April - from the 'Year at Robie Creek' series

Originally published in the:

It’s time! We’ll have dirty leftover mounds of snow in the shady places until May or June, winter’s likely to retreat and then come back for one last blast just when the leaves and shoots are at their most tender and unprotected, and I expect one more good snowstorm before all is said and done, but it’s time for the moths and daddy-long-legs to make their appearance, for the leaves to bud and green sprouts to be revealed, and for our American Dipper to come float the creek for a week. Spring fever’s been setting in since the beginning of March and finally it’s time to get out there and start working the land.

The ground is stony here, which is good in the sense that there are always plenty of rocks for outlining areas and building rock walls and filling in landscaping beds, but which also means that a pickaxe is one of the most effective tools, short of a backhoe, for moving any significant amount of earth. A good spade is necessary, too, for getting under basketball-size rocks, and a heavy-duty garden rake for spreading the soil and pulling out the smaller stones. In another month or two, except right next to the creek, it’ll be too dry to do much sculpting of the earth.

For now though, the job is to reshape our little beach, to restock the fish tanks and paludarium with little aquatic goodies (no more dragonfly nymphs though, please), and to weed out early growth we don’t want around the pasture. Bug-hunting season starts this month and we hope too to find a girl salamander or two to go with our two boys. We’re prepping the area around the future pond, but the creek will be moving too high and fast to work in it until the snowmelt’s gone and the spring rains have stopped.

Part of the reason it’s important to us to make a swimmin’ hole for the dogs and their boy is that one of the pups has a bad shoulder – was headed for the pound when he was brought to us – and swimming is the only exercise that doesn’t cost him as much as it benefits. He loves it; he’ll swim and swim all day given the opportunity, which also helps calm his rather excitable nature, but much as we’d love to we can’t spend as much time down at the public beach as he’d like or really needs.

There’s a little spot just below the thimbleberry bushes that’s preceded on the creek bed by a nice wide flattish area in which the water slows down enough for the sand to drop out – without that any deep spots get filled up pretty quickly; alluvial deposits like this are also a great place to look for gold and gemstones – and then there’s a nice natural drop into an already-existing ‘bowl’. If things go as planned we’ll be able to expand that into a reservoir maybe seven or eight feet in diameter and five-ish feet deep – big enough for summer dips – without disrupting the flow of or taking any water from the creek. We spent the end of last summer mapping it out and we’ve been champing at the bit all winter to get back out there and get at it. We’ll let ya know how it goes.

And our final April task, wasps. The foundresses are out now, staking claims, starting nests, and tending eggs. Last autumn Dude, Jr. decided the basketball-sized nest we’d left under the eave for three years should be removed so he took a broom to it and knocked it down. Dude, Sr. or I would’ve done it if we’d thought there were any lingerers but it’s been vacant since the summer it was built and li’l Dude very much enjoyed ‘beating the piñata’. We’d left it there because… I mean, they’re beautiful. Ever really look at one? If it’d been free-hanging I’d’ve shellacked it.

Anyway, once he knocked it down we gathered up some of the pieces and got a close-up look at the construction. We talked about how certain of the worker wasps gather bits of high-cellulose plant materials and mud, chew them up, and use their jaws to not only glue the material into perfectly-sized and -shaped cells, but thin it to an extraordinarily consistent width. Then we talked about the workers that are designated to stay at the entrance and flap their wings to regulate the nest’s temperature, and how that works because of its internal design and the airflow it encourages. He’s duly impressed with their engineering skills and has great appreciation for their roles in pest control, pollination, and the process of organic breakdown, but still intends to help this year on our relocation rounds.

Most places wasps choose to build nests we’ll leave them alone, but this is the time of year for us to let them know that the bottom of Dude Jr.’s slide isn’t a good place for them, nor is just outside any door. The earlier we move them along the sooner the queens can find a new place to settle and get on with making bunches of insect-eating, plant-pollinating children, which they’ll be well on their way to doing by May when we see you again.

And with that, we’ll take our leave for now. As always, it’s been good passin’ some time together. Until next we meet, from Robie Creek to Owl Creek, take care, be safe, have fun!

With much love,

Peace & the Dudes Jaway

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