My handyman calls them "tree rats" because there are so many of them and they push the pretty little birds away from the food, plus there's the mess they make -- they are larger, so their leavings are larger than say the goldfinches.
I got started feeding birds a few years back, and now I must be listed in the avian AAA, because I have BIRDS!!! Sometimes I look out and areas of the yard are totally covered in quail. I always check to make sure Dick Cheney isn't lurking in the bushes. The quail are fun to watch with their little punctuation topknots - question marks for the boys, exclamation points for the girls, and they all run in a most peculiar fashion, and they run quite a bit.
Some scrub jays have trained me to furnish peanuts, which they eat and plant. Some are for eating, some are for planting. Unfortunately, our climate doesn't permit them to sprout. The fact that they're roasted may have something to do with that, too.
That's what lots of people call rock doves here. They say they carry disease, they always shuttup when I say that so does Man.
In the same vein I'll counter that Man makes far more leavings than any other animal :-(
Um. I think that must be an American joke :-)
and eat shoelaces, according to a friend who bred them.
Our jays (not necessarily the same as your scrub jays) are regarded as vermin by many because they raid smaller birds' nests for eggs. I think they're very beautiful and add to our environment. Many is at least as much of a predator ...
Really? Our grain for birds isn't roasted. Perhaps that's because our climate isn't conducive to sprouting unless it's made so to be. By planting in the Earth and watering :-)
By the way, I do like your sig - Pogonip. Any chance of knowing how it came about?
>> The quail are fun to watch with their little punctuation topknots - >> question marks for the boys, exclamation points for the girls, and they >> all run in a most peculiar fashion, and they run quite a bit.>
Alas, our scrub jays are also reputed to do that, but they are so pretty with their lovely blue plumage, and they're very intelligent as well. A friend who feeds his peanuts reports that they all but knock on the door when there are no more. The feeder is by his back door, but he comes and goes by the front, and it's at the front door that they wait for him to tell him he needs to put out more peanuts. Mine just sit on the platform feeder and call me through the window beside it.
My unsalted peanuts come from the produce department in my grocery. It's actually cheaper to buy them there than in the feed store. I get them some shelled unsalted peanuts in the health food aisle from the bulk food bins. Spoil them? Hmmm....well......
Pogonip is the Paiute word for white death, hoar frost. Here in the high desert we sometimes awaken in winter to a frosted world with bright sunshine. It's blinding and incredibly beautiful with every single twig encased in clear ice with the sun shining and the blue sky, but the air is so cold and dry that it's dangerous to breath unwarmed air. Hence, White Death.
That's very interesting, I had always assumed (obviously erroneously) that it was some sort of play on Pogo the comic character. For Mary, here's a link to Pogo:
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used to see Joanne in my mind's eye as a cute little possum. ;-) I have only ever seen hoar frost once, that was in Prince George, B.C. It was stunning!
How fortunate you are to be able to do that. The US has turned into a wretched mess of industrial "farms" (translation: dirty, disgusting, inhumane feed lots). Just today, I heard that recent testing has revealed the MRSA virus is showing up frequently in these unhealthy, unclean operations. But our supervising agencies are said to look the other way. Only days ago, scores of people got salmonella from tomatoes. The American food supply is in very sorry shape these days and most people here, it seems, are clueless about where their food comes from.
Yes, but be fair, American consumers have long ago by majority wanted inexpensive and plentiful ,versus scarcity and expensive.
Fruits and veggies out of season for instance used to be only via cans or frozen, now you can have "fresh" but they come from South America, Mexico or some place else where it is warm during the USA winter.
American beef used to be by and large grass fed, and good. While it was expensive, especially for good cuts, good housewives learned to make do with not so great cuts for interesting meals. Local butchers were famous for suggesting a nice cut for say pot roast or if one had to feed a crowd on a budget. Well local butchers are by and large gone and supermarket meat is treated so it will last longer. Besides local butchers were great sources for soup bones, offal and other things including lard (often rendered below or above shop), not to mention hard to find things today like beef tongue, brains, sheep eyes, and the rest (no I do not eat any of them, but growing up knew those that did).
The result of all this cheap an somewhat unhealthy meat is Americans eat way too much of the stuff, to the determent of their health.
Fish, don't get me started on fish. I for one will have nothing to do with farm raised fish, including salmon. But yet it is piled high at the supermarket, and people don't wonder why they are getting such a bargain on "fresh salmon". Cod has gone sky high, and become so scarce at times as well. Doing a good fish and chips for several can set you back dearly.
But why does anyone want to et vegetables and fruit out of season? It's not necessary to have frozen peas with every meal (we never have them) and why on Earth strawberries in January?
The same is true of UK too.
There still are some here, and some mezt producers go to farmers' markets and one can get very good service and advice. I lioke to think that those of us who love good food and are very careful about what we put into our bodies will have some influence ...
I didn't know that.
Never seen sheeps eyes and brains aren't allowed sonce BSE but I buy a Highland Cattle tongue every couple of months, cook and press it and it's delicious.
