Tea

This blog is so slow in the winter... I cant wait for a few more months when the crocus start coming up and I can garden again!

I'm putting this here instead of my regular blog, even though it's not really garden related, because this one needs some action.

As you all know, I have been growing tea this year (the herbal kind!) I've been drinking a lot of my own red raspberry leaf and calendula (Amy LOVES the calendula tea with chamomile for an upset tummy!) and a traded a bunch for some very high quality Tea Tree oil. Anyway I finally pooled all my stuff and mixed a batch of my best tea blend to give as Christmas gifts this year, and it turned out HEAVENLY. It is gorgeous to look at, divine to drink with a little honey. I'm very proud!

Almost everything was grown in my own garden - a few things (like cardamom seed) don't grow here and a few things (like lemon balm) I haven't planted yet, but will next year. Anyway so the tea has in it the glorious combination of these ingredients:

Chamomile flowers
Peppermint leaves
Lemon balm
Lavender
Crushed Rose hips
Red raspberry leaf
Strawberry leaf
Cardamom seeds
Calendula petals
Dried orange rind zest

It is a very healthy tea, full of flavinoids, vitamins, minerals, and etc. Very good for your body and so lovely to drink. Plus it looks just delightful to see all the real pieces in the tea with the brilliant colors from being so freshly dried - the varied green base leaves of different texture, the soft pale chamomile heads, the tiny sprinkles of purple lavender flowers throughout, the deep fruity red of the rosehips, black cardamom and the brilliant orange yellow calendula. I need to take a picture of it!

Hooray for the sense of satisfaction that comes from harvesting and creating something so good. I love it!

Birdwatching

One of the hard things about gardening in this great state is the long dead winter. While snow is beautiful, and the kids sure enjoy it, it's hard to appreciate the winterscape day after day when I'd rather be out planting, weeding, pruning and harvesting. One of the simple luxuries I do enjoy here though is feeding the birds. It makes gazing out the window far less dreary when there's a flurry of activity going on.

I've always liked feeding birds and watching them, since I was little. But I didn't really LOVE it until we moved here. In California, where I grew up, feeding birds is kind of ... blah. I mean the weather is always great and you're not providing anything for them that they couldn't find on their own, 365 days a year. But out here there's snow covering the ground for a solid 6 - 9 months, with few if any seeds or insects to be found, and temps far below zero. Putting out seed, nuts and suet (and warm flowing water) attracts TONS of birds because a food source is a very big deal in winter. I feel almost benevolent, I enjoy watching who comes to partake and the various personalities they all have - it's quite a nice symbiotic relationship. Plus out here the birds are, frankly, just a lot more striking. They have bold colors and unique ways of moving. Out West it seems like the grey sparrows I saw day after day, while adorable, were mostly just interested in not becoming someone else's lunch, and camoflauge was the big thing. Not so out here - a brilliant cardinal against the snow is quite a sight!

I have three feeders. My main one on the SE corner of the deck is filled with a mixture of safflower and black sunflower seeds (hence the sunflowers I get growing of their own accord below it every summer!) We often get jays or other messy birds who spill prolifically, so underneath that corner of the deck, where there is a mixture of shrubby weeds, lawn grass, and stone pathway, is a secondary feeding site from those seeds. The birds eat about 2 cups of seed a day! Also hanging off the deck, just below and to the side of the seed feeder (where I can sit comfortably on the couch with a mug of tea and watch it through the bay window) is a suet basket. It gets filled with different suet cakes - right now it's suet with millet and cracked corn, but sometimes I get cakes with berries or ground mealworms and crickets. Out in the back, by the birches, is a hanging woodpecker feeder. It's filled with peanuts, sunflower, corn, and other goodies in a hard glycerin based binder and also in a cage.

I'm having fun noting with Amy which birds we've seen. I didn't recognize a lot of them when we moved here. So far our list has:

Blue Jay
Mourning Dove
American Goldfinch
Dark-Eyed Junco
Black-Capped Chickadee
Downy Woodpecker
House Finch
Northern Cardinal (male and female, lots!)
Purple Finch
Tufted Titmouse
House Sparrow
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Common Grackle

And not exactly at the feeders, but seen in the yard or in the neighborhood:

American Robin
American Crow
Wild Turkey
Ruffed Grouse
Common Pheasant
Canadian Goose
Snow Goose

We found a fantastic site, Here, that not only helps us identify birds but has little wv files attached with their calls. So it's become this really fun science project around the house - we watch and see who comes to our feeders, make note of when they come and what they eat, and try to identify them. We listen to their sounds and read other facts about them. It's interesting, and hopefully it's something that will stick with Amy for a long time.