80AcresOnline

For the past week, I’ve been in New York State, first visiting a friend in Oswego, with several walks through the woods at the Rice Creek Field Station, and then traveling by train down the Mohawk and the Hudson Rivers, and finally here in NYC, where I spent several hours yesterday at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

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Taking the train from Texas to the NE has let me watch autumn develop: just starting in Texas, more and more advanced as we went north, and here, in upstate NY, gorgeous with sugar maples, sumac, poison ivy (leaves the size of dessert plates), things with berries I don’t know, green moss and ferns, russet this and golden that.

I chatted with another prairie person in St. Louis at the Ninc conference and in Oswego visited Rice Creek Field Station and met the new director, whose previous work was in  Chihuahuan Desert ecology–and then walked the trails there.  Perfect.  She’s aware of research in Mexico on the effect of climate change and has promised to send me some references.

Meanwhile, I’m hearing reports from home of more rain and thus the creek may well still be running when I’m home again, a week from this Sunday.

And I’m not there to photograph anything!    I’m in St. Louis, while the Muscle on the place (husband and son) are home building a fence in the rain.

So I had email that the creek was running a little, with the first inch of rain after I left, and yesterday they had a downpour of 1.2 inches in 20 minutes.   Today it rained more, and the water level in the hand-dug well near the barn is within 5 feet of the surface.

And I’m not there.   But in a few more weeks I will be and you can bet I’ll be out there seeing what comes up.

Though we lost the two planted cypresses to the drought, and some of the water iris we’d planted in the “swamp”, this one survived and is now coming back up from the corm.

The water here is about an inch deep–this is an overflow/seep channel off the main creek; 8.5 inches didn’t put more than a flood pulse through it, but the final 1.5 inches left this wide shallow pool…and a brave little iris.

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Altogether, we’ve had 10 inches of rain since the big rain started.  Though it’s too late for some things, others have recovered well.

The yellow flowers are two-leaf senna, and the pink is the rose-oxalis that usually blooms in the early spring.

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We waited a bit too long to get the new big water tanks…two 2500 gallon jobs were delivered yesterday, in the rain:

The view from the door…they just don’t hold much water when lying on their sides.    And they block our view of the driveway…not to mention the driveway itself.  This week so far, starting Monday, we picked up another 1.3 inches.  Nice, slow, soaking rain.

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The water that didn’t run off soaked in; it’s amazing that in one week it’s turned so green.    The darker streak in the middle distance is the grass waterway when it rains and right now is just dry enough to walk on in regular shoes.

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…means plenty for wildlife to drink.   And plenty for us to rejoice over.  And me to wade in, while going out to take pictures of this bounty.   Here’s a view of the near meadow…you can compare it to the July 6 picture…

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I woke to rain several times last night–it paused for an hour or two this morning, when we made it outside to check the gauges near the house (1.3 inches at that point) and walk out to the near meadow (puddle behind the #3 gabion.)    Then it started again.

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One of the main activities for wildlife managers in Texas is providing supplemental water for wildlife.  Where natural water supplies are abundant and unpolluted, supplemental water may not be necessary, but  drought years come to all regions, and wildlife suffer if they do not have access to a reliable, safe, supply of water.

In a drought summer,  with all natural water gone, deer made regular use of this small, three-tub water on a rocky knoll.  Because of its small size, this waterer needed daily filling through the summer.   A small solar-powered pump in the lowest tub circulates the water.

When considering water for wildlife, it’s important to set up a system for reliable (constant) water that is safe for wildlife to use and is provided in containers that allow access by a wide range of wildlife.   This means thinking about the water source (rainwater, well water, stored surface water), water quality, and the shape, size, and location of water presentation.

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