Eagle and Chicken Can Co-Exisit

I love watching birds in my yard, in fact for years I have kept bird feeders with the goal of attracting as many species as possible. I once had the pleasure of witnessing a large hawk take a Pine Siskin (sp?) after it gorged on seeds while sitting underneath the feeder. It's nice to know that nature balances itself so nicely - feed yourself to full of seeds, risk getting eaten by large predatory raptor. I assume our country's obesity problem would take care of itself if we had large predators that hung around fast food joints and took out the masses as they waddled back to their cars.

Anyway, today I had a special sighting which has never happened in the years of me keeping black oil sunflower seeds to attract wild birds. It seems without really trying I have placed a new larger, and more protein filled "prey item" to attract much larger birds into my yard. The new larger bird feeder seems to be the four chickens that sit rather helplessly (a sitting duck if you will) in their chicken ark.

This morning I was getting dressed and saw a very large bald eagle fly into the yard and perch in a tree directly above the chicken yard. I was thinking "cool" a bald eagle in the yard. It didn't really occur to me what the bird was doing in the yard until I saw it directly above the girls who were happily clucking away. It would be a chore for the eagle to get into the chickens, but who wants to find out for sure. In fact I don't think I would have the same reaction to the eagle taking one of the girls that I had when the poor Pine Sisken met its fate.

I quietly crept out the front door to get a closer look and the large bird decided the restaurant was closed for the day and flew away.

-George

No More McDonald's?

When I was young my Pop had a tradition of bringing me to McDonald's for a treat when I would visit him in Chicago. This created a very clear associated memory for me with respect to this restaurant and spending time with my grandpa. This tradition probably nestled many warm fuzzy memories of eating hamburgers with my Pop in the recesses of my brain.

Over the last few years of my son's life I have perpetuated this association through to the next generation by taking an occasional trip with him to the golden arches. Although these trips have become increasingly rare over the years.

Lucky for my daughter she is older and has already classified McDonald's into the "gross" part of her brain escaping the brainwashing bestowed upon my son.

Now new reason to distance myself and my family from all forms of fast food- like we needed a new reason. The past reasons included: very high calorie, very high fat (and scary fats at that), very wasteful packaging, evil corporation!, globalization, etc. Now we have added to the list new data from a recent research report which clearly links the hamburger and chicken protein to the diet and environment the animal experienced during their life.

Sorry Pop!


-George

Food Storage As Grandma Knew It

I have been thinking quite a bit about storing food, preserving, canning, freezing. We were successful this year in picking blueberries from a local organic farm and storing away about 25 pounds in our freezer for use until into November. We also picked and stored apples from our trees in a plastic bin in our storage room, and we are currently enjoying fresh apples. However, my dreams of canning large amounts of fresh tomatoes didn't pan out, and I really would like to grow and store more of the food we eat. Today I ran into an interesting article in the New York Times with the title of this entry and it peaked my interest again in learning more practical applications of food preservation and storage. I have attached the link to the article here.

-George