About Crows

The crows in their gatherings have been especially numerous and remarkable this year. I decided to check out why and this is what I found out.
Crows congregate in winter mainly to roost and the size of the congregation can be as small as a hundred or tens of thousands. An hour or two before dark, they congregate in a staging area where they call, chase, and fight. About dark they move to the night roost. There may be safety in numbers or there may be other reasons for these normally solitary birds to roost together. One involves conveying information. For instance,if a crow has had limited success foraging that day, it may want to watch which direction the best fed and crows are heading in come morning.
The crows usually stop congregating to roost in March and this is when breeding season starts. It takes about 4 months to select a mate, build a nest and raise the chicks to independence. This generally means that only one brood will be raised in a season. The unmated juveniles frequently help their parents with caring for the eggs and young.
Crows generally mate for life. The exception seems to be if the crows are mating for the first time and the nesting fails.Successful nests occur about 50% of the time and in rural areas, crows usually can fledge 4 out of 5 eggs originally laid. Juveniles do not breed in their first year; in fact females may be 4 to 6 years old and males 5 to 6 years before they form a pair bond. Crows live a long time- the oldest one known lived 29 1/2 years. In the wild they probably live 17-21 years.
When we were children my brother got a young crow somehow. He was always off in the woods if he was not doing chores. My uncle told him if he split the crows tongue it could talk. He did it and the crow died, maybe because it could not eat.
This is one of my favorite poems and it just happens to be about crows.


Crows


Crows startle the clouds
with grievances never resolved
and warnings blurted into thin air.
Once in a while, the cries of all those who tried to survive
pour from the funnels of their throats.
No wonder we never really listen.
Like most animals, crows tell the truth:
working hard to penetrate our tiny tubular ears,
they cackle on telephone lines while we watch TV.
Once I did listen to a crow, but even when I had heard
his whole story, there was nothing I could do.
Next, I thought, I'd have to listen to squirrels and coyotes.
I like to think I deal with my share of rotten truths
but I couldn't bear to kneel down in damp grass
and listen to the hedgehog or the mole.
Judith Barrington

Still Angel Trumpets Left

 

This is my last angel trumpet for the season (2009) The whole plant has not been killed yet, just the top has been bit. But still, I am sure this is the last Hurrah for this season.

November Has Beautiful Leaves

 

 

 

There are still beautiful leaves in my yard, but I am expecting it to all be over in the next few days. The top picture is the blueberry bushes. They turned out in a nice combination.
The second is a dogwood that still has a few leaves. This dogwood escaped the ax a few years ago when all that talk about a fungal disease called anthracnose was going around. Advice was if you had a tree with the disease you should get rid of it pronto before it spread. This tree lost several limbs and I was feeling pretty sad about it. It was a mere chance seedling when we built the house 25 years ago. I left it because it was a dogwood and it was growing next to a stump that looked like it was going to be there a while. I hesitated and further reading turned up the suggestion to prune the affected limbs and see how that worked out. So with the passage of a few years, the limbs stopped dying, at least so frequently and it survives to bloom and fruit beautifully every year. Maybe it was not anthracnose at all, or maybe it was...
The bottom picture is a yellow bell, Forsythia. It is as beautiful in fall foliage as it is with spring flowers, and almost the same color. I am vexed when I see how some people trim Forsythia into square and ball shapes or just shear off the top of the shrub flat. This destroys the natural lovely draping shape of the shrub. Better to save yourself some work and enjoy the cascading branches filled with yellow flowers in spring. If your shrub is in a row or crowded by other shrubs so that it is not shown off to it's best, no problem. Stick some cuttings in the ground where you want a new shrub and step back. You may have to water if it turns dry but this will produce another lovely yellow bell in short order.The only care I ever give mine is to cut the similax vine out of it as well as any dead or damaged stems.

Franklin Tree in the Fall

 

This is my Franklin tree in the fall. I should have taken the picture before most of the leaves fell, but you can see it has beautiful leaf color in addition to those beautiful flowers in summer. I am proud of this little tree,not only because I grew it from a mere seed, but because I had bought $30 twigs twice and they had died. I kept this one in a pot for several years but it was getting so large I thought it should go in the ground. A little research turned up the fact that the Franklin tree often succumbs on land that has had cotton grown on it, due to attack by a fungus. I eventually procured some fungicide and poured it all around and in the hole where the tree was to go. This is the beginning of its third year in the ground and it seems happy.

