Geek out with me about critters and plants on a mountaintop in Virginia. I’ll share what I’m learning as I try to bring native plants back on 200 acres of old farmland and tell stories from my encounters on the mountain.

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In this issue

• Field notes: Goats on the run

• Signs of life: Bear hug?

• Recommended listening

• Book news: Cast your vote!

• The Official Mountain Poodle

Field Notes

Goats at the door

Imagine my surprise when I received a camera alert that there were visitors at my front door. The goats had been dining in a paddock a half-mile away in the meadow, so why would they depart en masse from their space, where there was plentiful food, and bypass acre after acre of abundant and delicious plants? It took some time to get them back to their paddock, but they seemed content to return. A few days later, the goat farmer discovered that the steel pole that served as a platform for one of our bluebird nest boxes had been knocked out of the ground, and the nest box at the top was destroyed. There is only one animal likely to do that: a bear. The farmer guesses that the goats may have seen a bear and registered it as a threat, and that made them run. It’s interesting to me in terms of goat psychology that they ran out of the far meadow and up the gravel driveway to the only structure they would have encountered on their route—my house.

When an animal is frightened, it will head for the place it considers safe—its home. When Darwin was doing research in the Galápagos Islands, he stood on a beach and tossed marine iguanas into the ocean. The iguanas normally take to the ocean to eat, but they live on the beach. Because the biggest threat to the marine iguana was the shark in the water, their instinct told them to “go home” to the beach when they were in danger, but in this case, that’s where the threat was (Darwin) that they were trying to escape. I wondered if the goats associate buildings and people with safety. Maybe they saw my house as a safe space (they wouldn’t be the only creatures to think so, given the variety and number of critters that have attempted to take up residence there). There was an earlier incident in which a goat that had been bottle fed and therefore particularly bonded with humans broke out of the paddock right in front of me, despite the risk of a shock from the electric fence. The goat then climbed into my Kubota, which was parked nearby, and waited for me, as if it was a dog ready to go on a fun ride.

Hijinks aside, the goats are doing their weed-eating job. As long as they are moved to a new paddock before they deplete their favorite foods (eg, poison ivy, Japanese honeysuckle, blackberry, autumn olive, multiflora rose), they won’t do too much damage to the desirable plants that are growing in the same field. It seems like almost an art rather than a science to figure out the right moment, that sweet spot, when it’s time to move them. They’re not going to eat every strand of honeysuckle or every leaf of poison ivy—they’re browsers, not grazers—but they make a significant dent, and no chemicals are necessary.

Goats on a slope

The goats are currently dining on my arch-nemesis, mile-a-minute vine (MAM). If you read Bad Naturalist, you already know how that vine became the bane of my existence. I hasten to add that there are no bad plants, only plants that are growing in the wrong place. Mile-a-minute vine takes over and smothers everything and blocks the light, which can prevents other plants from growing. Its only predator here is a weevil from the vine’s hometown that was released intentionally to weaken and kill it, but in my experience, the results of that experiment have not been impressive.

There are five sections of meadow where the vine is now growing. It will grow six inches each day in the right conditions (ie, the conditions here). If I do nothing, the mountaintop meadows will be overwhelmed by MAM vine within a couple of years. Pulling is impossible because of the large areas involved. Spraying would kill everything else, too.

Enter the goats. Their job is to arrest the growth and spread of the vine. How’s it going? The goats have spent about a week eating in each of two fields that were infested with MAM, and the vine is now almost completely absent there. As I’d hoped, and as I’ve seen in other fields, the goats ignored most of the native plants that were also growing there, like crownbeard, dog bane, and milkweed.

Mile-a-minute vine tends to start growing in places where it’s not easily seen because it’s hidden by bramble, then it uses the bramble as a platform to move up and spread across the top of the meadow. The goats are able to push their way into the bramble and eat the vine as it grows up underneath.

When the goats remove weeds, they also make room for desirable plants. A section of field where the goats were stationed in April is now dotted with native Carolina rose and showy tick trefoil.

New nemesis?

Not another problem plant?! White sweet clover didn’t appear here until a couple of years ago, likely introduced during road maintenance. It’s an ecologically harmful introduced plant, but I didn’t notice it was attempting to take over until this year. For the past two years, I’ve been preoccupied trying to manage my other “favorite” ecologically harmful plants here. There’s always going to be something I can’t get around to. This year it’s this new clover, not to be confused with the clover that grows in your lawn. White sweet clover is a legume sometimes planted for cattle forage. It grows tall—some of it is taller than me already—with multiple dense stems. It is not desirable in the balanced ecosystem of a native meadow, where it is clearly trying to take over. Apparently, in order to exhaust it, you have to mow it below the bottom leaves. While the plant is still short, that means mowing it at ground level, but once it’s tall, the bottom leaves are several inches off the ground, so it should be “easier” to cut effectively. It will seed profusely this year if I don’t mow it in time, meaning soon. Help?

