Smell Like Dirt
In Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Margaret AtwoodA Three-fer
A short Down and Dirty tip on how to make your freezer more efficient, save energy and plan for natural disasters….all by doing one simple thing. And as we enter hurricane and tornado season, I think this tip is pretty timely as well.
Water!
After a long dry spell (pun intended), we’re back with a video about water.
Of the four elements of a wildlife habitat: Food, water, shelter and places to raise young, I think water is the most important. EVERYTHING needs water and being creative in providing water for wildlife can lead to hours of enjoyment watching the birds and other wildlife in your backyard.
If you have some creative ways you are providing water in your habitat, please let us know by sending pictures or videos.
Last Composting/Wildlife Gardening Class until the Fall
I’m teaching my last composting and wildlife gardening class until Sept 09 this Saturday, May 9 at the Charlotte Nature Museum (1658 Sterling Rd, Charlotte, NC – (704) 372-6261). This class is sponsored by Mecklenburg County and attendees get a wire compost bin and a book about composting and sustainable gardening practices. Its an interactive class style and I use a lot of pics and short video clips that I take for Smell Like Dirt in my presentation. We’ll discuss using worms for composting kitchen scraps too!
If you want to attend, you must call the Nature Museum directly to register. I hope you will join us! Click here for more information
Pheno-What?
You probably know about The Feederwatch Program at Cornell, right? Its a program that allows birders of all skills levels—beginners, experts and everyone in between–become Citizen Scientists by recording their bird sightings around the country to help scientists track population levels, spread of diseases, etc. As a birder, its a great tool for tracking when migrations will start or end so you know when should you visit a certain area of the country for peak birdwatching or what birds you are likely to see when you go to another state, etc. As a Gardener, I would love to have a site where I could go and research, for example, when should I plan my trip to Georgia to see the most azaleas in bloom. Or when is the average “peak” date for the Rhododendrons blooming in the mountains of the Carolinas. Well, Happy Birthday to Me! now there is such a site. The USA National Phenology Network is dedicated to, well, Phenology which (according to the site) “is the study of recurring plant and animal life cycle events, such as leafing and flowering of plants, maturation of agricultural crops, emergence of insects, and migration of birds.”
And they are asking for us to help them by reporting when the Dogwoods are blooming our gardens or when you picked your first tomato, basic “gardening journal” stuff that you’ve been doing for years. And if you’ve kept your journals, you can go back as far as you have records and upload the information. You can even help them track Monarch Butterfly migration. Once we all start reporting our observations, the Powers That Be can take our information and compile it with information from others to paint a very accurate picture of what we can expect blooming (or not) around the country. Its very easy to sign up and they need help in every corner of the country. Every gardener already pays attention to what’s blooming and fruiting anyway, but now you have a place to record it for people who are really interested in what you are seeing. You can be a part of the BIG picture!
Creating a Wildlife Habitat Series
If you live near Charlotte, come and join us for a two part series on Creating a Wildlife Habitat. On Tuesday, March 3 at 7pm. I will be presenting how to provide the four critical elements needed for a Wildlife Habitat (food, water, shelter, places to raise young), planting with natives, lawn and chemical reduction as well as soil and water conservation. The meeting is free and open to everyone. On April 7, Landscape Designer and Habitat Steward, Mary Bures, will be teaching how to design a landscape that is wildlife friendly. The meeting is sponsored by Habitat and Wildlife Keepers (HAWK), a chapter of the NC Wildlife Federation. The meeting takes place at the Matthews Community Center and is free and open to everyone. Hope you will join us! For more info, click here
Bluebirds!!
Its that time of year! The bluebirds are starting to shop for a nice home in which to raise their families this year and if you want to ensure that they pick YOUR backyard, mealworms are the ticket! Of course, you still need to make sure you are providing them with a quality home that meets all their specifications. If you live in the Charlotte, NC region, my favorite birdstore is Backyard Wild in Matthews and they offer an assortment of official bluebird houses to meet all budget types. They have a great house that will open up on one side so you can monitor the progress of the babies! If you start offering mealworms now, you increase your chances of scoring a bluebird family this spring and you can train the bluebirds to come when you whistle. If you really want to impress your friends, you can teach them to eat out of your hand. This takes time and patience, but wouldn’t that be great? Here’s our video on bluebirds to inspire you to go out and get a good birdhouse and some mealworms!
Birding with Binoculars
Just in time for the Great Backyard Bird Count, here’s a Quick Tip to help you find those birds using binoculars. The GBBC is a great way to practice your birding skills while helping ornithologists track birding populations, migration patterns, etc. The Bird Count starts Friday the 13th and goes thru Monday the 16th. You can do it everyday or just one day. All day, or just 15 minutes…whatever your schedule will allow. You can count alone in your backyard or at a park with friends. No matter what you decide, come on out and join us as we count birds across the country and practice using those binoculars!
Put all your egg(shells) in one basket!
Another Down & Dirty tip using eggshells to feed the birds. Eggshells are high in calcium and if you put them out for your birds to eat, it will give them “strong teeth and bones” as the saying goes, but will also give them the nutrients they need to lay strong eggs this spring. So start putting those eggshells to work instead of putting them in the trash.
The R’s
Back in the day, it used to be there were just Three R’s—Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. And then they started adding more: Repurpose, Repair, Refuse, etc. Not sure how many we are up to now, but let’s pause at repurpose for just a second. Don’t you just love taking something that was intended for one thing and totally rethinking it and using it for something else? It doesn’t have to be a big thing, even. Take toilet paper rolls for example. Little bitty things I used to put in the recycling bin if the dogs didn’t eat them first. Well, here’s another use for them that will help make your life a little better, I hope. Enjoy the second installment of SLD’s Down and Dirty Quick Tip. Special appearance by Buddy Foster—Debbie’s bird.
Rufous Hummingbird
Last week I had the rare privilege of observing the banding of a Rufous Hummingbird, in the dead of winter, here in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Although still rare here, I had heard of sightings of this type of hummingbird in past wiinters. They breed in Southern Alaska, Western Canada and Western US, and overwinter in Mexico, but recently, they have shown up in the mid-Atlantic region. So when I saw him in my yard, I knew what it meant and called Bill Hilton, Jr. Executive Director, Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History and Operation Ruby Throat to invite him to come and band him Bill has banded over 5,000 hummingbirds but this was my first time watching the process and it was a great experience. If you ever have a chance to participate in one, I encourage you to do so. It was hard condensing 90 minutes of tape down to less than 6 without leaving out a lot of the “good parts”, but I hope you enjoy it.
Bluebird boxes for any budget! $19.95-$56.95. Mealworm feeder for $9.95 and 10% off when you buy a bluebird house, pole and tray feeder. Added bonus: Mention you saw it on Smell Like Dirt and receive 100 mealworms free!
