A Voice from the Eastern Door
A Voice from the Eastern Door
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I have many fond memories of my childhood, and one of my favorites was the day my mom took my brother and me on an Antlion hunt. I do not remember exactly the spot in Cold Spring, New York where we found the Antlion’s pit, but I do remember that the area had some sandy spots. After looking around for a while, my mom picked a single long, wide blade of grass. She then kneeled down in front of the Antlion’s pit we found, and she told my brother and me to kneel down in front of the same pit and...
If the plant, stinging nettle, has ever stung you you know why it has its name. The stinging nettle is an herbaceous flowering plant found in Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and North America. It stings because their leaves and stems are covered with brittle, hollow, silky hairs that contain three chemicals, a histamine that irritates skin, acetylcholine which causes a burning feeling, and serotonin. Brushing up against the plant with any bare skin, especially the legs, or the arms, will result...
Live and imitation leeches are one of the best all-round bait for freshwater game fish, including trout. Live leeches are also environmentally important in the food web of our rivers, lakes, and any aquatic ecosystem where they act as predators, prey, and parasites. They are also deemed as a medical miracle and are used to treat humans. Most of the world’s 650 species of leeches are found in cool freshwater, shallow lakes, ponds and backwaters of rivers and the creeks of North America and E...
The other day, while driving through Akwesasne, I saw a small animal in the middle of the road that had been run over and killed. Its beautiful brown coat, off-white belly, and short black tipped tail, made me curious, so I stopped to see what it was. From the field guides I carry in my truck, I identified it to be an Ermine. The Ermine is also known as a Short-tailed Weasel and a Stoat. It is actually referred to as an Ermine in the winter when its thick fur is white, and it is known as a...
Recently I observed a few turtles trying to cross the roads here in kwesasne. Sadly, the first one had been run over. Someone told me they saw the person, who on route 37 by the Bingo Palace, purposely went out of their way to drive onto the shoulder and run that turtle over. I think the person who hit it may have thought it was a snapping turtle because it was dark colored and quite large, and some, who do not know better, are of the wrongful mind feeling snappers are better off dead. However,...
The Great Egret (Ardea alba), like all egrets, is a member of the heron family, Ardeidae. They are traditionally classified with storks when in fact they may be closer related to pelicans. The egret, when in flight, can be identified by its retracted neck, whereas the storks, cranes, ibises, and spoonbills fly with their long necks extended. The Great Egret also known as the Common Egret is a large, all-white plumaged bird. It can reach a length of 37 to 41 inches, has a wing span of up to 4.8...
The Ruby-throated hummingbird is one of Mother Earth’s most fascinating birds. These tiny birds have a beautiful shimmering, iridescent plumage. They are a joy to watch as they hover and dart while sipping nectar from flowers or feeder. Their wings beat up to 75 times or more per second. Their rapid wing beat enables them to move forward, backward and up and down as it hovers in a vertical position maneuvering from flower to flower to feed on nectar. They can even fly upside down. H...
The cattail is a very important wild plant. It is readily found, and it has a variety of uses that can be used at different times of the year. A stand of cattails in the spring and early summer is like finding a wild supermarket. It is easy to recognize a cattail stand. In winter you can see the white dense, furry, cigar-shaped over wintered seed heads standing atop very long, stout stalks, in the summer the rich brown cigar shaped cattails can be readily seen, and even the young shoots that...
Butterflies are a very important part of Mother Earth. They pollinate plants more than any other insect on this planet other than bees. Butterflies are the favorite food of songbirds, which is why many people want to attract them to their gardens. When Mother Earth’s eco-system is out of balance, butterflies begin to die out, which makes them good indicators of a healthy or a failing environment. I firmly believe that when the Earth was created, each and every creation was given a specific d...
In the scientific world, many experts felt that at least 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, Sunflowers were a cultivated food crop in what is now the eastern United States. It was believed that Sunflower farming spread south from eastern North America to Mexico. However, another later study discovered Sunflower plant remains in a dry cave in Mexico that were at least from the year 2600 BC leading to a hypothesis that assumed the farming of Sunflowers began in Mexico and moved northward. The new Mexico...
In early spring, if you are near any wet mucky areas, you may get to see the bright yellow flowers of the Cowslip aka Marsh Marigold. In most wildflower guides they are called Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris). They do look a little bit like butter cups, and that is because they actually are in the buttercup family. These wildflowers can be found at edges of ponds and moist areas, in shallow water, in hardwood swamps, in marshes, ditches, wet woods, and any swampy areas. They do best in open or...
When it is springtime, one of the things I look forward to seeing is the return of the locally called “Wild Canary” also known in the bird world as the Yellow Warbler. A pair of these warblers have nested in the far end of my backyard for the past several years. Sadly, someone cut down the shrubs they used to nest in, so I do not know if they will nest nearby again this year. If they do not, I will miss their delightful song and their brilliant flash of yellow as they dart from limb to lim...
