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Tuesday, July 24, 2018

The Ripple's Latest Scoop...


You heard it here first. Tomorrow, July 25, 2018, a Wednesday, preliminary work begins on the replacement of County Bridge #155 over Riley Slough. This project has been in the works for three years. Work was postponed because another County bridge replacement up north somewhere was deemed a priority, and because the County is fueled by our tax dollars, there just weren't sufficient funds to upgrade two bridges at once.

This morning Gladys and I stopped to take photos of the County work order and the rustic cabin that was home to the Kevin Olson family for twenty some years. As we pedaled on, I heard hammering beside the last outbuilding to the north. Standing behind his work van, a young man was pounding away on some sort of construction. The Ripple has a nose for news and I smelled some now. I asked the worker what he was cobbling together. "A temporary power pole," he replied between blows. Further queries revealed the stanchion would provide interim power for a construction company who employed him. "A crew is coming in tomorrow to demolish the house and these outbuildings," he replied. "I guess they're going to replace the old bridge. They'll need a power source while they do the work."


Call it Karma, if you believe in such a thing. Turns out the photos attached to this post will be the last ones taken of that quaint little bungalow perched on the shady north bank of Riley Slough. Tomorrow it will be hauled off in splintered shambles. From its forlorn appearance and unkempt lawn I knew it must no longer be occupied. The cabin was always neat and trim, flowers in window boxes and hanging baskets, the lawn close cropped...a sign that someone cared. Now just a few odds and ends in the carport and a faded American flag give testimony to its former residents. There's just something depressing about an abandoned home.


Three years ago this October, Kevin Olson and property owner Ginger Mullendore met with Councilman Dave Somers to discuss the fate of the bridge and its impact on her property. Kevin, tenant and current resident, who has seen the property change hands a time or two, was most concerned as the proposed bridge approach would pass only two or three feet from his doorstep. The Ripple was on hand to record the meeting (The Meeting at Bridge 155, 10/6/2015). Somers listened to their concerns but as the County's right-of-way had been breached, there was little he could do to find a solution. As part of the bridge replacement project County engineers had decided to straighten out the "dog leg" blind corner on the north bridge approach. To adjust the "kink," the County would realign the bridge approach by moving the Upper Loop to the west. The real estate required to effect the move would include part of the lawn of the old Victorian home on the south bank of Riley and nearly the entire front yard of Kevin's cabin.

The Ripple has frequently referred to the Tualco Loop as the Tualco Valley Speedway and for good reason: its many straight stretches.
I'm afraid the engineers' "safety measure" will have unintended consequences. My fear is that by straightening the stretch of road between the Upper Loop and Lower Loop intersection Valley speeders, namely motorcycles, "crotch rockets" and testosterone fueled hotrodders will have a quarter mile more in which to accelerate before they reach the next section of straight roadway stretching from the south bridge approach all the way to the Tualco Grange. The 35 mph speed limit is already a joke for the many scofflaw speedsters passing through our Valley and having nearly a half mile of straight road will serve as an invitation for them to "see what this baby will do." What has been a leisurely passageway through a scenic, pastoral Valley will now become an unregulated, unpatrolled race course, putting all who live in and commute through the Valley at risk.





Sunday, July 22, 2018

Livestock that Wriggles...


Even though you're farmin' just one slim acre, there are the routine morning chores. I tend the chickens first, release them from the coop into the run, make sure they have food and water (old farm tenet: "Feed and water your animals first, then go to breakfast"). After they're flushed from the coop, I check their food supply, watering "trough," and scatter about the run a handful or two of hen scratch and sunflower seed. Then it's on to the potted plants, see to their irrigation needs before the day heats up. Perhaps I'll hoe a weed or two....

This summer, however, I've added one more task to the morning's routine. I mosey past the chickens out to the willow tree and gather a bundle of leaves, this season's growth, lush and tender, pasturage, you might say for my summer's strange experiment: tending caterpillars, a project that began when my environmentally sensitive friend Nancy L brought me a large moth she found clinging to some new construction she had going. Instead of dispatching the moth in the deep freeze overnight, I left it in the jar in which it came. Next morning I was dismayed to find during the night the moth had tried to escape its confines (Moths? Creatures of the night? I should have known better...) and badly frayed one of its forewings. Before its escape attempt the moth deposited nearly four dozen bluish- green eggs on the bottom of the jar. Thus began my ongoing project.

