Meeting the Rhode Island neighbor

I had to take the car in for an oil change this morning. Coming back up the street, I saw that my neighbor lady was working on a flower bed next to the curb. Also digging around in the flower bed were two industrious chickens.

                                    (Borrowed image)
I knew there were chickens living over there on the other side of the wooded lot because I could sometimes hear them clucking. I really wanted to meet them, so I stopped the car and jumped out to get a closer look. The owner, Catherine, was happy to share her love of the little assistant gardeners. The soil she had turned over was being meticulously inspected at close range by the pair. One was a Rhode Island Red and the other name I forget, but it was a pretty golden color with black specks on the head and shoulders.

After a few minutes, the golden bird suddenly turned around and started marching back to the coop behind the house. Catherine said, "I think she's probably going to lay an egg." Sure enough, several moments later, the successful hen started cackling loudly as if announcing her accomplishment. ( She said that with her three hens she gets two or three eggs a day.)

We finally had a sunny day today. A doe crossed the lawn past our patio this afternoon and the four bachelor turkeys came by. Breeding season is over so their heads are no longer bright red and their snoods have shrunk. Most noticeably, they don't gobble anymore. I haven't seen any of the seven female turkeys for over a month. They are safely hidden away somewhere. Maybe they're all mommies by now.

Another old post

This is a rerun of a posting from back in 2008. I didn't have any followers at the time and I was clueless about how to get some. So anyway...

Danger, Sparrow, Danger!

I've been getting some recorded telemarketing calls lately. They start out, "Do not be alarmed!" (They go on to offer some credit card insurance.)

This is so devious. How better to get you to listen to the message than to imply there is danger!

I don't know about you, but I don't have nearly enough danger in my daily life. My adrenalin level remains pretty constant. The most hazardous thing I ever do is back the car out of my tiny garage--and I have the dents to prove it.

The only wild animals I encounter are the opossums that I feed on my patio. There are also voles, squirrels and a few raccoons that come around, as well, but the 'possums are the stars. This is because they are newcomers.

Possums are common to the South, like armadillos. Because of Global Warming, however, they have been working their way north over time. And now, I am privileged to have my very own tribe.

Their arrival each evening is an eagerly anticipated event. The three cats and I sit inside the patio door and watch them eat the jelly or peanut butter sandwiches, meat scraps, fruit and whatever. The possums ignore us even though we're only a foot away.

I never know which ones will show up, but they always come separately. The first one was a big light-colored one with pretty pink ears that I promptly named Petunia. Next came Tank (a solidly-built little fella), then Elvis (a young one with small black ears). Last night, a new one appeared with a torn ear and 2-tone tail, so he became Rocky. The gender assignments are arbitrary, of course, and naming them is pure self-indulgence.

Now that the snows have come, I'm worried about where they've holed up for the winter. The poor things are not well-adapted to Minnesota with their naked tails and sparse coats. I worry about them--and so I feed them.

After, they face real danger every day!

More on turtles

Knatolee whose charming blog is over at knatolee.blogspot.com forwarded this posting to me about a place that rescues injured turtles. It's wonderful to know there are places and people like this! Check it out at:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2013/05/17/wdr-turtle-airlifted-pilots-paws.html

Of turtlenecks and turtles

Only two days ago the sun was shining and I rashly decided I could safely start packing away the winter clothes and bring out the summer things. Thankfully, I hesitated because it's been cold and rainy ever since.

I am loathe to shed my turtlenecks shirts too soon. I have been wearing them every winter since 1980 when I started having trouble with chronic stiff neck pain. As long as I have my turtlenecks, I'm OK. Of course, this has seriously limited my wardrobe. Everything I wear must be compatible with a high necked shirt. I manage by having a wide assortment of turtleneck shirts that I turned into "shells" by cutting out the sleeves. I also have many long-sleeved turtlenecks in a variety of colors.

If I start wearing low-necked shirts too early in the year, I pay for it with neck pain. I do daily exercises to keep the neck muscles limber so I can pass the peripheral-vision test for my driver's license. 

                       ( Not one of the neck exercises that I do!)

The Wildlife Rehabilitation Center where I volunteer has an area for turtles (actually tortoises) that have been injured. Broken shells can be repaired with splints and adhesives. Many turtles are struck by cars when crossing the road.                                        

The really sad fact is that it is sometimes deliberate. A University researcher recently conducted a study by placing a fake tortoise on a busy road and counting the number of cars that ran over it. One out of fifty drivers went out of their way to hit it. But just having a broken shell doesn't kill a turtle and they may crawl off to die of infection or shock.

There is now an alarming decline in the number of tortoises and frogs. There is a corresponding increase in the number of people. It all makes me terribly sad.

Maybe some sunshine and summer shirts will improve my mood!

An offbeat salute to Mother's Day

I clipped this cartoon from the newspaper many years ago because it made me laugh. Dick Guindon's cartoons appeared regularly in the Minneapolis Star Tribune until he retired in 2005. I still miss them.

The end of the story

Last spring, I posted about the widower Canadian goose who faithfully returned to the spot where his mate was killed by a car seven years ago.  This morning, I drove past that spot and saw he was lying dead beside the road near where she died.

There's really nothing uplifting that can be said about it except that millions of new little Canadian geese are being hatched at this time of year. It's still the sad ending to a sad story.

                     (Rock on, all you lovely geese parents!)

Feeding Baby Birds

I had my first four-hour shift in the Avian Nursery last night at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The nursery is in a large, very warm room lined with incubators for the smallest baby birds that are coming in every day.

In one of the artificial nests are four tiny house finches who were brought into the center last week. A family had been cleaning their yard and took down a Christmas wreath and threw it into a bonfire. Only then did they see that a mother bird had built a nest in it with the four baby birds. They were quickly rescued and brought into the center. If their enthusiastic cheeps and appetites are any indication, they will do very well.

They are kept in an incubator inside a plastic box half the size of a shoe box. Inside the box is a hand-knitted nest and inside that nest is very soft bathroom tissue rolled into a cone into which the birds are nestled. They are fed a special formula with a syringe every 15 minutes from morning until night.  The older birds are fed every half hour. When they are ready to fledge, they're moved to large outdoor cages before they're released.

The Avian Nursery is only 10% filled now, but in the coming weeks, it will be filled to capacity as more and more little birds are orphaned and abandoned--or mistakenly believed to be.

                                   (Beautiful, they ain't!)