Chipmunks and Squirrels and Deer (Oh, No!)

I want to talk about some of my neighbors, Not the two-legged ones I'd rather ignore. No, I mean the four-legged ones that make gardening even more of a challenge than it needs to be.

But first, a house wren update. Since my last post, no sooner had the one house wren chick fledged but the adult male - at least I think it is the same male - started singing up a storm all over the yard. It was once again setting his territory for his next brood - house wrens have two each year, tho' I haven't always seen two broods in my yard. He is also "fighting" in song another house wren male that has been singing from a yard across the street recently. I have seen the wren in my yard chase off other birds getting too close to the nest box including house sparrows, jays, catbirds, Carolina wrens and that neighboring house wren.

The male wren on the dogwood branch, between
couplings. (Margo D. Beller)

In the midst of his singing he found a mate - the same as before? - and the female has set about making the box her own, clearing out some stuff and replacing it with some twigs and grasses to line the nest for her eggs when they come. There has been frequent coupling in the dogwood tree so there are no eggs at the moment. 

Now back to the neighbors.

My main problem with chipmunks is they dig, and they are small enough to get under or around my deer fencing. So I find deep holes dug around my plants, usually just after I plant them in the ground or in a pot. If I catch the damage in time I can put the plant back in and save it but that doesn't always happen. I discovered one chipmunk continuously dug up a canna I kept putting back in - when I figured out it wanted a spot for a tunnel hidden by the peony I moved the canna. Another time I came out the front door and a chipmunk jumped OUT of the cage I had put around my pepper and basil plants and a couple of annuals to protect them from the digging. So much for that brilliant idea.

The cage and all but one potted plant (a zinnia) are now stowed inside, either on the enclosed porch or in my sunny front room. (The pepper plant has a nice-sized fruit growing on it and I don't want it seized by the rodent.) Now I am thinking that next year I won't have many pots of plants outside.

Why do chipmunks dig? Maybe to create tunnels for transportation for themselves and their young or to look for acorns they may have planted in these or similar pots last year or to put new acorns in for the winter. Whatever the reason, they create havoc in my garden.

Squirrel in apple tree, caught in the act.
(Margo D. Beller)

Squirrels are too big to follow the chipmunks behind the netting and don't want to get caught in an area they can't escape. But they do climb. They climb into the dogwood to look at the nest box (and are chased away by the male wren). Thanks to the fur coat squirrels always wear they get very hot and very thirsty. Over the past few years squirrels have managed to break or damage water containers I hang in the pear tree by acrobatically grabbing the container with front paws while hanging onto the tree with rear paws. That's when they pull the container down.

One of the water containers squirrels have
damaged over the years.
(Margo D. Beller)

They also really, really like apples.

The old apple tree has been showing signs of stress in recent years, ever since I last had it pruned. This year it produced a lot of blossoms, to my surprise, and that means a lot of apples. The tree dropped many apples on its own early on, and the recent strong winds have blown down more. However, usually it is the squirrels that let me know when the apples are ripe. The climbing begins and I must once again try to get as many apples as I can for myself before the squirrels, which are very sloppy eaters. In this current hot and humid weather they have been particularly active, tho' not as bad as the time I came outside and six squirrels jumped out of the tree. Yet.

If I don't pick up what the squirrels drop the deer get them and leave a mess of their own. I throw chewed apples into the corner of the yard near my compost pile.

From 2018. The apple is now showing signs of stress but
it still produces fruit for me ... and the squirrels.
(Margo D. Beller)

I am sure those apples are feeding that fawn that found its way behind my deer fencing. The other week fawn and doe were passing through my backyard and when I came out the fawn took off, running in circles until its mother led it across the street. Did I give it PTSD? Good. It is because of the deer I must struggle under and over and even around the deer fencing around my garden plots.  

These are the most common critters, although this yard has seen the occasional coyote, bear and, too often, cats that must be some neighbors' pets because they look too neat to be feral. I can almost forgive the trouble animals cause me because they are doing what they do in order to survive. The two-legged ones are another matter.

A Hole in the Sky

I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree.
-- Joyce Kilmer

What would Jersey boy Joyce Kilmer think of the suburbs now? I don't think he'd be too happy.

My new frontyard view: Suburban lawn just so, hedges clipped,
inconvenient tree removed, big hole in the sky.
(Margo D. Beller)

When he wrote his poet in 1914, his home state was not nearly as built up as it is now. There were no ribbons of multi-lane superhighways crisscrossing the land. There were no "office parks" on what was once farmland. There were no sprawling housing or retail developments with names like "The Preserve," "The Collection," "Town Centre" or "The Shoppes at ..." 

And I'm willing to bet there were many more trees. (Warning: Another jeremiad ahead.)

I have been living in the northern NJ suburbs for over 25 years after decades in parts of New York City. I wanted more space, quiet and privacy. Now I have my quarter acre, different trees and shrubs (some I planted, most already here) and birds coming to feeders. Much of the time it is quiet, so quiet I can hear cars or conversations from some distance away.

