Buffalo or Brush Hog

By Barbara Walvoord

Originally published in the Lathrop Lamp Post for Nov. 16-22, 2019

In New England, everything wants to be a woods.  Long ago, almost everything in New England WAS a woods.  New England did not have the dry conditions, the sweeping fires, or the grazing buffalo that kept Midwest prairies open.  New England prairies (we call them “meadows”) did exist, but they were transitory, caused by fire, beaver activity, or wind storms that killed trees. Then shrubs and trees turned the meadow back into woods, and a meadow opened up somewhere else.

Nowadays, if we want meadows, we generally have to keep them in one place, arresting their development by mowing or brush hogging, mimicking the grazing of buffalo.

So this fall, parts of our Lathrop meadows are being brush hogged.  When we can, we brush hog only part of a meadow each year in rotation, so the critters have a place to run to, and at least some of

Sowing Seeds in Snow

By Barbara Walvoord

First published in Lathrop Lamp Post for Feb. 9-15, 2019

We don’t usually think of February as the month to sow seeds, but all over our land right now, seeds are being sown.

Wild flowers and grasses are lifting their seed heads above the snow to be scattered by wind, passing animals or birds, rain, melting snow, or just gravity.  Our winterberry shrubs and crabapple trees are reaching out their tempting red fruits to hungry birds who will eat

Our Meadows are STILL Full of Butterflies

By Barbara Walvoord

Originally published in the Lathrop Lamp Post of Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2018

Our monarch butterflies have left for Mexico, but many butterflies will stay all winter. They survive in an astonishing variety of life stages—as caterpillars, as adults, or in cocoons–tucked into crevices, resting on the ground, rolled up in leaves, or attached to twigs.

The pearl crescent caterpillar stops eating its usual aster plants and spends the winter resting at the base of the plant until spring.  The adult arctic skipper crawls into a crevice or tree bark and goes into a dormant state.

Some butterflies, like this black swallowtail, overwinter in a cocoon.  In summer, it will stay in the cocoon only 2 weeks, but if the chrysalis forms in Fall, it will go into a hibernating state called “diapause” until warmer spring weather.

At Lathrop, we save our overwintering butterflies by mowing only 1/3 of our meadows and fields each year, so that 2/3 of the overwintering butterflies survive.

In a garden, the more plant material you can leave over the winter, the more butterflies you will save.  Leave fallen leaves on the ground.