Metasequoia in Alabama

 

 

I have 5 Metasequois in my yard, one planted 3 years ago and the other 4 have been in the ground for 2 summers. We used to talk about our house being called The Oaks, but in years to come, somone may call it The Place Where the Metasequoias Grow. Or it might be called the Bald Cypress Homestead, as the 2 trees are so easily confused to the untrained eye. In fact, althought I am growing Dawn Redwood, I state that emphatically simply because I purchased them as such. The trees will have to be older before I can make a definite ID on them.
Metasequoias have cones that open and disburse the seed, bald cypress have cones that crumble. Metasequoia is said to grow faster and have more buttressing and fluting of the lower trunk. Both have beautiful fall color. As you can see from the color here, the orange/brown color is quite different from our other fall colors.
I expect these trees to grow from 180-200 feet tall, and they are already growing quickly.
My original acquisition of these trees was based on their romantic history. It was known from the fossil record by 3 species, but was thought to be extinct until 1944 when one was discovered growing in a temple garden in China. Most of the current trees originated as seeds from this tree although a small grove was also discovered. Trees in temple gardens are carefully tended and this may account for the discovery of another living fossil, the Gingko, also in a temple garden.
I like to think of these trees "lifting their leafy arm to pray" long after I can no longer lift mine.

Thanksgiving Thanks

Of course the sermon today was on being thankful,and the list included all the typical things:family, job,nation,home,friends,and nature. I started thinking about some of the smaller things that I am thankful for. The first that came to mind was coffee. Just to get an idea about how wonderful it is, all I have to do is skip one morning. maybe it is addiction after all. But I like it also for the aroma and taste. I often have coffee with friends and that adds an extra dimension to it.
I am thankful for beautiful sunsets. I see more of them in the cooler months and I suppose that is why it seems to me there are nicer sunsets in winter when the air is clear. Typically when I see a beautiful sky, a wave of peace and calm sweeps over me and I feel safe and loved.
I am thankful for my health and I realize that the luck of the draw has been with me so far. When it is my time I want to go suddenly, no lingering, while I am digging a hole to plant a tree.
I am thankful for my mother and the life she lived in front of all. Her love never wavered, and her hands reached out to help, even when the only thing she could do was to fold them in prayer. I am thankful that she was with me so long.
I am thankful for the animals. Maybe God put them here to remind us of how we should really live.They live in a different kingdom , but we should not fool ourselves into believing they are that different from us. They have many of the same feelings as we do and we can often see it in their eyes and their behavior. "When you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me."
I am thankful for tub baths and a warm (or cool) bed.
I am thankful that I was born at this time in history, and not some time before or after this. This is a good time, maybe the best there has ever been or will be.
I am thankful that I see as well as I do, and I am glad I have been able to receive care and appliances that help me see better, if not perfectly. Often when I see something beautiful, I try to remember it in case there ever comes a time when I cannot see. There is really nothing that compares with a water droplet hanging on a twig and reflecting the world in its surface.
Take some time and reflect about the little things that make your life so fine. Then tell the ones who help make it so.

Cuphea

 

This is a Cuphea and I have forgotten where I got it,but I do know I have had it for several years. It is a hardy thing as I do not pay it much attention until it flowers. And it is a late bloomer, giving some variety to all those mums. The Cuphea has many members and a big variety of forms. This one resembles one I grew several years ago as a potted plant which was called cigar plant. The flowers were smaller and orange with a red tip (cigars).Apparently the deer do not find it too palatable as they just tasted a few flowers on the end of the bloom spike and moved on. I also have a cuphea know as bat flower that has the purple tube and two large (compared to the tube) red ears or wings on the end. See one here
This one does not grow as well for me, perhaps disliking my careless ways toward it and seems to get smaller every year.
Mexican heather is also a member of this group.
For a look at some of the diversity of this group put in Cuphea in the search engine and look at images.