Just can't stop talking about the birds

Saw our FOS warbling vireo today. After my initial post, the white-crowned sparrows and rose-breasted grosbeaks decided eat lunch at our platform feeder after all! We got great looks at them.

I forgot to add that we heard a wood thrush a few days back.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Great reading and still more birds

Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation is absolutely hilarious! I'm not that far into the book yet, but it's a voice and style that I aspire to. I wish my prose were as fluid and sharp a combination of self-deprecation and skewing other people. Perhaps, someday, with lots more practice, it will be. But she'll get to the Pulitzer Prize before I will.

Maybe that should have gone into my How I Create blog.

Saw another rose-breasted grosbeak today, but it never made it to the feeders. What did make it to the feeders, however, were our FOS white-crowned sparrows. 2 males as far as we could tell.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

More birds

More firsts of the season for us today: a rose-breasted grosbeak, and a ruby-throated hummingbird. An orchard oriole came within 15 feet of our dining room window. Beautiful!

(deleted griping)

I guess my spring fever crankiness is in full bloom.

My dear sister, who seems to sense my moods all the way from the west coast, sent me the funny Blog From Another Dimension link. That cheered me up somewhat.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

The birds!

No, it's neither Alfred Hitchcock's movie nor our farmyard friends.

We saw 2 male and 1 female orchard orioles today! Our firsts of the season. I also saw a white throated sparrow, which we don't get as often around here. Indigo buntings are hanging out around here more too (I saw my FOS a week or so ago). Even more exciting, we saw a yellow warbler a couple of days ago, and today, ds#1 saw a blue winged warbler, and I saw a common yellowthroat, all are also firsts of the season for us. So exciting!

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

And then there were two

It just wasn't working out with 2 ganders to one female, so today, we had to cull one of the males - thank you, Jami and Rob, for the use of the extra large pot!!

It was a lot of work...not really difficult like brain surgery is, but plucking and eviscerating was quite time-consuming, back-breaking, and smelly. Makes us really appreciate all the hard work that goes into a sanitized little package of styrofoamed meat in the supermarket. If most people had to kill their own meat at least once, they'd probably never complain about the price of meat at the store again!

Actually, that applies to every product out there...for example, if people had to make their own shirts, they'd never complain about having to pay a reasonable price for fair wages for factory workers who make the shirts. Somebody, or something, somewhere, is getting majorly screwed for all the dirt-cheap products we North Americans buy. Co-op America can tell you much more about that.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

How lucky I am

My sister has always maintained that I'm a lucky person. I've not ever had trouble finding a job or maintaining my weight, I married a terrific guy (who does lots more than the average husband does around the house), and I've led a fairly comfortable life overall.

Even though I don't believe in a god, sometimes I have to say the gods are smiling on me.

I thought of this as I watched the thunderstorm from the comfort of home after we ran around all morning in partially sunny weather. I hate to drive even on a nice day, so it was good to have a decent morning to drive around it.

Now I want to start singing "Pollyanna" a la Doris Day. ;>

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Another good read

There is a very good, and short, article on these folks in Pasadena who annually grow three tons of food in their suburban lot of one-fifth of an acre ! This is enough food to supply three-quarters of their 4-person family's diet, as well as to maintain a organic produce business.

Amazing! And most of us complain about not having enough land to grow veggies on - our lot back in town was .4 acres, larger than theirs.

The Dervaes also practice sustainable agriculture, using as little water as they can, not using pesticides, and avoiding GMO plants.

The full article was excerpted from the Ecology Action online newsletter. To tour the garden, if you're so lucky as to be in Pasadena, check their website Path To Freedom

If you want to see the shortened version, or the pretty photos in Natural Home and Garden Magazine, you can find the May/June 2006 issue at the library or ask me to borrow it!

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

A good article

Herald-Times actually had a well-written article today, and it rather resonates with me, especially after reading a similarly thoughtful article in the Spring issue of The Land Institute's newsletter which I may post to a webpage, so I decided to post it here.

