Pine Siskins and Bird Feeders

We’ve had this bird feeder in active use for a couple of years now; Tom made a place for it to hang on the corner of the chicken coop, so that any fallen seed would get eaten by our chickens rather than sprouting and making more work for me. We have just been delighted by the activity that the feeder has brought to our yard. At dawn, when I go outside to let the chickens out of their run, I also fill the feeder. All the neighborhood birds are in the nearby oak and pine trees, waiting for me. They watch me fill the feeder, and then they descend, even though I am right there working in the chicken coop. I guess they are used to me now!

There seems to be a hierarchy of birds in the order they feed; the house finches are often first, followed by the goldfinches, and then later on I notice chickadees and titmice getting taking a turn. Often times, a row of birds will sit on the fence that borders the chicken run. They chatter and sing and it’s a wonderful sound throughout the morning. The feeder is usually empty by early afternoon, with a stray bird visiting to get the last few seeds.

All of the sparrows, the migratory golden-crowned, white-crowned, and song sparrows, tend to forage on the fallen seeds below, ducking and weaving around the chickens. This morning I noticed a Bewick’s wren (usually an insect-eater) at the feeder. We’ve also had pine siskins in droves all winter. They are harder to spot because they look a lot like finches, and in fact, they are in the finch family.

In late January, we had two separate instances of a solitary pine siskin resting in our pots. Both times, the birds looked cold - feathers puffed up, a slight shivering or shaking in their bodies, breathing hard, and not at all afraid of us coming close. We thought they were baby birds fledging and did not want to intervene. The bird above looked especially cold, and both Tom and I went by it at separate times, wondering if we should move it into the sun. But we each decided, individually, to leave it alone. It was right by our back door so we were going past it all day. Eventually, Tom went out to check on it and found it dead. We were both so mad at ourselves at the time because we could have easily moved it into the sun. We thought it was our fault that the bird had died. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do when you see an animal in distress.

But, it turns out, this was part of a much bigger problem that neither of us knew about until this past week. Apparently, there has been a Salmonella outbreak here this winter, which is affecting all members of the finch family, but especially pine siskins. Bird feeders and common gathering areas are to blame. The bacteria gets into the feces of the birds, and can then be spread easily near where the birds congregate. The advice from the California Department of Fish and Game is to take down any bird feeders and allow the congregation to stop. I want to comply, but there are an awful lot of birds who depend on our feeder right now, and I’m not sure taking it down is in their best interest.

So yesterday, I went to our local nature store (East Bay Nature), the place where I get my seed mix for the feeder, and asked the owner (Joanie Smith) what she thought. She said this information is not new, the disease and decline of finches has been going on for quite some time (and in fact we never get American goldfinches anymore like we used to, but that’s a discussion for another time and is related to climate change). However she feels that it’s not a good idea to take down the feeder now, since the pine siskins are migratory and are leaving for their summer breeding grounds (Canada), and there are so many other birds who are depending on the seed now.

Speaking of the migration of siskins, this year has seen an especially large one, called an irruption. What’s especially notable about this year’s irruption is that the birds migrated at night. Migration at night is a process that is still not fully understood; a study published in PNAS a couple of years ago found that migratory birds have something in their eyes called cyrptochromes which have evolved a mechanism which enhances their ability to respond to light, which enables them to sense and respond to magnetic fields. Pretty cool.

You might be wondering, as I have been, if any of these infected droppings have affected our chickens. The thing is, chickens live with Salmonella all the time, as we humans do. Our systems are usually able to handle and process and remove any of this bacteria from our systems. My flock seems healthy and well, laying eggs like crazy, eating and moving about as normal, so I do not think they are ill. Meanwhile we are still eating their eggs regularly. It’s also likely that, since we haven’t seen a sick or dead bird for over a month, this disease has passed on and away from here. However I will take precautions: I will be extra diligent about cleaning the bird feeder for a while, and we will cook all eggs before we eat them.

Waking Up

I was a fanciful child, always reading and imagining. I remember that in my childhood home, I had two favorite places.

