Baby Owls & Navigating Darkness

Many thanks, Damaso, for your continued late night elk watch. My two nights were quiet and then Damaso took over with his high-powered flashlight, equipped with a green laser light critical to scaring off the 15 that showed up his first night. However, a few hours later, they decided to come back at 1:00 a.m., so he then started blaring the radio, which seemed to confuse them enough to abandon their mission. Yay!

This week, we will finish up this lettuce harvest and can happily return to the daytime crew. A beautiful silver lining has been hearing the barn owlets during the night crying for their parents to come in and feed, and low and behold, generally around 3:00 a.m., we can look up and see two huge, white bird bodies absolutely silent hovering above. It is exquisite as they break silence, swoop down, grab food in the night and head into the barn. For a short while, the baby barn owls are quiet and satiated. They are big and learning to fly in short stints in the barn—it is fantastic and a first for us in over 20 years. They are helping us navigate darkness, both to physically scare off elk, but also symbolically to stay safe during this COVID pandemic. To all the incredible birds on our farm navigating darkness or pollinating by day, we are grateful.

Our third and final planting of cucumbers went in the ground along with leeks, cabbage, our 9th succession of lettuce and our 5th planting of kales. We are working hard to continue growing as long as the season will allow. We are very creative with our mask material and designs, often going through 2–3 per day, as working outside in the soil will get them dirty quickly. We have required them as we have since late February, and we highly encourage you, and all folks to join in, mask up!

Make sure to find us on Instagram @fullcirclefarms.