Why I Oughta...

I read this story in Country Living about some garden trends that they see emerging in 2019 and one of the items on their list caught my attention:  gabion-style walls. What the what?  I had never heard of those.  A quick search around the Web and I realized that while I had not heard the term "gabion-style walls", I've come across them.  And likely, so have you.   But just didn't know that's what they were called.  From the Country Living piece : See that metal cage holding the material in/together?  That's the defining characteristic.  More... From Gardenista : Derived from an old Italian word, gabbione, meaning “big cage,” gabions are enclosures that can be filled with any sort of inorganic material: rock, brick, or concrete debris. The cages were originally wicker, but now are usually a welded mesh made of sturdy galvanized, coated, or stainless steel wire that won’t bend when filled with rocks. In landscaping, gabion walls can support an ear

This was a gift from a friend at work. And, as Nat pointed out:  "she knows me". Why is the carpet all wet, Todd?

With the hardest part of Winter here for us humans, I am trying to find things to make us a little bit happier during the dark, cold, wet days of January.  And one of those ways is dealing with our feeders for the birds and the squirrels.  In an attempt to keep the squirrels off of and away from our feeders, I'm trying to enhance our offering.  Those of you following along at home might remember that earlier this Summer, we added a 'Squirrel Bungee' feeder . Now we're going further:  feeding them in neat little piles along the top of our fence - which is where they seem to run along all day. This ten pound back of cracked corn was just a little over $10 on Amazon and is, I hope, just the ticket to keeping our squirrels and ground-feeding birds happy for the rest of the Winter. And it gives me something to do with the boy every once in a while.  So that's nice, too.

One of my teammates gifted me this bar of pizza soap.  Two things I like about this: 1.  It is soap that smells like pizza. 2.  It is bar soap. That is all.

I've already added both the female and male Cardinal to the bird visitor log , but on a recent morning, I spotted quite a few Cardinals milling around.  Mix of males and females.  The photo above is using zoom, so it isn't perfectly clear, so I went ahead and circled the birds.  Eight of them.  And a squirrel (in the red box) munching on some Winter treats.  Way, way better than the normal lot of House Sparrows that we get at our feeders most of the Winter. 

Still no bloom .  But, plenty of progress as the bud is opening up and beginning to show how many flowers it is going to show off this January.  This went into a pot in Mid-November, so we're now sitting at seven weeks of growth.  Two or so in November.  Four in December.  And almost one in January this year.  This is the second year that I've bought the bulb at Wannemaker's annual Christmas Open House and I'm sitting at 50/50 in terms of timing it right for a Christmas bloom.  My instincts (largely based on this year) is that I should start these earlier - mostly so they'll be ready for the Babe's annual Birthday party - which takes place about a week before Christmas.  But, there isn't enough data.  One bulb:  six weeks to full bloom.  This bulb?  Likely eight weeks or more.  Year three will, I suppose, tilt the operation one way or the other once we see how long that one takes to bloom. 

The last time I added an entry to the [backyard bird visitor log] was back in April when I documented the American Goldfinch.  Today, I'm adding the Northern Flicker to the list.  You'll have to trust me because I didn't have my phone on me when I was watching the feeders, but due to the yellow feathers and the huge size of this bird, I'm confirming a Northern Flicker.  I recognize that this isn't quite how it supposed to work but ever since Nat gave me a pair of binoculars as a gift last year, my bird viewing has improved, but my camera skills have remained flat.  So, I'm seeing *more*, but not necessarily photographing *more*. This is the second woodpecker that we've added to the visitor log - the first of which was the Red-Bellied Woodpecker . Full [ bird feeder visitor log ] set of seven entries here on the blog: This Northern Flicker. Not in our backyard, but up in Wisconsin - this pair of Scarlet Tanagers A series of American Goldfinches A