Birds of Every Color - Eye Candy

Birds and Pieces
By Billie A Williams

It's not only the garden that satisfies this woman's garden. A flash of red catches my eye as the Cardinal comes in for his turn at the mix of sunflower seeds, sesame and other seeds mixed especially for him. ( A rather expensive mix that I dilute further with black sunflower seed and wild finch seed because I have a universal feeder in my front yard). But the colorful display is enough reason to spend the extra for the entertainment of these beautiful creatures. The small brown to yellow female isn’t upstaged by her brilliant male counterpart. I begin to realize the tradition of men being the brilliantly dressed, wig coiffured specimen of years ago must be from seeing the male bird in his splendid plumage next to the often dull female markings. I’m tempted to say, she does all the work (bearing and rearing the children, etc.) He gets all the glory, brilliance of plumage. But I digress this is about the birds.

My bird feeder is alive with color from the brilliant yellow, black and white of the Evening Grosbeak to the muted tan, gray and off white with touches of black of the black capped chickadee, . I can understand the Cardinal color, from the fruits, rose hips and berries it consumes. I can understand the Grosbeak, gold finch and sparrow yellow, black and white from sunflower seeds.

I ponder the brilliant hues of the blue jay, the indigo bunting and the blue bird—what do they eat that turns their plumage blue? Is there something in their eating habits that mixes green and yellow and turns them blue? It would seem they eat the same varied menu as the rest do, yet they utilize the color in such a different way, Puzzlement!

A one legged blue jay visits our feeder regularly puffing himself up to get exclusive use of the feeder platform, where he can forget about balance and just eat. I am amazed as the nuthatches sneak in to grab a seed or two without disturbing the blue jay. The wood peckers in brilliant markings of black and white splashed with a red skull cap — males only have the red says my grandson.

A new kind of woodpecker calls us home this year a along with the usual Hairy, Downy, Yellow bellied Sap sucker we have a ladder-backed woodpecker the Red-Bellied one…too far north but who knows what the weather may have done with all the crazy storms and tornados hitting the Midwest this year.

So I will enjoy his color and inclusion. We’ve put a squirrel baffle over the suet to protect it from the black birds. You can start laughing now. Yes, that worked until the first one jumped up from the ground and found he could cling to the mesh bag regardless of the canopy of the squirrel baffle. And the added benefit he can eat while it’s raining or snowing without getting drenched. {grin} so much for my ingenuity.
We tried a new one just constructed by talented hubby. It's roofed, it securely holds the suet cubes available from a local hardware store where the woodpeckers can eat in peace - well, they could until the black birds --common grackles-- found out by watching the woodpeckers what they need to do. It didn't take but a couple days and they are happily emptying the feeder nearly as fast as we can fill it. Soon the babies will be on their own and then it will settle down. But that is another whole story.

Enjoy the beauty and entertainment of feeding the birds and yes, squirrels, rabbits and occasionally a deer or two visit our in town yard. You’ll reap a double harvest in your summer garden as they forge for food. Birds will be cleaning up snails, grubs, ants, potato beetles and other insect pests for you as a thank you for their winter feasting. And the bird bath - amazing antics--more on that later as well.

Billie A Williams
Accidental Sleuths Solve Crimes
With Wit, Wisdom and Chutzpah
www.billiewilliams.com
http://printedwords.blogspot.com

Spring is in the air? NOT!

But it will be anytime now. With that in mind:
While you are thinking spring and planting again…consider this.
Good Companions Gardening – Everyone needs a friend
Here are a few traditional pairings to try:
• Beans or parsley with carrots
• Broccoli with dill
• Cabbage family with thyme
• Native American trio: corn, squash and pole beans
• Radishes with cucumbers
• Kale with potatoes
• Onions with lettuce
Marigolds to surround your whole garden (the stinky variety, not the new hybrids) Not only do they deter insect pests they also deter deer, rabbits and other critters with voracious appetites. I do not fence my garden except with marigolds and while I have deer and rabbits around my bird feeders they leave my gardens totally alone. I also use bloodmeal around peas since they are the most desirable thing on the planet for rabbits and marigolds may appreciate a little help. The addition of bloodmeal to the garden is a boost to the soil as well – a win, win situation.

And if you are waiting to start planting, you may want to look at this little book on writing that will help spice up and create good reading while you anticipate planting.
Watch for crocus and daffodils - soon.
Billie
http://www.billiewilliams.com

Winter's Garden of Verse

Because it is well below zero today in our frozen Wisconsin North Country--I turn to the garden of my books to read, and dream and muse and celebrate. January 1st was the release of my 12th mystery suspense novel with Wings ePress, Inc since 2007. As I look at the framed covers decorating my wall, I think how like a garden of printed words they are. Each cover a flower of its own ilk, yet they are all similar because they are written by me. I think I should get a rose or some other very notable flower to represent each book in my garden.

