Dividends?

Apparently I garden to feed wildlife. The whole place is a smorgasbord. Plus, it is fun to feed the birds additional food, and watch their cute selves up close. Feeding them purchased birdseed is one thing, but it does not stop with that. I am grateful that Nature pitches in with extra help sometimes, though I suspect she is using me.

When the Funny Feeder was put back into operation during the winter, filled with black sunflower seeds, the rowdy critters wasted a lot of it by knocking seeds onto the ground. I thought the squirrels, chipmunks, and doves were cleaning it up and being efficient, but look what happened.

Following photos are after the peak of bloom,
and, after they had been thinned some.

The Gold Finches hung upside down, hidden, as they clung to the flowers while they cleared away all the young seeds; it took only two or three days - if that long. I thought there were still seeds there, until Local Son showed me they were gone! All of that mess has been cleaned up now, and the feeder post has been made plumb.

Last year we took the local grandchildren out to an apple orchard where they could also select pumpkins for autumn decoration. They each chose one large pumpkin, then they wanted a few of the miniature ones that are about the size of a grapefruit. That was fun, and they placed them on their front porch for autumn, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. I told them when the pumpkins begin to go bad, I wanted them for my composter.

Then we enjoyed Thanksgiving Dinner at their house a few weeks later. As soon as dessert was served, one piped up and said, "You can take the pumpkins home with you when you leave. Thanksgiving is over and it's time to put out the Christmas things." I nearly fell off my chair laughing, we hadn't even left the table... but that is what we did.

When I have melons, winter squashes, or pumpkins, I like to remove the seeds and put them out somewhere for the Cardinals. The small pumpkins were so little, I just cut them open and set them on the ground around the Japanese tomato ring and let the Cardinals serve themselves.

Japanese Tomato Ring before the little pumpkins were placed.

This spring a very healthy pumpkin vine appeared. As soon as the first fruit was good and ripe, something ate it. The vine was rampant and ranging: it made eighteen little pumpkins. They were lovely little bright orange orbs.

Returning home one day, I came upon the scene of a massacre. Something had struck again and eaten five more.

It was either: Bandit,


OR... Scamper



OR... Grundoon
(I once pointed out a groundhog wandering in our back yard to our visiting four year old grandchild. Then I said, "Its name is Grundoon." The child said: "How do you know?")



OR... Pogo


...probably aided and abetted by... Alvin.

We gathered up the remaining twelve little pumpkins and brought them into the garage out of reach of the critters. We had purchased three small pumpkins, and this autumn we have twelve, plenty of seeds for next year, plus six were enjoyed by marauding wildlife. Seems to be a pretty good return on that investment; or, another way to look at it would be: That was an example of working with nature, and the benefits therefrom.