The Wildlife Of Kentucky Route 1000

 

Kentucky Route 1000 begins about a mile and a half from my house and I have driven it regularly for over 31 years.  It is only about 7 miles long and intersects with US 460 at its eastern end and Kentucky Route 191 at its western end.  It runs up what is sometimes known as the Right Fork of White Oak Creek, over the hill, and down a small branch of Caney Creek where it connects with Kentucky Route 191 at the Caney Grocery, an old wooden building approaching a hundred years old which is filled with assorted antiques and sells good sandwiches and pizzas.  The Kentucky Department of Highways has four classifications of roads in the state and Route 1000 is in the last and lowest classification.  The classifications are number 1 through four and those classified as fours are what are described as "the set of highways not in the first three systems, including frontage roads, bypassed portions of other state highways, and rural roads that only serve their immediate area."  That is a great description of Kentucky Route 1000.  But that description leaves out the entire best part of driving Route 1000, the wildlife diversity it regularly produces to the attentive driver.  

 

Nearly every time I drive across Route 1000, I see some kind of wildlife.  There are always small animals, squirrels, rabbits, opossums, raccoons, and sometimes a ground hog.  And ground hogs are much more rare today than they were before coyotes spread all across the southeastern United States.  Sadly, coyotes have nearly obliterated ground hogs in many areas of the country because ground hogs dwell in earthen dens and are very easy for coyotes to dig out and kill.  But in one place in particular, actually in front of a house, I have seen a few ground hogs, probably multiple generations of the same line of descent, dwelling in the vicinity of a culvert which crosses the road at the edge of that yard.  The photo below is of a small buck eating birdseed in my driveway about a mile and  a half from Route 1000.

 

In some ways, it might be easier to list the animals I have not seen when I am driving on Route 1000.  I have never seen a bobcat, a bear, or an elk on Route 1000.  But bobcats are primarily nocturnal and with the many small farms and woodland on the road, I know there are bobcats all around.  I have never seen an elk on Route 1000 but one was seen a few years after elk were placed in Southeastern Kentucky not far from Route 1000.  This county is actually one of the buffer counties which the Department of Fish and Wildlife  added into the design of the entire elk program to prevent them from spreading into primarily agricultural areas and doing damage to crops such as corn, grains, etc.  I have never seen a bear on Route 1000 but a few years ago a man living a few miles from it, actually just across one of the ridges, killed a bear on his property and claimed it had attacked his dog.  The game warden at the time accepted but probably doubted the story of the attack on the dog but chose to not charge the man with killing the bear.  I have no doubt that we have bear in some of the deeper hollows on Route 1000.  The photo below is of a ground hog leaving its den.

 

But the real question becomes, what have I seen on Route 1000.  I see deer regularly, maybe not every time I drive the road, but on many occasions I see them.  I even see them at times in small herds of half a dozen or so.  I have, just in the last few days, seen four separate flocks of turkeys along the road grazing in the fields with gobblers strutting in front of the hens in spring mating rituals.  I have no idea how many species of birds I have seen on the road or how many species of birds regularly live in that part of the county.  But I have documented about fifty species of birds on my own property a couple of miles from Route 1000 so I know there must be in excess of that number along the road, in the fields and the woodlands in that 6 or 7 mile stretch.  So, let's talk about the somewhat unusual bird sightings I have seen on Route 1000.  Just a couple of days ago, I saw the first Canada Goose I have ever seen in this immediate area in a neighbor's field on Route 1000 and within sight of US 460.  About a year ago, my wife and I saw a Great Blue Heron feeding in the creek within a few feet of the road.  I slowed down almost to a stop to get a sight of it and it flew slowly up the creek in front of us as I drove behind it for a quarter mile or so.  It kept to the edge of a mowed hay field near the stream and the timber but flew slowly along until it found a spot it liked in the creek as far as possible from the road and disappeared behind a clump of willows to resume feeding.  The photo below is of a recently hatched but dead common snapping turtle I found in my yard. 