The weather is finally to the point where we can open our windows and let some much needed fresh air into our homes without having to put on sweaters or turn the heat up higher, but wait what in the world is that awful smell? It’s someone nearby burning trash or wood. It may be a common practice here in Akwesasne to burn trash, wood, leaves, and litter because many do not realize that backyard burning of garbage releases dangerous pollutants including dioxins, volatile organic compounds, and p...
One of the earliest signs of spring is when you can see the grayish fur “pussies” that are the buds of the catkins of the American pussy willow. They are found growing in swampy areas. Sometimes these delights to the eyes can be seen even when there is still some snow covering Mother Earth. There are many benefits environmentally that the pussy willows provide. The flowers provide much needed pollen for native bees very early in the season, and their access is readily seen because they blo...
This week I would like to share some effective and humane ways to keep animals away from your home and out of your vegetable and flower gardens. Fencing is the first suggestion, but fencing is not necessarily the only method that will work. You need to encircle your garden with wire fencing. The fencing needs to be buried about eight inches in the ground, if you are bothered by skunks or rabbits and buried 12 inches below if you are bothered by squirrels. To deter deer, fencing needs to be at...
I am anxiously awaiting the warm weather that is coming soon (I hope)! Unfortunately, the much-welcomed warm weather that brings us flowers, birds, and butterflies also brings with it some very bothersome insects. It was cold last Thursday, but I watched as one anxious over ambitious bee tried to fly into my closed truck window. The bee left wherever it had wintered a little bit too soon, so it was probably looking for a warm place. There are a lot of products on sale to repel these things, but...
In 1970, a man named John McConnell, who lived in the United States, started the first Earth Day. It was originally held on the day of the annual celebration of the March Equinox. Today some people still celebrate Earth Day on this day. The first Earth Day featured environmental “teach-ins,” which were peaceful demonstrations designed to educate the public and bring an understanding of the planet’s peril to people all over America. By the1990s, 200 million people worldwide took part in Ear...
As I drove along St. Regis road and State Route 37 this past week I noticed that some of the trees are beginning to show some color on their branches. This is a very welcome site. It tells me that warmer weather is on its way. The colors are a very pale yellow to green and red because the buds are just beginning to swell. Trees are not only aesthetically beautiful, they are extremely environmentally important to all living things. Trees alter the environment in which we live. They moderate o...
Here is the continuation from last week’s article followed by some of the things we can use to replace dangerous chemicals. Office areas typically have little or no windows. The following plants grow well in these conditions: Pothos, Aglaonema, Dracaena ‘Janet Craig’ or ‘Lisa,’ ZZ Plant, and parlor palm. All of these should do well as long as the lights are left on for about 8 hours, 5 days per week. These plants will grow slowly because of the limited light so they should not be repotted, fertilized, or watered very frequently. If you have sma...
Today, dangerous chemicals are commonly found in our homes, our offices, and in our children’s classrooms. Hundreds of poisonous chemicals are released into the air we breath by, furniture, building materials, carpets, household cleaners, cosmetics, perfumes, air fresheners, etc. These chemicals are trapped inside, especially in closed ventilation systems. These chemicals result in a broad range of respiratory and allergic reactions. Some are even believed to cause cancer. Our children are the ones at most risk. It has become a time when every...
It is now the time to start your seeds indoors. The rule of thumb is to start most seeds eight weeks before the last frost date. Most charts will list the starting time for our area as anywhere between April 30th and May 30th. To be safe, I would guesstimate our last frost date to be May 30th, if not even a bit later than that. Most seed packets or the different Web sites online will tell you how long before the last frost to plant your seeds as some of the times varies. Every year I start s...
The Department of Health and Human Services have standards that regulate how many insect parts food can contain. Yes, that is correct. These standards are called, Food Detect Action Levels. The levels are based on how many fragments of insect parts per hundred grams food can contain. There goes my appetite. Wheat flour can contain 150 fragments per hundred grams, paprika can contain 300 fragments, peanut butter can contain sixty fragments, and chocolate can contain up to eight insect fragments....
As long as I can remember, I have been interested in animal facts & trivia. For this week’s article I thought I would share some with you. During my research for this article, I even found a few facts that I did not know about. The animal kingdom is very interesting. (A 1,200 pound horse eats about seven times its own weight each year. A quarter of the horses in the US died of a vast virus epidemic in 1872. George Washington’s favorite horse was named Lexington. Napoleon’s favorite was Maren...
February is the month North America celebrates Groundhog Day, so I thought I would write about groundhogs for this week’s article. When I lived in the Hudson Valley, I use to see a lot of them. My brother and I use to have acres of old pasture land to run and play in, and I can remember a few times we cussed those groundhogs after we fell because our feet would slip into a groundhog hole. It was especially bad if we were running fast, or if we were playing tag and got tagged due to a g...
Not only through reading, but also in my travels across the United States I found it amazingly interesting that the traditional people I met, many that I became friends with, all shared a common thread/belief. The cultural beliefs of traditional Native peoples throughout North America share the belief that human beings are no more important than any other thing be it alive or inanimate. They believe that man and woman, plant and animal, and water and stone are all equal and share the Earth a...
