Rose Cottage Ltd

Every year, once the geese nesting on the lake leave the nest with their goslings, thoughts turn to “monster” snapping turtles living in the property’s lake. I see them surfacing down at the deep end of the lake and their shells look like garbage can lids in size!

You can read about the first turtle experience here, about what these turtles will happily eat, and why I am at all concerned about moving them out of my lake here.

Today’s episode started with realizing a turtle was in the trap:

Now that he, or she, is in, how to get it out? The turtle has a shell with sharp edges and also has some rather talon-like claws that do tend to get caught in the net.

About 10 minutes later, we almost have the turtle free of the “ties that bind.” The turtle will go into this 30-gallon trashcan for its journey to a larger body of water.

Here’s a little look at size for this particular catch. The human hands seen in the picture above are of an adult male. The trashcan is a 30-gallon size. Estimated weight of this turtle is around 25 lbs so this is a much smaller turtle than the first we removed from the lake in 2008.

If you need to buy a turtle trap, a link to our turtle trap source is in the earlier post. If you’re going to trap and remove a turtle from your lake or pond, please be careful…you could easily lose a finger or toe otherwise. Also please do not transport a turtle to another private lake – you’ll only be creating problems for others.

More about Arbor Day and some great specials from The Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Nursery!

Find out which tree is America’s favorite!

Living with a 4-acre lake right in the middle of your 7-acre property provides a scenic setting and a lot of fun times. But when it comes to gardening and caring for the lawn and plants, it does require additional considerations.

My motto here is that anything I put around the lake, regarding weed and pest control, may up in the lake. In many cases, chemicals many use without thinking too much about it, could be washed into the lake by a heavy rain and ruin its somewhat fragile ecosystem. I found this out the hard way 4 or 5 years ago when fertilizer my neighbor applied to his pasture, drained through a duct leading to the lake, and cost me 7 dozen fish. I don’t want this “fishkill” event to ever happen again. The drain has since been removed so it’s up to me to control chemicals.

Here are a few organic or at least “eco-friendly” options…

Check out the full range of this Urban Soil Energy product line.

Organic Plant Health products developed by PBS Organic Garden Expert Billy Styles include Organic Plant Health fertilizers, soil conditioners and pest control products simply work better, and are more complete than other products on the market. In fact, using Organic Plant Health brand products can actually save you money by helping to reduce the need for extra watering by as much as 75% or more.

Espoma Natural Lawn Food helps prevent unsightly weeds from popping up in your lawn while it nourishes the grass so that it becomes more resistant to heat, drought and other stress. Because the products consist of 100% organic ingredients, they are safe for your family, your pets, and the environment.

All natural and organic ingredients contain long-lasting, slow release nutrients that won’t burn; Homogenous granules for easy to use; uniform feeding Fortified with Bio-tone(R) – a special blend of beneficial microbes that help promote faster greening, deeper roots, and better soil structure.

Use: All Seasons – any time of year.

And perhaps my best find ever…Diatomaceous Earth

Safe & effective.

Made from the finely ground fossils of prehistoric fresh water diatoms. Diatomaceous Earth (D.E.) kills common household and garden pests like roaches, ants, fleas, beetles, bed bugs and many others. It is a long lasting control — sprinkles easily into cracks and crevices where bugs hide and wipes them out!

Apply the dust lightly in infested areas. Safe For use in Pantry and around food use-areas indoors or out! Odorless and does not stain. Stays effective as long as it stays dry.

Controls spider centipedes, millipedes, other crawling insects. Use indoors and outdoors for ants, fleas, cockroaches, crickets, earwigs. In home, controls carpet beetles, bedbugs and silverfish. To control fleas. Lightly apply D.E. dust on pet bedding, carpets and furniture when a flea problem surfaces. You can even sprinkle this on pets instead of nasty,chemical flea powders!

Find these products along with products for water conservation, solar lights, and hundreds of other eco-friendly products at Garden.com.

Not a great photo – pouring rain outside and a bit of window glare, but I think the caption of this image should be…

“Go Back In – It’s Still Raining!”

After a stormy night, all 6 goslings still present and accounted for this morning.

I almost hate to take pictures of these cute little goslings because I know many will not survive their first year. This Mother goose – who my Mom has named “Daisy,” had 4 goslings last year – only one survived to the 8-week stage. He’s still here this year on the lake.

Daisy and her spouse will do a lot of walking with their babies over the next few days, and then the family will “disappear” for several weeks. Hopefully when I see them again – most of the 6 will still be alive and well.

These geese, and the other wild animals protected and supported at Rose Cottage, are why I strongly oppose hydrofracking. Find out more about what it will potentially impact on this and surrounding rural properties…

I noticed that one of the lake’s two nesting geese seemed to be fidgeting on her nest this morning. She also didn’t take her evening fly-around and walkabout last night.

Now I know why…

There is at least one yellow gosling out of its egg and moving around you can just barely see. Since there were six eggs on this nest last time I got a quick look, this Mother Goose will be busy for the next few days – and no doubt doing a LOT more fidgeting!

After temperatures in the mid-80s yesterday, today’s overcast and breezy temps can’t seem to get beyond the 60s. I think this goose will be keeping her goslings “under wrap” as it were, until all are hatched and the temperatures get a bit warmer.

I’ll take some updated pictures as soon as the “Paparazzi” are allowed!

Looks like these baby Cardinals expected my sister to at least bring some food if she was going to turn on the lights! These new babies were hatched just this week in Florida. This time of year, new “growth” seems to be happening everywhere you look.

Great photo – I know these “children” will be well looked after until they are out of the nest and off on their own…

Okay, enough with the wind! Yesterday I clocked a 30mph wind on my weather station and with the temperature at 58 at that particular moment, it felt C-O-L-D outside. This morning’s temperature was just above freezing. I thought I was done with my wood stove for this season but I guess I won’t be putting those logs away just yet.

Third-Year Clematis

The Clematis shown above had one or two flowers open and lots of buds this past Sunday and it appears to be getting enough protection from the wind and good afternoon sun to keep on blooming.

Fortunately, the flowers that are blooming due to the warmer-than-usual temperatures we’ve had for the last few weeks, seem to be “maintaining.”