The Shepherdsville Times: Bluejays In The Garden
...We have a pair of resident bluejays, and when one of them sails in the lesser birds scatter. They are rather overbearing and bullying, but they serve a useful purpose to the smaller birds, and even small animals. Their loud and raucous alarm calls serve notice to everyone that there is something they consider dangerous in the area. Humans, hawks, owls, nest-robbing snakes, raccoons, cats and menacing-looking dogs are among their list of things that bear watching...
Jerry Selby reminds us of the things that are truly important in a well-lived life.
For more of his engaging words please click on The Shepherdsville Times in the menu on this page.
Bluejay on the tray feeder
In an Ice Storm a couple of years ago, one of the many unplanned prunings was a limb about four inches thick, and maybe four or five feet long, which fell from my big oak tree and speared itself in the ground, so deeply I wasn't able to pull it out by hand. So I sawed the top approximately horizontal, about waist high, nailed on a flat piece of plywood, and sprinkled birdseed on top.
That ad-hoc arrangement didn't work too well, but I have modified it from time to time, and now have a solidly mounted and substantial feeder, with side rails to keep seed from blowing off. Unique looks nice in a natural way, and the birds seem to love it.
I keep it supplied with oilseed sunflower seeds. We have a pair of resident bluejays, and when one of them sails in the lesser birds scatter. They are rather overbearing and bullying, but they serve a useful purpose to the smaller birds, and even small animals. Their loud and raucous alarm calls serve notice to everyone that there is something they consider dangerous in the area. Humans, hawks, owls, nest-robbing snakes, raccoons, cats and menacing-looking dogs are among their list of things that bear watching.
More often than not, they give out false alarms. But that's okay. When it's a matter of life or death, tornado alerts are worth acting on. They may be a nuisance, but better safe than sorry. Same with bluejays.
Milkweed
We have a milkweed vine, which has produced several pods this year. Growing on Jennie's Shrub, the large fragrant viburnum I planted on our beloved dog Jennie's grave.
Are you acquainted with milkweed vines? I wasn't until one grew out in our orchard several years ago. I found this stuff growing up through one of my neglected apple trees. Skinny little vine. Small leaves. Seed pods exactly the size and shape that grow on the weed with a sturdy stalk and large coarse leaves which is our common milkweed.
That wasn't too long after I had taken the course and became a certified Master Gardener, part of the first class in Boone County.
I should have known what a weed like that was, but I struck out. Sheepishly I took a pod and some of the leaves and stems in to ask Doug Akers, our County Agent, if he could identify it. He could.
Readily. It was a milkweed vine. I thought he was kidding, until he hauled out a reference book and showed me. Now, with my computer, something like that would be easy to identify. There are several varieties of the vines, I found out. But they aren't all that common, and they mostly grow on large shrubs or tall trees out in the woods, where you probably wouldn't notice unless you tripped over one.
Be careful what you wish for
We have all been wishing the hot weather would end. 93F is just not right for Indiana in October. So this past week our wish came true. The temperature dropped 40degrees in 48 hours. By Thursday morning it was 41F, Fifty degrees colder than it was Monday evening. With a 15mph wind from the west. Which is the way our house faces. I've been saving up all sorts of outdoor jobs, waiting for some clear, dry weather. But I didn't bargain for that wind. Sure glad I never took root out on the Great Plains.
Glad I'm not farming the way they did when farmers mostly used horse-drawn equipment. No matter how many layers of clothes you wore, picking corn by hand on a cold blustery day got a little wearing after the first hour or two. I had just enough of it when I was a teenager to remember. Looking back, I don't know how some of those old folks survived to a ripe old age. Men or women. Not many did.
Morrison's Feeds and Feeding
I was surprised to see this fine old reference book mentioned in a contemporary article online the other day. My copy, in a plain but sturdy no-nonsense cover, is the 21st Edition. It was published in 1949. The book has just over 2000 pages of tightly written text and tables. It covers just about all that was known about feeds and feed production, livestock, including not only their feeding but care, housing, and management.
It has been many years since I have had any need to read up on the fine points of calculating a fitting ration for bred sows, or calculate how much and what kind of hay will be needed to carry a dairy herd through the winter. But I enjoy looking through this old book once in a while, especially since many of the illustrations show the use of fine teams of horses and mules.
Professor Morrison began at the University of Wisconsin but spent much of his career at Cornell. His mentor and predecessor, Professor W. A. Henry, was head of the University of Wisconsin School of Agriculture. This was the leading text and reference book from the time it was first published in 1898 until long after I was out of Purdue. Some of its advice is outdated now, but it was the best of its time. And much of it is still valued and valuable today.
