Month: January 2020

Not a great video because of fog. But there are four, count ’em 4 coyotes in our midst this night. Not sure if one is a juvenile from last year’s cubs, or just another hanger-on coming to see how the ‘pros from Dover’ do it. When there’s three coyotes, they sometimes triangulate the backyard to flush out the bunnies, and then the others catch it (see one of the videos from last to see that practice).

Had a nice summer and fall as far as the garden goes. Good cycles of rain which seemed to be mostly at night, and hand watering wasn’t really necessarily. The native plants lasted with some green on the deciduous plants into December.

We decided to have the two large pine trees removed from the backyard. They were there and had been topped multiple times before we moved in. The branches were spreading pretty widely and no arborists would prune it anymore. So now there’s a whole lotta space and sun for a new meadow,and to bring more light to all the long suffering plants under or behind the pine. The crows were a little befuddled, as we knew they would be, but they seem to recognize the place still. There’s still a juvenile shore pine and neighbor’s trees to nest in.

Previously the lower back yard was completely obscured by trees beyond the border of the deck. Now we can just see the street in the winter. The winter pic is from a year or so ago but gives the idea. Another small pine also removed because it was a lodge pole pine and would get too big (sold as shore pine, as some are). Now we have the possibility of seeing a critter trotting through during the day in the winter, as our video shows so many of – during the day at all hours as well as at night.

We had the deed done in December, between the last of the greenery and the first of the bulbs and other early starters. We had the two stumps ground, too, so we could have a start-over platform to move our Adirondacks and some patio stones to, and develop the garden back to that point. There is now lots o’ sun, and a fair amount of space.

Speaking of stump grinding and tree removal, though, there was a bit of a cleanup for me. They did a good job getting all the branches and stuff out and didn’t leave any real messes. But stump grinding produces a lot of mulch which is combined ground wood and dirt, about 6-8″ deep in the area of the two trees. This covered a few feet of some plants and required a dig-out and haul-off of the mulch, as well as the usual raking out of pine needles out of all the poor hapless plants that line the path to the street for removal. And that path, well, that became obscured soon after the operation started, so the “path” ended up straight through some of the plants. But they’re recovering and all’s well. It will be interesting to see what comes to life once the large dominating pines are gone….

Speaking of critters, lots of coyote sightings. They also seem to be coming more frequently since the tree removal, maybe they like the hunting odds. For the bunny, it’s no different because I don’t think the trees affected them. Early yesterday morning, for instance, we have a lower quality idea of 2 coyotes after one of them has caught a bunny, unfortunately camera not on early enough. The only good video we have of a coyote carrying prey is of a black and white cat.