The first was my bedroom closet, which was enormous, or at least it seemed so at the time. It had a sort of metal door inside at floor level (housing a duct of some kind?) that had a screw at each corner. I used to imagine that there was another world behind the metal plate, and if I just could find my way in, I’d have all sorts of adventures.

The second place was outdoors on the grass underneath the Japanese cherry tree. I’d lie down and stare up through the pink blossoms and watch the sun through the leaves, which would make a gold outline on the edge of every single leaf. Both places magical. Both equally alive in my imagination.

Every day that I can, I go outside. Sometimes I’m there for an hour, sometimes more if I’m lucky. And right now it is just magical out there. California gets a bad rap for a lot of things, and rightfully so, but one thing California does right is early spring. God, it’s glorious. We’ve had a little rain, the hills are still green, and the native wildflowers are all popping up. I hear birds I’ve never heard before, and see animal tracks and scat I don’t recognize. Everything is waking up.

Out walking through a canyon today, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in Narnia. Were there dryads in the oak trees I passed? Would they speak to me? I felt I could hear them when the wind passed through their branches.

“Lucy’s eyes began to grow accustomed to the light, and she saw the trees that were nearest her more distinctly. A great longing for the old days when the trees could talk in Narnia came over her. She knew exactly how each of these trees would talk if only she could wake them, and what sort of human form it would put on. She looked at a sliver birch; it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face, and fond of dancing.”

“She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his face and hands, and hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah! - she would be the best of all. She would be a precious goddess, smooth and stately, the lady of the wood.”

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

I just want to encourage you: If you can get out right now, do it. Don’t miss the poppies and the fiddlenecks and the red maids and the blue dicks and the milkmaids and the buttercups. Don’t miss the buckeyes unfurling their vernal green leaves or the pink of the wild plums. Don’t miss the nesting falcons, the foraging bluebirds, the shy flickers. Don’t miss the tiny rills, the deep gullies, the ephemeral streams. Don’t miss spring. Get out there and see everything waking up.

It's Time to Start Tomato Seeds (here in California)

If you want tomatoes in the ground by late April or early May, it would be good to get your seeds started sometime in the next two weeks. This gives you time for a second seeding if something goes awry in the first go around.

I’m trying several new varieties this year, as I usually do, along with a good portion of old favorites. We usually get our first ripe cherry tomatoes in June, and our first slicers by July. That seems a long way away!

In order to make room in the house for tomato seedlings, I had to move the pepper seedlings out to the yard. Usually I pot them up into 4” containers and stash them in the greenhouse. But I decided to try something new, and plant them directly into the beds where they will be eventually growing. This could fail.

It’s still a little chilly at night, and the birds are always ravenous for young seedlings. So, Tom and I got out the PVC pipes and Agribon and covered the beds of peppers. They were fine last night, and hopefully they will continue to be so. They won’t do much growing for the next few weeks, at least nothing that we can see. But underground, the roots will be unfurling and establishing and getting a good start, and by the time April rolls around (with, very likely, the hot weather that usually accompanies it) the peppers will shoot up and we can remove the covers.

I had an entire day outdoors on Saturday, working on all of this. It felt very much like spring, getting my hands dirty and sunburning the back of my neck. Here’s to summer veg!

Distracted by Spring

I had a lovely email from a reader this morning, inquiring after our health and wanting to make sure we are okay. This made me realize that I haven’t written since mid-February, so here’s a quick check in just to assure all of you that yes, we are well! Here’s my short report.

School and Work: Incredibly busy right now. Tom’s up to his eyeballs in work and I’m similarly occupied with projects and writing. I am taking a very full load in order to graduate the end of this calendar year (fulfilling a dream I’ve had for my entire adult life!). I’m also having some existential debates over getting a job vs. going on to get a Masters Degree. Meanwhile, I’m very distracted by the weather and the sunshine which is constantly calling me away from my computer, which brings me to…

Health: I know I wrote about our journey to better health and resiliency last December. Tom and I have both prioritized this, which means that much of our free time is spent meeting our activity goals. It’s easy this time of year, with mild temperatures and green hills motivating every step. Soon it will be so hot and dry that we’ll have to make sure we get our exercise in before 9 am, but while it’s so beautiful, we both are getting outside as much as we can.

