It’s time for the great backyard bird count. I am just dashing off to the Yard, Garden and Patio Show, but if you pop over to Faire Garden, Frances will tell you about it. Interested? Click here for all the rules, etc., and we can compare notes in a few days.
There are a couple of things about this photo that I want to share with you. The first is that winter sun above the treetops, which needs no pointing out from this guide. The second thing, you will just have to take on faith. See the black specks in the treetop front and center? When I looked out this morning, they were moving. At first, I thought they were leaves, but they were floating from branch to branch, rather than falling to the ground. Quick…the binoc’s…they were hummingbirds…lots of hummingbirds! This is definitely the sort of thing that can make one’s day!
We had friends staying with us for a couple of nights, and we could not possibly have scheduled better entertainment than that provided by resident deer. The mom seemed to be trying to teach her young ‘uns to jump the fence. She would take a long, running approach, then float over it effortlessly. Standing on the other side, she would make encouraging gestures. The kids must have been the deer equivalent of teenagers, because they completely ignored her. They were gamboling (bouncing along as if on springs) between snacks.
Speaking of deer snacks, I adapted several formulas for discouraging their munching found on the internet. Here is what I came up with, and it seems to work:
Into a blender, crack an egg, throw in about 3 cloves of garlic and a handful of the hottest peppers you can find. Squirt in a little dishwashing soap and top off with water. Blend thoroughly. Strain through a fine mesh into a spray bottle and let stand for 24 hrs before spraying it onto the leaves of the plants to be protected. I keep the spray bottle in the refrigerator and replenish the spray each time it rains.
Apparently, the spray is most effective if used in the early spring. The new generation of deer will get the idea that these plants are distasteful and leave them alone. Every source seems to warn that new strategies will be needed over time, but this seems to be working for now. Two disclaimers: 1) once you have rendered the plants they have been feasting upon disgusting, they will move on to things they had never bothered before. 2) the stuff will leave you choking and gasping for air if you happen to breath it in.
The only final solution to the deer invasion is a very tall deer fence around an entire property…but then you would miss the show. An earlier post here describes an in-between measure to protect individual trees.
The above is a picture of a pin. Whenever I wear it, there are comments about how realistic it is. The other day, I was sewing away on banners. When I looked down, there by my feet was, I thought, my pin…but no…on closer inspection, it turned out to be a live critter. Poor guy had obviously been hiding beyond the reach of the vacuum (he was covered with little tufts of lint) and scared out of his wits (or maybe into his wits, as he was holding still as a statue). Rather than add to his anxiety, I simply opened the door to the outside and left him alone to find it. Next day he was in the bathroom. Obviously, an intervention was called for, so I scooped him up, deposited him in the woods and wished him well. Usually the lizards seen around here are bright orange, so he may have a tough time meeting up with his own kind.
Back in 2004, while I was volunteering at the HPSO spring plant sale, I fell for a most unusual tree. The specimen that caught my attention was a good 12′ tall, with curved, wicked-looking thorns of 2″ or more. Oddly, given HPSO’s penchant for truth in labeling, it bore only the label Hardy Orange ‘Flying Dragon’. The thorns did indeed evoke images of dragons’ claws. The adult tree was for display only, but there were several small ones for sale. Of course I came home with one.
Arriving home in early evening, I joined Richard on the deck for a glass of wine and sharing of the highlights of our days. Turns out, he had gone with his brother to the Chinese Garden in Northwest Portland. He began to tell me about an extraordinary tree he had seen there, but that the docent had declared it rare and hard to find. As he described it to me, recognition dawned. I interrupted his narrative to go to the car to retrieve my newly acquired treasure. Sure enough! We were talking about the selfsame tree. Serendipity, like minds…all of that, but the greatest lesson learned was that the HPSO plant sales, spring and fall, are a terrific place to find rare and unusual plants, as well as all the latest regular stuff.
Poncirus is a slow grower, as you can see in the above recent photo (the bird bath establishes scale). I like it best during its dormant season, when the silhouette of twisty, thorny branches is clearly visible.
A close-up gives a better sense of the pattern of individual branches. A horticultural friend transplanted from the East Coast tells me that, back there, they are used as hedgerows. Far from being discouraged, the deer plunge right through them, only to come out the other side much worse for the encounter. I could have told them that deer are a determined bunch.
Last spring it put out blossoms for the first time. Can those bumpy green oranges be far behind? This is another of those endlessly interesting plants to watch, just to see what it will do next.
Know the chances of a White Christmas in Portland, Oregon? 1%! All those years of longing have been more than fulfilled with the great snowstorm of 2008. We are living in a picture postcard world, and can’t seem to stop snapping photos, even if they barely approach the crystalline beauty of the real thing. I will share a few of the best shots.