Sustainability comes down to supply & demand
This guest column was written by Robert Bent, an Indiana University professor emeritus of physics and a member of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability.

The mission of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability is to promote a balance among the "3 E's" of sustainability: Economic vitality, environmental integrity, and social equity. To illustrate the complexity of this task, consider the interconnected problems of energy, food and population sustainability.

There is growing concern in all nations about the long-term sustainability of the energy-intensive lifestyle of the industrialized world, and moreover, whether the Earth can ever support this level of development for the majority of the world's people. This concern stems from the pressures of continuing growth in population and in energy use per capita on a finite planet.

The fundamental question is: how many people can the Earth support? From an energy point of view, this can be answered by dividing the total amount of energy available from all regions of the world and from all sources (fossil, biomass, hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, etc. ) by the average energy needed per capita for a "decent" quality of life. Assuming a level of energy use equal to the average of that in the developed world today, the maximum supportable world population turns out to be 4 billion. Current world population is 6.52 billion, and is expected to grow to 8 billion to 9 billion by mid-century.

We can also see that the world population is close to, or over, the sustainability limit by looking at world and local food needs and resources. Dividing the total arable land in the world by the amount of land needed per person for a diverse diet similar to that in Europe and the U.S. gives a population limit of 4.8 billion acres/1.23 acres per person = 3.9 billion. Similar calculations give (for food self-sufficiency) a population limit of 368 million for the United States, which will be reached in 33 years at the present growth rate of 0.99% per year, 12 million for the state of Indiana (twice the present population) and 50,000 for Monroe County (less than half the present population).

The finiteness of the Earth guarantees that there are ceilings on human numbers, and the above calculations show the serious possibility that the number of people on the Earth has reached, or will reach within half a century, the maximum number the Earth can support in modes of life that we and our children and their children will want. The struggle to stabilize world population at a level consistent with long-term sustainability will require a prolonged commitment perhaps greater than any ever made by any society in the history of humankind.

There are reasons for hope, including the growing public awareness of the seriousness of the problems. They are not insoluble: We are their cause and we are the ones who can stop causing them, and start solving them. The crucial question is whether the outlook is convulsive change forced upon us by nature's checks and balances, or change brought about by foresight and conscious choice.

To learn more about "sustainability," come to the commission-sponsored forum "Sustainability 101," which will be held on Monday, April 24, at 7 p.m. in the Monroe County Public Library Auditorium. Admission is free. An interpreter will be provided for the hearing-impaired. The forum will begin with a presentation by commission member Cairril Mills that introduces the concepts of sustainability, discusses the implications of unsustainable practices and explains sustainability's exciting implications for Bloomington.

This presentation will be followed by questions and comments from the audience with responses from three expert panelists: Keith Clay, IU Department of Biology; Christine Glaser, IUPUI Department of Economics; and Charlotte Zietlow, Economic Development Coordinator for Middle Way House Inc. For more information, see www.bloomington.in.gov/sustainable.


"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Got the potatoes in

All 15 pounds of them! Dh planted blue (ds #1's request), red (dh's preference), and Yukon gold (my favorite). Ds#2 doesn't like potatoes, but we make him eat it anyway. We don't coddle fussy eaters.

Dh squeezed in the planting between the storms we're supposed to have today. I'm sneaking out the laundry, hoping to get them dry before any more storms. In keeping with the current wacky spring weather, a tornado watch just came on.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

The peach tree too!

The peach tree, finally, after several years, is blooming beautifully, just like the plum. I think most of the trees in the orchard have a least a handful of blossoms. Oh please don't let there be a late frost!

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

A little of this, a little of that

Yesterday's 30 mph winds (that's, uh, what, 60 kph??) made our allergies go nuts. Our friend, Carol, suggested trying Allergena, a homeopathic aid. I'm off to get some since we prefer not to take conventional medicine unless absolutely necessary (for example, why take antibiotics when garlic works even better?).

