Classroom butterflies! Goat last time stuck.

Everyone,
Several of you guessed it, I finally called Animal Control about the neighbors goat problems. We heard the goat stuck every morning for 3 days. At noon on Friday I went and looked and found the goat as shown below.

 Notice the weeds on the right of the goat, that is Japanese Bamboo Grass unchecked, hope you never get it in your yard or garden, it is insane.


Anyway when I called Animal Control I told them the neighbor never hears the goat crying due to closed windows, loud AC unit and barking dogs. So they asked if I wanted to sign a complaint, I  agreed to. So I waited two hours in the mean time the mini bee swarm happened in our back yard as noted in the last posting.


2 pm the officer finally shows up. She tells me I can sign a complaint about barking dogs, but not a goat being stuck in the fence??? The dogs don't bother me, so she goes to investigate without my complaint about the dogs. Today she called me and said when she arrived there the goat was free already and she checked over the animals with the neighbors, no problems to speak of, I'm relieved. So they are going to get the goats horns removed and she is to follow up on that.

 As some of you might recall I rescued this goat and another goat 4 times last year during the heat of the summer.


Now some fun. The butterfly cage I built for Meg's classroom currently has 25 or 26 Black Swallowtail chrysalises, all the caterpillars are finished. The photo below shows 7 chrysalises hanging from the ceiling of the cage in her classroom. My best guess on swallowtails emerging would be at best Thursday or Friday. Likely as things usually happen most will emerge over the weekend. 

The school had a picnic at the shelter where they hold the Durham Farmers Market on Sunday. Meg was doing the composting station, we collected 75 gallons of compost! Amazing that every kid in the school is taught recycling and composting from kindergarten and many of the parents did not know what compost was...... Guess the new parents are off the hook on this one, still a crying shame to see adults just toss everything in the garbage right next to recycling and compost containers. In Durham you have to recycle, it is the law, still many do not do it.

 So OK I'm off the soap box now. I did get to play a little with my camera. I walked accross the street to investigate the iron bridge over the creek. I found this Hackberry Emperor posing on the iron bridge for me.

 This proves I'm a likeable guy right, the butterfly jumps from the bridge onto my camera then on my camera hand. So given the camera has a swivel mounted viewfinder I managed to take this photo by myself. Not easy photo to take and manually focus my point and shoot,.

I carried the Hackberry Emperor across the street and into a crowd of about 500 children and adults. From there to Meg, she coaxed the butterfly  onto her hand. Then she let not one but three second graders coax the butterfly on to their fingers. I don't ever recall finding a wild butterfly and getting it to walk onto 5 different peoples hands before. Took some adorable photos of the kids with the butterflies but would need parents permission to post them here.

Oh, I'm helping with a second grade butterfly walk at Duke Gardens on Wednesday if the hurricane doesn't hit us.

Disturbing the Neighbors??

Sunday at 8:30pm I went over to the neighbors to inform them their goat was stuck in the fence. I had never been to their house before. We had talked a few times between properties. So anyway I drove over and was greeted by two outside barking dogs and another two dogs inside barking. I rapped on the door several times before she heard me, the dogs were pretty loud.

She answers the door and I tell her a goat have been stuck in the fence all day and they needed to do something about it. Here first response was 'which goat?' That really set me off. I then explained I've rescued the goats three times and the last time it was stuck all day on an 101 degree day with a vulture waiting for it to die. She says 'we don't want to disturb the neighbors' I said disturb the neighbors? Your torturing those poor goats, I don't think she got it. I told her perhaps install an electric fence to prevent them from getting in the fence. She says an electric fence and donkeys is not a good ideal. Anyway we did not hear the goat anymore that night.

Another thing I noticed was their loud AC unit blasting away, could not hear anything but the AC and the dogs barking. You know we have not ran the AC for weeks, using the windows to cool off at night and closed keep the cool air inside during the heat of the day. Why with all the talk of an energy crisis do these stupid people run the AC on a very pleasant evening. They did not have the front door closed leaking out AC and the house was recently built so the windows should work just fine. My thoughts are if you have a lot full of animals you leave a window(s) open the hear what is going on outside any chance you get.

Oh, these people voted for GW Bush twice, I saw their signs...

101 degrees with goat rescue #3

People I'm getting reasonably upset that our neighbors can leave a goat stuck in the fence all day. I heard it calling before 8am and this evening at 6:30pm I went down and freed it. These people must be inside running the AC (windows sealed tightly shut) and not paying attention to their animals. The weatherman said it made it up to 101 degrees (39c), it was 96 degrees when I freed the goat.  So what should we do about these neighbors? I hate to have neighbors mad at me, but there is something else I have not mentioned yet. There was a Turkey Vulture in a tree waiting for the goat to not be rescued.

Poor poor goat on a very hot day stuck in the fence all day.

After I rescued him the Billy came down to see if it was OK.

Here is the Turkey Vulture up in the tree above the goat.

The beehive was very active at 6:30 pm it was 96 degrees. This is an orientation flight, something bees do when they first decide to leave the hive to forage. The orientation flight helps them to get their bearings so they know how to return home. This is the busiest I have seen the hive, they were in mass in a 5 -6 ft area in flight all in front of the hive. Did I tell you I need to cut those weeds in front of the hive?

