Farm Life

Can't remember if I've mentioned this before but I am currently wrapping up an internship in downstate New York as the garden manager and volunteer leader. It's been a wonderful seven weeks and there is just one left of the internship proper and then a couple of days doing vegetation surveys at one of the Audubon's other properties. While I really like it here (I can be in Connecticut in 15 minutes or hop on a train and be in New York City in an hour), I am looking forward to going home in early August (CATS and other cuddly creatures, fresh vegetables, hopefully un-jinxing my car so nothing else goes wrong).

 In the mornings (before anyone else in the house gets up) I like to hide in the veggie garden to weed where we're keeping the plants that used to be in front of the house where the naturalist and we interns live- it's currently being painted and a ten-foot wide plastic tar has to be around the whole area. It took two weeks to move everything; the Virginia sweetspires, dwarf white pines, monster iris', several color varieties of bee balm and other smaller herbaceous species. Most of it is still alive too!

 Then I go back to the house and either work on my own little maintenance projects like removing lilac/wisteria roots or typing up web page drafts for a new site. Definitely have learned the importance of proper hydration!

 The wildlife around here is wonderful. Never before have I seen so many tiger swallowtails or butterflies in general. There are also a ton of deer, rabbits and chipmunks. If you want to keep a garden in Westchester county it needs to be fenced or the deer devour it- sightings have averaged around one deer a day, although seeing two isn't uncommon. The chipmunks are adorable, and so are their lager cousins, woodchucks (or whistlepigs; a much cuter moniker). Cantaloupe is akin to crack for them, just fyi, so if you need to live trap one I recommend picking up a melon (there will be leftovers, you'll get some too).

 The houses around her are also very nice, you can tell that people care. I'm currently living in an ancient farm house that was donated to the Audubon society with the chapter naturalist and the other intern. It is beautiful, although poorly cooled. My bedroom is massive and lets me sprawl out to paint and if a little short (it isn't hard to reach the ceiling), do yoga in comfort. The other houses are marvelous as well, I can tell the average income here is a lot higher than the county I'm from.

 A couple of times a week we have volunteers who come to help around the garden. Mostly we just weed and chat for two hours. It's an interesting mix of young and old. A few retired gardeners come every Monday, and they've helped expand my garden knowledge a lot as much of what I know relates more towards wetland restoration or food. On Wednesday we have some people my age (think early 20's) come by and that's awesome because otherwise it's just the other intern who is my age that I know and talk with.

 Every now and again I get to leave this particular preserve and help the naturalist and the other intern who both do bird stuff such as MAPS (Mapping Avian Productivity and Survival or something like that) or field trips. Today I went and helped with bird banding and had a blast. I've gotten a lot better at taking birds out of the mist nets that are used to catch them, and tomorrow we're all going to Jamaica Bay to check out some shorebirds which is very exciting because of all the species I am hoping to add to my life list (my goal is 50 new species by the time I go back to collage, 10/12 down so far!). Also the ocean. I like the ocean.

 And pretty much that has been my life the last few months or so. There's been a fair amount of down time to draw/paint or go on adventures; parts of which I have shared and others that I'm getting to. One last thing before I go, I'm going to show off my new camera (dubbed 'Big Bird,' a Pentax K-01) like its the royal baby. Although congrats to Kate and William on their little boy. All of the photos above were taken with it and it's been absolutely wonderful, I'm really looking forward to exploring this new medium. :)

Presenting, my child: