An Irish Border Collie & a Small But Mighty Frenemy
Even if coyotes are definitely not my spirit animal...
A coyote visited our place last week—the second one this summer.
Unlike my previous sighting, when I caught only a glimpse, this coyote ventured into the clearing just beyond our back fence—the same spot we’d seen the bear earlier this summer.
As I watched from our sliding glass door, the coyote wandered around nonchalantly, swishing his furry tail…until he detected me in the house.
He froze, but didn’t bolt for the woods. Interestingly, he looked straight back at me for a long moment, our eyes meeting.
Apparently still unfazed by a nearby human, the animal finally broke eye contact. He pointed his nose in the air, and leisurely swiveled it around—I imagine sniffing out threats or food sources or both.
The coyote looked straight at me again, then melted back into the woods.
“I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.” —Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, in Pride and Prejudice.
Myself, I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which encounters with intelligent, lovely dogs—or even wild canines—can bestow.
(Especially after some really unfortunate run-ins with several dogs last year.)
Yesterday evening, a quick visit with our longtime neighbors and their Australian shepherd watchdog Star won me Star’s trust for the first time.
Always on guard and on the job, she looked into my face with melting amber eyes. Star allowed me to pet her, then the ultimate trust (to me), she licked my bare knee. Twice!
The weekend prior, our other nearest neighbor shared her news about her dog Baker, a large Aussiedoodle. This neighbor has a gift for dog training—not only her own, but the rescues she’s fostered.
In fact, she’s been teaching Baker to communicate in specific ways—in a sense, to “speak English”!
Baker now knows around 70 words, and has mastered eight phrases. He’s an enthusiastic watchdog too, but when she tells him to do something, He. Does. It.
These pups reminded me of another lovely dog John and I encountered in the Emerald Isle: Holly the border collie.
We discovered Holly at Glen Keen Farm, tucked in the hills of western County Mayo, during our visit to Ireland a few years back.
Holly, sheepherder extraordinaire, was in charge of guiding the farm’s Galway sheep. Now, many sheep farms in Ireland use four-wheeled motorized vehicles to move the sheep, but Glen Keen Farm is located in a Designated Conservation Area, as it’s called in Ireland.
That means things are done the old-fashioned way: without tractors and other motorized farm equipment. In fact, the farm had just gotten electricity in 2009!
In any event, IMO, a beautifully trained dog like Holly was a far better option than vrooming vehicles!
Holly seemed not only very simpatico with Jim, the farm’s owner, but they seemed to sort of work together as one.
During a sheepherding demo, when Holly wasn’t actively guiding the sheep, she would crouch, one eye on Jim, the other on the sheep, poised for the next command.
As Jim explained, on many sheep farms, the call, “Come away” or “Away” means herd the sheep counter-clockwise, and “Come around” or simply, “Around” means herd clockwise.
During the demo, Jim explained that despite all her training, Holly couldn’t distinguish between “away” and “around.” So instead of calling “Around,” Jim would call “Come by.”
However, Holly, not being just your average sheepherding pup, could understand French! Jim would also use the calls, “à droit” (to the right) and “à gauche” (to the left) when the fancy struck him. And Holly understood perfectly!
Jim called Holly his best friend. (He didn’t say how his wife felt about that!) But since he and Holly spent every day together, all day, it made perfect sense.
At Jim’s command, Holly would explode into action. She could get fifty sheep into a pen within a minute or two. Or she could pick one sheep out of a crowd and into a separate pen just as quickly.
Sometimes she couldn’t contain herself, and she would start herding even when she was supposed to wait. But at the command “Stay, Holly,” she would instantly stop whatever she was doing. Well, almost instantly.
Watching her, I was thinking that she could hardly stand it, to quit herding even for a moment. But part of me thinks she stopped only to humor Jim.
In any event, she made for an unforgettable afternoon in the Irish countryside.
Here’s another fun dog story—although it’s not one of mine.
If you want to see what mayhem and hilarity ensues when even a well-trained dog finds intruders in his yard, please do not miss “So How Was Your Summer” from Erin at The Suburb Farm!
As Erin related in her post, it’s too bad this Dog vs Wildlife vs Human smackdown wasn’t captured on video!
To paraphrase Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy, what have you been meditating on lately that gives you pleasure?
Speaking of intruders—a *Big* Little Farm Frenemy
(AKA, you are not in charge.)
Desperate times call for desperate measures…
Which is why, one night last week, I was crouched in my blueberry patch, picking berries by lantern light.
Now, I know I talk a lot about blueberries, here and on my Little Farm blog. But honestly, raising blueberries is a big part of my life!
I spend most of my April gardening time pruning and mulching our 17 shrubs. Netting, staking, and light harvesting consumes much of July. Daily picking and putting up berries for freezing completely takes over the month of August, and well into September.
By mid-September, it’s always a bittersweet pleasure when I cast my eyes over our two blueberry patches, and see with satisfaction that I’ve picked every last ripe berry.
In other words, the season is over when I say it’s over!
Not this year. Where the trouble started…
Recently, our area had three solid days of chill, heavy rain, pretty much unheard of in late summer. Despite our rainy climate nine months of the year, August and September are quite dry. Two-month droughts are not uncommon.
So I was overjoyed!
