As trite as it sounds, I try to slow down and enjoy the simple things around the holidays. We are starting to get some more seasonal weather, which means cold temperatures and occasional snow flurries. Once we get our first real snow cover I pull out my birdfeeder from beneath the shop-bench in the garage, fill it up and set it in a beech tree outside our kitchen window. No one in our family is a birder but it’s interesting to see how nearly everyone takes time to linger over their morning coffee or tea to watch the steady parade of chickadees, nuthatches, cardinals, and jays at the feeder. The feeder itself has some sentimental meaning as well. I bought it at an auction for the Arboriculture Society of Michigan meeting several years ago and it was handmade by Dan Kurkowski, longtime city forester for Detroit. Dan was a tireless tree advocate for the Motor city who passed away, much too young, six years ago but I always remember his passion for people and trees. And every time I set out the feeder he built I remember how he closed every e-mail with the line for the Lorax, “I speak for the trees for they have no tongues.”
I hope everyone enjoys a quiet and restful end of their holiday season.
What a lovely photo and lovely sentiments. Happy New Year to all.
Happy new year everybody.
I have put out my bird feeder. I like to put out suet in the winter. It attracts bug eating birds. I want them to know where I live and garden. The feeder also attracts hawks, who it as a buffet. I used to put it in the backyard, but once I got chickens, I started putting it out front. The hawks haven’t harmed my pretty chickens, but the hawks alarm and upset them.
Happy New Year! Like a local weatherman who predicted only 3″ last Friday but 6″ arrived instead said we got 3 free inches. Lots of hungry birds this year. I’m hoping I can match my record of 24 cardinals 12 each male & female at one of the feeders. So far only 12, 6 of each last week.