Laugh When the World Is Crying…

April 1, 2023April 1, 2023 / Apple Hill Cottage / 5 Comments

I’ve a hundred weighty topics floating about in my head.

Why are guns more important than children? Will American democracy dissolve around support of some evil wannabe autocrat? How can I love my Christian brothers and sisters who pretend to love Jesus but seem to hate the poor, the immigrant, the vulnerable? Will the world devolve into nuclear war around a real evil dictator? How did the equality movement of the seventies fail so much that now people want to switch their sexes? Are the recent storms a result of climate change, God’s displeasure with humans, or both? I could go on… but I will not. I’m sure you’re already depressed about the state of the world. SO…

Our bird feeders are giving us much pleasure and laughter this spring. We have two hanging feeders, a suet feeder, and in the winter we put seeds in our bird bath as well as throwing out seeds on the ground. There’s a large (very large) sycamore tree right by the feeders that provides a landing place and shelter for shy birds, woodpeckers, and ground feeders. There have been all the usual suspects at the feeders all winter, especially two pairs of red-bellied woodpeckers that love the suet, and we never get tired of watching them. We have giant flocks of house finches and goldfinches, Carolina chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, mourning doves, jays, cardinals, and starlings and cowbirds too. It perks us up on those gray days; I recently downloaded the Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Ornithology Lab, which allowed us to participate in the Backyard Bird Count 2023. Even if it is our front yard…

Last week we had a new guest.

He was very hard to get a good photo of because: 1. He’s FAST; 2. I’m slow; 3. We have screens in our windows, which blur all the bird photos.

But as he discovered that he rather liked the sunflower seeds and meal worms we were putting out, he got less shy. He would circle around the tree and then come back. Over the past few days I’ve had several photo-ops and gotten a few passable shots.

Our first thoughts were When is Spring Gobbler Season? (In PA it is from April 29 to May 30 in 2023.) But the more he came around, the more I discovered I really couldn’t think about that anymore. And for all of you who aren’t Western Pennsylvaniacs, it isn’t uncommon to see flocks of wild turkeys everywhere during every season. It’s common to see little poults in with the flocks, too, in late spring and early summer. But it isn’t common to see them come singly to a bird feeder.

We’ve been wondering why he seems to be solitary when most often turkeys are in flocks. I read this article by the Forest Society, which says that after mating season (in April) the males and females usually separate into flocks of their own. I also learned that the longer his beard (those feathers hanging from his chest) the older he is, and that young toms are called jakes. And that Ben Franklin didn’t really suggest making turkeys our national birds. But I can only assume that he’s solitary because he’s a lowly jake and got run off from a flock?

He’s been missing the past day or two. We’re hoping he’s just on the hunt for a lady friend, and he hasn’t had a car accident or a shooting accident or a scuffle with another tom (or jake).

And if I get a photo of him spreading his fan, I’ll be sure to add it to this post.

In the meantime, let’s look forward to spring and renewal and not let the nightly news give us nightly headaches….

This was taken in our front yard on April 17, 2021. Despite the shorter beard, this guy definitely looks older.

Troubles behind the Green Door

January 30, 2017 / Apple Hill Cottage / 9 Comments

The trouble with winter … is not snow.

The trouble with winter in the country… is not snowy unplowed roads.

The trouble with winter in the county in an old house… is not frosty, drafty, arctic air.

The trouble with winter in the country in an old house that’s not quite finished…

is mice.

The other trouble is that we were lulled into thinking we had successfully insulated, caulked, and boarded up all holes when we redid the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, the bedroom, and the mudroom.

The other trouble is, we aren’t finished; so there are other parts of the cottage that are not successfully insulated, caulked and boarded up so the worthless little critters can still get in. (Mice can get in a hole that is the size of a pencil eraser!)

Trouble lurks behind this green door.

green door to the basement

(This green door illustrates the most famous post on Apple Hill Cottage’s blog. About 50 (!) people per day read this post about making a shiny brass door handle look like oil rubbed bronze. It amazes me that there is so much interest in getting rid of shiny brass.) But back to the troubles at hand: behind this green door with the lovely oil-rubbed bronze handle is the basement of the cottage.

We have a split level basement. Behind the green door go down five steps and turn to the left and there’s a door to the outside. There’s also a closet where King Henry the Cat has his litter box. The laundry is down there too as well as built-in shelves, which are filled to the max with the sundries of living in an unfinished house: screws, nails, paints, paintbrushes, stains, tarps, caulking tubes, electric supplies…. Turn to the right and go down six more steps and there’s the rest of the basement — the furnace, the hot water heater, the toilet, sink, and shower (!) and beyond that Mr. H.C.’s workshop. In addition to all that stuff, Mr. H.C. keeps a lot of his business inventory down there. It’s a basement’s basement, and there are quite a lot of holes to the outside that have not been insulated, caulked, or boarded up. And frankly, it is WAY down on the list of things to redo around here.

We tried to close the green door last night before we went to bed. About three o’clock King Henry woke us Mr. H.C. because he needed to get down there to his litter box fast. So there really isn’t the option of closing the green door. There is, however, the option of locking the cat down there with the mice…

(Spoiler alert: If you are a mouse lover, read no further…)

As far as we know, our lovable but worthless cat has caught one mouse. It was dead in his mouth when he brought it to us, but lately I’ve been living in fear that he will jump on the bed at night with a live mouse in his mouth. Mr. H.C. also found a trap with nothing but one mouse leg in it, so the cat could have eaten the mouse out of the trap too. We aren’t sure about that; we haven’t seen any 3-legged mice around lately, but if it gives the cat a taste for mice, I’m all for it.

Mr. H.C. reminds me that Henry caught a mouse this summer too. Yes, he did; but that doesn’t count because he caught it outside. I’m fine with well-behaved mice who stay outside where they belong.

It’s terrible to have mice in one’s kitchen. Suddenly nothing is certain and I can’t be sure if a mouse did or didn’t scurry over a pan. In the warming drawer of my OVEN I found mouse droppings! Ugh. Now I have to wash every pan before I use it. I’ve lived with mice before. It’s not a surprise. I just thought I was done with them when we finished our beautiful kitchen.

The last straw was a few days ago when I opened the oven door and found a stash of cat food in the corner of the oven. CAN I SHOUT HERE?

Yes, we are feeding the cat expensive Rachael Ray Zero Grain Chicken and Potato cat food, and the mice are stealing the expensive Rachael Ray Zero Grain Chicken and Potato cat food, and hoarding it in the corner of the oven. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?

And just so you know, last week when we were in Home Depot the mouse traps were SOLD OUT! So we must not be the only ones with this problem…

And just so you know, I am blessed that Mr. H.C. takes care of all the mouse trap issues…

And just so you know, the oven is now sparkling clean, the green door is now closed at night, and the mouse troubles are staying downstairs. For Now….

cat napping on blanket

So the cat can continue with his daily routines.

Landscape

November 21, 2014November 21, 2014 / Apple Hill Cottage / 18 Comments

Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again, and the title has become an often-quoted phrase about change and memory.

sheep farm on Ruff Creek Hill

Yet here I am. Back home in These High Green Hills. Living within two miles of my childhood home. Living on what used to be my grandfather’s orchard.

sunrise from my bedroom

Sometimes a bit like being A Stranger in a Strange Land, but more often it is like being a stranger in a familiar land. Older and wiser, I see the familiar with new eyes — The Return of the Native…