First House Finch Song – 2010

Time for this year’s “first house finch mating song” report!

Every year I record when I hear the first FULL house finch mating song. Often I may hear them warming up on their songs even earlier with little snippets. But to make my study more scientific (ha!), I committed to only counting the day that I hear the first full song. So this year, when I stepped out of the front door on Jan 16 and heard just the end of a song, I was hopeful. But the little guy didn’t cooperate and I didn’t hear a full rendition afterwards. So, instead, this year I have to go with ….. (drum roll)…. Jan 19!

This is a bit late compared to previous years, but we’ve experienced some sustained cold temps. My best guess is that that would account for the extra few days.

Here are my results from the past few years:

2009: Jan 12

2008: Jan 8

2007: Jan 15

2006: Jan 15

2005: Jan 23

 

The Annual Cleaning of the Sewing Room

After the holiday rush is a great time to hunker down and try to bring some semblance of order to my sewing room. One of my “rules,” which keeps me somewhat under control when it comes to buying fabric, is that I must physically handle each piece of my fabric at least once a year. And it is amazing that for quite a bit of the fabric in my stash, that ends up being only when I’m doing my annual cleaning! However, another good reason to do the cleaning at this time of year is to make room for any fabric I’ve been buying in the great year-end sales (I admit that I have seven more yards coming in the mail over the next several days and that I recently purchased many yards at my local fabric shop).

 

The Toilet Post

I am calling this THE toilet post as I’m assuming I’ll never have another reason to write a post about our toilet! (Who knows though…I’m actually a bit surprised to have reason to write THIS one.)

We live in a fairly old house and really had no idea how old our toilet was, but we knew it was the same one that was here when we moved in in 1992. It wasn’t until 1996 that requirements changed so that all new toilets had to be “low flush,” a.k.a. 1.6 gallons or fewer per flush. Recent investigation using numbers in the tank of the toilet revealed it to be a 1978 model, using 3.5 gallons per flush.

We did the “brick in the tank” thing, but we actually used a paver which then started to slowly disintegrate, leaving red debris in the bottom of the tank and interfering with seals, etc. We replaced it with a couple of water bottles filled with rocks, to keep the bottles from floating.

 

Winter Birds, Part 2

I received a recent reminder of another part of the winter bird life around my house. We have feeders that attract house finches, house sparrows, chickadees, and other songbirds who love to eat seeds. And so, on occasion, we attract sharp-shinned hawks who love to eat house finches, house sparrows, chickadees, and other songbirds. I’ve never seen one be quite so obvious about its purpose before though! (Note, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the sharp-shinned and the Cooper’s hawk. The size of this one, approximately 12 or 13 inches from top to tail, and its tail shape have me leaning towards sharp-shinned, but I’m open to other opinions!)

 

Winter Birds

We’ve moved into the winter bird time of the year. The house finch that might have been easily overlooked in the crowds at my feeder in the summer becomes a superstar when he stops by in December or January. I’ll sit and watch him until he leaves, maybe even retrieve the binoculars for a closer look (I always feel that house finches get an ego boost if they see me watching them through my binoculars – “Look guys! She’s ‘watching’ me!” If I really want to boost them, I’ll get one of my bird guides and read the bird’s description).

Some species only show up at this time of year (or perhaps they were here in summer, but I them more easily now?). The juncos have started scouring under my backyard feeder (my favorite is the “Oregon form” with his dark hood that reminds me of an executioner), and a Townsend’s solitaire was quietly eating berries in the big juniper tree this week. And every winter I keep an eye out for a flock of cedar waxwings, in case they show up in the juniper too. A special treat was the pair of white-crowned sparrows that showed up last winter to forage in the mulch (see photo).

 

Winter Interest

“Winter Interest” has become something of a cliche in the gardening world. Whenever I mention it to my husband, he makes a funny face and says something like “well….that certainly is….umm….interesting!” And I see what he’s getting at. We often use the word “interesting” to avoid delivering our true opinion (“My! What an…interesting scent you are wearing”). But on the other hand, my standards for what is attractive in my garden definitely relax a bit in the winter. Sometimes “interesting” (no matter how it’s meant) is good enough.

