Posts Tagged ‘wolf spider’

This month, after harvesting our apricots, we have targeted the weeds growing on the farm.
San Rafael seems to have had the wettest Spring for years and all this rain has triggered growth in dormant seeds all over the fields. Some areas of the farm are now being regularly irrigated (vineyard, melon patch, apple trees and forest) for the first time in many years.
This has resulted in an explosion of weeds which we are trying to combat by manual and mechanical means. Neighbours recommend that we use “kill everything in sight” weed killers, but we are reluctant to do so. Therefore every day we are slashing, chopping, ploughing and strimming in the worst places.
And when it is not raining it is HOT, hence the rather natty canopy on the tractor!

Fashion setting on the farm

A lot of our apricots were lost due to violent storms bringing down  soft fruit and badly bruised it. No problem for the local bird life though. We spotted this green humming bird perched quietly on a branch, which seemed unusual as it was so still.

Waiting for the bar to open

Totally ignoring me, it flew down to my feet, stuck its beak into a soft fallen apricot and collapsed, drunk, into the fermenting fruit… and lay there completely blotto!

Totally blotto

When not leading hummingbirds astray, setting new heights of tractor fashion or weeding, we are sun drying our apricot crop in our home made solar powered drier which works a treat.

Sun drying apricots

Although this year is only a few days old we continue to see more and more animal and insect life. Most times the camera is not to hand or the animal does not hang around long enough to photograph. We have spotted an Ocelot, a very large black cat (possibly a Puma), two Skunks, an Iguana and a large lizard (possibly a “Lagarto Overo”) plus scores of beetles and spiders.
On the border with our neighbour, at one edge of the vineyard, there is an area which needs urgently cleaning of poisonous spiders. There are scores of abandoned tunduque holes in which black widows have put webs across. Holes which wolf spiders inhabit and one small patch of ground in which I have twice seen a tarantula.

Are you lunch?

Common sense says to plough up the whole area, use insecticide to kill everything in sight and then sleep easy. But it is difficult on two counts, we do not want to kill everything in sight, and also some of the holes are inhabited by toads!
When we water the vineyard the toads (sometimes in pairs) emerge from these holes and then return as it dries out. To plough the area and destroy their holes would kill them as they could not survive in the hot sun. So, for the moment, we wear boots and tread carefully in that part of the farm.

In the evening we practice our new hobby, archery.

Robin Who?

Here are a selection of pictures that we have taken of the wildlife on and around the farm.

Best seen by clicking on the “[View with PicLens] ” link. If not then select “[Show as slideshow] ”

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]