Pets and Gardens, Gardens and Pets

No time for blogging. Life's all about gardens and pets now. And, oh yeah, my job.

It's hard to appreciate this chicken ritual in a still photo. It's the avian version of dry cleaning. I hadn't given the chicks any dust for a few days. When I finally took time to do it, they plunged in, even overcoming any diversity inhibitions they may have had. The idea is to throw yourself on your side or even on your back and use your wings to flick as much dust as possible into your spread feathers.

On this occasion they kept it up for fifteen or twenty minutes. Finally satisfied that they've absorbed as much dust as possible and that the dust has had a chance to absorb as much oil as possible from their feathers, they get up and start shaking the dust out of their feathers. Eventually they settle down and spend the rest of the day poking the oil gland at the base of their tail and laboriously spreading fresh oil along each and every feather.

I'm a little behind in the garden - well, really I'm a lot behind. And, of course, everything's happening at once - or should be. I planted the tomato seedlings yesterday. In years past we've had frosts in June. But this year, I'm optimistic. There are 37 plants - 18 or 19 on each side of this 24' fence. That's pretty close spacing, but the soil in these raised beds has been improved over the past fifteen years. It's kind of like gardening in giant flower pots.

Almost all of these varieties are new to me this year. We stuck with Sun Gold and Snow White cherry tomatoes 'cause we loved them last year and added Black Cherry and Sugar Snack red cherry tomatoes for what promises to be an extremely colorful and flavorful salad.

I'm focusing more strongly on paste tomatoes this year since I had such fun making tomato sauce last year. After hours of poring over the catalogs I chose Opalka 'cause it's all about flavor, flavor, flavor. For mid-season beefsteak tomatoes, Tomato Growers offered a free sample of Marianna's Peace. I like the concept and the catalog says they're delicious and productive. Over the years I've lost interest in early tomatoes 'cause they don't have much flavor. But this year Jung Seeds offered a free sample of Wayahead - 63 days to maturity and "true tomato flavor." Those red saucers around the first three plants in the photo are supposed to do wonders for tomato growth. Three of the Wayaheads are planted in them. We'll see.

The onion transplants are doing great. Check here to see their names and how they looked at the beginning of the month.

Teamwork

Nothing like an outside threat to bring a team together. Murphy and Tang are on the lookout for the Yellow Cat. They've both achieved a certain level of detente with him. They'll creep up stealthily and keep him at bay by staring at him. But given an opening, Murphy is still inclined to dash up and give the Yellow Cat a swipe.


The St Laurent Rhode Island Reds are visiting the Sumner Silver Wynandottes for summer camp while Simon and Angelica are in Germany celebrating their marriage. I was worried for about a minute that the bigger red birds would pick on the little black ones. But no. They hardly go near each other at all. You think maybe some diversity training...? Nah.

I wasn't quick enough this morning to get a picture of the Downey Woodpecker on the Hummingbird feeder. It occurred to me he was looking for ants. After he left, I checked the feeder. There are some ants stuck to the sticky tape above the feeder, but none in the feeder. I'll never know whether or not that's because the woodpecker got them.

Friday Cat Blogging

This stray cat has been hanging around for more than a year. It's hard to call him a stray anymore. He sort of lives here, at least part time.

I often know he's here 'cause I see one of the house cats staring intently at some spot where I can't see the other cat, but they can. Apparently the yellow cat's becoming more confident. Today he was out in the open lawn. I cropped this photo, but beyond the frame to the upper left, Murphy's watching from behind a tree.

Last fall the yellow cat nearly drove out Murphy just a few days after we brought Murphy here from the SPCA. But through the winter I fed the yellow cat on cold nights when I knew he was here. When I realized he was sleeping in the woodshed, I left a blanket on the floor for him.

There have been some cat spats. But they're beginning to tolerate each other. The yellow cat's learning that now I'll only feed him when I see him. He comes to the kitchen door with increasing frequency. Usually one of the house cats yowls to announce his presence. One morning, months ago, Murphy ran straight into the glass door in a misguided attempt to run the yellow cat off.