 

On two occasions in the last few years, I have encountered female common snapping turtles crossing Route 1000 either before or after laying their eggs. In both cases, these turtles were actually only a short distance from the ridge which is an odd place to see a snapping turtle even in spring egg laying season.  One of them was probably an eighth of a mile from the ridge in a spot where the little creek isn't three feet across and not at all deep.  This particular turtle was headed back to the creek after laying her eggs near a house which is actually not unusual since I have had common snapping turtles hatch on my own property of an acre or so.   The second snapping turtle was actually just exiting the highway literally at the top of the ridge when I saw it and I suspect it was headed to lay its eggs since there is a small farm pond on the far side of the ridge about a hundred or so yard from where I saw that turtle.  I suspect if she had already laid her eggs, she would have been headed back in the other direction toward the pond. 

On New Year's Eve 2016, I actually drove up on a Bald Eagle eating on a road killed opossum about a hundred yards from where I recently saw the Canada Goose.  The eagle flew up into a tree near the road and I drove past, turned around at the intersection of US 460, and returned to sit and watch the eagle in the tree for a few minutes as it waited for me to leave so it could return to its meal.  That is only the second eagle I have ever seen in this county.  A few years ago, in broad daylight, literally across the road from an occupied home, I saw a coyote standing at the edge of the road.  But as I approached, it quickly darted over the embankment and disappeared into a field where cattle are pastured.  As I recall it was spring calving season and the coyote was most likely looking for fresh afterbirths from cows.  But the owner of that house also owns guineas and the coyote might have been stalking a guinea which I did not see.  The photo below is not the actual eagle I saw but I figure this post deserves a photo of an eagle anyway.  

As I said at the beginning of this blog post, I am never surprised by what I see in terms of wildlife on Kentucky Route 1000.  If I ever see a bear, an elk, or some other highly unusual animal or bird on that road, I won't really be surprised.  If you are in the area with nothing to do, take a quiet, slow drive across Kentucky Route 1000 and you can probably be surprised by some bird or animal you haven't seen in quite a while. 

Thoughts On Having Survived A Bad Winter Storm

 

Yesterday, Saturday, February 19, 2021, at about 4pm our electricity was restored after having been off since Monday, February 15, 2021, at about 6pm for a total time of about 94 hours.  The outage was due to a combination of 3 sequential winter storms or, if you prefer, 1 long winter storm with about 12 to 15 hours time off in the middle.  The first onslaught began as freezing rain which eventually turned to snow to leave us with about 4 or 5 inches of snow on top of an inch of solid ice.  We live on a hill with a markedly steep blacktop driveway which is about 130 feet long with a large paved parking area beside our house.  I have an emergency generator which I have had since our last major ice storm in 2009.  It is free standing and is not wired into the main electrical service as the best standby generators are.  I had some trouble with it earlier in the fall when I attempted to test run it as I have always  done about once every three months.  I got it out several months ago on schedule and it would not start.  So I finally got it repaired after having it worked on by two different other people who failed to do the job.  I had test started it on Sunday, the day before the storm was due to hit.  I chose to not run the generator on Monday night since it was already dark and I did not want to go through the effort to drag it, the power cord, my bevy of extension cords, etc. out of the storage building and basement. We used candles and a Coleman lantern to get by until bedtime on the first night.  On Tuesday morning when I got squared away I dragged it out, started it on the second pull which was a relief and set it up as I usually do with cords running to one lamp and the television in the family room, the refrigerator and microwave in the kitchen, and the big 21 cubic foot freezer in the basement.  We would eat breakfast and supper with the generator on, watch about 3 hours of television morning and night, and ascertain that the freezer was still staying sufficiently frozen since we have several hundred dollars worth of pasture raised chickens, two boxes of wild caught frozen fish, a bushel of frozen peaches, and a passel of other frozen fruits and vegetables.  That is far too much to allow to thaw and go to waste no matter how good your home insurance may be.  I also took the contents of the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and placed it in a large Styrofoam ice chest, carried it outside and leaned it against the rear wall of the house, covered it about a foot deep with snow and left it to wait for the return of power.  If you have your own power outage problems in the future, this is a great way to save what you have in the refrigerator if you don't own a generator.  Just put a tight lid on the food in a solid ice chest, cover it with snow outside your home in a safe spot, and uncover it as you need items until the electricity comes back on.  It never fails. 

