Quote of the Day: Bernd Heinrich
Early the next morning, I awake to a wild melee of bird song. Far sweeter than any symphony I could possibly imagine, it comes from all around.
Bernd Heinrich (A Year In The Maine Woods)
We love the birds here at Chiot’s Run and do what we can to provide for them naturally. New plants are often chosen with the birds in mind. I find myself often going to the Cornell Bird lab page to identify birds I hear when I’m out working in the garden. Little mr wren is probably my favorite with his sweet songs that he sings all day long. Just this past week I’ve been listening to our resident bald eagle screeching down by the lake. I must take the time to head down and look at their nest one of these days.
Birds aren’t just pretty to look at in the garden, they provide a very valuable service in the form of pest control. People always ask me about dealing with specific pests and I always recommend putting up a bird feeder and a bird bath to keep them coming to your garden all year long. Once you do you’ll notice the birds constantly harvesting insects. The more birds I notice in the garden the fewer problem insects I notice.
As a result of our efforts every year we see/hear a few new species of birds. We should have kept track but we’re up to about 25-30 different species of birds including owls and bats. We’re excited to see both new and familiar birds at our new place. No doubt our bird identification books will come in handy for a those that we don’t see much here in Ohio.
How many different birds do you think you’ve seen in your garden?
I highly recommend adding a bird id book or two your library. We always have one with us when we’re traveling. These are our 2 faves:
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Real Food
Maybe most important, farm food itself is totally different from what most people now thing of as food: none of those colorful boxed and bagged products, precut, parboiled, ready to eat, and engineered to appeal to our basic desires. We were selling the opposite: naked, unprocessed food, two steps from the dirt.
Kristin Kimball from The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love
The main reason I started an edible garden is because I was dissatisfied with the quality of produce at the grocery store. There’s just something about food that’s freshly plucked from the garden. I still buy some things at my local farmer’s market, but even that isn’t quite as good as something that’s only minutes from plant to plate.
This week we’ve been enjoying so many wonderful homegrown vegetables: beets, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, and all kinds of herbs to season and add flavor. Every morning we’ve been enjoying harvest vegetable hash with eggs poached on top – life is truly good! (for my recipe visit Eat Outside the Bag).
What are you enjoying from the garden this week?
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Gardening Neighbors
Mr Chiots and I love to go on evening walks with the chiots. We walk the streets of our little lake community admiring gardens as we go. Since we’ve lived here for 10 years, we’ve been watching a few gardens grow and change, while most pretty much stay the same. We always used to talk about this beautiful little yellow how with lovely gardens.
We watched as they added a fence, new cherry trees, a retaining wall, a seating area, and edible beds. The residents of the house were a mystery to us, until last fall. A sign about the oil/gas in the area was prominently displayed in their front yard, so we stopped and chatted with Jimmy. A few days later, Heather stopped by our home and a friendship was born.
The first thing that came out of her mouth was, “I LOVE your gardens. I’ve been watching what you’ve been doing to them every day when I drive by on my way to work. This house and gardens was so ugly until you guys moved in!”. A gardening friendship was born!
Now Heather comes over at least once a week and we chat over coffee about gardens, plants, herbs, local foods, cooking and many other things. We also walk through each other’s gardens during different seasons talking about plants we love. Hardly a week goes by when plant isn’t exchanged between us.
When I decided to start a new series over on the Your Day Blog at Ethel, I know that Heather’s garden would be the first one featured. I really wanted to feature real gardens, like yours and mine. Sometimes we can spend so much time looking at perfect gardens in the glossy pages of books and magazines that we forget that real gardens are like real gardeners; they have flaws.
Head on over to the Your Day blog to see and hear about Heather’s garden. She lives just a few houses down. If you would like your garden featured in the Real Garden Series contact me using this form.
Do you have any neighbors that you can share your love of gardening with?
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Quote of the Day: Paul Sweeney
How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy.
~Paul Sweeney
Last night we had the great pleasure of watching the fireworks display put on by our small lake community. Each year they collection donations from the residents and put on a fabulous display. We’ve lived here for 10 years and have only missed one year. This year we were lucky enough to enjoy the display on a friend’s boat, a completely different experience.
Fireworks have always been a tradition in my family. We usually spent this holiday weekend at the family cabin and we’d stop on a bridge in Wooster, OH to watch their fireworks display on our way home. Then we’d stop for ice cream and the holiday celebration would be complete!
Do you take in a fireworks display for the Fourth of July or any other holiday?
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From the Archives
Since a move is in our future, I’ve been going through boxes little by little to avoid having to do it all at once. I found a box in the attic of old photos. Growing up we had all kinds of pets, but guinea pigs were my favorite. When we were in the states, we always had one.
Even though we had several guinea pigs, his name was always guinea and he always was the same kind. We’d have him for the year we were here and then he’d be given to a friend when we’d head back down to Colombia.
I have fond memories of dressing my guinea pig up with hats and playing with him. Someday I’ll have a few pet guinea pigs again. They’re such fun little animals to have around.
What was your favorite pet as a kid?
