Pigeons: Two in the Bird Bath
Putting up a bird bath, and keeping it clean and full is one of the nicest things you can do for birds in summer. Pigeons take the plunge!
Read MoreDown By the River
I wouldn’t trade my swimming hole (Schoharie Creek) for a thousand pools with turquoise water. I’ll take the smell of river mud over chlorine any day.
Read MoreBirdsfoot Trefoil: What’s in a Name?
Birdsfoot trefoil. You probably see it on every summer’s day. It’s the froth of little yellow blossoms that line roadways and pop out of sidewalk cracks.
Read MoreOn the Banks of Plum Creek
I almost didn’t go to Plum Creek. I knew it was gone. I knew the creek as described in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic book must have been swamped by the tide of progress. There’d be a trickle of polluted water, a Wal-mart on one side, a used car dealership on the other, and a small rusty historical marker saying Laura Ingalls Wilder once lived near here. But we drove through the rain-drenched Minnesota farmland for miles, immense green fields and lonely farms. Then turned down a dirt track by a tidy, white-porched, deserted house. Put $5 in a small metal box on a post...
Read MoreBee Balm: Hummingbird Heaven
Hummingbirds are attracted to the color red. And bee balm is red. Red, red. Fire engine red. Bee balm is a member of the mint family, as can be seen by its squared-off stems and paired leaves; like most mints, it’s hardy, and spreads readily–pretty easy to grow. My kind of plant. It’s a native wildflower–at least it was originally a wildflower, though I’ve never seen it growing in the wild–what I’ve got in my garden is a nursery-bred variety of the original wild plant. And it’s red. Blood red. Hummingbirds, which have keen color vision, are...
Read MoreCatnip: Cats Behaving Badly
Cataria nepeta. That’s some strong stuff, man. You don’t want to let your cat drive or operate power tools for several hours after a hit of this stuff. Catnip is a member of the mint family, bland and unobtrusive in the garden, with dull gray-purple flowers. Humans rarely notice it. But for some reason, giving a sprig of catnip to a cat is like handing a human an uncorked bottle of Jack Daniels. It seems to affect individual cats differently. Some cats are rowdy drunks, reeling around the house yowling and swinging from the chandelier. Others quietly collapse in a heap and sleep...
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