Comments (13)

By Mom Unplugged, April 27, 2008 9:10 pm

My two oldest each had lengthy birthday parties to attend this afternoon. So although I had an art project in mind when I chose birds as this week’s Unplugged Project theme, my children’s busy social calendars precluded anything too complicated.

Instead of art this week, we decided to do something I was meaning to do anyhow: put out some nice spring nesting materials.

While most people know that putting out food and water for wild birds is a great way to attract them to your yard, another often overlooked additional method is to provide nesting materials in the spring. As long as you have some good nesting locations (requirements vary by type of bird), giving them handy materials can encourage them to nest in your yard where you can watch the action for several months.

All you’ll need are some empty suet feeder cages, or a few of those nets used to package oranges or potatoes in bulk. We used a big net from some oranges and a few small Baby Bel cheese nets.

We have some high class, five star nesting material: leftover alpaca fleece from Dempsey, an alpaca at our local alpaca ranch!

If you don’t happen to have a local alpaca ranch or any spare alpaca fleece lying around your house, you can also try putting out any of the following:

-dried leaves and twigs
-human or horse hair
-pet fur, sheep’s wool
-dry grass
-plant fluff (ie. cattail fluff)
-feathers
-yarn or string (cut into 4″ to 8″ pieces)
-thin strips of cloth (1″ x 6″)
-cotton batting
-bark strips
-pine needles
-shredded paper
-moss

But don’t put out drier lint (stays soggy, dries hard, can contain chemicals from laundering).

You can prepare the household materials together, or go on a nature hike to collect suitable natural materials.

Place the materials in the nets or cages and hang them around your garden on trees, or deck railings. You can also push loose material into tree crevices or between rocks, and drape yarn and string over bushes. Heavier items that won’t blow away, like twigs, can be put out in small piles around your yard.

Then simply sit back and watch to see if there is any interest in your spring gifts!

For more about this (and my source for much of this information), please see: Attracting Birds With Nesting Material from the fascinating Cornell Lab of Ornithology website.

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If you participated in the birds project this week, please put your link in Mr. Linky below (also be sure to leave a comment in case Mr. Linky malfunctions).

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

Green

Please join us!

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Comments (2)

By Mom Unplugged, April 21, 2008 8:32 pm

I am not supposed to be online much this week since it is Turnoff Week and I am the creator/host of the 2nd Annual TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge (must set a good example you know!), so I will simply give you a few quick “free association” links to some worthy children’s books that come to mind when I think of Earth Day:

And here is an inspirational one by Rachel Carson for adults, that I just love:

If you want, you can read my full post about this book here.

Also: For more on kids and the environment, please see my post on Raising Environmentally Aware Children.

Happy Earth Day to all, and to all a good night!

Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, March 9, 2008 9:18 am

What is happening with our weather? A few weeks ago we had some glorious warmth that made the bulbs begin to sprout and put a smile on the face and a spring in the step. Then suddenly, literally overnight, the temperature dropped about 30 degrees and it became cold again.

This morning, after a restless night spent listening to a loud coyote party in my backyard, I awoke to…a dusting of snow! What? Where did spring go? Big sigh.

Sorry for the dull meteorological post, but I just needed to vent.

Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer George Bosela for this fitting photo.

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By Mom Unplugged, March 1, 2008 10:19 am

Spring is in the air which means that seeds of all kinds will soon be sprouting: flower seeds, tree seeds…weed seeds. (Big sigh.)

Now is a good time to teach your little ones a bit more about seeds. I can’t think of a more lovely book for this purpose, than A Seed Is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long.

This book is packed with interesting facts about seeds. Each two page-spread presents a one sentence fact, followed by a short explanation. For example the first page says: “A seed is sleepy.” Followed by: “It lies there, tucked inside its flower, on its cone, or beneath the soil. Snug. Still.” The information is presented in a sweet, almost poetic way that makes it easily accessible and enjoyable for a variety of ages.

What really makes this book truly wonderful though, are Sylvia Long’s amazing illustrations reminiscent of old, botanical prints. Her colorful paintings are incredibly rich and detailed. Ms. Long has a real eye for seeing and reproducing the beauty and wonder of even the simplest natural objects.

We love this book so much, that next on my wish list is Ms. Aston and Ms. Long’s other collaboration: An Egg Is Quiet

Comments (5)

By Mom Unplugged, December 14, 2007 1:05 pm

Thank you all for your great thoughts and opinions on Wednesday’s post. It is amazing to me to be able to have a discussion with intelligent and concerned fellow humans from all over the world! Although our topic was depressing, your comments raised my spirits and reminded me that there are many caring, thoughtful people on this Earth. Thank you!

Here in my tiny corner of the planet, yesterday was also one of those days where you just look around in awe at the beauty of it all. Tuesday’s one foot snowfall had left the tall pines groaning and bending under heavy loads of snow which sparkled in the sun and contrasted beautifully with the robin’s egg blue sky.

When I ventured out of my cozy nest in the morning to prepare to take the kids to school, it was so cold (just 12 degrees Farenheit) that the snow crunched with every footstep. The trash can lid squeaked as I opened it. My breath misted up the crisp, dry, pinyon-scented air.

The afternoon cooking project perfumed the house with the exotic fragrances of cinnamon, cloves and allspice as we prepared a dish of Turkish Bulgur in honor of the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Adha. My 7 year-old daughter had studied this holiday to present for part of her “Universe Night” show, and we needed to bring a Muslim dish to school for the post-show potluck dinner.

The day closed with a lovely evening at our little Montessori school surrounded by good friends and good food. For me, the evening’s highlight was watching my daughter’s Oscar-worthy performance as a “Bacterium” in the school play about the origins of life! As you can imagine, for a Mom, it was heartbreakingly cute.

Life is good.