(Juvenile Northern Black Racer) Here’s a comforting thought. It’s baby snake season. The little slithery guys are out there in large numbers, waiting for an opportunity to scare the bejeezus out of approximately half the human population. I don’t mind snakes, if I can see them. It’s the ones I don’t see that cause concern. D. Kleopfer with the Game Department says that now is … [Read more...]

  For the first time in memory – I mean ever – I have mowed the grass every single week. I started in early April and am still mowing strong. Usually (always) there is week or two of extreme heat in the summer without rain and the grass takes a few weeks off. I think I recall a 6-week period a few years ago that I left my mower in the shed. But not this year. This is a year that the … [Read more...]

  I was in the back yard looking at a collage of high school reunion pictures when a Monarch Butterfly paid me a visit. The laptop computer screen was alive with color and the butterfly thought it was surely flowers. She – I think it was she – flew right into my lap and began bumping into the computer screen. When she bounced away, she came back again and again. Anything that colorful has … [Read more...]

  Early this summer, a lovely vine emerged from beneath our mailbox beside the road. It was a melon or squash of some type, and I assumed a squirrel had buried one of the seeds I regularly discard from melons or squash. The squirrels love them, but they bury a few and one of the rodents buried his seed at the edge of the road. The vine exploded in size and finally a fruit appeared. Then … [Read more...]

  Any time I see a product advertised as “squirrel proof” I have my doubts. These industrious pests spend their entire squirrelly lives trying to figure out ways to confound humans, and they generally succeed. Baffles on a pole can prevent squirrels from climbing up, but not from jumping down. Sometimes squirrels will take gigantic leaps from far away limbs or overhangs to land on top of a … [Read more...]

  Maybe I should let the squirrels plant my garden. They seem to do a better job. Every spring, stuff pops up in our yard and garden beds that we didn’t plant. We find dozens of baby sunflower plants and if I didn’t mow my grass, my backyard would be a cornfield. If I toss out a hundred corn kernels for the squirrels, they will eat 10 and bury 90. One year we had a mysterious plant in one … [Read more...]

  Why? Why would anyone want to attract amphibians such as frogs and lizards or reptiles such as snakes and turtles to their yard? Simple. Because these critters eat tons of insects and rodents. According to Virginia’s DNR, amphibians and reptiles are a vital part of the natural world, but urban development and landscaping have caused their habitats to be lost or degraded. By making … [Read more...]

  My wife Nancy got balled out this week. Not by me, of course. I’ve got better sense. But she did receive quite a scolding from one of our resident catbirds. Nancy was trimming an azalea bush and must have gotten a little too close to one of Mrs. Catbird’s babies. The catbird really let her have it. I’ve only had catbirds visit our yard for the last 7 or 8 years, but now they’re … [Read more...]

The plague on my yard is gone. The grackles have finally flown the coop. They arrived back in March this year, earlier than ever. And they came in droves – 20, 30, 40. Then they thinned down to a couple of dozen and ate most every speck of decent bird food I put out. I hate ‘em, and I can’t afford to feed my backyard friends and them, too. I would put out a $4 bar of peanut suet and they … [Read more...]