First Hummingbird of the Season
I’ve been watching for the first hummingbird for the last month. I put out the feeder on April 1, knowing that they don’t usually come back until April 15, but I wanted to be ready. I’ve been faithfully changing the nectar (homemade of course) every couple days to keep it fresh and I’ve been keeping an eye on the feeders. Every so often I catch something zooming by but haven’t officially spotted one until last night!
Mr Chiots and I were eating dinner and I saw one at the feeder by the back door. Fortunately my camera was right there and managed to get a quick photo before he zoomed off.
Do you have a hummingbird feeder?
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Oh Deer
There are people that think that deer are majestic beautiful creatures and stop their cars to watch them graze peacefully in the fields. Then there are gardeners who have lost entire crops of peas, blueberries, hostas and tulips to these giant rodents.
Here at Chiot’s Run my biggest garden pest is the white tailed deer. They gnaw off my fruit trees and blueberry bushes. My hydrangeas won’t bloom if I don’t wrap them because the deer find them super tasty. Last year they ate all my peas and every single tulip on the front hillside. Unfortunately we live in a gated community and all the land surrounding the community is owned by our property owners association. Hunting is not allowed on association property, so the deer have a safe haven and we have a herd of 10-12 that beds down about 100 yards behind our house. Of course they love it here because of all the beautiful delicious organic food grown in the gardens here at Chiot’s Run. If I were a deer or groundhog I’d live here too.
Until I can do something about them (like get hunting permission from the people that own the land outside of the association property), I chase them away. Although they’re no longer scared of me. I can go out and talk to them and they just stare at me, you’d think they’d at least thank me for the nice blueberry buds. These were about 40 yards away, I took this picture through my kitchen window. I’ll continue making little forts around everything trying to keep them out, my peas are under a conestoga wagon cover over the hoops in the raised bed their planted in. And I’ll have to live with daffodils instead of tulips and crocuses.
What’s the biggest pest in your garden?
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Spring Cleaning is for the Birds
We do all we can for our little feathered friends, trying to make them at home here at Chiot’s Run and that includes feeding them all winter long and putting up birdhouses all over the garden. This is the time of year when you need to clean out all those little birdhouses, and get them ready for the new chicks.
Mr Chiots is also going to be fixing up the little condemned birdhouse that the wrens just loved last summer. It needs a new floor, good thing we have a bunch of scrap wood in the garage, perhaps a nice new cedar floor.
I took all the wren houses down and cleaned them out. We also have a bluebird box in a side garden, it didn’t get used last year, but I still checked it to make sure it didn’t need cleaned. The bird houses we have attached to the back of the garage also got a good cleaning, we had some black capped chickadees nest in them last summer.
Cleaning out the birdhouses is an educational experience. You can see how different kinds of birds build different nests. The wrens build tiny little nests out of lots of twigs. They filled up the houses with extra twigs to make their nests a specific size. The chickadees used lots of moss and other soft items from around the garden, even a bunch of dryer lint and wool rug fuzz from the vaccuum cleaner that I put in the compost pile.
Look how cute this little nest is. This is just about actual size. This past summer I could hear the little wrens chirping away in this box.
Do you put up birdhouses to attract birds to your gardens?
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Feed the Birds
We have a bird oasis in our side yard. We love feeding the birds because it gives us something interesting to look at all winter long. We have 3 bird feeders and a heated birdbath.
I buy big 50 lb bags of birdseed and black oil sunflower seeds at the local farm store to keep our feathered friends fed all winter long. We also put out suet for all the woodpeckers and clinging birds.
We enjoy seeing all the different kinds of birds that come to our feeders. We have a bird identification book that we use to identify any new birds we see. Here are a few of them.
We also have blue jays, mourning doves, black-capped chickadees, house wrens, house sparrows, rufous-sided towhees, goldfinches, purple finches, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, and the occasional pileated woodpecker. And of course we have tons of the Ohio State bird, the cardinal.
Feeding the birds not only gives us something interesting to do during the winter, but it helps the birds stay strong and healthy through the cold winter months. We’ve noticed that since we started feeding them, we have more birds in the gardens in the summer. I had more wrens last year than any previous year and they keep all the cabbage worms off of my brassicas. I’ll keep feeding my little feathered friends and providing them with nice homes to keep them happy.
Do you feed the birds during the winter?
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Way to Go Mr Chiots!
Mr Chiots is off hunting this week with my dad. I spent Friday & Sunday cooking up all kinds of manly food for him to eat on all week. I made venison chili with corn bread, oat groats with raisins & walnuts for breakfast. I also made him some of these carrot oatmeal cookies, they’re kind of like little granola bars. I figured they’d be perfect quick treats when he gets hungry sitting in his deer stand.
He went down the family hunting cabin Sunday evening and he was up bright at early to be in his deer stand. He called me yesterday at 10:30 am and said he’d gotten his first deer at 9 that morning. Not to shabby, getting a deer within a few hours of your first time hunting!
Too bad it wasn’t one of these deer that eat all of my hydrangeas, blueberry bushes, fruit trees, strawberries and peas. Oh well, it looks as though our freezer will be stocked with venison for the next year. Hopefully he gets another one or two and we can share with friends & family! If he remembers to take some photos, I’ll share them next week when he gets home.
Anything exciting going on in your neck of the woods?
UPDATE: Later on Monday DeWayne (who is one of my dad’s friends from IN that comes over to hunt, got a small 6 point buck). Mr Chiots just called me tonight (Tues) and my dad got a HUGE 10 point buck today (they did remember to take a photo). I wonder what the deer count will be by the end of the week, we should have full freezers for all the family members!
