Plants and wildlife at 300 feet from a cell tower

Plants and wildlife at 300 feet from a cell tower

Posted by: Angela Flynn

Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:40 pm (PDT)

It has been little over a month since the tree that shielded my house and yard was cut down. Here are my observations.

There are no more slugs or snails. None. I never did a count, but there used to be many here. I used to joke that I had a snail garden. I actually love them. They are just so cute with their little antennae sticking out. I would relocate them to my shade/water area of the yard whenever I found them on my vegetable plants. Now I have not seen one for about two weeks. Not even in the shade/water area. None on my rotting compost. They are all gone.

The gophers’ digging is only evident along the fence of the side yard which is shielded by a large apartment building. Gophers are considered major garden pests here and they have typically been throughout my yard.

I see occasional butterflies and spiders. The spiders indicate there must be some insects for them to be here. There is no evidence of any other insects.

I put a bird feeder on the pyracantha shrub about a week before the tree was cut down. I saw birds quite regularly for about two weeks feeding at it. For the last two weeks there have been no birds there. I do occasionally see birds in my yard, but very few and far between. The used to be regular visitors to my rotting compost. I never see them on it anymore. So far the pyracantha looks fine.

The plants on my front porch look absolutely miserable. As I mentioned before the aloe is mostly a basal mass. It shows some attempt to delineate into leaves, but it has not been very successful. The nasturtium looks cooked. The agave looks fried. The spider plant looks about the same as it has. Not exactly thriving, but it is not dying either. The one plant that is thriving is a rose scented geranium. When I get my meter I will check and see if might be protected by the post for the porch.

My plants behind the fence are more mixed. My peas that are along the fence sprouted, but have not grown more than an inch tall in over two weeks. The peas in the side bed along the house sprouted later, but are now about four inches. Most of the other plants look fairly healthy. I have tomatoes, eggplant, basil, chives, parsley, and salad greens that all seem to be ok. The lavendar and the peace lilly are suffering terribly. It could have to do with that they are in a ceramic pot while all of the other plants near them are in plastic pots.

As far as I go, my vision has gotten much more blurry with my increased exposure. I am stepping up my vision enhancement supplement and adding blueberries to my diet to counter the continuous damage. I seem to have alleviated the liver tenderness and heating by using the crystal, but I have to fight a continuous head fog. I take all of my supplements, but mostly just try to work my brain as much as possible. And the other day I made the mistake of wearing a hair clip in my yard. I experienced much heating on my head within a half hour. I have been experimenting a little with jewelry. Silver seems safe. I recommend staying away from stainless steel. .

On a larger scale, I do a lot of walking and spent the last few days walking over five miles around town and observing the bird life. I saw a few seagulls, a few ravens and a couple of starlings. That was it. I saw about a dozen bees all day. Seeing how there are cell towers on just about every other block I did not manage to get to a spot that was not near one to see if perhaps there were birds there. I also have been checking out the trees near my cell tower. Sure enough the ones in direct line of sight are dead or dying.

 Angela Flynn

Santa Cruz, CA, U.S.A.