Not only Americans ...
Same here.
I don't make fish and chips but it's a long time since I had cod, the ones available are so small. When I was a chilid cod and haddock were as big as me.
We limit our fish intake because of the state of fish stocks and the politics of fishing. There still are plenty good fish around though and I've learned about previously unknown fish by not being able or prepared to buy the erstwhile common ones. Monkfish, Dover sole, sea bass, smokies are very good. We have a fresh fish seller who trades from his van at the farmers' market, we've learned a lot from him. Seasonality comes into fish as well :-)
This, however, is a sewing group, I apologise for drifting ...
It's a notion that has been strongly promulgated and endorsed by our leadership. I don't recall American consumers ever wanting to sacrifice safety, health, and humanity for cheap, infectious products masquerading as food. And I don't see the problem as cheap vs. expensive either. There is such a notion as "reasonable". Reasonable care for animals, reasonable prices so farmers (not industrial feed lots) can actually make a reasonable living.
Only a few decades ago, people paid a far higher percentage of their budget for food (almost double IIRC). Now, they pay a much smaller proportion for food and a far greater percentage for medical bills. As I see it, the larger problem is the dependence on excessively processed, un-nutritious fake convenience foods full of trans-fat and high fructose corn syrup. But you're right, Americans do vote, in this sense, with their pocketbooks.
We haven't had a tomato all winter and spring (except canned). Store tomatoes are just awful and I don't understand why people would want to put something that awful in their mouths. Our delicious tomatoes usually come in mid to late June and produce through October. My husband plants several dozen varieties. This year he planted "Mortgage Lifter" for the first time. You just have to try something with a name like that! We try to eat local as much as possible without going to extremes. Fuel prices will, most certainly, curtail the excessive importation of produce. We are currently looking at ways to extend our own growing season a bit.
I like Michael Pollan's (_In Defense of Food_) rules for eating:
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
By "eat food", he means real food, not processed--- nothing with more than five or so ingredients and nothing your grandmother would not recognize.
There are no more cod, to speak of, in the northeast US. They were fished out as a result of indifference to fishing regulations. Efforts to regenerate the species there have failed because other predatory species prevent them from growing to a reasonable size so they can reproduce. Very sad indeed. I often wonder what it will take for people to wake up.
Indeed, I certainly hope so. The movement for better, healthier food is alive and well in the US but with so much industry control of our supervising agencies like the USDA and the FDA, it is a very uphill struggle.
Me either! I knew that they were pumping carbon monoxide into meat packages to retain the color so it looks fresher longer but I did not know they were treating it with something like preservatives. Ugh!
In the US, most people, especially younger people, have little notion what part of the cow their meat comes from, let alone what breed of bovine. American cattle for industrial meat production are almost always specially bred Holsteins (IIRC) because they are the type mostly easily fattened on corn--- something cows are NOT really built to eat. But there's hope. Only this morning I heard something about buffalo cheese as part of the growing diversity of breeds used for making cheese. But I don't think I'd want to be the person to milk that buffalo...... LOL.
To be clear and fair, meant the process of irradiation, carbon monoxide and god only knows what else is thought up and allowed,or at least looked the other way at. Things such as rinsing meat and poultry near or past it's sell by date, in a chlorine bleach and water solution, repackaging it and putting it back out for sale.
mention hard
In certain parts of Scandinavia boiled ram's head is considered good eating, they even put on fancy dress and so forth. In that and other situations where parts of animals we normally don't consider proper for the dinner table grew out of poverty situations way back when. When was poor, and or living in a poor country meat, especially fresh meat was hard to come by and expensive, even for those that farmed. To compensate all parts of the animal were used, even offal. One only has to think of certain foods once popular by African Americans in the South such as pigs feet, trotters, hog jowls, fat back, pig's snout and so forth. Brains apparently were and or are big from European countries, but I'd rather die than try them.
Yes, Mary, you really ought to stop leading us astray like this! Why is it it is always the quiet ones that are the ring leaders? *LOL*
My mom (of Polish descent) used to fix fried brains when I was a kid. I knew what they were, I was squicked out by the idea...but still.. and yet... they were pretty good. Inside the crispy fried crust the texture was soft, like scrambled eggs, the flavor was very mild. You ate them on toasted rye bread with a slice of onion. They were a popular tavern food, IIRC. I think you can still get fried brain sandwiches in some places in South St. Louis.
They were a PITA to prepare - lots of cleaning and removing of (erk) membranes, etc. I haven't had them since I was old enough to say no and make it stick, and I wouldn't eat them these days on a bet.
No central nervous system tissues for me, thankyouverymuch and that includes neckbones and sauerkraut, another of Mom's favorites.
Ther museum in Laurel, MS has or had a most unusual basket collection. DM took us often to see the displays. She loved baskets and one DD has picked up the hobby, DD has some gorgeous ones, but I have no idea where they were purchased. Emily
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