Yellow Cat and Tang look an awful lot alike except for the long-hair/short-hair thing. That's Tang at the top and Yellow Cat peeking over the leaves. Yellow Cat has extra toes - as does Tang. In fact, he has the longest toes I've ever seen on a cat.


I got within five or six feet before Yellow Cat took shelter under the porch.

He looks pretty relaxed but I'm pretty sure he's fully aware of Murphy watching from above.

Weekend Project?

I really, really don't need another weekend project. But doesn't this herb spiral look like fun? Rebecca found it at Gardening Tips. I've often wished the herbs were closer to the kitchen. And I've been wanting to try my hand at stonework. And I'd like to add a focal point to the yard.

If I add up the time I spend walking to the vegetable garden for a pinch of this or that (tho' I really enjoy these walks) and the time I spend asking Maggy to go get something for me (and explaining to her where to look for it) it seems like a good investment of time to build this.

If you wander over to Rebecca's Pocket, check out the 2007 summer reading lists that are starting to show up. Or even previous years reading lists.

Fun with Squirrels

I may have found the simplest ever way to discourage squirrels. I usually don't mind letting the squirrels share the birdfood. But Monday night I was annoyed when eight squirrels dominated the feeders in the early evening while birds lined up in surrounding trees waiting for a chance at the food. So, when I went inside at 7:00 I took the tube feeders with me.

The next morning the eight squirrels were there feeding on the ground. I'm sure they would have been in the platform feeder but it was empty. The birds still had access to one tube feeder (which is surrounded by a squirrel proof cage) and the suet feeders which hang in a hawthorn whose thorns discourage the squirrels. By late morning the squirrels were all gone. So I rehung the feeders expecting to have to take them down again by evening. The birds promptly returned. But surprisingly the squirrels did not.

I really didn't expect the squirrels to stay away. So, at Agway later that day, I bought one of those spinning things. Tuesday evening the squirrels still weren't back but I assembled the spinning thing anyway and put it up Wednesday morning. Wednesday evening we sat on the deck eagerly awaiting the circus we expected when the squirrels inevitably returned. But, again surprisingly, no squirrels. Thursday one kind of ratty squirrel showed up to feed on the platform feeder but wasn't tempted at all by the tube feeder with the new spinning mechanism. Friday and Saturday, still just the one ratty squirrel.

But this morning, there they were. All eight squirrels - maybe more - lined up waiting for a turn on the merry-go-round. While the one ratty squirrel diligently ate from the platform feeder, the others, one at a time, each ran across the bar over the platform feeder to reach the merry-go-round. Each one in its turn gingerly stretched down trying to reach past the spinning mechanism to get a grip on the tube feeder. Each one would just make it as the feeder started to spin slowly. As the spinning speeds up, the squirrel wraps his or her legs around the feeder and tries vainly to hold on. One tried valiantly to climb back up to the bar but failed and plopped to the ground like all the others.

The instructions with the merry-go-round warned that batteries might wear down quickly at first because of the squirrels experimenting. I had missed the beginning of the show, but it went on for about fifteen minutes before abruptly all the squirrels except the one on the platform feeder ran off. I'll be curious to see if that particular group is satisfied that they can't actually get anything to eat at that feeder.

So, I'm not sure I recommending the spinning thing, except for entertainment value. But I'm pretty sure I can keep most squirrels away by taking down the feeders for a few hours once a week.

It's Summer

Toads are singing. I can walk in and out of the house without changing more than my shoes. The lawn is covered with beautiful Veronica, Violets and Dandelions. We'll hold off a bit on the mowing while we enjoy the flowers. I got my first glimpse of Hummingbirds yesterday and Wood Thrushes showed up two days ago. All kinds of garden plants are chiming in, including this Bleeding Heart.


Bill and I couldn't resist buying a couple of woodland perennials from The Plantsman (whose website I can't locate at the moment.) And these plants from Little York Plantation for the pots on the deck. I don't have much success with roses in the garden but I think these in pots will provide as much pleasure - at least for this season.

Derby Party

We had a great time with the Derby theme last weekend. Most people said it was more fun than they expected. Hmmm... not sure that's complimentary.

