Sherry Chandler

A tweet promoted

Photographs taken by my son in support of my tweet of yesterday, to wit:

Orchard grass shoulder high, heads purple with seed. Bluegrass to the waist, red clover to the knee. The sun is shining, time to make hay.

Update: A correspondent has written to ask if I worry about haymaking harming small critters like box turtles, birds, and rabbits. And the fact is that any kind of mowing is dangerous to small creatures. My husband said he scared up a big turkey just mowing the farm road the way you see here. I’ve mowed up rabbits nests and snakes cutting the grass in our side yard with a push mower.

I think, though, even more dangerous than the mowing is the destruction of habitat. The very thing that makes the Bluegrass Region so picturesque, the lovely clean fencerows (some maintained with herbicides), make the place less friendly to small creatures who need shelter to nest and feed. As these photos illustrate, our place is comfortably shabby and our wildlife seems to be abundant. I was even wrong about the meadowlarks. I’ve seen several this year. I just wasn’t in the right place.

Here’s a bonus picture. I put up a photo of this tree earlier when it was bare and the red-winged blackbird was perched high up in it.

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