Image via WikipediaThis year, the weather has generally, been kind to us. Not a lot of high temp days and lots of rain to keep the temp down. Humidity, that is a first cousin to the rain however, is the beast and no amount of air conditioning will relieve us of that. The weatherman says two to three days of pleasantly warm, dry, sunny weather ahead. Great, but he claimed that for Saturday also, and we had storms and hail. You don't gamble on the weatherman and you don't out guess Mother, as she revels in unpredictability.
It's early, 5:30 am. I sit at the kitchen table, going over my list for the week...what to take out for supper, what to do with the apples from the storm damage, where to move the roses and what needs to be painted, washed and weeded. One of the birdfeeders is just outside the kitchen door. We generally stop feeding the birds in the summer but just on a whim, I bought some suet cakes and thistle seed bags and hung them up on the feeder. Now I'm watching yellow and purple finches, woodpeckers and a beautiful young cardinal. But isn't that the reason we feed them? To watch them, check out their beautiful plumage and to draw many different birds all to one area. We feel like we're helping out a small defenseless creature. In truth though, they'd survive as a species longer than us. In fact they already have. New studies have shown that birds are true dinosaurs, genetically changed to new habitat, but still dinosaurs. When they are x-rayed when young, the x-rays show a tail. The tail is eventually absorbed into the tail feather section by a gene that stops it's growth. Birds have also been born with teeth. Ewwww! Birds survived the catclysm that killed most of their brethren and went on to populate the new world. Somehow, even without our help, they'll survive just fine and will continue to outlast other species. Check out the video link below...
60 Minutes: Into the Wild, Part 3 Video
The bird feeder is great though but keeping it in use for birds in the summer comes with different problems, It could become a feline feeding station or could host a breakfast or late night snack for possum, skunks, rabbits and bear, none of which I want to see in my yard. They don't usually play by the rules and generally have a bad attitude to being told otherwise. I love my cats but they can take a toll on the bird population. This morning I had to save a young robin from our calico. The bird is now in a box that may allow him to de-stress enough to get his act back together and fly away. I hear him complaining and that's a very good sign. When the kids were young, they and their friends would bring hurt birds for me to 'fix'. Some made it and some did not. I tried to help with each one.
Next to the house is a tall arbor vitae. Birds love these trees and bushes in the summer and in the winter. It's important to have protection for them near the feeder, a 'safe haven' for them to fly to when a predator is near. The arbor vitaes are perfect for this. They give cool shade in the summer and dense coverage in the winter. They are periodically covered with seeds/fruit and aren't easy for cats to climb. To us, they look nice, make great living walls, dampen sound and nosy neighbors, and the boughs or clippings make great wreath and table trimmings for the holidays. Some are trees and some are bushes. They grow in shade or in sun. Last year we put in a long hedge of arbor vitae that will eventually reach 30 feet, along the east side of the property as a privacy and sound screen. Though it will take some time, this planting will reward us for years and years and will be home to many. I plan and plant with our animal guests in mind. Food, shelter and safety. They all have their place here, from the lowly snake to the lofty red tailed hawks, or the night cruising owls. A small sampling of each makes for a healthy balance.
I quit my reverie and added more to my list:
- Finish mowing the lawn,
- Run to the local grocery store,
- Call the DOT about the blasting just north of us.....
At that I quit and head to the phone. Construction on the new highway just north of us has encountered a bit of a problem....lots of rock....big ones, so a blasting company has been hired to come in to break it up. The blaster's rep showed up two weeks ago to inform us of the blasting and that they were going to set up a seismometer in our yard for monitoring. Great. The blasting is due to happen later today and they still haven't shown up so that is what my call will be about. In the interim, I was busy. I took pictures of everything where a stress crack could develop or where there was already a crack, in the hopes that those cracks would not get any larger. This morning I pulled a water sample from our well. I'll take another in a few days and more as the blasting continues. These will be dated and sent in to the local lab for analysis and then compared to see if there was an impact on our water quality. Under all this clay is bedrock. It is granite, but fractured granite. Water gets to the aquifers through the various cracks in the rock, filtered by the clay. Several things could occur with the blasting that would destroy our well or pollute beyond use, the water in the aquifer that we have tapped into:
- Pesticides from the edges of the railroad, lodged in the clay could be disturbed, allowing groundwater to carry it to the aquifer. Some of these pesticides may be from many many years ago. For example DDT,
- Pesticides and herbicides residing in the farm fields could be disturbed also and be allowed to filter down into the aquifer. That could include roundup and atrazine. Scarry.
- The blasting could alter how the water reaches the aquifer or damage our well. Our well is deep, but it just takes one crushing move to block or destroy its functionality.
I'm concerned and armed with knowledge of what could happen. So I pull the DOT engineers' names from off the front of the fridge and start to dial.
So ends my morning post for Monday, July 12, 2010
Parly sunny, dry, 68 degrees at 7am
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