or see an animal I didn’t expect. This morning I heard a Swainson’s Thrush and a Baltimore Oriole (first time this year). Looking forward to new surprises as time goes on here on our acreage.
Interesting write up!
Always enjoy your writings.