Yesterday was a beautiful September day; unfortunately, it occurred in November. I worry that my grandchildren will have to pay dearly for our pleasurable negligence.
Nonetheless, below, you’ll see a scene from yesterday that is a positive thing: a pond and field that were resurrected in the 1990s to replicate wildlife habitats that are getting scarcer and scarcer. The stone wall was rebuilt on the line of a 19th Century sheep pasture border that had crumbled away.
When raising sheep became unprofitable here, the field was abandoned and allowed to grow up into a soaring forest. It was packed with trees, bushes, and brambles that stood closer than subway-goers in rush hour. Re-clearing the field was a mechanized adventure that made you wonder how pioneers could do such things by hand and horse.
The field is allowed to stay fallow now. In the summer, it hosts, among others, wildflowers, grasses, and sedges; climbing and flying insects; ground-nesting birds, including wild turkey families; at least one bobcat, skulking coyotes, browsing and sleeping deer, and the occasional black bear whose cubs invariably walk on the wall where snakes sunbathe.
In the fall, however, the field must be mowed because, at that time, hundreds of little tree and bramble seedlings have sprouted there and must be discouraged. (You can see this year’s mower’s paths in the Image, which was taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 2, 2021.)