We watched the pre-race coverage on and off with our delicious mint juleps. The juleps were definitely the part I thought was better than I expected. I don't like mint very much. But with Bourbon - hey, who cares.

Some of us picked favorites tho' no one actually bet. I think Ed picked Street Sense strictly on the number of the post position - not anything about the horse. Most people were picking favorite numbers or names with apparently no regard at all for the odds. The race itself is the part that people said was more exciting than they expected. You've probably heard, Street Sense came from 19th (out of 20) to finish with a strong lead.

I used the Kentucky Burgoo recipe from the May issue of Cooking Light and it was delicious. The grits, with swiss cheese and garlic was (were?) so good I think I'll make it again. Jimmy's broccoli cornbread was great. I had to chuckle during dinner when someone was trying to remember the name of the winner and simultaneouly from around the table came "Street Smarts," "Street Wise," and "Street Walker." And finally there was the chocolate-pecan tartlets (with a drop of bourbon) - excellent, tho' I think I'll use my own pastry recipe next time.

Carl wins the prize for best costume (or would have if there was actually a prize.

With Leslie and Ally close behind.

Spring Flowers

About half my garden reflects some planning but the other half results from standing in the garden with a plant in one hand and a trowel in the other trying to figure out what to do. Sometimes I just get lucky with garden flower combinations.

This double bloodroot (top left) went in to the garden about twenty years ago the Ranunculus (lower left) perhaps ten years ago and it's spread over to this spot, the Anemones (on the right) - I'm not really sure where the came from or when. But here they are, in a photo that's not very flattering. They look really great in the garden.

New Stuff

Yes, Simon and KAZ, I have baby chicks, too. These are Silver Laced Wynandottes. I like to get a different variety each year so I can tell how old they are. You know, it's surprisingly difficult to get a decent picture of them.


Here they are trying to stay as far away from me as possible. Don't they look worried?




But here they are in their usual feeding mode.


We also have baby onions. Not so cute, but very useful. I splurged on onion plants this year to see if they do better than direct seeded onions or sets. In this picture there's Ailsa Craig Exhibition an English heirloom variety and Mars a sweet red onion. In another bed there's Copra which stays "rock hard for up to a year in storage and are just as flavorful in spring as they were when harvested."

Squirrel Deli

Among other things, yesterday was a trail maintenance day - the first pass of the season finding and cutting up trees fallen across the trails (mostly B's job) and cutting back the multiflora rose (mostly my job).


In the process B found this squirrel delicatessen.

On the right is a knee high pile of these succulent spruce cones.


On the left is a pile of leftover
cone "cobs" and scales

News

Well, this is certainly good news.

Adding ethanol - the type of alcohol found in rum, vodka, tequila and other spirits - boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries, the research published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found.

But this story is interesting from a journalistic perspective, too. I once heard a New York Times editor deride bloggers for endlessly rehashing mainstream media content while not providing any actual news reporting. But this article apparently originated at Reuters yesterday morning and quickly spread at least to the Manchester News, CNN, ABC (without attribution) and CBS (complete with typo in the headline.)

And don't get me started on headlines like:

Fruity cocktails count as health food

and

Cocktails are good for you!

But I will give a point to the Manchester News for including a link to the abstract of the original publication.

Snow

Yes, David. I have a snow picture. Matter of fact, I was wondering why there's not a Snow Carnival. I should be worried about the weight of the snow on the branches. But I haven't seen any damage yet. In this picture, the drooping branches of the Hawthorn on the right have formed a nice shelter for the birds scavenging scraps from the suet feeder. That dot on the ground is a Junco.

I saw more birds on the feeders at one time than I have at any other time this winter. I'm not sure what's up with this napping Blue Jay. He looks headless, but really his head's somewhere there under his wing.




Most people who know me have heard the April Snow story at least once a year. Here it is again, complete with photo. This is April, I think the 20th, 1983. That's Michael, age 3 and Maggy, age 10 months. Daffodils were already in bloom and we'd picked dozens the day before.