But my biggest personal issue in such a disaster is that my wife, Candice, is in a power wheelchair and sleeps on an alternating air mattress due to a long term neurological disability.  The main power on her wheelchair only has to be charged every few days unless she is going outside a lot which she had no intentions of doing.  But she also uses an alternating air cushion in the chair which has to be charged every day as does our cell phone.  I had neglected to get all my gasoline cans filled before winter hit and only had about five gallons of gas.  We also do not have city water and our driveway is long and steep  as is the state highway from our driveway to US 460 about 100 yards away. Our water pump is 220 volts which makes it impossible to run both the pump and the 110 volt outlets at the same time on the generator so we never run the pump during a power outage. But we are planning to buy and install a propane powered standby type generator this coming fall and have it wired directly in the electrical system of our house by a licensed electrician for all the obvious safety and legal reasons. YOU SHOULD NEVER WIRE A GENERATOR INTO YOUR HOMES ELECTRICAL BOXES UNLESS YOU ARE A LICENSED ELECTRICIAN!  THEY CAN KILL A LINEMAN IF THEY ARE RUNNING IN AN OUTAGE!  I keep commode flushing water in jugs in the basement for any possible emergency and we always have lots of staple foods in the freezer and in canned goods.  We also have a set of propane logs in the family room which heat the family room and kitchen area and keep the rest of the house warm enough to be able to stay safe in most winter weather. Food was not an issue but Candice's needs are always primary.

I got out early on Tuesday morning after firing up the generator and walked to the bottom of our driveway to try to begin the job of clearing a road to the highway.  I realized when I saw the state road that it was not at all likely to thaw that day since the temperature was not projected to rise above freezing.  But I started working on the driveway immediately since I knew it was going to be a big job.  But I did not figure out just how big the job was until I started shoveling.  What I found was that aforesaid several inches of snow on top of an inch of solid ice.  A heavy duty plastic snow shovel will not begin to deal with that kind of ice.  Also, due to the steepness of the driveway, in a rain there has always been a lot of runoff down the driveway.  In the freezing rain, it froze in a thin layer on the surface of the blacktop and later the remainder made that hard inch layer which makes it very hard to break completely free since that first little layer bonds the whole thing to any small openings in the blacktop.  

As I was shoveling at the edge of the highway, I spotted our mail woman driving past and being followed by a sheriff's cruiser with two deputies inside.  I stopped the deputies who were out making visits to the known ill and elderly although we have never been on that list since I am able bodied.  I inquired if they knew anyone who could bring me some gasoline and drinking water which I made clear I was willing to pay for.  They told me they would contact the local disaster services and see what they could do.  A couple of hours later as I was eating lunch, one of them called me and said, "We are on the way with two cases of water and ten gallons of gasoline.  Meet us at the highway."  They came to the house with the supplies and I paid them the reimbursement.  They refused to allow me to buy their lunch.  We now had enough generator gas and drinking water to last us about three days at our rate of use.  

