Warm pleasant weather lures families into their yards for gardening, barbecue cooking, and simply enjoying the weather or quiet conversation.
Unfortunately, most people retreat inside as soon as the weather turns cool and don’t enjoy their yards until spring’s gentle sunshine warms the earth. Fascinating happenings occur all fall and winter, and we enjoy going outside no matter what the weather is.
Often Rich quietly sits on the back deck with his binoculars. There’s
Rich often sits outside observing nature.
plenty to see as nuthatches, woodpeckers, and chickadees flit around bare branches and wing to feeders while juncos seek tiny seeds on the ground. Squirrels come and go, often chasing one another, and each morning a flock of wild turkeys troops up to our yard from nearby Faulke’s Woods. It’s all fun to watch.
There’s only one downside. It’s cold. Fortunately, manufacturers have made great strides in recent years developing clothing and other products that make being outside comfortable on even the coldest days. Deer hunters and ice fishermen can sit for hours in frosty places and have learned how to stay warm. Rich follows their example with layers of clothes and a warm jacket. Toes, fingers, and ears are the most likely body parts to feel the cold, so he dons a stocking cap, warm pair of mittens or gloves, and felt lined boots when sitting on the deck.
Bring along these lightweight warmers for outdoor activities.
*He augments these with hand and toe warmers. The best brands we have found are HotHands and Grabbers. A simple air tight packet keeps the natural ingredients stable. Cut open the outer seal and air activates the process with resulting heat that lasts six to 12 hours depending on the brand and type of warmer – hand, toe or body. These light-weight, disposable packs are great for late season outdoor sports, yard work, emergency crews, and just being outside. When the elements are cool, we cut open the packet and sprinkle the iron-vermiculite mixture on the ground then recycle the packaging.
*Milwaukee Tool Company, best known for its quality drills and saws, has recently brought out battery heated jackets, vests and coats, and these sound ideal for enjoying the yard in winter. We’ll be testing them soon and will let visitors to Winding Pathways know how well they work to keep wearers toasty on cold days.
Don’t let the cold keep you from enjoying your yard. It’s fascinating in winter, and with leaves off trees visibility is often better than during the summer. Here’s one more tip:
Many animals visit the yard after dark in winter. Step outside with a flashlight and shine it on the bird feeder. You might discover a raccoon, opossum, deer, or even flying squirrel enjoying seeds intended for birds!
*(Note: These are independent, unpaid reviews of products.)
A Kansas Couple Creatively Walk The Path
by Emily and Zach Hemmerling, guest bloggers
Anyone who has ever spent hours picking green beans knows it’s a thankless job. Aching backs, mosquito bites, and soaked sweatbands, all for a few pounds of produce that is consumed almost embarrassingly fast. Last spring, I made a resolution. If I was going to toil under the summer sun in that special brand of syrupy humidity unique to south-central Kansas, then I was going to make it look good.
String Bean Labyrinth
I decided I wanted a green bean labyrinth. My indulgent husband got quite a kick out of the idea, and planted the seeds in the sketched-out shape I left for him on the kitchen counter one morning. It’s a simple labyrinth, just a few turns, and the lines are three plants thick. We planted three different varieties: Jade, Royalty Purple Pod, and Dragon’s Tongue.
Connecting
Two great flushes of beans gave us about twelve pounds before a sudden heat wave crumpled all but the inner circle. It was still a job to “go pickin’,” but the labyrinth made it easier. And, it was always nice to suddenly find myself in the middle, and even nicer to see I’d already filled my basket without realizing it. Sometimes when my husband got home from his landscaping work we would walk the labyrinth. We’d talk about our days or plan a camping trip, or dream about what the orchard will look like in a few years. Those few minutes to reconnect before moving on to our respective evening chores would keep us going. Then the pig-weed moved in, and by that time the grapes were turning, leaving the labyrinth to slowly dissolve back into the ground. The field where the green bean labyrinth was is already planted to red clover and will be fallowed next year. Since the next plot in rotation is a bit too narrow to hold a proper labyrinth, it might be a few years before the next vegetable labyrinth takes shape. It’s worth the wait.
Editor note: Below is a You Tube video about drawing three and five circuit labyrinths. Lars Howlett is a skilled builder and facilitator connected with The Labyrinth Society.