Big juicy rose hips are even more luscious encased in ice and dusted with snow
The birds appreciate our offerings even more than usual.
This guy, color-coordinated with the apples still clinging to the tree, seems to have a Madonna-like instinct for posing for the camera.
And here is Sammy. She stands no chance of sneaking up on those birds, thanks to her stark contrast to the white world in which she finds herself.
When we were driving around New England a few years ago, we fantasized about spending a snowbound winter in Vermont. Now here we are, feeding the sparrows, reading by the fire…snow-flocked trees, hikes in the snow. So, from Merrie Olde Vermontegon…
Merry Christmas!
This is a sight we never want to see:
In the four years we have lived here, there has never been a problem with birds flying into our windows. Somehow, two days in a row, the fates aligned to invite disaster. I heard a whump, and when I went to investigate, there was this sweet little fellow, neck broken from the impact.
Several years ago, I did some research on this very subject. It seems there are several explanations for this kind of bird behavior. If they can see right through to the other side of the house, they think it is a corridor. If they see a reflection, they may read it as a rival bird. In either case, the instinct is to fly smack into the window. People have come up with all sorts of solutions, most of which involve some sort of “danglies” in front of the window, with assurances that their affront to one’s inner decorator need only stay in place through the mating season. But wait! This is not the mating season…meaning our window camouflage might need to stay in place indefinitely.
pennants by ricki to the rescue! This pair of pennants, complete with streamers, fills the bill without getting in the way of the view out the kitchen window. They are decorative enough that I won’t mind leaving them up. I am sure that this is a seasonal phenomenon having to do with the angle of the light, but with lives at stake, we don’t want to take any chances.
By and large, we take a live and let-live attitude toward the deer. They provide endless entertainment from our dining room windows, and in return, they are allowed to browse at will. I will buy strawberries at the Farmers’ Market because the deer nibble the flowers before they can begin to develop into anything humans deem edible. Trees are a different matter. After the deer stripped a young eucalyptus of every trace of foliage (who knew that they would go for something so aromatic?) a remedy became necessary. Richard drove metal pipe into the ground to support deer netting that would surround each tender young tree. It proved effective and not especially unsightly. Still, those poles seemed to be begging for adornment.
This picture shows a hose guard made by a local ceramicist. I bought three of them several years ago because I fell hard for them. I don’t know about you, but try as I might, I just can’t make hose guards work for me. These beauties sat around waiting for the deer fence epiphany. The stake, meant to go into the ground, fits snugly into the top end of the metal pipe. Cute, huh? The first picture (above) features glass electrical insulators (hope I got that right) slipped over the tops of the pipes. These things always appealed to me, so whenever they popped up at garage sales, I would buy them. Never had a clue as to their fate until now.
I ran out of stashed goodies before the corralled trees ran out, so off to the local craft store for me. These 3″ wooden balls were intended to become dolls’ heads. With the application of red spray paint and a big long screw to slide into the top of the pipe, they become a variation on my post cap theme.
Visiting gardens and nurseries is a sure way to fill one’s memory banks with ideas . They might mingle in there for years before they pop out disguised as your own brilliant brainstorms. One garden owner (wish I could remember, so as to give full credit) had taken a paint pot to some poppy pods left standing after the petals fell. The result was a surreal parade of sculptural unflowers in an array of colors alien to most gardens. At Dancing Oaks Nursery they had crafted special stakes to hold their collection of electrical insulators, which spring, flower-like, from various beds. In other words, truly original ideas are few and far between, but out of the stew of influences we can often pluck a tasty morsel or two…and, in this case, deprive the deer of a few tasty morsels until the trees get big enough to fend for themselves.
This morning, as I dragged my sleep-addled self and my therapeutic coffee to the table, planning to ease into the day by doing the midweek, mildly challenging NYT crossword, I happened to glance out the window. There was a fawn, still with its spots, cavorting about. The mom was nearby, keeping an eye on things, but she didn’t seem to see me as a threat. I got to watch the show for a full fifteen minutes. They sniffed every plant, nibbled on a few, then chowed down on dandelion greens and dogwood. The little un would every so often spin about or leap into the air with sheer exuberance. They can have the dogwoods.
Check out the comments on my earlier hummingbird story for another related tale. Lately, the hummingbird feeder on the deck has been, effectively, an ant trap. It was billed as insect-proof, but the ants are determined to storm the sugar-water source. I have tried cleaning and replacing, on the theory that ants might have some sort of communication system, like bees. But no, like so many armies they blindly march to their deaths, where I find a thick layer of them floating on the surface of the nectar in the morning.
Don’t tell me that hummingbirds lack communication skills. While I was cooking up a new brew, etc., the lead hummer was gesticulating at me through the kitchen window. His message was clear: “where the heck is our breakfast?”,