But there are things about the suburbs that still disturb me after all this time.

Large areas of woods have been removed for shopping malls along one major road near my home, creating more traffic (as well as more stop lights to handle it). It is still hard to look at one of the supermarkets I visit without remembering the woods torn down to build it.

When it comes to residential development, the unspoken mantra here is, I do what I want in my yard. As long as it doesn't affect you, it's none of your business. I don't know what my neighbors (with one exception) think of the bird feeders or my deer fencing or my compost pile but since it's in my yard and not affecting their property it's not their problem.

When the longtime neighbor across the street, the one-man homeowners association who has taken loud and long exception to the deer fencing in my front yard, decided to cut one of the very tall trees in his backyard, it was hard for me to watch.

My new backyard view, with remains of viburnum in center.
(Margo D. Beller)

The crew, using horrible-sounding saws and a grinder, took a day to destroy this tree I've seen from my front door for 25 years. They also cut some of the lower branches of the remaining three, which was a relief considering I thought he would be removing all four. But what was left behind looks unnatural, ugly. There is a big hole where the tree used to be. All this guy cared about, I'm guessing, is the damage this tree was causing to the fence he had put in when the trees were, no doubt, much smaller. (This is based on what MH saw in that backyard when he was returning from an errand.)

This neighbor is not alone. Many put trees and shrubs too close to a fence or a house foundation and have to take them out before there's too much structural damage.

In addition, with the improving economy - until the coronavirus closing of businesses threw millions of people out of work and whacked it down to Great Depression levels - many of the houses on my street have new owners. It seems one of the first things these people do to make the house their own is rip up what look to me like perfectly good plants. One new homeowner obliterated a big, lovely, perennial flower garden created by the previous owner when Hurricane Sandy in 2012 toppled a spruce in the front yard. It's been replaced by a lawn. Another took down two huge pines in that front yard, which would've thrown welcome shade on the house in summer, after judging them to be too close. They were replaced with tiny plants on either side of a new front path.

I like trees, even those that drop leaves or pods I am forced to rake every year. They breathe in the carbon dioxide we exhale and breathe out the oxygen we need. They provide shade. They provide a place for birds to rest, forage, build a nest. Without trees, flooding rains would wash away soil. Lawns would burn to a crisp. My mid-Atlantic state would look like someplace out of the wide-open West. 

But hack back they do, every year, whether the plants are healthy and flowering or not.

One fewer tree for birds like the white-breasted nuthatch to use for rest and
finding food. (Margo D. Beller)

Then there are the yard nuts, the people who cut their lawns every week whether it's needed or not or who, in the case of my backyard neighbor (a woman I've had problems with for years), decided to cut back or down every shrub, planted by her parents, on the edge of her lawn so she could have an easier time mowing. In 25 years out here I've never understood why people feel they must cut back trees or flowering shrubs like forsythia in spring instead of waiting until the flowers are gone or until fall when the plants would go dormant anyway. I guess human convenience trumps all.

One such shrub this woman cut way back was a huge viburnum I'd always thought was on my property until MH, hearing my screams (ignored by the neighbor) went out to check the property line and confirmed that, unfortunately, what was left behind was on her side of the line. No more place for birds, no more privacy.

The birds have since adapted and use other shrubs. But I have not adapted so well because there is a gaping hole.

However, I can do something about this particular situation - plant my own tall trees or shrubs to fill the hole on my side of the property line and block this neighbor out (and vice versa).

I don't think Robert Frost had the NJ suburbs in mind when he wrote that "good fences make good neighbors," but in this case it fits.

My Corner Office

A good back porch beats a big corner office.
--from a side panel tacked to my wall that was once on a box that held a sixpack of Mike's Hard Lemonade

From my comfortable chair in the corner of my enclosed porch, a chair that should not even be out here but I had no place to put it after we got some new recliners, I can see the bird house next door where a pair of house wrens are now feeding young. Looking the other way, I can see the hummingbird feeder that has so far drawn one bird to feed.

Backporch dining area, with plants (Margo D. Beller)

If I turn my head even further to the right, I can see my wren box where another house wren took over after a pair of black-capped chickadees apparently abandoned their nest. Another female wren put in a few twigs and now the male sings every morning, hunting for food to bring to the box. Since I hear no chatter of young, I am presuming the female is sitting on eggs.

Some early mornings when I sit out here with my first mug of coffee, I can hear both male wrens "battle" each other in song. I watch the catbirds in summer just as I watched the white-throated sparrows in winter, looking for breakfast from the vantage point of atop the flood wall. I watch the flowering plants in succession: forsythia, quince, dogwood, lilacs, the wild rose.

I am out here most mornings, taking advantage of having a more flexible schedule, no longer killing myself to make the train or drive a major highway, enjoying the quiet as other people head to work and school or run or walk their dogs. I enjoy my solitude as MH sleeps upstairs. This enclosed porch was one of the reasons we bought this house almost 25 years ago.