Many gardeners go on the big fall cleanup binge in October, leaving nothing behind but an empty, smooth brown and tan landscape. I’ve seen some homeowners treat their outdoor landscape like a big carpet, vacuuming and removing every trace of anything beyond the layer of dormant grass or mulch. For me, there is nothing bleaker than to look out a window on a winter day and see nothing in my garden. Here are some ways I’ve tried to bring something to look at (okay, “interest”) to my winter garden.

 

November Bloomers and Other Garden Surprises

I was walking past my front porch a few days ago when a tiny bit of orange made me stop in my tracks. My orange globe mallow (Sphaeralcea munroana) had two little blooms on it!! In NOVEMBER!! I grabbed my camera and took the photo at the left. If you recall, I’ve already sung this particular plant’s praises on this blog (“Meet the Natives,” on June 9, 2009), marveling at its long bloom season. Well, I never expected to see it blooming now. (As I snapped this photo, I noticed there are a few more buds on the plant.)

In past Novembers, twice I’ve been surprised to see a ‘Tanager’ gazania blooming until nearly the end of November on the south side of my house along the driveway where it is hot and dry. By then, the shade line of my neighbor’s house puts that part of my garden in complete shade until the following April.

I just love surprises in my garden. We serious gardeners can get pretty near-sighted, paying close attention and giving the most effort to the new plants we’ve put in or hovering over particularly prized specimens. So there is just something so sweet about being caught off guard by something wonderfully unexpected – something that happens without any effort or attention on our part!

 

It’s Superhero Cape Season

It’s late fall, there’s not so much to do in the garden anymore, and a girl’s fancy turns to…sewing superhero capes?

Once upon a time many years ago, I looked out my front door in the afternoon as the kids from the school up the street were walking home. At that moment, a boy of about seven or eight years old strutted past my house looking extremely pleased with himself. He was pulling his pack on wheels behind him while his chest was puffed out and his superhero cape fluttered behind him. I was struck by how happy and confident this little guy looked, and a thought immediately popped into my head, “Every kid should have a superhero cape!”

 

Bulb Battle with the Squirrels – Part 2

Last year, I put several hundred bulbs into our new buffalo grass lawn, only to have the squirrels feast on many of them. I’d not had too much trouble with squirrels eating my bulbs in the past, and I always attributed that to the fact that I have soil that is pretty heavy, more to the clay side. Digging in my soil is a bit more of a chore for them than in someone else’s sandy soil. This was my rationale for not taking any defensive action (repellent, barrier, etc) with the bulbs in the lawn. Sigh…I think the high volume in such a small area of recently amended lighter soil turned out to be just too tempting for them. Plus, after planting the bulbs, we didn’t receive any snow to cover the ground for months. So the squirrels had an easy time detecting the newly dug holes and had many months over which to “harvest.” (See the many squirrel-dug holes in the photo.)

So….

 

Red Peppers – Finally!

Years ago, I gave up trying to grow peppers in my garden – all types: jalapeno, green bell, small specialty bell, etc. The plants always stayed tiny and yielded very few peppers by the end of the season. Other gardeners told me that peppers just didn’t thrive in the Colorado Springs area because our season was too short and our nights too cool. Just down the road in Pueblo (home of a fantastic pepper festival in September), peppers grow terrifically well. So, just buy your peppers from the farmer’s market, they told me.

Then last year, Catherine Moravec (then Horticultural Agent for Colorado State Extension in El Paso County) gave a presentation on veggie varieties she’d had particular success with last summer. She grew alot of purple – purple beans, purple squash, purple carrots….somehow she missed the bright purple cauliflower I saw in this year’s catalogs. But then she got to the Carmen pepper. It’s a specialty sweet pepper with a short season and tolerance for cooler growing conditions. “If you want peppers in Colorado Springs, Carmen is a good one to try,” she recommended.