Swan and Duck Strategies Outwit our Dog + Recipe for Fruit Shrub drink

I have read descriptions of birds luring predators away from their nest of eggs or fledglings by feigning a broken wing or leg, but, until yesterday, I had never witnessed this.

Swans on our lake most of the summer

At the time, we were enjoying our afternoon kayak around the lake while our dog, Buddy, ran along the shore or paddled alongside.  Across the lake, he startled a duck out of the foliage along the water.  She fluttered in a shallow flight away from him, who watched in fascination and then dived in to swim after her.  We were amazed at how close she let him get to her – within 10 or 12 feet.  Usually, the ducks will fly far off, or the loons will dive and resurface far away, or the gulls will dive bomb him (and us). 

In this case, the duck paddled back and forth in short stints, but inexorably drawing Buddy deeper into the middle of the lake.  Occasionally, she fluttered mere inches above the water.  Her behavior was abnormal, so we wondered if she was hurt.

However, when she reached some particular point in the middle of the 1/2 mile wide lake, she soared off to the east, clearly a capable flyer.  Buddy slowed, disappointed, and headed toward the western shore.  At that point, we turned our kayak around to retrace our path home.  As we did, we saw two, small, fluffy fledglings paddling as fast as their little webbed feet could go, from the shore grasses where their mother had launched her charade.  What a clever and effective ruse to distract the Labrador Retriever.

A few days later, Buddy encountered water fowl with an entirely different strategy. 

Three trumpeter swans were resting on the far side of the lake, shining bright white against the green landscape.  When Buddy spied them, he slowed, trying to figure out what they were because they were SO BIG and stationary.  ((Factoids:  Trumpeter swans are the heaviest flying bird in the world, and one of the longest: about 40 lbs, 5 - 6 ft long, with a wing span of 6 - 8 ft.  What are male and female swans called?  Inquiring minds ask.  Answer:  cobs and pens.  Who knew?) 

 After they glided out into the water, he followed them at a pensive distance.  They commenced their loud, distinctive trumpeting calls that extend long distances and echo off the surrounding mountains.  Apparently, they were calling for reinforcements, because two more flew in from the twin lakes behind our property, forming an intimidating platoon before the naïve dog.  These large and imperious birds did not bother to fly away from Buddy.  With their strong legs and big webbed feet, they paddled just out of his range, exhausting him as he swam around them for 10 – 15 minutes.  Tuckered out, he decided to leave them alone, and head to shore, after which he had to run a longer perimeter than usual to return home.  This was a good lesson for him, because swans can be mean and have been recorded as drowning people that got too close, and surely other mammals, too.   In subsequent days, as the three swans slid past the dock in front of our house, Buddy watched with interest, but made no motion to follow them. 

Our dog certainly sleeps well after these outings.  What does he dream about?  Probably,  “I almost caught her…”

 

RECIPE:  FRUIT SHRUB

a shrub is an old fashioned drink, popular when potable water was not always available.

1:1:1 ratio of juicy fruit (or rhubarb), sugar or honey, and a gentle vinegar (like apple cider/white or red wine/rice).  If you use stronger white vinegar, use less of it.

Heat a pot of fruit and honey into a syrup.  Let that marinate in the refrigerator for several days.  Then add the vinegar.  Taste after several days.  Adjust the proportions.  

The vinegar should add a tang, but the dominant flavor should be the sweet fruit.  

This is refreshing as is or as an addition to still or sparkling water, wine, or vodka.  

Just as in salad dressings or other preparations, vinegar has health benefits in consumption.  This is another version.

Spring Breakup: Two weeks from snow to edible wild plants

(The prior article focuses on the Breakup's lake ice and water fowl.  This one focuses on rapid changes on land).

Breakup, our term for spring, is FAST.

After a long winter, the snow melts several inches a day in April and May, leaving increasing spaces of muddy soil shaped by serpentine tunnels of voles (meadow mice) and punctuated by 8 months of dog poop.  A Southern relative asked me why I wait until spring to pick it up.  Why not do so every day?  Perhaps she has not spent much time in snow.  Warm excretions sink through soft snow.  So in spring, we find the scat of moose, coyotes, spruce hens, and our dog, Buddy. 

Note how red the calf is.  The cow blends into the spruce trunks.

I shovel his winter poop into four small, galvanized bucket loads and dump it beneath a tree at the edge of our woods, in a low spot behind the berm that edges the lake so it will not defile that water source. On our muddy paths, we find the distinctive oval tracks of 1000 pound + moose along side branches of new cranberry growth snapped off as tasty snacks by these hungry, herbivorous ungulates.  It is usually not until early June that we open the curtains in the morning to see a cow munching bushes a few feet away, with one or two gangly little calves nursing beneath her big belly.  I look forward to that.

In early May, we harvested about 20 gallons of birch sap before the leaves emerged, but the sap turned milky (bad) fast, and my effort at birch sap wine molded.  By mid-May, the first flowers are always those of wild currants, their small and modest mauve and white flowers emerging above snow covered root stock.  By the end of May - only two weeks after the yard was mostly covered with snow, I harvested dandelion leaves, flowers, and fireweed shoots for our first fresh salads, accompanied by biscuits flavored with citrusy larch tips.  Far less useful growth is the wild sweet grass that reached shin height in a week which, if left alone, would ascend to 6 feet by July and flop over and strangle all plants nearby.  So, an urgent, annual spring task of mine, while growth is emerging so quickly, is to weed whack tough, spiny devil’s club, wild raspberries and the wild grass over 7 days, one hour per day to make space and sun for more desirable opportunistic plants. 

