The Hardin Hollow Farm                                                 Sunday, 3 February 2008
The Roundtop Farm
The Trade Branch Farm


     It has been some time since this page has been updated. Part of the reason is that while over perhaps the past two years our farms have been getting rainfall,  it has been insufficient to top off our ponds and to ensure uninterrupted passsage of the breeding proclivities of our amphibians. Therefore, comparatively little to report.

     On the last day of January, we got a big break. Solid rainfall arrived at the two farms that we have in Wilson County--Wilson County is just east of Nashville, our home base. Most ponds filled, some overflowed, and water moved reasonably in the small creeks on the properties. We expected a major run of the spotted salamanders because of this--they are due about now, and run to the ponds right after a rain so as to breed, but it didn't happen. One pond had a sort of a run, the others did not.

     Tiger salamanders have begun to lay eggs, we've taken eggs from one pond so far--we haven't looked further; and we've picked up a few gravid spotteds as well. So Ambystoma egg season has begun, and the next rain--one is forecast--should provoke the rush.
     We hope, of course, that for this part of the Southeast at least, the drought has been broken. Time, however, will determine.