Turkeys

Sometimes there's deer, or squirrels or chickens. Now this...

There are fourteen of them. Fourteen! I wouldn't mind if one or two were in the freezer.

I am so hopelessly outnumbered around here. Yesterday on my way to the car, I encountered the turkeys strolling by the back door.

This morning the Tom Turkey was doing his best but the hens don't seem very impressed.

Easter Eggs

Maggy recreated egg coloring techniques without the special packets from the drugstore that we used to use. These eggs are hard boiled (I like egg salad.) But we used to do them with blown eggs and I still have many of them from the '80s which all evoke special memories.

Not to be outdone, Bill started painting eggs for us years ago. He's been doing it for about twenty years, so I have dozens. Many are birds or spring flowers. Some celebrate events. The second one pictured here is about maple sugaring. We use red buckets and I like the way they stand out in the grey spring woods. I have one (not pictured here) of a New York skyline commemorating Maggy's move to New York.

Mother Jones

I still get the dead tree version of Mother Jones 'cause it's so much more leisurely to read it in my big chair and lay it down and come back to it - maybe lend it to a friend. The December issue cover story The Thirteenth Tipping Point lists and illustrates twelve tipping points identified by John Schellnhuber at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom "any one of which, if triggered, will likely initiate sudden, catastrophic changes across the planet." The article addresses the absence of public concern about climate change and asks, "So what will it take to trigger what we might call the 13th tipping point: the shift in human perception from personal denial to personal responsibility?" The article offers good insight into how the public may - or must - be educated to deal with urgent issues.

But my favorite article in this issue is a sidebar to Bill McKibben's article "Is Corporate Do-Goodery for Real?" The answer to McKibben's article is, largely, no. But the sidebar article, The Carpet Cleaner, describes corporate responsibility beyond my wildest hopes. Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface carpet company, had a life changing reaction to Paul Hawken's book, The Ecology of Commerce. Anderson was so struck by Hawken's message that "he sent his staff to tally up the resources used by Interface and its suppliers. The results were staggering: 1.2 billion pounds of raw material were extracted from the earth to produce the roughly $800 million worth of carpeting Interface sold in 1995."

Interface now has a department of sustainability operations that measures and analyzes how much energy and material the company uses and how much carpet and waste they produce. Since 1995 they have reduced the energy used to produce their carpet by 41%, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 56%, and water usage by 73% - all while sales grew 25%.

Are there easier ways to run a business? Sure. But as Anderson said in a 1999 interview in Fortune Magazine, "I had a revelation about what industry is doing to our planet. I stood convicted as a plunderer of the earth...In the future, people like me will go to jail." One can only hope...

For a laugh, take a look at Revenge of the Nerds, a light hearted look at high school debate teams. I was a high school and college debater. Can you tell?

The Overton Window of Public Opinion

My respect for Dennis Kucinich is growing. I rarely disagree with what he says but I'm usually thinking, "Yeah. Good idea, but it won't work." Not to say that the idea won't work, but there won't be legislative support to give it a try. So I'm inclined to relegate Kucinich to the group of people who's voices are more radical than mine. I don't expect them to be effective but I'm silently grateful to them for giving my slightly liberal notions a respectable patina.

CSPAN re-aired Kucinich's recent New Hampshire speech. Someone asked about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's intent to destroy Israel. Kucinich said he'd read several translations and he doesn't believe that's what Ahmadinejad meant. So, if he could, he'd call Ahmadinejad up directly and ask him, "Is this what you mean? ‘Cause if it is we have to do everything we can to help you see the need for a new direction." Okay, people are going to say that's crazy, but, hey, isn't it a good idea?

Peace. Who decided that peace is a lunatic fringe idea? Wouldn't you think "Let's go kill all the people who don't seem to agree with us and a lot of innocent bystanders, too," would be the lunatic idea?

Rebecca quotes Making Light who quotes Pandagon who quotes... well, you get the idea. Everyone's talking about the Overton Window. Nathan Russell writes:

[Politicians] will almost always constrain themselves to taking actions within the "window" of ideas approved of by the electorate. Actions outside of this window, while theoretically possible, and maybe more optimal in terms of sound policy, are politically unsuccessful.