Birch sap tap

Why raspberries, you might ask?  Who doesn’t like raspberries?  Here, they grow in thick stands  through underground runners as well as animal and bird spread seeds.  The dense growth is not allopathic chemically, but physically.  They deter any other plants except nettles and grow tall enough to entangle the branches of nearby shrubs and saplings. (Elsewhere, we grow five rows of domestic raspberries for fruit)

To reduce the population, I have to use a weed whacker blade to cut through dozens of canes per square yard the first year, after which I can shift to a weed whacker line for several more years.  This multi-year effort opens up space for more desirable ground cover to naturalize.  It delights me to see the dappled shade beneath birch and spruce populated by graceful ferns, white dwarf dogwood and starflower, pink prickly rose, (which is related to raspberries), and the wild currants, which tumble over and around spruce stumps.

I love my first morning sniff of the outdoors as soon as new growth emerges.  Every day smells sweet, and different, as a succession of plants come into leaf or bloom.  Even the sweet grass, as the name suggests, and alder leaves have a delicious scent.  

As I look through the windows of our log cabin, and walk up and down our paths through the property, I enjoy the evolution of two rather large and tangled rose gardens, and large expanses of “lawn” lovely all summer with white starflower and dwarf dogwood as well as domestic strawberries that naturalized into a ground cover along the lake shore.

My weeding efforts generate not only beauty but food and habitat.  I increase the number of cranberries I harvest from those pretty shrubs for juicing every fall.  The rose bushes grow nearby, where I gather petals for salads and hips (the fruit that follows the flowers) for vitamin C additions to winter teas.   Those little spruce and birch grow slowly for about the first 6 years and after that about 2 feet per year, for shade and windbreaks for us, and habitat and food for birds and martens.

This successional development of plants has developed into an enduring interest for me. Although I rather ruthlessly cut raspberries and devil’s club to the ground, I weed whack the wild grasses several inches above, in order to scrutinize what wants to grow here or there if given some sun and space.  I wander slowly with a roll of blue flagging tape, leaning down to mark tiny spruce and birch, as well as other slow growing, desirable plants.  My goal has never been a suburban lawn of grass.  I love the wild plants – but I admit to favoring the ones I extol here vs the invasive growth of alder, devil’s club, and sweet grass, which I endeavor to reduce, but not eradicate, in number and influence.

My newly published book can be found here:   https://www.amazon.com/Log-Cabin-Reflections-Off-Grid-Homestead-ebook/dp/B0BZN1FZR9/ref=sr_1_1   I hope that you enjoy it!

Spring: Lake Breakup in Alaska: From Snowmachine to Kayak in 2 weeks

The end of winter 2023 was S-L-O-W.  We finally put away our snowmachines on April 28.  But after that, the transition from ice to water on the lake took a mere two weeks.

When migrating geese and cranes flew overhead in late April/early May, our dog loped toward them, along the hard packed snowmachine tracks that traversed the lake ice, only to be surprised when he sank several inches as he veered off into the soft and rotting snow on either side of the path. We saw the snow change color as both it and the underlying lake ice melted.  In some light conditions, the streaks of color looked almost Caribbean: sea green, light blue, and sand colors, until the ice got super thin and looked black.

Within a meager two weeks, KAYAK SEASON arrived.  Yea!  Despite plenty of snow on the ground, on May 13, we three kayaked among the ice floes.  To my dismay, Buddy jumped off the bow onto a soft ice floe and sank into frigid water.  We hauled him into the kayak, all 65 pounds of him, and returned home to warm him up with blankets and food.  Two days later though, the lake was ice free on May 15, as usual.  Such a reliably punctual date over many decades.  We kayaked along the periphery of the lake while Buddy ran along shore through snowmelt and soggy bogs, throwing off sprays of water.  He sniffed all the various scents on air, water, and soil, and looked absolutely delighted.  Until mid-Oct, we kayak every day that lacks high winds or heavy rain, accompanied by homemade wine (for me) and homemade beer (for Bryan) and peanuts for all three of us. Each week something else blooms, changes color, and scents the air.

In breakup, we start to see and hear many more neighboring creatures than we did in the depths of winter.  One day in late May, we saw our first moose of the year – a large, blonde one across the lake.  The next day, Buddy startled a river otter or beaver out of the brush which leapt into the lake.  (I caught a mere glimpse of the round, brown head from the corner of my eye, so I am not sure of the species.) 

As a Labrador mix, our dog is attuned to birds.  Fortunately, all water fowl have skills and abilities that exceed his.   Like Wiley Coyote, who never caught Roadrunner, Buddy is eager to chase the ducks but never, ever catches one.  When from shore he spies a pair swimming, he wriggles his butt, circles his tail, makes a distinctive whine, and jumps into the cold water, swimming toward them.  The ducks take his measure, let him approach to a specific distance, and then fly safely to the far shore.  By contrast, loons dive with their strong feet and reappear 100 or so feet away.  Buddy looks left and right, slows down, and then resignedly paddles to the nearest shore.  Foiled again. After a few days of this, the ducks wisely decided to lay nests in the grass and shrubs along the twin lakes behind us, where their progeny can incubate and hatch, unmolested.  But adults still visit here, feeding on larvae and perhaps baby pike and pike eggs.  

 

Before 2015, I used to LOVE seeing loons raise and train 8 - 12 soft, fluffy fledglings on our lake.   The little ones learned to dive and fly in Keystone Cops commotion.  I don’t know why the loons stopped laying eggs here at that time.  Since then (7 years before our dog joined us in 2022), we see visiting pairs of loons and many species of migrating fowl but no resident families.  It was around that year that spruce beetles devastated the region’s forests, so perhaps other elements of the eco-system attractive to loons changed then, too.

Whatever the reasons may be, each year the changes from winter to spring are fast and dramatic both on the lake and on land. (See blog about land changes in next article).