Wren, Hen, and Coons

The hen I’ve nicknamed “White Feather” because she has white feathers among the red, is lingering on–but just barely. I didn’t really expect her to last so long. She’s been looking like a grizzled old dog. I’ve read that chickens only last 7-8 years so I suspect she’s dying of old age. Basically, I am providing her hospice care, allowing her to die peacefully without the Mean Girl tormenting her.

At 6 a.m. yesterday morning, I was sitting on the couch sipping coffee when I glimpsed movement on the deck outside the window. My first thought was that it was our outside cat Theo because of the glimpse I had had of something that resembled his coloring. My second thought was that it couldn’t be Theo because he was still locked securely in the garage where he is safe from night-time predators. I stood up for a better look. Then I quickly grabbed my phone and went to the door to video them. Sorry for the poor quality. The Mama and her babies were moving quickly so I had to video them while they were in sight.

I enjoy observing the wildlife that wanders on our property. I know that raccoons can be nuisances, but we’ve lived here just over 8 years now and they’ve never been much of a problem. The worst they’ve done is eat the leftover bird seed from the feeders and raid our corn, but we’ve never had much luck with corn anyway and we couldn’t keep them out of that. They leave the rest of the garden alone.

We usually see a mama raccoon and her 4-5 babies once or twice every year. We aren’t ever over-run with raccoons so I sometimes wonder where they all go when they reach adulthood. What is the population density on an acre of land–or 5 acres? They can’t all stick around. Where do they go?

Lately, I’ve heard a bird at one of our birdhouses singing all day long. I didn’t recognize the song so I looked at the bird through our binoculars for a close-up view. It was small and brown. I tried my best to memorize its features so I could look it up in our Birds of Michigan Field Guide by Stan Tekiela. I didn’t have much hope of identifying it because it looked much like a thousand other small brown birds. However, I finally decided that it was likely a house wren. In the book I read these interesting facts:

A prolific songster, it will sing from dawn until dusk during mating season. Easily attracted to nest boxes. In spring, the male chooses several prospective nesting cavities and places a few small twigs in each. Female inspects each, chooses one, and finishes the nest building. She will completely fill the nest cavity with uniformly small twigs, then line a small depression at back of cavity with pine needles nad grass. Often has trouble fitting long twigs through nest cavity hole. Tries many different directions and approaches until successful.

After I decided upon a possible identification, I went to the All About Birds website so I could listen to a house wren’s song. Yup. That’s our bird! During the afternoon, I watched a bluebird try to chase the wren away. I’ve observed that bluebirds tend to be quite territorial. I felt a little sorry for the wren until I read these additional facts on the website:

 House Wrens are aggressive. Single males sometimes compete for females even after a pair has begun nesting. In about half of these contests the outsider succeeds in displacing his rival, at which point he usually discards any existing eggs or nestlings and begins a new family with the female.

I suspect the birdhouses are too close so birds are fighting over territory. In the autumn, I hope to move the birdhouses further apart and see if that helps.

We have three oscillating sprinklers that water larger areas of EJ’s garden, but they quickly stop working correctly so I’ve given up on them. Instead, I use a little circular sprinkler that sets up a spray like a fountain. It doesn’t cover as much ground as the oscillating sprinklers so I have to move it multiple times to water all the plants in the garden. The last few mornings I’ve been trying to move the sprinkler so it covers the most ground in one time in as few moves as possible. I’ve been sticking short lengths of small diameter PVC pipe in the ground and sticking the sprinkler in that (the part that normally would stick in the ground) which raises the sprinkler and enables it to cover more area. I may have to make a few more adjustments to get it exactly right, but I think I’ve gotten it as good as I can. It looks as if I’ve reduced the number of movements to five, which will cut about an hour off the time it takes me to water his garden. Here is a photo of a portion of his garden. One PVC sprinkler setup can be seen in the center.

EJ has been struggling with a health issue that has caused him so much pain that he has had to come home early from work for several days, including today. We are very unhappy with the local doctors, who all push drugs that we suspect have adversely affected EJ’s health–and their fees seem to be very excessive. EJ was in so much pain today that he gave up and called his local doctor for an appointment. His local doctor can’t get him in before August 7. His office said, “Call first thing tomorrow and maybe there will be a cancellation so we can get you in.” Grrrr. Honestly, we’ve lost our confidence in the medical profession. We have a few horror stories which I won’t take the time to tell. Ok, one: In 2017 or 2018, EJ’s previous doctor convinced him to have a flu shot, only the second he’d ever had in his life. Right after that, he started having dizzy spells, weakness, and shaking. Because of it, he lost his job. That was a hardship for us, although God took care of us in amazing ways.

Anyway, we are pursuing getting EJ signed up with an online practice that uses natural methods to treat health issues, which we much prefer. If he can get a virtual appointment, we will forget about the local doctor.