So, if a think tank’s research and the principles of sound policy suggest a particular idea that lies outside the Overton window, what is to be done? Shift the window. Since commonly held ideas, attitudes and presumptions frame what is politically possible and create the "window," a change in the opinions held by politicians and the people in general will shift it. Move the window of what is politically possible and those policies previously impractical can become the next great popular and legislative rage.

While I may be a radical at heart, in public I'm pretty damned moderate. I'm not proud of it but I remember March 2003 and how thoroughly intimidated I was about saying, "No, I don't support the war." I remember being proud of Congressman Hinchey for immediately speaking out against the war. I remember looking in vain for a hint on Senator Clinton's website that she opposed the war. So, my thanks go out to the people who help keep the window centered over an area I can live with.

Rooster Parole

Remember the evil rooster and the rooster jail? Well, it's spring and we're having a change of heart. He only bites me once a week or so and there hasn't been a full blown attack in a while and the weather's just so nice we decided to let him out with the hens. Here he is in all his glory.

The hens seem happy to see him. The wing action here is a courtship behavior. The courtship, as you might imagine, lasts about a minute.

Before you all decide never to visit me again, I should point out that the rooster and his hens are now confined to their own yard around the chicken coop. So, no more "Watch out for the rooster," warnings, no more scratching in the gardens, no more droppings on the sidewalk or hens begging for snacks on the deck. It's all good.

Kentucky Derby

Feels like time to start planning for the Kentucky Derby. This usually ends up as a party of one for me. But that may be because the entire party menu has been a shot of bourbon. How about this menu featuring "Dead Heat Louisville Burgoo?"

Here's a list of the early contenders. It's hard to get interested in the latest buzz about Scat Daddy. But who could resist a horse named Cobalt Blue? The big names aren't there yet. But the race isn't 'til May 5. There are eleven "prep races" to go before then. I'm going to go write some invitations.

Nothing New

A couple of greedy readers have mentioned, in person, that they're tired of the previous post and asked why don't I get something else up. Fact is I've been sick. Nothing any reasonable person would consider serious. But, as many of you know, I'm not sick very often and I'm not a very good sport about it. So, most of the week I've been listening to CSPAN and playing Civ III and feeling a little sorry for myself.

But now the weather's turned nice. The snow's all gone and there are hundreds of Winter Aconites and Snowdrops blooming. I heard the first Phoebes Tuesday and I thought I heard Peepers, but maybe they were Wood Frogs.

Friday Tang and Murphy braved the mud to come help me clean the barn. There are places where the mud comes dangerously close to the top of my boots. Tang and Murphy were good company and honestly I kept at it longer than I would have without them.

Dragging a cart full of manure to the garden gave me a chance to look around the deer winter feedlot - uh - I mean vegetable garden. Sure enough. They've already eaten the rhubarb and daylilies. They'll survive. But I've got to start paying attention.

Okay. Now you know I'm alive and relatively well. Maybe in the next couple of days, my mind will kick back in.

Loose Change

Last year when I was helping Maggy clean up her apartment I came across a bag of loose change - complete with coin wrappers, earrings and odds and ends of hardware. I've long held a slightly guilty theory that money found in the laundry and on the floor belongs to the person doing the cleaning. I'm not sure that applies to change sequestered in its own container - but in the name of uncluttering Maggy's life, I took possession of the bag.

Last week, in my endless effort to conquer clutter in my house, the bag of change surfaced again. Maggy and I are not that far apart in clutter control.

This pile of coins also stirs that kid-like sense of the of finding a treasure. Sunday afternoon I couldn't resist sitting down with Prairie Home Companion on the radio and sorting through the coins. It seems to be about $50. There's a Euro and some miscellaneous European coins, a Sacajawea, at least one wheatie penny, several FDR dimes and Washington quarters to fill blanks in my collection and the little purple charm that says "I love you."

I got through the quarters and dimes. But the pennies and nickels are still on the table. I think I'm still missing something in the clutter control concept.