It’s a great reminder that nature is constantly in motion, we can’t do everything, and when we think we’re finally getting ahead in one area, we’re definitely going to fall behind in another area. (Make that five others.) This is the job. Fortunately there are rewards, like spotting a napping bumble bee on a leaf.

Signs of Life

Bear hug?

I’m pretty sure this is a bear track. (Humor me.) It’s the right size and shape. I know we have bears on the mountain, because we see them on our trail cameras, and, occasionally, “in person.” A few weeks ago I encountered a bear standing in the middle of our road. We looked at each other and it continued across into our woods. (By “our” woods, I mean mine and the bear’s.) I found this track not far from where the bear destroyed the bluebird nest box.

As much as I’d prefer it if the bear had not destroyed the nest box, we have a whole lot of bluebirds here (and I don’t think there was anything important happening inside the box at the time). I have, however, been worried about the bears. Our local species, the black bear, has been under a lot of stress due to outbreaks of mange, in which it loses large sections of its fur (sometimes all of it). Mange is caused by a mite that burrows under the skin and makes the bear itch uncontrollably. Bears with severe cases of mange are hungrier, more sensitive to temperature changes, and vulnerable to other diseases, and they’re also just downright uncomfortable. Mange is very contagious, so wherever bears gather they can spread it to each other. There are studies going on in Virginia and elsewhere to find out what the impact is on the bear population. The one I saw on our road looked pretty healthy, but I can’t really tell from a distance. Here’s one spotted by our trail camera:

Recommended listening/reading

The Emergence podcast is created by the folks who publish Emergence Magazine, which focuses on topics related to spiritual ecology. You can read some of the stories online; there is also a print edition. A recent podcast episode that resonated with me featured writer Melanie Challenger, who specializes in environmental history, bioethics, and philosophy of science. For the podcast, she reads her essay, “Animals in the Room: Why we can and should listen to other species,” which is also available to read on the Emergence website.

Here’s the episode description: “How might our decision-making systems work differently if they were adapted to receive input from the more-than-human world? Writer and ethicist Melanie Challenger examines the staggering expressive capacities of Earth's creatures, from the subtle vocalizations of turtles to the freckling of Humboldt squid. She urges us to act less as intermediaries and more as deep listeners to the voices around us. Pushing the idea further, she asks how we can expand our democratic processes to make room for the lives and interests of our animal kin.”

It’s a provocative idea, and I’m full of questions—how exactly would this work? How will we understand what animals are trying to tell us?

Don’t forget to tell me about your favorite nature-related book or podcast, and I’ll share it in a future newsletter.

Book news

Bad Naturalist is a People’s Choice Award Finalist!

The Library of Virginia has named Bad Naturalist a People’s Choice Award Finalist in Nonfiction! That means that it was among the most frequently requested nonfiction books in Virginia public libraries last year. The People’s Choice Award winner in nonfiction will be chosen by a vote—by YOUR vote! You don’t have to live in Virginia to vote. I don’t have a campaign fund (in fact I’m pretty sure spotted knapweed and mile-a-minute are campaigning against me), so I’m just going to ask nicely, if you would please….

Cast your vote here!

Look for announcements about future events as fall approaches. See my website event page, or my Instagram or Bluesky feeds for details, and for more interviews, podcasts, and features. If you’re interested in an in-person or remote event for your group, please reach out!

The paperback is coming!

Just a reminder that you can preorder the paperback edition of Bad Naturalist now, and it will be available on August 11! (And it’s currently 20% off at the link!)

Bad Naturalist is available wherever books are sold in stores and online, currently in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook formats. You can sample the audiobook here.

A special request

If you read the book in any format (and if you enjoyed it!), please post a review on the Amazon book page—it helps!

Tell me where you are and what you see this month in a park near where you live, or in your own yard or window box. Send me a photo if you like.

Featured photo

An Eastern bumble bee resting on the leaf of a blackberry leaf. Bees need their rest just like you and me (especially when they’ve stayed up late streaming Secrets of the Bees). Pollination is a lot of work, and if they can rest between making the rounds, they can visit more plants in one day, which is also beneficial for plants.

The Official Mountain Poodle

Poodle Sleep Position number 4,763

Now’s a good time to subscribe for more mountain discoveries, book news, and the requisite poodle photos.

Thanks for joining me on the mountain!

Until next month—

Paula W.

Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop

Now available in hardcover, audiobook, and e-book everywhere books are sold!

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