Red Barn 216

08/30/2026

Those ridges winding across your lawn aren't what they look like. The animal making them has never eaten a blade of grass in her life.

She's an eastern mole, and she's a carnivore. Her entire diet is underground insects, grubs, and earthworms. She has no interest in roots, bulbs, or grass. The tunnels are hunting runs, pushed through soft soil following grub trails.

🌿 The brown patches that show up in late summer are usually grub damage, not mole damage. The grubs are chewing roots in the top few inches of soil. The mole is chewing the grubs.

She's nearly blind, finds prey by touch and vibration, and can dig about fifteen feet of tunnel in an hour.

Press the ridges back down with your foot. The grass bounces back in days.

The tunnels look like damage. They're a trail map of where she's already been 🐾

08/26/2026

Spooky season is upon us! Book your spooky or spooky dudeior shoot now! Message me to book.

08/15/2026

07/30/2026

FREE upcoming Stop the Bleed classes from WellSpan!

From WellSpan: "A person can bleed to death in less than 5 minutes. Help does not always arrive in time. Participants in this class will learn to recognize serious bleeding and how to stop bleeding by holding pressure, wound packing, and using tourniquets."

Recently, several members of the York County Office of Emergency Management attended a Stop the Bleed class in York. The class atmosphere was informative and non-stressful and we left feeling empowered that we could help someone if the need arose.

You can too. Here are some upcoming classes:

In York on 10/8/26: https://www.wellspan.org/WellSpan-Spotlight/Events/14635

In Gettysburg on 8/20/26: https://www.wellspan.org/WellSpan-Spotlight/Events/14599

07/30/2026

07/27/2026

There's a joke that barn owls must have been stoked when humans invented barns, but the reality is more grim than that.

Barn owls rely on human structures, like barns, sheds, and nest boxes, because modern farming and development has taken down the large trees that would have been their preferred nesting spots.

So on a way, we kind of owe them the barns. And the nest boxes. And the untouched old trees.

Sometime between now and November, consider putting up an owl nest box in your yard. By December, they'll start looking for adequate nesting sites, and your yard can be one of them.

07/27/2026

Your solid wooden fence is a wall for every toad, box turtle, and small snake trying to move through your neighborhood.

These animals navigate at ground level and either struggle to climb or simply can't. A solid fence turns your yard into a dead end. They follow the fence line looking for a way through, burning energy the whole time.

The fix is simple: cut or pull a few four-inch gaps at the base of the fence. That gap connects your yard to the landscape around it. The toad that was circling your fence can get in. The box turtle trying to reach the pond on the other side can get through. Cost: nothing. Time: ten minutes maybe.

If you have a chain-link fence, you're already ahead. Chain-link allows almost everything to pass through at ground level, which is one of its genuine ecological advantages over privacy fencing that nobody talks about. Ground beetles, toads, small snakes, and juvenile turtles move freely through it.

In the UK, wildlife gardeners call the wooden fence gap a hedgehog highway. The concept applies to everything that moves low and slow. Your yard stops being a box and becomes a corridor, and corridors are what wildlife actually needs in a fragmented landscape.

07/17/2026

No way to sugarcoat it, folks.. this is worse than it was back in 2023. Our current air quality is anywhere from very unhealthy to hazardous and the DEP has issued a CODE PURPLE Air Quality alert for today. During Code Purple Air Quality Alerts all residents should avoid long or intense outdoor activities, and sensitive groups such as children, elderly residents, and those with respiratory illnesses should avoid all outdoor activities. All residents are encouraged to move activities indoors.

Residents and businesses within the Air Quality Alert areas are strongly encouraged to voluntarily help reduce fine particulate matter air pollution by:

*Avoiding the use of gas-powered lawn and garden equipment
*Avoiding the open burning of leaves, trash, and other materials

local21news.com/weather

07/16/2026

Erling Haaland scored 16 goals in World Cup qualifying. He put seven more in during the tournament itself. He helped Norway reach the quarter-finals for the first time in the country's history. He plays for Manchester City. He is one of the most dominant footballers on the planet.

His dream is to drive a tractor.

In a 2022 interview with ESPN, Haaland said the thing he wants most after football is a small farm in Bryne, the rural Norwegian town where he grew up. Cows. Animals. Open land. No stadiums.

"Being on a farm... driving a tractor, feeding my cows, that's my dream," he said. "That's what I want to do when I retire."

He grew up surrounded by farms. He's visited farms in the UK during his time at City. He calls milk a "superfood" and credits it as part of his diet. The man is genuinely enthusiastic about cattle.

There's something oddly reassuring about it. A footballer who earns millions, fills stadiums every week, and is recognised everywhere he goes, and the only thing he actually wants is to be left alone in a field in Norway with some cows.

Most people dream of becoming Erling Haaland. Erling Haaland dreams of becoming a farmer 💛