The Weird and the Funny at Magicland Farms

Hopefully, we at Magicland Farms will have tomatoes a month earlier than that!

Is Magicland Farms Feeding Big Foot?

Magicland Farms doesn't only provide healthy fruits and vegetables to much of the Homo sapiens of the surrounding area but to many animals as well. A few of these animals that either make Magicland Farms their home or feed upon their crops include White Tailed Deer, Cottontail Rabbits, Woodchucks, several types of squirrels, Opossums, Raccoons, Skunks, Red Fox, Coyotes, Bobcats, Chipmunks, Huge Tortoises, field mice, Wild Turkeys, Pheasants, Crows, blackbirds and many other types of birds as well as many types of snakes and rumors of Black Bears. Nearly all of these animals damage the crops and we can usually tell which animal caused the particular damage. However, this past summer something strange occurred. The odd damage was primarily to our Sugar Queen sweet corn and occurred in late August. Something seemed to pull up the corn--stalks and all and it was big tall corn-- and put it in piles and then ate it! This happened several times and occurred in the wildest area of our farm--about a 1/4 mile from any road. It was creepy and none of our crew ever saw anything like this! First, bear came to mind and then big foot! However, we couldn't find either bear tracks or big foot footprints. What we did find were lots of coyote footprints--but their footprints are all over the farm anyway. What creature did this? Our best guess is coyotes but that doesn't quite make sense!

Mary Bird

It was a beautiful mid June day in 2001 and the Magicland Kids were still picking and selling strawberries. Then moi heard something singing on the red building (the farthest south building). Looking up I noticed what I thought was a Mockingbird. (I later verified that the bird indeed was a Mockingbird). Well, as you may know, the older bird books do not include Michigan in Mockingbird's normal territory, it being mostly a southern bird. The simple fact that this indeed was a Mockingbird was strange enough but then I, and most of the kids, distinctly hear it say "Mary." The bird did this a number of times--and the first time the Mockingbird was saying it (over and over, in fact) it was looking directly at me as if it was trying to tell me something. In addition, for several months after this occurred, we heard this (or other Mockingbirds) also sing out "Mary." While we know a Mockingbird can mimic other birds and sounds, we checked with bird experts and they never heard of such a thing! By the way, Mary, the Blessed Virgin, immediately came to our minds when we heard the bird(s) say "Mary."

Big Frog

Now let us step back to the Spring and Summer of 1988. Temperature wise, this was perhaps the hottest summer I've experienced here at Magicland Farms, although 1995 was more uncomfortably hot. You see, the spring and early summer had desert-like weather--there was no measurable rain from late April until June 23 and the sun shone 24/7! It also was hot with many daytime temperatures near 100. However, like some deserts, the nights were relatively cool, usually getting down into the 60s. This was because it was so darn dry! By the way, this was the year we put in our deep well and started our irrigation system--sounds logical, huh!

One mid June day, with the sun beating down relentlessly as usual and dust swirling about me, I remember driving the blue '88 chevy truck down the main east-west farm road. When I got about 500 feet I noticed something on the road up ahead about 200 feet--it looked like one of those big tortoises (actually large box turtles) we occasionally see at the farm. As I got closer I realized it wasn't a turtle but wasn't sure what it was. After I got out--along with Mark and Matt--I realized it was a huge--and I mean HUGE-- gray colored frog. It barely moved since it was so dry and frogs nead moisture to breathe right. We picked it up, brought it home and put it in the lake. Just as we did this, we realized we wanted to get a photo and hurried to the house for a camera. Dog gone it! By the time we got back--just a minute or two--the huge gray frog was gone! I mean this thing was huge --about 18-24 inches long, over a foot wide and perhaps 10 inches tall. While we first figured it was a bullfrog, we looked it up and it doesn't seem that bullfrogs get that big. We really wish we could have gotten a photo of it! (Note while the frog looked a bit like the frog in the photo above, it wasn't the same frog!)

Snake!

It was the summer of 1993 and moi, my kids and several of the neighbor kids went out to look how the watermelon were doing. Watermelon need sandy soil to grow well. They grow very poorly in heavy soil and only so, so in good, rich garden soil where most stuff does exceptionally well. They do very well in a light sandy loam or loamy sand and they even can be grown successfully in ground so sandy that few other things will grow in. (I have stories to tell about this, perhaps some other time...) Well anyway, in 1993 our primary watermelon field was about an acre in size and its soil varied from loamy sand to nearly plain sand. (We have every soil type, I think, that is found in Michigan. The only type we hate is that heavy, heavy clay, although lawn grass seems to grow well in it.) Well anyway, on that hot sunny summer day we started looking at the watermelon plants--since it was early July the plants were less than 6 feet long so there was a lot of bare ground around. (We planted our watermelon in rows over 12 feet apart.) Then one of the kids noticed a strange mark going right through the melon patch. It was a rounded depression in the ground that seemed to go through the whole acre. It was obvious what it was. A huge snake had traveled through our watermelon field--and I mean huge. The snake seemed to be over 12 feet along and about 6 inches wide. An Anaconda or Python or Boa Constrictor came to mind--perhaps, we speculated, it was a pet escapee. Looking further into it we discovered that the biggest snake in Michigan (and most of the US and Canada) is the Black Rat Snake. Several specimens have exceeded 8 feet with one nearly 9 feet in length. We now think our huge snake was a record sized Black Rat Snake since we are sure the snake that made those tracks had to be at least 10 feet long. By the way, Black Rat Snakes, like Anaconda's, Pyton's and Boa's are "constrictors" although they aren' considered dangerous to humans. They are not poisonous!

Magicland Farms' Own Crop Circle/UFO Landing Site

It was July 25, 2008 (or therabouts) and moi and crew (our kids) noticed something really odd in our potato field--it was a nearly circular area, about 40 feet in diameter, where all the potatoes were dead--the other potatoes were nice and green. Just a few days earlier everything looked fine. Nobody at the time thought of a crop circle or UFO landing site. Rather, we thought of disease and/or insects. This frightened us, so we were cautious not to spread the soil to other areas which could possibly spread the problem. A few days later we noticed some potatoes on the periphery of the circle were starting to send out new shoots. We were still cautious and I was careful not to cultivate the area which could spread the whatever. We also noticed that just about everything in the circle was dead along with the potatoes, although I do remember a few tufts of crabgrass here and there. Did a UFO land there? It seems to fit--a circular area with nearly everything dead inside!

Well, we don't think so. I was recently perusing a book on growing vegetables and they showed a picture of a pepper field with a circular area that reminded me of our potato field. (I feel real stupid now not knowing what happened to our potato field and taking all those unnecessary precautions.) Well, the book said lightning struck the pepper field and killed all the peppers in a rough 40 foot diameter circle! Lightning! Of course! Doesn't sound as interesting as UFO's but that's what very likely happened. Quite a few years ago our potato field was spared a direct hit of several lightning strikes. Instead they hit the trees in a nearby fencerow . However, our potato field was covered with pieces of bark from the trees! Lightning has power! Don't forget that it is real, real dangerous!