On Monday night, about 8 o'clock, my good friend Aquila Derstine, a conservative Mennonite who lives about thirty miles away had called me as he sometimes does on a Monday which is not a church night for him.  We laughed and joked a bit and he asked me if I needed anything.  I said "no not really but I will need to come to your sister-in-law's bulk food store in a few days to buy some oatmeal."  I never thought another thing about that comment until Friday about noon when we heard a knock on the door.  I opened the door and found Aquila standing outside with a box of oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies, and dried mango which I buy to eat as a snack.  He had driven thirty miles from home to bring me that food because he said, "it is Anna's (his wife) birthday and I wanted to do something nice for her birthday."  He refused to let me reimburse him but we will take that up again in the near future.  If he and his sister-in-law both refuse the money, I will lay it down in front of them with the suggestion that they put it in the Mennonite disaster relief fund or some such charity.  To say the least, Aquila is a great friend and we have known each other nearly twenty years.  He also offered to shovel my driveway and I refused to allow him to do it since I am able bodied and had no reason to leave until I ran out of gasoline.  Aquila is very serious about his religion and has even adopted two small children in his fifties after having raised 8 of his own to adulthood.  In fact, Aquila and Anna have several grandchildren as old or a bit older than their two adopted children. Their oldest son Asa, his wife, and their three small children including one daughter only a few months old are living in a Mennonite missionary operation in Ghana and will be there for at least three years.  The youngest daughter was actually born in Ghana.  I have known Asa since he was a small boy and he practices his religion just as strictly as his father which is why he agreed to take his family to Ghana in the face of the Covid 19 pandemic. There are several posts on this blog about my Mennonite friends, their lifestyle, and a young female Mennonite author, Emily Steiner, who is also a friend of mine.  Each of these previous links goes to a different post about Mennonites, their lifestyle, and my friend Emily's books.  I am truly grateful to live in a community with people like the Derstine family and my numerous other Mennonite friends.  

 

I have left one of the most interesting stories from our power outage for last.  I called our electricity provider, Kentucky Power, almost as soon as our power went out because in our area we had serious advance warning that the freezing rain was coming, and we also have had several periods of multiple day power outages in the 28 years we have lived here.  It was rapidly growing dark, the rain was pouring and freezing as it hit the ground, and I knew we were in for trouble.  When I was connected to a live human at the power company, he was a very nice young sounding man who said he was working from a call center in Ohio.  We went through the usual questions an answers which are standard when you report a power outage and I was standing in front of the picture window where this computer sits watching the freezing rain and rapidly falling darkness as I talked to the man.  Suddenly, I saw a rabbit, which appeared to be about three quarters grown, come running around the corner of our house on the blacktop driveway and cross into the front yard out of sight.  Then what I first thought was a ground hog came running along the same area from the corner of the house into the front yard.  Even though we get lots of wildlife in our yard and in our sights year round where we live, this event was so unusual that i mentioned it to the young man at the power company.  My first guess was that it was due to the freezing rain having flooded the burrows the two animals were living in and said so the young man before I hung up.  He agreed with me that it was unusual.  But before I walked away from the window, the second animal returned from the front of house, where it was out of sight, carrying the rabbit in its mouth.  That was when I realized it was a mink and had been chasing the rabbit as prey.  It carried the rabbit back across the blacktop farther from the house than the original chase, crossed below a large maple at the edge of the parking area and disappeared out of sight presumably toward its den nearer the creek about fifty yards below our house.  In 28 years of living in this house, we have had fawns raised in our yard including five in one year by 3 different does; wild turkeys both being raised in and around our yard and eating bird seed in winter off the blacktop; a red tailed hawk making a kill on another bird in the front yard; raccoons, opossums, and skunks traveling to our front porch when we used to feed outdoor cats there; several red foxes crossing our property; baby snapping turtles being hatched from eggs buried in the outer reaches of our yard; and a large male coyote crossing the edge of our yard in broad daylight.  But we had never seen a mink in our yard and definitely had not seen a mink making a kill there.  Actually, I never saw the moment of the kill because the mink and rabbit were out of sight.  But I did see part of the chase and the end result of the mink carrying the dead rabbit back to its den.  I love being in a place where so much wildlife exists within my field of vision.  There are only three species which are common in our area that I have not seen in our one acre which happens to be in the middle of several large farms: bobcats, and I am certain they do pass through at night; bear which have been spotted within a few miles; and elk which have also passed by within a few miles.  I have also seen one bald eagle eating a road killed opossum in a country road about 2 miles from our house.  It is great to live in a very rural area even in a power outage with the exception that it takes a long time to get the power back on.