Back on June 20th, I wrote about a walk I took after CPR training.  Toward the end of the walk, I was checking a bird box, when down at my sandled foot, I felt something furry.  I immediately assumed it must be someone’s escaped pet ferret, because weasels would never be so friendly.  It sniffed around my foot and seemed to be investigating my pant leg as a possible place to seek shelter.

Without thinking, I reached down to pick it up.  It acted for all the world like a pet.  It settled right down in my hand and surveyed the world from its new post.  I knew Sarah and Kim would love to see it, so I emptied my journal pouch and placed it inside, finished checking the bird box, made my notes, and returned to the building.

We discussed the possibilities.  Ferret?  No.  It has the wrong colors.  Hand-raised weasel?  Possibly.  Because it’s what she does, Sarah made a habitat for the little guy and took it home to observe it for the night.  And the next day…  and the next…

After a couple of days, it started acting funny, dragging its back side around, much less active.  Sadly, by the time the following Monday came around, it had died.  Sarah called the health department to find out the best course of action.  “Have it tested for rabies,” was the answer.  Thankfully, it tested negative.

In the short time it was with us, it generated a flurry of learning.  We read all the information we could find on Short-tailed Weasels, also known as stoats or, in winter, ermine.  I learned that a weasel can live to be 10 years old, that they can produce the same odor as a skunk, that their range can be anywhere from 4 to 96 square miles, that they can kill prey bigger than themselves, that they often appropriate chipmunk dens and take them over for their own.  I learned about their breeding habits, which are too bizzare for words… ok, I’ll give you some words:  After the female gives birth, a male will mate with mom, and with all the female babies – even when they are so young they still have their eyes shut.  Yeah.  Weird.

In retrospect, picking up a wild, potential rabies vector was probably a stupid thing to do and, if faced with such an opportunity again in the future, I will probably be a bit more careful.  But it was very interesting to have this little guy with us, to teach us about another of Nature’s wonderful creatures.  Here are some websites, in case you want to learn more:

http://www.hylebos.org/statepark/Weasel.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/201.shtml
http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/furbear/weasels.php

Oh, I know you can buy perfectly fine jams and jellies in the store, but there is something so much more satisfying about the ones you make yourself.

Maddie likes to make Strawberry Freezer Jam.  Mash the berries, add sugar and pectin, stir…  then into containers and into the freezer.  Man oh man does that jam taste like a June morning!  (Most of) The berries pictured here are now in the freezer in the form of jam.

Emily prefers to can Currant Jelly.  Currants have plenty of pectin on their own, so you needn’t add any.  Just sugar… and heat.  Cook them until they start to gel.  Then into glass jars and onto the shelf.  I don’t think Emily realizes that after a week of training and getting camp ready, she will be picking currants and making jelly.

My friend Terry made a pie for his mom a few weeks back using elderberries he had picked and put up for the winter.  He made the mistake of giving me a bite to taste.  I’m totally hooked now!  Elderberries are blooming now.  I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for blossoms long the road as I drive to work, or back and forth to Girl Scout Camp.  In early September, I plan to harvest some.  I can almost taste the jam already…

Don’t worry, I’ll leave some for the birds.

My title on March 30th was The Leeks are Up. At that time we saw only leaves. Over the weeks leading up to summer, the leaves of wild leeks disintigrate and the plant seems to disappear. Then, just around the Summer Solstice, up pop the flowers… Yesterday I found them in several states of bursting from their buds, but none fully open. Today the temperatures are supposed to be quite a bit higher… maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to post a leek blossom that is beyond the budding phase.

The woods behind the ball park at the top of the hill never ceases to amaze me.  I’ve walked the paths so many times you would think I had seen every plant and learned every flower.  But no.  Yesterday I found several plants that buried me in my books for hours after the walk.  I still haven’t identified all of them.

Here’s one I did manage to key out.  Shinleaf!  The individual flowers grow on a raceme above broad, ovate leaves.  This photo only shows two blossoms on the stem, but often there are many more.  I took a closeup of one flower.  You should check it out at my Flickr site: it’s pretty bizzare!

There were two flowers that baffled me.  I posted them in the ID Please Pool on Flickr to get some help with them.  If I get some answers, I’ll blog them another time.

Not all of the flowers in the woods were white.  I finally found some agrimony in bloom.  I’ve been seeing the leaves for quite some time, and saw some buds on the way into the woods.  On the return path, I found one stem with open blossoms:

And yet another Cinquefoil… I think this one is called “Rough Cinquefoil”:

I’m off to the woods again today.  I hope to have some more woodland beauties for you tomorrow!

Having college interns during the summer months is new for Audubon… at least during my 9 year tenure.  Last year we had just one.  This year we have two.  What an incredible joy it is to have them.  It is fun mentoring them in areas where we have expertise.  It is even more fun learning from their areas of expertise.  Their fresh eyes and energy give us all a boost.  We ended this walk season having seen over 3,000 children and none of us feels burned out.  That’s saying something!

At the end of our busy spring walk season, we always take our trail guide volunteers on a fieldtrip.  (The interns were quite delighted to think that they were still getting paid, even though they weren’t working!  I told them that this was more “professional development”.)  This year, the destination was the Pfeiffer Nature Center in Portville, NY.  The center is on a piece of property that was timbered at one time, then used as the summer home.  The chestnut log cabin is a fine centerpiece for the Pfeiffer.  Wandering through it you can just imagine what it must have been like to spend entire summers here.

Parts of the woods behind the cabin were untouched by the timbering and have a wonderful “Old Growth” feel to them.  The tree behind the cabin (pictured above with John) has been cored and they know it to be 350 years old.  Colleen, our guide, put it this way:  “That tree was already old when George Washington was president.”

Partridge Berry was blooming!  I had a hard time photographing it with the macro lens on.  With all that fuzz, the camera’s auto-focus was having a hard time deciding where to focus…  Also, the light under the trees made it challenging.  But I took enough shots that one came out.

After lunch in the pavillion, we explored the meadow for a while.  It was particularly fun to watch the interns not walk, not run, but BOUND through the meadow like a couple of fawns.

It was pretty breezy, so few of my attempts at flower or butterfly closeups came out.  Amazingly, the Rough-fruited Cinquefoil did come out.  I love the subtle, pale yellow of this flower, so different from the brassy yellow of other cinquefoils.

It was a great day.   As with any not-for-profit, we could not do what we do without our volunteers.  It was sad that some of them could not join us on this trip.  We are very grateful for their time and dedication.  THANK YOU to all who volunteer.

That’s how we spent the Summer Solstice.  Hope you had a wonderful 1st day of summer, too!

You can see more pictures from this trip at my Flickr site by clicking here.