Swarm in the Air

The air is alive with bugs and the swallows are happy. I don’t notice the tiny areal insects until dusk, by the sun’s slanting rays, but the barn swallows see them all day long. I’m sure that the swallows have learned, or always knew, which form of insect is the tastiest: maybe they dive for the biggest ones, perhaps they dart into a dense swarm of bugs with the right silvery flash, or maybe a lone moth flies in the right pattern to catch their eye from far away. Sometimes when I have the patience to watch the swallows for long enough, I see that several are crisscrossing the same patch of sky, or diving above the same patch of grass. It is hard to notice the common feeding ground because they never make tight turns, only large gradual arcs, to return to the same spot. They avoid crashing into one another by leaving a lot of margin, making it less evident that they are visiting the same feeding spot. How much of their flying antics are for feeding or just for fun makes it even more difficult to understand swallow-bug interactions.

Waves of Aphids, Troops of Predators

The slow flight of a tiny lone insect ends on the tip of a newly planted medlar. This mother aphid might soon have babies, the colony grubbing on lush new growth until it wilts. Close behind her another insect flashes red. A mother lady beetle somehow senses the right place to lay eggs where her offspring will have enough herds of aphids to feast on and grow fat. Close by, a yellow jacket wasp, aka meat bee, sips nectar at a flower; she might also be eating from aphid colonies soon – either lapping up aphid ‘honeydew’ or pinching apart their bodies or the bodies of the lady beetle larvae nearby. The acceleration of warm, long days and the lushness of plant growth is spinning up this circle of life.

The Hum of Tractor Engines

It is early morning and already a tractor is running, a farmer driving it from home base to the nearby field. The noise changes from jangling and a variable hum to a continuous deeper growl as the tiller commences row-by-row to prepare the soil for planting pepper plants, winter squash seeds and more tomato seedlings. Some tomato plants have been in the ground for weeks, and these need weeding and bed care. Bodhi recently cruised down those rows with the tiller, weeding the rows while also creating the soil mulch bed that is critical to maintaining soil moisture for dry farming. Where the tiller didn’t hit, right up against the tomato babies, a sea of the first paired leaves of weeds taunting the farmer, begging for hoe.

Jungle

Where not too long ago there were pretty patches of flowers, now it is disarray. The California poppies are buried in deep disorganized grass. Flower color has become muted, overcome by clouds of light green or even drying tawny. Where mower or cow has not touched, the meadows are 5’ tall. The overstory stems of the tallest of grasses, European oatgrass, hang thick with juicy seeds pendant and ripening. Where the soil is less productive, the grasses are already brown-dry and shorter with seeds ready to ruin your socks. Walking anywhere off trail is either a soaking experience (in the morning)(up to your knees) or a tangled, tripping, itchy experience (in the drier afternoon). Best to keep to trammeled areas, out of the jungle.

Thousands of Fruit

Apple petals have mostly fallen to be replaced by clusters of fuzzy, baby fruit. Instead of being a sea of white-pink blossoms, the orchard is fresh, light spring green with new leaves emerging from rapidly elongating shoots. Waist-high weeds have regrown where a month ago we had mowed to ground the cover crop. It is past time for another mowing. The baby plum fruit are already quarter-sized and shiny, too thick and needing immediate thinning; the apple fruit are close behind. Our regular trips to the orchard to fix and run irrigation have recently begun to include a pause to thin fruit. Soon, all attention will have to turn to thinning thousands and thousands of fruit to make room for the many fewer chosen ones.

Turkeys and the End of the Era of Fog

The last little while was so very foggy that one wondered if warmth would ever settle in. It has, but only a little. For instance today will be in the upper 60’s and the morning fog lifted by 9 a.m. The predominance of fog left its marks: taller grasses, lusher weeds, and too many patches of apple scab attacking the fruit and leaves. The fog also delayed the hatching of quail eggs, but the turkey babies couldn’t wait. Papa Turkey’s gobbling has paid off: Momma Turkey is herding a big family of babies up and down the trails and roads, out of the jungle of grass. Baby turkeys are fluffy and awkward, mother quite watchful. When she pauses and pecks, pickup off grass seed for lunch, her babies do the same.

Avocados and Oranges

Last spring was wet and rainy, and we see it with the current nonexistent avocado crop, but luckily there are oranges. If we ever get heat, the oranges will sweeten but for now they are ripe and juicy. We’ll have to wait for next year with the hope that this year’s avocado flowers get pollinated. Our 100(ish) avocado trees are growing rapidly right now. They are peculiar in that they make new leaves and shoots while shedding last year’s leaves…a kind of avocado fall. That transition leaves them vulnerable to sunburned stems; for this, we have been thankful for fog.