I found this marbled salamander under the mulch while planting Thursday.  In the next few minutes, I also turned up a toad and a ringneck snake, along with one of those wolf spiders with her tiny babies all clinging to her back.

Earlier in the week, a large snapping turtle crawled up through the gate and laid her eggs in the driveway, and a minuscule blue-gray gnatcatcher has been hanging out in the garden while we eat our dinners.  Meanwhile, Mark was careful enough to leave this song sparrow nest behind while cutting rye and weeds in the old house area.

Quite a wild and wonderful week in (south)west Virginia!

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.