Each book is linked to a local organization or charity that I donate a percentage of my profits to, so why not also link it to a flower. Small Town Secrets could easily be linked to the daisy - the petals of which often tell the secret - he loves me, he loves me not... so it does seem perfect for my new release. The non fiction book I just published Spice Up Your Writing! Write to Entice, could be a small herb garden, or the white rose that graces this book's cover.

I do not believe that gardening is that different from writing. You plant a seed, you watch it grow. When it is full grown, you harvest it and consume the proceeds. So it is with writing a novel. You plant an idea seed, you nurture it and write it everyday until it is fully grown. You then harvest it by sending it off to a publisher at just the right moment in its development. Hopefully, it will receive and acceptance letter and I will be ready to plant the next seed.

So when the winds howl around you, grab a good book (preferably one of mine) stoke up the fire in the fireplace and read until you can plant your own seed either through the printed word or your own one woman's garden.

check out the blog tour for my new release by going to my website at www.billiewilliams.com and clicking on the blog tour link - when you get the date from the calendar, scroll down and click on the link to the persons blog (or click on their name) and read an interview with me. Each one as different as a wild flower garden--and you could get a cook book or some other great prize if you comment on their blog.

One of the Things My Garden Grows

One of the things my garden grows is mystery fiction. I am a mystery suspense author with well over two dozen books published. Today I want to announce the upcoming release of my brand new book SMALL TOWN SECRETS. I've set up a blog tour, schedule available on my web site, which consists of a series of interviews with other bloggers all over the web. Please feel free to join in the fun - participants could win a cook book of recipes from the Golden Kettle Cafe that is a prominent feature in Small Town Secrets.

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!
Constable Dusty Rhodes mauled by a grizzly in the Colorado Wilderness area where he was vacationing.

(That is only the smoke from the fire that rages in tiny Nettlesville.)

Nettlesville is on fire
Who is that deputy new hire?
Is s serial arsonist doing the crime
As buildings burn, one at a time.
They wonder

Chaneeta Morgan’s secret past
Undoing the Town Chairwoman fast
She wonders

Is she destined to pay for an imagined sin
Will Olga’s vengeance allow her to win
The coveted Town Chairwoman post
What growing Evil does Nettlesville host?
They wonder

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Small Town Secrets
by Billie A Williams
ISBN 978-1-59705-766-0 (print)
ISBN 978-1-59705-283-2 (electronic)
Available January 1, 2008
From Wings ePress, Inc http://www.wings-press.com or your favorite bookstore.
Readers Guide available free at http://www.billiewilliams.com/READERGuide.pdf
Contact: Billie A Williams
P O Box 134
Amberg, WI 54102
billie@billiewilliams.com

Lord of the Flies or Pollinators?

Pollinators
By Billie A Williams
“Time’s fun when you’re having flies,”
Lynn Havsall, Environmental Educator at the College of the Atlantic

For most of us, bees or butterflies are the only insects we think of when we think pollinators. Would you believe a much more prolific pollinator, the ordinary Diptera (fly) is really a contender? Some of them resemble bees so of course we attribute even that to the bee.

In a recent article in (July –August 2007) issue of Audubon Magazine an article on flies caught my attention. Apparently “… scientists recognize flies as key players in ecosystems, recycling carcasses, dung, and plant debris while themselves serving as vital food in the life cycles of many kinds of birds, bats, and fish. Some rival bees as pollinators of domestic crops. Other flies are powerful tools for helping geneticists unravel the nature of life, the police in solving violent crimes, or pollution control specialists in assessing the quality of our waterways.”

A tall order for such tiny creatures you say. Me too! Ogden Nash is credited with saying “God in His wisdom made the fly/And then forgot to tell us why.”

Reading the in-depth wonderful article by Frank Graham Jr. really gave me pause to think about flies in a whole new light. The family names boggle my mind and classing mosquitoes, dragonflies, damselflies in the same group as black fly, horse fly or blow fly boggles my mind. To tell them apart the four winged Dragonfly from the two winged bottle fly is simple when you read the names — those four winged critters have the fly attached to the name – the two winged have the fly separate from the name. J I feel so very clever knowing that.

The first four-winged insects appear in the fossil records dating back more than 350 million years. “The two-winded flies show up 215 million years ago, having evolved the tiny, clublike hind wings called halteres to make flight with the front pair more efficient.”

Another distinction is made regarding the type of antennae the insects have. The long variety such as the mosquito has or the short-horned flies like the house fly. While the mosquito has serious and lethal names to describe their various disease bearing qualities there are only a few flies with lethal characteristics. Contrary to folk entomology, the common house fly does not bite. His mouthparts are designed as sponge-like usurpers of liquefied meals. If you believe you were bitten by a house fly the perpetrator was probably the dreaded, but similar stable fly. The tiny midges (Chironomid midges) not the biting kind, are always present around water and thus become one of the most reliable barometers of the water’s quality.

