Here’s a quick post “off the cuff” so to speak, without overthinking it, to share this cool experience I had a couple of mornings ago.
My favorite way to start the day is by reading for an hour with a cup of coffee. On this particular morning, I noticed a gray squirrel mom carrying a small fuzzy parcel. I waited to see if she should come by again and sure enough, she had another fuzzy parcel in her mouth. I witnessed this a total of four times. I knew that mother squirrels sometimes carried their young by folding them up into travel-size parcels and I also knew that sometimes they need to transfer to new nests, but this is the first time in all my years that I actually saw it happen!
Momma Squirrels will move their babies for the following reasons: Movement is too limited in the drey (nest), there is not enough nearby food resources, lice infestation, too exposed to the elements for colder temperatures, and finally the drey (nest) is otherwise unsafe due to threats from predators, for example.
It’s been pretty hot the last few weeks. The gray squirrels and the Douglas squirrels have worked out an arrangement as to who can drink and sploot (lay flat to cool off) by the birdbath and when.
All pictures by Melanie Reynolds for The Nature-Led Life
What is your favorite way to start the day? Are you looking forward to Fall?
It’s Springtime and I’m springing into action trying to get our homestead, affectionately known as the Fernmire, ready for the warm seasons. Why do we call it Fernmire? Because we have lots of ferns and it can become quite the mire through the rainy season, roughly October through May. I also just really like the name; it goes with my whole “Bog Lady Witch” aesthetic that I’ve been dreaming up in my brain. Strictly for my own entertainment purposes. My rituals are very mundane (like making coffee in the morning) and my curses are basic (like calling bad drivers “a dirty biscuit eater” because it’s better to be annoyed and amused than all about road rage.)
Humans aren’t the only ones who get annoyed about near misses. The birds are going crazy right now! They harken the early morning dawn at 6am now. The Juncos, in particular, are bad drivers flyers and the chickadees aren’t having it! I nearly got hit by a Junco the other day! Did it mistake me for a moving tree? It narrowly missed my face, which would have been unpleasant for both of us! There are of course some rivalries going on as the birds vie for mates making them bolder and maybe not so smart in the throes of passion.
This is the time of year when we see an increase in birds hitting the windows. I’d always hoped if we kept our windows dirty enough the birds wouldn’t hit them, but there’s always a few that seem to hit the windows in the dining room despite the dirty windows. So, this was the year I put forth the effort to clean the windows and put window clings on them that should hopefully stop unnecessary death. There is enough drama going on with the Avian Flu right now, affecting birds and mammals alike. While I don’t want to get into it, I’ve heard several heartbreaking first-hand accounts from Wildlife Enthusiasts/Birders and Wildlife Rehabbers alike of Great Blue Herons, Raccoons and Foxes dying or being humanely euthanized due to complications from HPAI H5N1.
Anti-strike Window Clings Photo By Melanie Reynolds
This is the year we were also on time for making a plethora of new birdhouses! You can make four birdhouses from one piece of cedar wood fence plank; the fifth one was made out of spare wood we had as the initial prototype. If you would also like to make birdhouses this is the website we used for instructions and cut sheet. It’s hosted by the Cornell School of Ornithology, which also hosts the wonderful website All About Birds.
I hope you are well and have the chance to get outside! If you’re doing anything special to support your wild neighbors this year let me know in the comments below!
Flowering Begonia 2025 By Melanie Reynolds
Additional Links:
For more information about Avian Flu impacts visit the page of the Native American Fish & Wildlife Society below:
Western Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum) new growth and Wood Sorrel (Oxalis oregana)
I’ve decided to call this homestead “Fernmire.” The quintessential Western Sword fern (Polystichum munitum) grows in abundance here and the old horse pasture is best described as a mire of mud and weeds. While standing in the middle of the field I can see what was, what is and what will be. There are many possibilities of “what will be.” Trying to grasp a thread of future time is like trying to hold a hagfish, slippery and unpredictable. This land was once a thicket of dogwood, salmonberries, Indian plums, alders and cottonwood trees. I dial in on what it was just before the thicket phase, when it was a wet meadow. That’s what I want to recreate. Before the alders and cottonwood trees could gain a perch there was fescues, sedges, camas and columbines to name a few. We moved here in 2013. It was barely within our range of affordability. There were several months of strict spending limits and modest meals.
Western Columbine (Aquilegia Formosa)
The Seller’s had two offers. They could choose the all-cash offer from a development company that would knock down the house and put in a couple of MacMansions, or they could choose the quiet couple with one child, and a dog who dreamed of restoring the habitat and maintaining the home as it is. Our offer also had a contingency clause because we couldn’t buy it until we had sold our existing home at the time. Some Sellers won’t consider offers with contingencies because it means they have to be patient and wait.
The Seller’s chose us. It just so happens they live five houses down the street! We’ve became great friends since we met. They’d bought this place as a rental property and considered building a dream house on it, but then decided they were happy where they were. As Grandparents, they decided they cared more about spending time with their children and grandchildren than navigating the construction of a new house.
Their house and all the others on the street are part of a Homeowner’s Association (HOA) because all of their houses were built by the same develop back in 2006. Our house was built in 1967 and is not part of the HOA. We pay into the HOA voluntarily though as a gesture of good faith and to help supplement the cost of maintaining common areas like the front entrance of our neighborhood with plants and shrubs. There is one other property on the street as old as ours and with a bigger plot of land. Our next door neighbor whose three-and-a-half-acre field abuts ours. There is only a narrow tree line separating his field from ours. It makes the developers salivate.
Around the corner – Nine acres razed to build nine new McMansions
The Earth movers rumble from first light to late afternoon
Sometimes we get letters from developers wanting to buy us out, but not nearly as many as our neighbor Ray does. If they thought they could get his property, they would put a lot more pressure on us to sell at the same time. Flat land close to a main street and close to downtown is a hot commodity. Ray is 86 and about as healthy as one can be at that age. I remember his wife. I remember when she passed. I check on him after storms, when I haven’t seen him outside for more than a week or if his garbage can isn’t on the curb the night before garbage day. Some of the other neighbors consider him a curmudgeon, but I don’t see him that way.
We both love nature. We love sharing the land with our wild neighbors and we’re not interested in buying the latest knew thing. We greet the deer, bear, coyotes and bobcats. The hawks in the trees, the hummingbirds and the pileated woodpeckers. Development encroaches all around us and we can’t hold it off forever. We do what we can, but it’s not enough. How long have I lived here? To see nine generations of coyotes born. Nine seasons under the watchful eyes of the Red-tailed Hawk.
Western Starflowers (Trientalis borealis Raf.) re-emerges after years of dormancy and two years after the invasive Himalayan blackberry was cleared.
Definition:
McMansion (American Slang) – Large houses made of low-quality materials because the price is based on square footage and lot size. Meets basic building codes. Built to a generic standard frequently replicated as if they came off of a conveyor belt. Only paint color makes one look different from the other.
I love this video for the imagery. Sung by Pete Seeger, but the original lyrics were written by Malvina Reynolds (no relation.)
The Nature-led Life 