Kids: It’s crunch time for our daughter Rin, who is a senior in high school and is making big college decisions, so a lot of time is being spent discussing and weighing pros and cons and figuring out next steps. Adam is still safely at Cal Poly, alone in a dorm room, on a computer all day. He’s looking forward to coming home for spring break and cooking!

Garden: We are eating fresh peas, kale, arugula, and asparagus most days of the week. Last night, as we were shelling peas and popping them straight into our greedy mouths, Tom mused that nothing tastes like spring more than fresh peas. I concur! My pepper starts are ready to be planted on, and instead of moving them into 4” pots, I think I’m going to try transplanting them directly into their summer locations and covering them with fleece to keep the birds and the morning chill off of them. It’s a bit cold at night, yet, but I think it might work. I’ll report back. This weekend I will also be starting tomato seeds indoors! Exciting times. The chickens are producing lots of eggs now that the days are longer, and at least one of our meals every week consists of a frittata, which is one of our favorite spring dinners. Tom is also making ice cream several times a week with the beautiful yolks. The bees are extremely busy collecting pollen and raising brood.

Irrepressible energy: One of the biggest benefits from our ongoing health journey is that we feel about twenty years younger, and our moods are super high. Even with all the stress, we are happier than we’ve been in a long time. I usually have some sort of seasonal depression over the winter, which always knocks me sideways. There wasn’t a hint of that this winter.

So, my friends, all is well here, and we hope the same for you and yours. Look for more garden-inspired posts as the weather continues to improve!

(And Juliana, thanks again for checking in with us. You’re so kind!)

Homemade Garlic Powder

2020 had one thing going for it: We had an absolutely perfect garlic crop. I had finally perfected our method of growing garlic and it yielded beautiful, plump garlic bulbs, with juicy, succulent cloves. We’ve enjoyed it fresh ever since we harvested it. But then it did what garlic naturally does after a certain amount of time - it began to bolt and grow. We don’t have a root cellar, so storing garlic in ideal temperatures/humidity is just not possible for us; eventually it’s just going to turn, and there’s nothing to be done about that.

Garlic that has bolted (started sending up new growth) is still safe to eat, as long as the cloves are still firm. However, you need to cut out the growing shoot before using it, as that part will be bitter. Also, inevitably, the shoot will use up all the sugars in the clove, leaving it mushy and tasteless. So it’s a careful dance, knowing when to stop using your garlic harvest.

We knew that we wanted to get ahead of the mushy-clove stage, so this past weekend, we made garlic powder with the remaining bulbs. I cut down all five of the strings of garlic still hanging over the piano. I kept two big bulbs to try another experiment; planting them now, in pots, to see if I can get a fall crop of garlic on top of our already-growing spring crop (planted last October). I’ll let you know how that goes. I also removed the firmest two heads and popped them in the fridge, hoping to halt their growth and allow them to be used in cooking a bit longer. The rest of them were separated into cloves, shaken together in two identically-sized cake tins to remove their skins, and then sliced in half to remove the growing shoots.

Then, the cleaned cloves were put into the food processor in batches and chopped up. We spread the mixture on dehydrator sheets and dried it for about 20 hours. I wish you could have smelled our house while that was happening. Truly, I felt like we were in the middle of some kind of spice factory. At first, it was so strong, it made our eyes water; after a few hours, the scent changed to something sweeter and mellower, but still plenty strong. It’s a really good thing we had already planned on Italian for dinner, as this smell fitted right in!

before drying

after drying for 20 hours

After that, it was just a matter of peeling the dried puree off the sheets and popping it into our dedicated spice grinder. It ground up beautifully into a soft, creamy powder, and yielded an entire pint! That’s enough powdered garlic to see us through a year, at least.

This project took a lot of time, but we are so glad we were able to use up the rest of our beautiful garlic harvest in a sustainable way. It feels right, and honors the time, money, and effort it took to grow the crop in the first place. Nothing is as rewarding to grow as a staple like garlic, which is used so often in our cooking.

Have you ever dried your garlic crop? Have you ever planting sprouting cloves in the spring for a fall crop? If so, I’d like to know how your efforts turned out!