A bit of research turned up a website for PNW moths (Plate III) and as I knew my specimen belonged to the family Sphingidae (sphinx moths), it took little time to find the moth among its cousins. My bug was a blind-eyed sphinx moth (Paonias excaecatus), a misnomer because the moth wasn't sightless (most likely named for the eye spots on the hindwings). More research revealed the moth's host plants were willow, cottonwood, and poplar, helpful information should the eggs prove viable which at this point I had no way of knowing. (Sometimes under stress the unmated female will lay eggs, her last ditch effort to reproduce.)

Checking the jar each morning became routine. Four mornings passed. The eggs remained unchanged, cemented to the bottom of jar as deposited. Day five I noticed a few eggs had lost their color, were white, translucent. Curled next to the shells and not much larger than a point 12 font  comma were a half dozen larvae. I had read that a caterpillar's first meal is usually a portion of the egg case from which it emerged. Nonetheless, I headed for the pussywillow bush for some fresh leaves for the 'pillars' main course. Over the span of a week the other eggs hatched and I had some three dozen little wrigglies to tend.


I wasn't sure the little hatchlings would feed on the willow. My Pennsylvania friend Ron who has had considerable experience rearing moths suggested I include some cherry and apple leaves as well, both of which I added to the willow. Whether the tiny larvae were feeding on these provisions I had no way of knowing until a couple mornings later I noticed tiny specks of "frass" (caterpillar "poop") on the bottom of the jar. Next, ragged little notches in the young leaves of the willow, which, I learned, were the preferred browse of the larvae; the apple and cherry leaves were ignored.


The caterpillars' voracious appetites put me in mind of Eric Carle's children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, whose principal character's gustatory behavior was represented by larger and larger holes in the cardboard pages. The larvae consumed handfuls of fresh leaves daily, leaving only twigs and stems behind. The stage where they were able to escape through the toothpick holes in their saran wrap ceiling lasted only a few days. I soon had to transfer them to a larger container and chose a gallon bucket covered in tulle netting. The growing larvae continued to consume quantities of leaves and sometimes required two feedings per day.

In the early stages of my caterpillar tending I remained in contact with Ron, asking his advice on how best to tend the fast growing larvae. The larval stage of the moth, as with most insects, is the second of four stages in the metamorphosis cycle (egg, larva, pupa, adult).
My moth species, Ron told me, pupates in the ground (unlike butterflies that pupate above ground, hanging by an integument beneath a leaf, twig or stem); the sphinx moth larva burrows into the soft soil at the base of the host plant and there evolves into a pupa or chrysalis.

In order to accommodate the larvae's subterranean rite of passage, I had to provide a third container for their convenience and chose a wooden nuc box in which I had received a small colony of honeybees this past spring. I filled the bottom with five or so inches of loose compost, an excellent medium for whatever burrowing they needed to do. First supplying the larvae with a bundle of fresh willow leaves, I transferred them to their third container.


(Note: In the world of Nature infant butterflies and moths have an astounding mortality rate: less than one percent complete the cycle from egg to adult. In addition to the whims of weather, floods, fires, parasitic wasps and parasitoid ichneumon flies ravage eggs, the larvae, the chrysalids, the latter two literally eaten from the inside out by the ravenous larvae of the parasites.
It was my intent to boost the survival rate through human intervention by providing the caterpillars a secure incubator. As some of these parasites are tiny themselves, I worry that some might enter the nuc box through the small gauge ventilation mesh. As things stand, whether for lack of food or water or natural mortality, some  larvae have already perished; only two dozen or so survived for the third transfer.)


As of this posting there are fewer than a dozen of the fat grubs feasting on the leaves, and I have yet to see any deceased wrigglies lying on the soil. It is my hope the others have burrowed in, exchanged their soft exteriors for the carapace-like shells of the chrysalis. When the last larva has disappeared, I'll store the box in the shed, hopefully protecting any chrysalids from marauding parasites. This fall I'll sift through the compost and retrieve whatever (if any) chrysalises lie beneath the surface. I'll follow Ron's instructions: "Layer them in paper towels in a large container, mist the contents once in a while and be sure to include something for the adults to climb and cling to while their wings inflate and dry." I'm crossing my fingers that the fall harvest will include at least a pair of pristine sphinx moths, wings unfrayed, to join their mother in her collecting case. The surplus, if any, I'll set free in the Valley night.