Mountain Musings on Evolution…

Mountain Musings – A guest column by Dottie Simmons who lives in eastern Humboldt County describes life at her rural homestead:

Being in one place over time is an interesting journey. In a way it is time travel. As an observer of the world, one notices changes, fast and slow, and things that are unusual jump out against the background of familiarity.

Living on the land as we do, one tends to keep records. Weather and animals and prices of feed and things that affect homestead life. It’s handy to be able to confirm one’s memory of things. It also contributes to a certain cynicism when one remembers buying 100# of hen scratch for $6.50 or $35/ton for 4^th cutting alfalfa hay (we had to buck it ourselves) and comparing it to today’s prices.

But enough of ‘stuff’ – back to nature…

Douglas Squirrel credit: Wiki Commons

This morning we saw a Douglas squirrel on our property for the first time. We have seen them on the coast, up at 3500’, and within 5 miles of here, but this is a first at our location. We have always had plentiful gray squirrels and occasional flurries of (##%$#!) ground squirrels, but NEVER a Douglas squirrel before today! We notice these things.

We are aware of our common visitors, fox, bobcat, bear, wild turkey, grouse, vultures, hawks, waterfowl, and other birds. And the less common coyote, cougar and eagle, and rare sightings here of cormorant, egret and others. So we notice when things change over time. We no longer have certain migratory birds in abundance – if at all. Orioles and Tanagers have gone from common to rare. The 5-year road project above us broke overland migration of turkeys, bobcat and more that is still recovering (we hope) 5 years after completion.

This heritage rose has never before bloomed until June!

And we especially notice changes in weather patterns and plants. Over time seasonal rain, temperatures, thunderstorms and particularly wind, have gone from once predictable to anomalous. This year in particular has been odd, with such a wet and warm early winter and an all-time record dry and warm March followed by a cold snap. Plants normally only now awakening from winter dormancy have already bloomed or are blooming. Fruit trees bloomed weeks early, then it got down into the 20s – we’ll see how that pans out. Our June blooming roses are fully budded and starting to bloom and some have had a bloom or two ALL WINTER!!! That has never happened before.

I like old garden maxims and one is to ‘plant corn when the oak leaves are as big as a squirrel’s ear’. For decades that was May 15 then crept up to April 15. This year it was the end of March! No, the corn is NOT planted yet. Ground is not ready.

A few days ago these grapevines had lush foliage. 2 nights in the 20s changed that.

We originally planted grapes here back in the 1980s. Year after year they would bud, then freeze. They would repeat this until the third freeze and then go dormant until the following year. It wasn’t until 2019 that we had weather steadily warm enough we had a small harvest of grapes, which has improved each year since. This year the grapes were fully leafed out until April 16, when a hard frost killed all the foliage. Fingers crossed they recover.

We live in one of those spots in the county that gets bountiful rain, caused by our proximity to South Fork Mountain. For the past 10 years our average rain has been 75.78” in one rain year (Oct. 1 – Sept. 30), and we notice when the pattern is askew. We had a high year total of 112.60” for the 2016-17 season and low 40.02” in 2020-21. We remember if the rain came early with a dry spring or vice-versa, and what both the garden and the fire seasons were like in those years.

Our CoCoRahs weather data. Join us at www.CoCoRahs.org !

We see patterns and note the evolution of trends like warmer winters and off-season T-storms, and try to plan ahead while keeping in mind there will be always be surprises, like the little Douglas squirrel this morning.