Posted on in Chickens

Bwaaak!!

chicken_lah_2028f

It’s almost September, National Chicken Month. I adore chickens. Put those two facts together, and I have the perfect opportunity to enlighten you with some chicken trivia.

  • Chickens are the most numerous bird species on the planet.
  • Wild chickens are still found in south Asia, where birders know them as Red Jungle Fowl. There is also a feral population in Hawaii and in other spots around the world. If you want to check “Jungle Fowl” off your life list, you must find one of these wild birds.
  • According to Red Bird Farms, the average American eats 80 pounds of chicken every year. (We prefer the skinless, boneless breast, but other cultures prefer dark meat. Much of our domestically produced dark meat is shipped to other countries.)

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping, Public gardens

Be a Garden Tourist

bellevuebg_lah_6629Where does a gardener want to go on vacation? Probably somewhere with a beautiful public garden or two.

I make a point of visiting Colorado’s inspiring public gardens. I’ve written about many of them already, and I’m always searching out new ones. There we can see plants adapted to our area and get new ideas for our own yards. Once there, I invariably start making notes, taking photos, and mentally redesigning my perennial border. It’s fun, but not exactly relaxing.

When I visit gardens in other parts of the country (or the world), it’s a totally different experience. Instead of relating everything back to my own landscape, I unwind and just enjoy the gardens for what they are.

(more…)

Posted on in Birds

An Anthropologist’s Take on Birders: Part 3

birding_venetucci_20090916_lah_0667This is the third and last part on how my daughter the anthropologist looks at birders. Don’t miss Part 1 or Part 2!

Taboos
The Code of Birding Ethics is essential reading for every birder. Some topics covered include the excessive playing of recorded bird sounds (or playing these recordings at all, in many places), disturbing nesting birds, trespassing, and other ways of being considerate to the birds and to one another.

birders_burntmillrd_20090905_lah_0126I’ve already mentioned clothing, but in general, wearing white is frowned upon. It scares many birds, thus annoying many birders. The same thing applies to loud noises. Most birders talk in hushed voices, at least while on the trail.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Green Gardening Tips, Soils

Feeding Your Lawn

lawn_uplandin_20090615_lah_3607The summer is heading for fall, and it’s time to fertilize lawns. Go to any garden center and you’ll see piles of name brand lawn fertilizer, complete with directions on the back. Just follow these simple steps and you’ll have a healthy, green, weed-free lawn.

What these manufacturers don’t take into account is that different parts of the country have different soils. What may be excellent advice for Pennsylvania or Maine may not work for Colorado. Unlike much of the north and east, the Front Range loses more water to evaporation than it gains in rainfall. Combine that with the native rock from which our soils are derived, and we typically have soils that are alkaline, high in phosphorus and potassium, and low in organic matter and nitrogen.

(more…)

Posted on in Bird Profiles, Birds

Caliope Hummingbirds

 

calliope-hummingbird_blkforest-co_lah_6692How can a bird be that tiny? And how can anything that tiny have that much stamina?

I’ve been sitting at my dining room table watching the Broad-tailed and Rufous Hummingbirds compete for the feeders hanging outside the window when I notice a third species, even smaller than the pugnacious Rufous male hogging the sugar water. It’s our annual visit of the Calliope Hummingbirds! With a length of only 3.25 inches, and a body weighing in at one tenth of an ounce, the Calliope is the smallest bird in the North American bird area. (more…)

Posted on in Conservation, Gardening, Veggies

Subscribe to Good Eating

264-wheelbarrow-of-veggies-closeup-nxMy daughter supports it in Idaho. My brother-in-law supports it near Denver. My friend supports it here in Colorado Springs—maybe it’s time I join the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement too.

Let’s say you’re eager to enjoy locally grown, organic produce but you don’t have the time or room for a garden (or you just hate yard work). Your first inclination is to head for the neighborhood farmer’s market. But there’s another option. You can buy a share in a farm.

This is how CSA works: one or more small, family farms grow a variety of produce. How much variety depends largely where they are and what will grow there. The growers estimate how much they’ll harvest over the season, and divide the yield into family-sized portions.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Veggies

Grasshoppers

grasshopper-on-dahlia_hudsongardens-littletonco_lah_9279

They’re chewing holes in my big, beautiful chard leaves, leaving tiny dark pellets of digested foliage to mark their conquests. They jump aside as I walk through the knee-high grass in our field. Until I moved to Colorado I had idea how plentiful grasshoppers are (we’re home to over a hundred different species!), or how much frustration they can cause a gardener.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Plant Profiles

Cupid’s Dart (Catananche caerulea)

catananche-caerulea-cupids-dart-xg-9aug05-lah-262rDescription

Cupid’s Dart comes to Colorado from Europe, where its historical role as an ingredient in love potions gave rise to its common name. Clumps of slender gray-green leaves grow about a foot tall and wide. Wiry stalks extend past the foliage, supporting a myriad of striking periwinkle-blue flower heads, each set off by papery bracts behind the petals. If left to mature, the two inch blooms turn into attractive seed heads that last all winter.

(more…)

Posted on in Bird Profiles, Birding Trips, Birds

Mountaintop Birds

mtevans-co_lah_4844nef

My husband and I aren’t the only ones who escape the heat by fleeing to high altitudes. A number of bird species do the same thing. Instead of migrating to the arctic, they head for the hills.

I was a first-year birder, a mere fledgling. Our local Audubon chapter was offering a trip to the high country. Of course I signed up. Surely there were amazing birds to be seen at such rarefied heights. I was expecting something new and exciting— a Williamson’s Sapsucker, perhaps, or one of the rosy-finches. Maybe we’d even spot a well-camouflaged ptarmigan!

We piled out of the cars at the top of the first pass, and I raised my binoculars to scan the scattered patches of melting snow and dwarfed willows. There! What as that moving in that patch of wildflowers? It’s a… it’s a… robin? I came all the way up here to see a robin? I have plenty of robins in my yard, munching on my gooseberries and chokecherries!

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Public gardens

Cool Wildflowers

alpine-paintbrush_mtevans-co_lah_4409We’re in the middle of summer, that season I’ve waited for all year. All those December dreams of dahlias, March musings of marigolds—and now it’s too hot to go outside! A friend and I have been planning, then delaying, a trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens for several weeks, hoping for a cooler day that will allow for a more enjoyable visit and better photos. Meanwhile, what’s a sweaty flower lover to do?

Head for the hills!

(more…)