Doses of nature

 

Today my sister took her son and granddaughters to see the oasis. She texted me from there that they had found a lone weak baby quail and what should they do for it? Unfortunately, all I could tell them was to put it down and walk away from it. If it's not strong enough to keep up with the adults, it won't survive. Such is the nature of nature.

There's a small volunteer cypress tree that I've been nurturing, and a bear has damaged it twice now. I think it'll survive, eventually. If you look closely you can see a cord that I had tied to it to keep it upright after the previous time a bear had ravaged it.

And there was new damage to this Mexican Pinyon tree. It should survive also.

It was so hard for me to manage the hoses and pump to fill the 11,000 gallon tank yesterday. I had to get my sister and niece to run up and help me. When I looked inside to see how fast the tank was filling, I was greeted by drowning rats. Ugh! Another ample dose of nature.

The mosquitoes have arrived at the oasis in force, my sister tells me. I'm not anxious for that much nature right now, but I'll go in a couple of days, long enough to fill feeders. 

Question: Why is it so difficult to create a bear proof trash can (or seed feeder)?

Answer: Because there's considerable overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest people.

Fortunately, the electrified feeder is working. I toyed with the idea of removing the zapper setup and concreting the feeder in so a bear can't jiggle seed out of it. That way I could make it prettier with rock perches etc. BUT.. I can't bring myself to do it. Maybe a strong bear could wiggle it loose, especially if the concrete hadn't cured good yet, and it had access to the ports. If it's not broke, don't fix it, even if it goes against my nature to want to beautify it.