Given the abundant rainfall, I could take a nice long break from watering the garden—instead of my usual trudging around the beds every day, lugging hoses around.
The first non-rainy day, I headed for one blueberry patch, hoping the berries would be dry—or at least dryish—enough to pick. After unfastening the nets, I stepped inside. And found…
My berries were under attack!
Paper wasps were everywhere, their buzzing filling the air. I was no longer in charge of my blueberry operation—the wasps were.
So…why a Frenemy?
I talked about last year’s wasp invasion, in “The Year of the Wasp(s). Still, since wasps eat many insect pests, they can benefit your organic garden.
You just have to put up with them a) attacking your fruit, and b) possibly attacking you!
Pests around here seem to go in cycles. Last year, we’d had clouds of these same paper wasps. Dozens of nests. They even built one inside our heat pump unit.
This year, not nearly so many. I figured we’d be in great (and safe) shape for the fruit season.
Especially since John and I made a hard decision about our two grapevines: we clipped off all the grapes, to prevent a repeat of last year’s wasp issues.
Now, we’ve always had a few wasps among the blueberries, especially at the end of the season. This time around, I expected to find even fewer, now that we didn’t have scads of fermenting grapes to attract them!
Imagine my dismay when I saw wasps in every bush, attached to each berry cluster. Eating their heads off in my favorite large-berry Chandler shrubs!
Now, you understand that for wasps feeding on blueberries, these critters aren’t just on the berries. They eat a big hole in them, then climb halfway in, so they can continue sucking on the insides…until there’s nothing left but a dry husk of blue skin!
Anyway. After the rain, the berries were way overdue for picking, and they weren’t going to pick themselves. I began the job. Very. Carefully.
Although the wasps weren’t being noticeably aggressive, having a cloud of them flying around was nerve-wracking.
They had already ruined many of the Chandlers. But there was another bush, filled with ripe berries, under a full-frontal attack—like I’d never seen before.
If I didn’t pick the berries, we’d lose the entire shrub’s harvest.
The other problem with wasps: a bush full of sweet, decomposing berries will only attract more of them. And even if they’re kinda inebriated from the berry alcohol, I’m sure they will be only so mellow if you get too close.
Still, after about half an hour of picking, I couldn’t take the stress any longer. I left the job unfinished. A couple of hours later, dusk was falling, and the temperature was dropping. The wasps would have gone to bed by now.
Only they hadn’t.
They were still crawling all over *my* berries!
Hardly able to see them, I picked half-heartedly for a few minutes, and realized if I could no longer tell what berries were ripe, I sure couldn’t see any wasps hanging onto them.
And I didn’t want to find a wasp the hard way.
Feeling desperate—as I said, I’m really invested in my berries, plus I didn’t want the destroyed berries on this bush to attract every wasp in the neighborhood—I finished up my other chores for the night, and went inside.
In his usual calm, unhurried way, John was preparing dinner.
“So honey,” he said, “you ran out of photons. Are you finally in?”
“Afraid not,” I told him sheepishly. “I know this is really compulsive, but I just came in for the camp lantern.”
I paused, since it was pretty ridiculous, even to me. Then added, “For picking berries.”
We keep two rechargeable camp lanterns in our pantry for power outages. Never did I ever contemplate using them for gardening in the dark!
Bless John. Accustomed to my occasionally going overboard in the garden, he didn’t blink an eye. “Okay,” he said. “Be careful.”
So back I went to the blueberries. It was full-on dark, and the wasps had indeed finally turned in for the night. I picked in peace, though the bright LED light and harsh shadows made the berries difficult to see.
But I finished the job; in 40 minutes or so, I’d picked the bush almost clean. Done and done.
It was only one shrub out of nine still left to pick, but I was ready to let this whole thing go for the night.
Still frustrated, I had to wonder, why, with fewer wasps in the yard this year, had they hit our late season berries so hard?
My first thought was because of the grapes. Without having them to eat, the wasps devoured the blueberries as the next best thing.
Putting up berries the next day, I thought again of our epic rainfall, and noticed the ripe ones were swollen, the skins soft. It was clear they had actually absorbed some of the moisture.
At that moment, I realized that if you’re a wasp, these swollen berries are far easier to penetrate with that sharp thingy at the end of your face!
One Week Later
The wasps did indeed decimate hundreds (thousands?) of ripe berries. But during this week of dry weather, as the rest of the crop ripened, I had every hope the wasps would go into retreat. We’d be back on Easy Street!
It was a fruitless hope. (Pun intended.)
Every day this week, there have been more and more wasps in the blueberries, making them more and more hazardous to pick.
Last night, I was once again reduced to harvesting them by lantern light. By the state of what’s left, it’s clear that I’ll have to leave the rest of the crop to the wasps.
Yet again, Mother Nature prevails!
And to all you gardeners and outdoorsy folks:
Besides your gardening and outdoor adventures, I would love to hear about your climate and weather. For us, it’s just another wacky summer season in the Foothills…49 degrees last week, 90 today!
As always, thank you so much for spending time at my Little Farm, and I appreciate your ❤️, comments and questions! Sending all my best from my garden to yours…
Warmly,
~Susan, from the Foothills
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This had me reminiscing about “Lady”. She was the closest thing I had to a therapist in middle school. ❤️
Oh, and very nice juxtaposition of Mr. Darcy and your coyote!