As November closes and late fall settles in with its grey stillness and stripped woods and fields we draw comfort from unusual sources. Read more at….1080Labyrinth.
Cold weather in the northern hemisphere and the Holiday Season everywhere are upon us and many gifts for bird lovers fill store shelves. But, shopping for seeds to fill the backyard feeder can be confusing and even frustrating. Many types of seed and mixes are for sale. Some blends are designed to attract specific species, like cardinals, while others target a diversity of birds. Cheap blends appeal mostly to house sparrows and blackbirds, species most people prefer to not attract.
Winding Pathways suggests keeping seed buying simple. We have a favorite seed, one we avoid, and one that we use in a special way. We rarely buy cheap mixes that song birds really do not like and that are sold in big box, chain and grocery stores at inflated prices. Farm stores often sell better mixes at lower cost. Neither of these types of stores have knowledgeable staff to help new comers to winter bird feeding. Specialty bird feeding stores offer the highest quality seed and staff up-to-date in what song birds feed on. And, yes, you pay a bit more – and we find it worth the cost. Less wasted seed and higher satisfaction for homeowners and the birds!
THE BEST SEED FOR WILD BIRDS
Sunflower delivers the highest quality feed for wintering birds.
Of the many outstanding seeds for feeding birds we like black oil sunflower the best. It’s relatively inexpensive and devoured by chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, woodpeckers, cardinals, and many other species. We don’t mind that birds drop hulls to the ground but for people who dislike this mess, hulled sunflower seed can be purchased and is excellent. It is kernels of larger culinary sunflower seeds, sometimes called gray stripe seed. Hulls have been removed and seed is much more expensive but loved by birds. Most sunflower seeds are produced on farms in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
THE WORST SEED
Songbirds do not like the cheap mix.
The worst seed is Milo. It is a common ingredient in cheap mixes and sometimes is sold as “bird seed.” Milo is grown on arid land in the Great Plains and is mainly used for livestock feed. The young plant looks like corn but unlike corn its seeds form at the top of the plant. Few birds like the astringent seeds, although they will sometimes eat it if nothing else is available and they are hungry. Less desirable species, like house sparrows and blackbirds will eat it. Milo seeds are round, slightly reddish, and about twice the size of somewhat similar millet. Try to avoid it.
IN BETWEEN SEEDS
An inexpensive alternative to the higher quality feed.
An excellent inexpensive seed that will be eaten by many birds is cracked corn. Desirable birds prefer sunflower seeds, but we often sprinkle some cracked corn on the ground to keep sparrows and wild turkeys happy and, hopefully, away from our sunflower seed. Another seed of “in between” value is millet. These are tiny round white or yellowish seeds often found in inexpensive mixes. Mourning doves, juncos and other ground feeders enjoy eating it. So do house sparrows.
Learning to identify seeds helps a customer purchase the best seed at the lowest cost. Reading labels helps as most manufacturers list the contents of their seed packages. Happy Holidays to you and the birds you love to feed!
Turkeys and squirrels would make short work of seed, leaving none for the small birds.
Nearly everyone who feeds wild birds sees squirrels gobbling up expensive seed. Elaborate and expensive feeders help birds eat while excluding squirrels. We use a different method.
Plenty of squirrels make Winding Pathways home. So do wild turkeys. We enjoy watching them and don’t mind giving them some seed. Unfortunately, they come in droves and wolf down all the seeds. Each morning we sprinkle some seeds on the lawn for both turkeys and squirrels but we needed to keep them away from a feeder favored by cardinals, chickadees titmice, and other birds.
This homemade excluder seems to stop squirrels and turkeys while allowing in songbirds.
We built a simple but effective squirrel and turkey excluder out of scrap lumber. It’s merely a rectangular box two feet wide and four feet long. The frame is made of 2×2 lumber, the top is of treated ½ inch plywood, and the sides are of 2×2 inch mesh heavy wire. There is no bottom.
We placed a feeder on a homemade picnic table and put the turkey and squirrel excluder over it. One end of the excluder is hinged to the table, making it easy to lift the other side to fill the feeder.
So far squirrels and turkeys have not been able to infiltrate the excluder and stay outside enjoying the cracked corn we’ve spread specially for them.