Happy Frogs, sad tomatoes and rescued goat

Tonight it is raining! First good rain in a while here. The frogs are at level 10 calling so happily! I'm sure we had next to no rain to amount to much in June, yet most days it reached 90 degrees.

 Here is one of the groups of tomatoes and peppers we grew from seed in our garden on June 23. Sprinkling them almost daily for some while. We left for 3 days and found deer had been grazing them a little. Right now we have lots of green 2 inch tomatoes, we both agreed these are some of the best organic tomato plants we have ever grown. Meg found some horn worms on a few of the front garden plants today as well. Meg finds caterpillars much better than me.

So to  keep the deer out of the garden I installed some 4 foot tall fencing, no not tall enough yet a deterrent hopefully. When I get time I'll set it up the fencing permanent with a gate and small arbor next to the bee hive.

 Goat rescue number two. This was a different goat than the last one I rescued. It was mid day on Monday and I figured his owners were at work. picked some wild blackberries as a reward. By dinner time another goat was stuck in the fence, they must have freed it, as it did not call long.

One thing about tonight's rain, could have filled the rain tote. I have the 300 gallon rain tote in place. The PVC piping in ready to install. I bought two 16 inch fake concrete decorative pots, that look old. I'm going to cut a hole in the bottom of the pots and run 3 inch PVC pipe through them one to fill the the rain tote, the other to a drain that empties into the pond. The rain chains should be here in the next day or so. Then the gutter guy will install gutters, I'll drop the rain chains into the decorative pots, it look nice on our big deck. And we can watch the rain chains from the windows or sit on the porch and enjoy both the visual and sounds they will make as it rains.

Butterfly & cicada walk and goat rescue

Today I went to Hillsborough for the dedication of the Pollinator Garden by the local beekeeping club. So I walked about a bit, the rain finally quit for now. First I dropped in on the Occoneechee State Preserve to look for dragonflies. Nothing special in dragonflies as they reworked(drained and installed new dams) the ponds a few years ago and recovery is not fully happened yet.  As I was walking a spotted an Eastern Pine Elfin on an ox-eyed daisy, might have been a preserve record, I'm not sure.

Left the preserve and headed the long way home, caught the Durham Garden Center before closing and picked up two dwarf spiderworts. 'Danielle' is a dwarf white spiderwort and 'Marielle' is a dwarf sky blue spiderwort. Pretty excited about getting a white spiderwort!

Drove out on Cole Mill Rd and saw a cicada cross the road at the Eno River State Park Cole Mill Access. I'd been wanting to walk the power line trail to look for butterflies it is one of my favorite butterfly watching spots. Before I got out of the car I heard waves of cicadas calling in the woods. Been wanting to take in a cicada concert for weeks. The next concert here will be in 13 years once these are done.

All these photos were taken with my Canon G11 point and shoot, left the big gun camera at home. Above is a butterfly orgy, well almost. There were 2 female Silvery Checkerspots with 3 males wanting to breed with them. If you look closely you can see all 5 butterflies on this single ox-eyed daisy. The female has the fatten abdomen in the center of the photo. Notice the more slender abdomen on the lower checkerspot it is a male and you can see slightly different wing markings too.

My first great Spangled Fritillaries this year. Usually when the white milkweed is in bloom they show up, it is in bloom. There were 4 of these fritillaries on this storm knocked down thistle when I found them. Thistle can be a butterfly magnet.

Saw 4 of these very uncommon Eastern Pine Elfins today. So far this year I have been lucky to see one on March 20th, April 17th and today May 15th. Not many times can you see any elfin during three different months. The Eastern Pine Elfin has a long spread out brood unlike the other elfins.

 Ebony Jewelwing damselfly my first one this year. And even better it let me get 2 inches from it for this photo!

The 13 year Cicada, I heard likely thousands of them up it the trees along the Eno River. One trail intersection must have had between 300-500 holes where they emerged in the mud in 6-8 foot of trail. I found the most exoskeletons  in mature ironwood trees.

These exoskeletons were on a poison ivy leaf.

Thought I let you hear the chorus of the cicada. These are called Brood XIX or the Great Southern Brood. I do recall this brood 13 years ago along the Eno River. Before these I have a memory of the 17 year cicada in Ohio Brood X or the Great Eastern Brood in 1970, it was massive at our house thousands flying everywhere, considered to be the largest brood ever recorded from what I have read.

OK now the goat rescue. We ate breakfast on the screened in porch around 8 am. We heard a goat calling non stop. Meg thought it was stuck in the fence next door. We both figured the stupid neighbors would take care of it shortly. These neighbors are the ones with the crazy loud as #$#@ peacocks that call all night. We keep our windows open whenever possible, apparently they close their windows tight. Meg was making dinner and the goat was still calling at 7pm 11 hours after we heard it in the morning. I walked through the woods and sure enough it had its head stuck in the fence just as Meg suggested. I carefully helped it get free. Some people should not be allowed to keep animals, they have donkeys, goats, ducks (no wait I think a fox got them), peacocks and chickens.

Here he is happy to be free again. Meg used to have goats and she said they get stuck in the fence fairly easily.