Life on Salem Road

Silvery Checkerspot Butterfly  on Rudbeckia 7/25/2020 While watering and weeding yesterday (we are dry!), I noticed this lovely fellow on the Rudbeckia in the garden bed where I was working.  I managed to get several shots really close up, so it's a pretty good image, even with my crappy phone camera. I used the Arkansas Butterflies page on ButterflyIdentification.org to get a lead on the species of butterfly.  The first info they shared about the Silvery Checkerspot is that it loves Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia), so I was certain I had found the right butterfly.  I then verified it against my butterfly field guide ( Butterflies of North America by John Feltwell with illustrations by Brian Hargreaves).  What a lovely name, and I know what to call it now!  No more "little orange and black butterfly!"  Learning about the species that we live with is what this project is all about.  Treating everything with the respect of learning its name and usin...

Mr. Skunk  cleaning up the cat food  7/15/2020 Update 7/26/20: Further research leads me to believe that Mr. Skunk is almost certainly Ms. Skunk and that she is probably raising a litter of kits under our storage barn.  We looked into trapping possibilities, but we think we'll probably just ride this out and let her raise her babies in peace.  This winter, we'll look at upgrades to our outbuildings to encourage her to build her den elsewhere next year. This fellow has taken up residence in our yard over the past few weeks.  We first became aware of his presence when he started digging up a recently buried chicken -- again and again.  We always bury our Ladies under the apple trees near their pen and cover the grave with a large stone.  This striped skunk was a star digger who managed to get under the stone, much to my chagrin. Amanda snapped the picture above through our back door as he cleaned up leftover cat food on the back porch.  We try to br...

Three-toed Box Turtle with Scar 7/6/2020 When I set out to the grocery early Monday morning to buy onions for making sweet pepper relish (the bell peppers were about to break the bushes), I found this fellow crossing our driveway.  From the scar on his back, it looks like he is quite a veteran.  According to Herps of Arkansas , he is a three-toed box turtle and occurs all over Arkansas.  Herps also lists the three-toed box turtle as "near threatened" according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and of "special concern" to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission . It's not the first time encounter with a box turtle we've had here at the House on Salem Road.  A few years ago, one hung around for quite a while to stay close to the source of dry cat food on our back porch.  (This month, a skunk has discovered the cat food supply.)  And just a couple of weeks ago, Amanda and I stopped less than a mile from the house to hel...

Poison Ivy at base of tree 7/10/20 Unfortunately for me, this was the plant getting the most attention around the house on Salem Road last week. We were eating tomatoes, potatoes, summer squash, cucumbers, peppers, basil, and blueberries from our garden, but I had a close encounter with Toxicodendron radicans while weeding and mowing at the edge of our small patch of woods.  As soon as I saw it, I gave it the deference anyone with my experience with poison ivy does, and left it unmolested at the bottom of the tree where it was growing.  What I did not do -- and almost certainly should have -- was go immediately and scrub down with lye soap.  Two days later, I realized that the "bug bites" on the back of my legs had spread to my face and that it was almost certainly a poison ivy reaction.   More than a week later, the rash has dried, I'm back at full force, and I've snapped a picture of the culprit to post here.  And I'm plotting my revenge.