Little Creatures

[JanetMarie]

There were no acorns or black walnuts here last year. I'm assuming it's because of the drought. I had some acorns from white oak trees stored in my freezer for around six years. Since the snow is starting to melt here, I am now able to walk through it without it going into my boots, so I walked to where I could put the acorns out for the wildlife. The acorns have an aroma of a freezer, so I'll be interested to see if the animals still eat them.

 

[JanetMarie]

The animals ate all of the acorns. I probably put out at least 5 pounds that I had saved. I hope there's some this year, then I'll save more.

I recently purchased a woodpecker blend of bird food that has roasted whole cashews, pecans, almonds, peanuts, along with BOSS, cracked corn, and some other things. One thing I look for in the ingredients is NO added flavoring or coloring in bird seed blend. This one does not have any.

All of the birds love it! It looks and smells yummy to me too.

 

[JanetMarie]

if you don't move them far enough they will come back.

yes, i've read that it's not a great idea either. i much prefer what we are doing now (just ignore them and learn to work around them).

for the price of an electric fence we can eat a liftetime supply of sweet corn bought at the store. we just don't eat it that often where it matters much to me that we can't grow it here. i may change my mind in the future if i move or decide to do things differently here... until then, tally ho, it's just life as usual.

I prefer to work with wild animals over fencing everything in, but if we didn't there would be no garden at all, and no poultry! The previous home owners gave up growing a garden and said the animals will win.


Corn takes so much room to grow. Some years we grow some, because it's so good homegrown. Some organic vegetables are cheaper at the store, but some things cannot be found organically, such as jalapeno peppers! Also, good tasting heirloom tomatoes! I haven't purchased a tomato at a store in years. They taste yucky.

 

[JanetMarie]

There are two painted turtles in our large pond! An adult sized one, and a baby one. The larger one I noticed two days ago, and at first went under the water when he saw me see him. Now he doesn't hide from me. The baby one I noticed yesterday and hides from me.

I was down the hill planting tomato and pepper plants in the overflow garden, when a small toad came out to the area where I was planting. I put a toad house there for him.

 

[farmerjan]

I know that snapping turtles have a place. But that said, when I was a kid we would go out in the boat on my grandmother's pond and the snapping turtles were as big as a wash tub and they devoured all the baby ducks that the mallards would hatch. They were destructive on the banks of the pond/lake... we called it a pond but it was about 4 acres in size. There were lots of painted turtles and some spotted ones although they were on the decline then. Also some mud turtles... We fished for sun fish (sunnies) and they would make their nests along the shallow parts of the shore... there were bass and pickerel in there too and when we were kids we also ice fished on the lake. Haven't had cold enough cold winters to freeze it safely in years.
There was a gourmet restaurant across the road, and one of the chef's had made turtle soup in his past. We caught one of the big turtles (dad helped as it could have taken off our hand/fingers) and they kept it in a big tub in clean water and changed it daily, feeding lettuce and other stuff, until the "muddiness" was cleaned out from his flesh... then they killed it and he cooked it.... I never got to try it though.
We would kill the snapping turtles because they were so destructive and there were so many in the lake. It was not safe to swim in the lake because there were so many. They also worked on the fish populations.
I have no use for them, but then I have no use for raccoons with all the destructive damage they have done to the chickens over the years. I never bothered much about the raccoons until they learned how to open hooks and eyes on the chickens and maimed and killed a pen full of young purebred show birds we were raising. It was heartbreaking to find half grown chicks with legs and wings torn off or mangled .... and not eaten. I don't begrudge an occasional meal, but they are destructive. Especially when I am doing my best to protect the chickens from marauders.

We used to encourage the painted turtles and such and set aside a part of the one cove for not disturbing the turtles and left some of the one tree that fell in there so they had places to come out and sun themselves and places to hide in the water and branches underneath.

Memories of youth.... had a box turtle that used to come and lay eggs at a friends house every year... saw a few of the little ones after they hatched... they were SOOOO little. Seldom ever see a young one, and I try my darndest to stop and move them off the road so they don't get squished....

 

[JanetMarie]

There were Carolina Wren parents that have their nest in the chicken shed. The babies left yesterday. I didn't take a picture of them so they were disturbed as little as possible. So just took a picture of the empty nest.

There was an unhatched egg left behind.

 

[JanetMarie]

I'm still making the homemade suet. Out of grass-fed beef suet, or lamb fat, organic peanuts, and organic raisins. The birds are loving them. I put much less raisins than before, and cut them up.

While I was reading about rendering suet, I came across an article about using suet on the face, and it has to be grass-fed to be beneficial. So, I started using it, and love it! I won't go back to using store bought face cream.

If I find the article again, I'll post it.

 

[JanetMarie]

I feel that I need to add that this post is not about discussing our current situation, because the quarantining of the ant in relation to people is talked about at the end, but about the ant who was separated from his/her colony and the anxiety it felt, and the reunion.

 

[CrealCritter]

we are finally winding down from the worst winter cold, snow and ice that Texas has had in 100 years. We have been Blessed by not losing power or having our water pipes freeze up and burst. It has been a LOT of extra work. Water tanks and buckets are frozen every morning, been hauling boiling water to melt ice, carrying a bucket in each hand, slogging through the snow. That and machete chopping the ice, has provided the animals with water. Been giving extra feed to all the animals, ewes have been lambing and we have two bottle lambs in the house. This has been very hard on us and everyone. Two ice storms and 3 snows totaling 10" of snow!

So to the subject of the little creatures. We did not forget God's little creatures. Right before the storm, we bought three 40 pound bags of birdseed. We have a birdfeeder and during the winter, we feed a lot of birds. In a week's time we have fed 80 pounds of birdseed and am now on the 3rd bag. Poor birds are starving, there is no food for them, it is all covered by snow. I observed birds out in the yard, gathering. I went to investigate and they were working over a weed patch that had seeds, they had actually scratched away the snow to feast on the weed seeds. So I put birdseed there too. My husband mixes birdseed with peanut butter for the extra fat and energy they need. Hoping we can get out on Sunday or Monday, we need more birdseed!

Bay you guys (You and Your Husband) are examples for us all.

 

[CLSranch]

We are not purposefully feeding the birds but I do wonder how much of our scratch they eat out of the chicken tractor. There are several in their before we open it up every day. We didn't freeze up but we did some how run out of water. The water tower ran out of water.????