When we bought it, the porch had a roof and was "walled" with floor to ceiling screens. The first winter we lived here a couple of inches of snow blew in. The company that re-sided the house put in kick plates to block the snow, outside carpeting over the bricks and window panels we could raise and lower, making the porch usable in every season, including summer thanks to our fan, except on the coldest of days (although I have been known to sit out here in winter coat, hood up and blanket on my legs).

It is the best of both worlds, outside the main house but not completely exposed to the elements. "This is outside?" a visiting friend once asked. For me, yes. I can be seen or not seen. I can write, as I am doing out here now, or read or get away from MH or the sound of the washer or dryer and, with headphones, avoid the sound of suburban lawn mowers.

Plants, May 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

This is where I store soil, pots and other plant supplies. It is where I put rooted cuttings into small pots or plants into bigger pots. It is from where I put seed into feeders and take them outside in the mornings, then bring in the feeders to protect them from bears every evening until around Memorial Day.

Now the feeders are put away and many of my front room plants can sit out here all summer, getting a shot of sunlight in the early morning and the late afternoon because of the configuration of the house. If there are two things I'd have changed about this porch they would be to have it facing south instead of north (so my plants can stay out here all year long) and cranks to open and close windows instead of my having to lift them with my balky back.

This porch has hosted large cookouts and MH and me eating our ice cream side by side. It has allowed me to sit in my chair and watch an assortment of common and migrant birds eat seed and suet, the ultimate bird blind.

It is my sanctuary from the stresses of everyday life, although not always from insects. Let others enjoy their outdoor patios or their street-facing front porches. There is something to be said for sitting outside in the breeze, and I enjoy it when I take a folding chair outside in the morning shade to better hear the birds. I can even understand the need to sit out in public and wave at passersby.

My mornings. May 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

But from the comfort of my chair here on my enclosed porch, this is all the society I want as I watch the birds, my jungle of houseplants and the trees' green leaves unfold and later turn color. From here the world looks swell.

Good, Bad and Raking

Robert Frost wrote, with irony, in a poem that "good fences makes good neighbors."

In my part of town, where we are not supposed to fence the front of our properties to retain something of a "park-like setting," autumn creates an opportunity to remember just where one property starts and another ends.

The leaves fall and you will see one house with an immaculate lawn. The service has come through, many people with lawn blowers and hurricane fans putting leaves to the curb, more or less; or perhaps mowing the grass, mulching the leaves, sucking them into the bag, which is emptied at the curb. The service goes right up to the property line.

One side, pristine green. The other side, my lawn.

Good raking makes good neighbors.

My husband does one final lawn cut, crunching up the first round of fallen leaves to allow them to work into the lawn. After that, we'll be out with our rakes, blower and tarps for the next few weeks, until the town stops collecting what we put out front.

In the backyard we have the maples, elms, apple, pear and oaks shedding leaves. In the front, however, we have black locusts.

I don't know who decided many decades ago to line my street with black locusts. That man or woman could've picked the Bradford pears. These stately trees line my downtown street and perhaps yours. They bloom wonderfully in spring, the leaves turn red in fall and they produce ornamental fruit the birds eat.

Black locusts are not so nice. Their roots push up the curb and the street. The little yellow leaves fall early in autumn and get everywhere, at which point they are tracked into home and garage. The stems also fall and mat on the grass. There are male and female trees, and if you are one of those "lucky" enough to have a female tree, as I am, you have  LOTS of long black pods that must be swept off the lawn or you'll have a forest instead of a park-like setting.

So as I am raking the pods down to the curb every year, I wonder if the person who decided on locusts has a few in his or her front yard and is also raking pods. I would like to meet that person, ask, "Why locusts?" (which are no longer planted in my town because of the damage they cause) and, if I'm in the wrong mood, punch him or her in the nose.

It is literally and figuratively a pain to do this every year, but there is some good that comes from all this raking. I am out of the house, using my arms and legs in much more (to me) useful exercise than lifting weights or riding a stationary bicycle. I am reacquainting myself with my lawn - I can see where the ground ivy is taking over, where the skunks and squirrels have been digging, where MH is going to need to put down more grass seed. I prefer this to paying a lawn service that mows every week whether the lawn needs it or not.

brown creeper

Raking also allows me to hear the birds. As I work, I hear the Canada geese. I look up and see about 10 flying generally north. However, I know these are not migrants. They would be heading south at this time of year, would be in a much larger group and be much higher in the sky. Still, I enjoy watching geese as they fly.
 
One year, resting from my labors, I looked up to find a brown creeper making its way up one of the locust trees, probing the crevices of its bark with its long, thin bill. Unlike the nuthatch, which climbs up and down trees with abandon, the creeper only goes up. Once at the top, it flies to the bottom of the next tree and works its way up again.

This morning as I was raking there were bluebirds - a rare pleasure - and a Carolina wren singing nearby, reminding me that soon I must bring in my plants and put out my feeders.

Winter will be here soon enough. Even with the cold and the darkness at 5pm, I welcome the respite from the garden chores.

Especially the raking.