My dear sister is home from her three-week trip abroad! I don't know who's happier, her or me?! She brings home with her well-travelled balsamic vinegar for ds#1. ;)

Just reading an article called Hot Retirement Tips from The Motley Fool website. They often have terrific advice, so I thought I'd share since financial savvy is not most North Americans' forté.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Wildflowers and other wild stuff

Wildflowers are blooming! We checked out the spring beauties, trout lillies, blood roots, cutleaf toothworts, dutchman's breeches, hepaticas, and more on a short walk with our neighbors on Sunday. What a beautiful time of year!

And the other wild thing refers to the strange site that details one guy's "$39 experiment". We don't buy many of the products he talks about in there, but it certainly is an interesting read regardless of what company you patronize.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Who wants a tub when one can have a pool?

The rebel geese have apparently discovered our neighbor's beautiful swimming pool. This we found out, to our utter embarrassment, when our neighbor called us yesterday.

We pride ourselves on being good, unobtrusive neighbors (no incessantly barking dogs, no late-night loud parties, kids aren't too obnoxious, etc.), so we are, of course, very annoyed at the geese. They are now under fence arrest whenever we're not outside. They'll be treated like the chickens, which we let out only when we're outside keeping an eye on them. The lesson, naturally, is lost on them, but it will keep our neighbors from being bothered at least.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Laundry on the Line

This was originally posted to Blogger on April 5th (when it was actually nice and warm enough to hang out laundry), but Blogger somehow mysteriously deleted it. It's a good thing I've been saving my entries separately.

-------------

I hung out my first load of laundry of the year...aaahhh, spring is here! It'll be good to give the old dryer a rest.

Improvements Catalog has a pretty nice 60-foot (sorry, I can't do the conversion to metric at 10:20pm) clothes line for $19.99. In fact, we have 2 of them!


"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

The Lone Plum Tree

Well, it's not quite alone, but sometimes, it seems like it might as well be.

Last year, it (a Shiro plum) bloomed its little heart out, with nary a blossom on its mate. Somehow, it got pollinated (we suspect wild plum trees lurked nearby that served as pollinators) and gave us some very tasty fruits. Unfortunately, raccoons, birds, and various 6 legged vermins "harvested" a bunch before we got to them.

This year, once again, it's blooming like a vision of beauty. And, amazingly, its mate also has a few blossoms on it so the bees, or whatever insect is doing the job, won't have to go as far.

Hopefully, the full-size fruit trees on the hilltop will prove more successful than the dwarf and semi-dwarf ones we have in the orchard and the original 5 acres.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Bug Motel

The rains brought in spider, cockroaches, and sow bugs galore. I'm tired of catching them and tossing them out the window, so now that we have power back, they'd best beware my vacuum. Sorry, critters!

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

18 hours without power

We might as well have had a tornado with the force of the storm that blew through. Luckily, no major damages has been found on our property (yet). The critters don't seem any worse for wear.

I think this was the longest we'd been without electricity. I'm just very grateful that, unlike at dh's dad's house, our water and stove are not dependent on electricity.

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Organizing is not just for flies

Many of the posts I've read in various places recommended The Fly Lady for cleaning and organizing. I've gone to her website to peruse, but didn't like the layout nor was impressed with the content of the site. Still, determined to keep an open mind, I borrowed her book, Sink Reflections, from the library. I read it and came to the realization that her style really does not mesh with mine. If that's the case, there must be other souls who don't like her style either.

For those who want something different, I recommend several other resources: Get Organized Now, The Clean Team, and The Clean Report. The Clean Report was started by Don Aslett who has written many very readable, and humorous, tomes on the topic of cleaning, among which is Is There Life After Housework?

Of course, if you want a major overhaul of your life, simplifying it as a holistic process rather than just applying a quick fix or bandage, then I highly recommend The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs and, to some extent, her website Simple Living dot com. Another terrific resource is The Simple Living Network, spawned from the classic book Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.


"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)