Baring the Berries
Garden chores are more sporadic and infrequent in November. Rather than deal with constant growth and the cutting back of different plants, I tour the property every other day to see what had faded and needs removal. Today it was the asters, some of the hydrangea and a mandevilla that had entwined itself around a […]
Hard Frost
All frosts are not created equal. The first often arrives in October as a sprinkling of powered sugar on the roof of my house and pickup truck. Unlike that sweet confection, it disappears with first light and is easy to miss if one is late to wake or not attentive. There are a few other […]
Birds at bay
My wife Juana has always said that we need to share our crops with our animal and avian friends. I agree with her to a degree though I point out to her that the definition of the word share, a part of a whole, esp. a portion allotted or assigned to a member of a […]
Fly-in dining
As the local-food movement continues to gain speed, this fashionable trend appears to be rejected by an unexpected group of diners: local birds. During a time when thrushes, blue jays, woodpeckers, etc. should be scarfing down bugs, seeds, berries and all the other fresh meat and veg that is in my yard, they are instead […]
A bed never felt so good. . .but the cars
You rarely appreciate how good you have it until your creature comforts disappear. To a degree, that’s how I now feel as I have returned from a 9-day kayak trip to the Everglades in Florida where I paddled from Flamingo to Everglades City. This is one of those “bucket list” kind of things that people […]
Bluebird feeder
One of the more lovely birds that come to visit our feeders are bluebirds. Prior to the blizzard of last week, half a dozen descended on the back yard feeder looking to stock up before the bad weather hit. Too many were sidled up bottom-to-bottom on the weighted bird bar so that it tipped and […]
Bird feeder
As I sit cuddled up to my wood stove, I can only imagine how lovely the flowers and trees will look in a few months. That was not the case last week as I worked on my tan in the Florida Keys with my skinny white legs acting as a beacon to bugs and a […]
The immutable force of hurricanes and squirrels
I’ve been feeling rather smug with myself as over the past week as I have seen little evidence of squirrels able to thwart my bird feeding setup that sits somewhere between a Rube Goldberg contraption and a bizarre kinetic sculpture created by a youth with too many body piercings and too little (or much) sporadically […]
Squirrels 97, Erik 1 (so far)
Educated as an engineer and having a father that was pretty handy, I take pride in my ability to fix or build most anything. When I didn’t have any money as a college student, I did my own brakes and rebuilt carburetors. As a young father with only a little money, I repaired TVs and […]
Digging out the garden
With over three feet of snow in less than a week, there is little time to think about gardening. My wife and I are from the school that likes to make many small trips outside to incrementally shovel rather than waiting for all the snow to fall so that it must be removed in one […]