It must be autumn in the mountains. All the creatures seem to be stocking up on calories for the winter, or for a long migration to somewhere warmer. Either way, everybody is hungry.
The aspen saplings I planted (again) this spring did well all year… until the deer decided their tender bark was ready for harvesting. I’ve come to realize I can’t really grow any more trees on our property. Now when I buy new ones, I think of it as renting them for a season. In fact, whenever I’ve tried to grow something pretty or edible in the country, I’ve eventually had to face the fact that I was just stocking a smorgasbord for the wildlife.
Whole rows of lettuce and kale have vanished overnight. The flowers are delicately plucked from the flower beds - presumably savored as a delicacy by some nocturnal visitor. The squirrels dig up the root vegetables and any bulbs that I plant. Even the garlic disappears. We must have some rare Italian voles in the area. I can picture them cooking up a little scampi in their burrows, to go with the strawberry wine they made from my missing berries.
The birds eat the fruit off the trees. But not, of course, until it is perfectly ripened. When I lived in warmer climes, I had a peach tree, whose juicy, dripping-sweet fruit I prized over all the other goodies in my garden. And every year I tried to delay picking them until they were just right. It never worked. The sunny side of the peaches would ripen first, and the birds simply ate the ripe spots as soon as they developed. I was left with the pits, covered by a bit of shriveling, unripe peach fuzz, hanging like abandoned Christmas tree ornaments that weren’t worth putting away for next year.
Back in the mountains, I’m not growing peaches anymore. To keep the birds busy and entertained, I put out a couple of bird feeders. They are a very versatile way of fattening up the local critters. The nuthatches and grosbeaks love the feeder. As they fuss and argue over who gets the best seeds, a lot of the food ends up on the ground where the juncos, jays and sparrows are happy to eat their fill.
At night, a whole other crowd comes around, and I have to be ever more creative about putting the feeders out of reach. The raccoons are pretty adroit climbers. It took me a while to figure out how to hang a feeder that I could reach but they couldn’t. When I accomplished that, the raccoons left in a huff, and the skunks moved in. They can’t climb as well, but it’s not beneath them to Hoover up the seed that falls on the porch. And there’s the little anticipatory thrill of danger when I turn on the porch light to find my cat faced off with a skunk. Each feigns disinterest but is clearly ready for action. Blessedly, there hasn’t been much action.
Last night, however, the scrambling noises outside my bedroom sounded like something more than the usual scroungers. I turned on the light, opened the door, and found myself 18 inches from a rather large black bear, balanced on the porch railing, licking seeds out of what was left of the bird feeder.
He didn’t seem to be in a bad mood; in fact he probably appreciated that I had hung out a little bear piñata for him to snack on. But his claws were long, he was clearly in dining mode, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be invited for the main course. Fortunately, he was more interested in granola than white meat, for the moment. I made it safely back to bed, and the bear moved on. Perhaps this winter we’ll both have pleasant dreams about the night of the bird food buffet.
It must be autumn in the mountains. All the creatures seem to be stocking up on calories for the winter, or for a long migration to somewhere warmer. Either way, everybody is hungry.
The aspen saplings I planted (again) this spring did well all year… until the deer decided their tender bark was ready for harvesting. I’ve come to realize I can’t really grow any more trees on our property. Now when I buy new ones, I think of it as renting them for a season. In fact, whenever I’ve tried to grow something pretty or edible in the country, I’ve eventually had to face the fact that I was just stocking a smorgasbord for the wildlife.
Whole rows of lettuce and kale have vanished overnight. The flowers are delicately plucked from the flower beds - presumably savored as a delicacy by some nocturnal visitor. The squirrels dig up the root vegetables and any bulbs that I plant. Even the garlic disappears. We must have some rare Italian voles in the area. I can picture them cooking up a little scampi in their burrows, to go with the strawberry wine they made from my missing berries.
The birds eat the fruit off the trees. But not, of course, until it is perfectly ripened. When I lived in warmer climes, I had a peach tree, whose juicy, dripping-sweet fruit I prized over all the other goodies in my garden. And every year I tried to delay picking them until they were just right. It never worked. The sunny side of the peaches would ripen first, and the birds simply ate the ripe spots as soon as they developed. I was left with the pits, covered by a bit of shriveling, unripe peach fuzz, hanging like abandoned Christmas tree ornaments that weren’t worth putting away for next year.
Back in the mountains, I’m not growing peaches anymore. To keep the birds busy and entertained, I put out a couple of bird feeders. They are a very versatile way of fattening up the local critters. The nuthatches and grosbeaks love the feeder. As they fuss and argue over who gets the best seeds, a lot of the food ends up on the ground where the juncos, jays and sparrows are happy to eat their fill.
At night, a whole other crowd comes around, and I have to be ever more creative about putting the feeders out of reach. The raccoons are pretty adroit climbers. It took me a while to figure out how to hang a feeder that I could reach but they couldn’t. When I accomplished that, the raccoons left in a huff, and the skunks moved in. They can’t climb as well, but it’s not beneath them to Hoover up the seed that falls on the porch. And there’s the little anticipatory thrill of danger when I turn on the porch light to find my cat faced off with a skunk. Each feigns disinterest but is clearly ready for action. Blessedly, there hasn’t been much action.
Last night, however, the scrambling noises outside my bedroom sounded like something more than the usual scroungers. I turned on the light, opened the door, and found myself 18 inches from a rather large black bear, balanced on the porch railing, licking seeds out of what was left of the bird feeder.
He didn’t seem to be in a bad mood; in fact he probably appreciated that I had hung out a little bear piñata for him to snack on. But his claws were long, he was clearly in dining mode, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be invited for the main course. Fortunately, he was more interested in granola than white meat, for the moment. I made it safely back to bed, and the bear moved on. Perhaps this winter we’ll both have pleasant dreams about the night of the bird food buffet.