Posts Tagged ‘make it do’

One sure and simple pleasure in life comes from watching and listening to backyard birds.

When we first moved to our home 7 years ago, there was nary a bird in sight.  There just weren’t trees to provide safety and places to nest in our brand new subdivision.  The lack of birdsong broke my heart and was something I missed most about our old home.

But as our neighborhood has filled in with houses and trees, the birds have finally come to live and stay.

Last year a large family of quail visited our backyard for several weeks, and I am finally hearing the lovely and sorrowful call of Mourning Doves.

In addition to providing suet, seed and hummingbird feeders, the other thing I do for the birds is providing nesting material.

It may seem a bit like littering, but I put out small pieces of wool yarn or unbleached cotton muslin in the shrubs or trees.  The birds are sure to find them and carrying them home to line their nest.  I simply tear apart 4″ – 6″ x 1/2″ sections of muslin or cut 6″ pieces of yarn, then spread them around the yard.  If you don’t like the idea of spreading it around, you can put the pieces in a suet cage, which costs a couple of dollars from the hardware store.  Then hang the cage in a tree.  Just make sure you are putting out only natural fibers.

Other great things to put out for nesting material is dog or horse hair and even hair from your hair brush.  Talk about “Reusing and Recycling.”

I love to think of my soft little gifts lining a nest and keeping a baby bird warm.

It doesn’t take much to invite the birds to come and stay in your backyard, and you’re sure to be repaid with their lovely song.

Learning to produce our own food is essential if we are to ever truly take control of our own lives.  It liberates us from the role of passive consumer, remote from real decisions, alienated from nature. -Primal Seeds

This past weekend, we were finally able to plant our vegetable garden.  Our whole garden is usually planted  no later than May 15 most years.  But the weather this Spring has been unseasonably cool.  More than a few neighbors planted their vegetables, only to have them wiped out by a killing frost.

Ever year as we plant our vegetables, I am struck by what an act of faith it is.  The plants seem so small and helpless in the big space of earth around them.  It’s hard to imagine that they could ever amount to much.

But year after year, most of them surprise me, and provide our family with an abundance of delicious things to eat.  I can almost just taste those garden tomatoes now.