I may have to enlist the blow files (sometimes called blue bottles, green bottles etc.) in my next mystery as they are the star witnesses when it comes to presenting evidence in court about the time of death of a victim. They are attracted to the corpse shortly after death. They lay their eggs in various body openings. The maggots hatch in a matter of 24 hours and feed internally, hastening decomposition. Entomologists are able to identify maggots that are present on a body and can gauge their stage of development in the contents of environmental conditions — establishing the time, place and successive whereabouts in the time before the body was discovered. Perhaps it was killed in one place and transported to another – the flies in one place (say shoreline) may not be consistent with the flies that would be found elsewhere (say a city dump).

There is some fascinating reading in this issue of Audubon and I may have to revisit it in the next article perhaps looking at the methane gas emitted by cows by burping, creating 18 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Visit http://www.audubonmagazine.org/ for more information.

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http://www.billiewilliams.com/
http://printedwords.blogspot.com/
http://onewomansgarden.blogspot.com/
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What can you do with hay bales?

After reading an article in The Daily Dirt, gardening news, I was struck by the beauty of this idea. Planting your garden in hay bales. I'm sure you could buy last years bales cheaply from any number of farmers. The thought of a strawberry pyramid built of hay bales is the best thing I could think of...fertilizer, the necessary control of where the vines will re-attach themselves and all that. It could be a real boost to the weeding and care process.

"Hay bale vegetable gardening is a technique that was developed by a vegetable crop specialist at the University of Florida. It may sound odd but vegetable gardening in hay bales really works. Wheat straw bales are better than hay because they tend to have fewer weed seeds than hay bales and alfalfa and mixed grass bales also work well." Heleigh Bostwick, of The Daily Dirt says.

The author of the article recommends if you must use new bales that you soak them for three days in a row, then layer fertilizer over them for 3 or 4 days and let them sit for three more days, then dig a hole in them to put your plants. She says any plant could grow this way with the exception of root crops and tall ones like corn (because they would become top heavy and tip over). Can you see the posibilities - Step gardens where there is not enough horizontal space...you may have to tend them with a step ladder - but at least you could grow produce. I'm seeing pictures of a tower of vegetables...What an amazing idea.

I see a circle of bales with poles in the center where you plant pole beans and train them toward the poles - wouldn't that be a spectacular center for other vegetables such as pumpkins or cucumbers growing below them?

I hope you will try it out. I intend to as my strawberries are out of control in my flower and vegetable garden areas.

Happy Gardening.

Billie

It's Organic, It's Exciting, It's Cutting Edge

I borrowed this (with permission of course) from a lovely lady over at The Daily Dirt - if you love gardening you will want to subscribe to her daily missives they are great! Here is the link.

http://www.mygardenguide.com/blog/index.php?id=1060

Wednesday What's New: Sustainable Urban Farm

The Link for the story: the original article: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0718100720070607

The Science Barge, a sustainable urban farm is on a mission to educate people about sustainability. Moored on the Hudson River on New York City's west side, the barge is equipped with two greenhouses and is powered by solar, wind, and biofuels, and irrigated by rainwater and purified river water--with no carbon emissions, no water use, and no waste stream.

The cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, and other vegetables are grown using hydroponic gardening techniques. Ted Caplow, head of New York Sun Works, the non-profit organization behind the Science Barge, believes that if vegetables were grown hydroponically in greenhouses on New York City's rooftops, there would be more than enough vegetables to feed the region.

Caplow says that greenhouses produce seven times more food and use four times less water than traditional farming methods on land. Despite the proliferation and success of community gardens, one of the reasons rooftops may be the solution is that space for growing gardens on land is limited in a region with a population as dense as New York City. Of course most people don't have access to their rooftops, but the possibility of using public rooftops is a viable option.

Photo source: www.nysunworks.org Source: Environmentalist dreams of New York rooftop farms

Heleigh Bostwick, Making Gardens Greener

One Woman's Garden - a look at Organic Gardening

I've gardened all my life. No wait, that's true. While I was growing up I spent summers on my grandfather's farm - he had two 80 acre parcels split in half by a road that twisted over the narrow bridge and through the woods to a little country town that was nothing more than a whisper on the map in Northern Wisconsin named Morse.

I learned that if you salt cabbage it heads without the intrusion of worms and a lot of other great things about gardening using ordinary things every kitchen should have to control pests and invaders. Control ants and weeds with vinegar or cheyenne Pepper. Skunks don't like moth balls. But I'll leave more on that for later.

Living on a small dairy farm with pigs, chickens and eggs, geese, sheep, worked by draft horses that eventually were replaced by the more energy efficient (?) tractor...a learning experience unequalled by anything else. I came away richer for it and I would like to share some of what I learned with you. If you garden, or want to garden in this day and age where you are afraid to buy Spinach or peanut butter because it might be contaminated-- tag along with me. It's time we all started doing, what during World War II they called A Victory Garden, near our kitchen doors. Don't worry if you live in a high rise apartment building - I've got solutions for you too. So join me, won't you! Until next time...

Happy Gardening,

Billie