The Suffield Observer (https://thesuffieldobserver.com/category/farmingnature/page/26/)
Two decades of farming has provided the local farmers with many challenges. Each year is different and constantly evolving. While some types of farmers thrive one year, and some struggle to break even, the diehards just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
When my brothers and I were growing up, my parents were not on orange alert about strangers. While my friends were all being lectured about the dangers of unknown people in their lives, my parents were throwing caution to the wind. In fact, their eyes would light up whenever we encountered an interloper in our travels. My dad would roll down the window in the rental car and offer the unsuspecting hitchhiker way more than a ride. The stranger would be given the opportunity to “show the kids around the area” and to earn 10 dollars while doing so.
The first sign of spring is often a crocus peeking its head out of the snow, the color of the first tulip or daffodil, or the day we notice the trees have a hint of green.
In recent years, the news has spread that our local flora, including essential food crops, is threatened by the shrinking population of pollinating bees. So on March 3, about 50 people interested in doing something about it gathered at the Second Baptist Church at 3 p.m. in a program sponsored by the Green Team of the church, the Friends of the Farm at Hilltop, and the Suffield Land Conservancy.
Back when we were growing up, we had one of those squat console television sets in our family room with rabbit ear antennae. It was one of my brother’s jobs to wrap hunks of tin foil around those rabbit ears and to adjust them based on the prevailing winds so that we could tune in our favorite shows. My job was to turn the channel, and that was back before remotes and actually involved leaving the comfort of our sofa and trudging across the room. When “Leave it to Beaver” wasn’t on, we liked to watch “Woody Woodpecker.” We were glued to this bird’s antics and we’d replicate his maniacal laugh long after the show was over, and our mother had sent us out to play in the street. It turns out the creator of Woody designed his cartoon based on an acorn woodpecker out on the west coast, although the birding community agrees that many of his characteristics are those of our majestic pileated woodpecker.
As many Suffield residents have noticed lately, this winter has brought with it an influx of barred owls. It’s been a treat to have an opportunity to observe owls so easily when most of us had rarely, if ever, seen one! Just a word of caution- when watching owls or taking photos, be sure to stay well back. If you’re taking a photo with a cell phone, it’s very likely you’re too close. Ethical birding means not disturbing the bird or “flushing it”.
I first spotted him on December 21, 2018, in a torrential rain storm. It was a Friday morning and I was getting ready for work. Easy to remember too, because we were enjoying unseasonably mild temperatures in the low 60’s, but in a two day period between December 20 and December 21 we received over two inches of rain. Our back yard, the shallow patch of woods beyond and the vernal pool in the empty lot next door, were all very wet, pooled everywhere with standing water. I stared at the big white pine in our back yard with concern.
