Adult Turkey Guarding Six Youngsters On Green...

We found this picture on my husband's camera, it was taken during the first week of March 2011. It shows one of the adult turkeys with tail feathers opened as a warning to predators that it is 'on guard' for the six youngsters feeding on the green.



Have you looked at my recipe pages?

Here's a link to Turkey Meatball Sandwiches...don't tell the turkeys...

http://carolgarnierdutrameatballsandwiches.blogspot.com/

You will have to cut and paste this link into google to access it...

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After The Big Storm...

Last night we had one heck of a rain and howling wind storm. This morning I looked out one of our side windows and saw six bunny rabbits sitting on the golf course green. both my husband and I went outside to take pictures, and the two I have posted in this blog are two that my husband took with his 'birthday' camera.


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Time Races On And So Do Those Turkeys...

Time races on and spring is nearing, here in Hollister, and spring is near all over the United States of America. And turkeys, those large feathered creatures that were 'native' here in the ‘new world’ back when the pilgrims first came to our land of the free and brave, are still here in Hollister, free and brave themselves, and populating the golf course where I live.

Around three weeks ago now, near the end of February, I witnessed five youngsters, adolescent turkeys with three adults taking a leisure stroll on the green just outside of the fence that separates our backyard from the golf links. Each time the youngsters stopped to partake of whatever young turkeys eat from the grass on a golf course, the three adults, three extremely large adults, plumed out their tail feathers into that familiar fan shape we all have come to recognize as that of a ‘turkey’.

My educated guess, I say educated because I have come to know a bit about these wild turkeys that populate the two golf courses here, is that the adults were warning off any predators that might be eyeing the smaller, younger, tender, succulent birds, with their adult showing of how ferocious they can be as adults turkeys can be, by showing off their ‘fancy’ tail feathers.

As I was exiting my house with camera in hand two gardeners sitting in their gasoline run zamboni style lawn mowers came zooming along on the grass in what appeared to me as a ‘run for the turkeys’, and my picture taking moment was ruined! Perhaps this family will come back soon, and the golf course gardeners sitting in their gasoline zamboni type lawn mowers will not, and I will get a nice turkey family picture to post within this blog.

Just a few day before the turkey family came to visit, Peter Rabbit and his girl Susie Rabbit came to visit us, and when I went outside to snap the happy couples' picture the girl rabbit, whom I have come to know of as Susie Rabbit, ran off across the golf course. Peter stayed and posed for his picture, and here it is posted in this blog entry as proof but I sure would have liked to have had Susie in the picture along with Peter. Perhaps before Easter Sunday they will both come back, and I will snap a nice picture of the happy rabbit couple, and post it within this blog entry.



It is raining now but on February 26, this year 2011 we had what I called a snice storm. A snice storm is when it is raining big fluffy pieces of snow mixed with pellets of ice, and somewhere along the way the ice gives way to more snow than ice. So my husband and I both ran for our digital cameras, and we went outside and snapped a couple of pictures of this unusual snice storm. I hope the snow effect is visible in the picture I am posting within this blog entry.

Well that’s it for today from Paradise just outside of the town of Hollister, California where blue birds really do live and eat peanuts in the shell alongside of fluffy squirrels and all seem to get along, most of the time.

Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright 2011 Carol Garnier Dutra
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A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words...

Yesterday I observed our wild, fluffy squirrel friends partaking of nuts we supply them with daily, throughout the year. There were two squirrels visiting yesterday, staying close to each other, and I ventured to give them names. Because I believe they may be a male and a female cohabiting together I named them Michelle and Craig Squirrel of Holly Sister Creek, which is a very tiny, imagined community situated deep within the wilds of the golf course they live in, here in Hollister, California. This golf course is a section of Paradise where many small, furry creatures live and call home. Do you believe all of that about Holly Sister Creek? You have to close your eyes to imagine Holly Sister Creek because it is an imaginary kingdom here in Paradise.

After accomplishing my task of retrieving my digital camera I held it at my patio window, ready to snap a picture of our delightful twosome squirrel friends. Both squirrels saw me with camera in hand, and one, the timid one, took flight for the nearest palm tree that grows out of our lawn. I was left with only one tiny, fluffy rodent to photograph, and my guess is that it was the male, Craig Squirrel, who was the one who stayed to have his image photographed. I say this because I have seen over and over again that in nature it is always the males that are brave enough to remain when a human happens upon their private scene.

After Craig Squirrel visited the nut box he scurried over to the palm where Michelle Squirrel was ensconced, and he climbed up to his little friend handing over his unopened nut to Michelle. Then the male, I am sure my proud, unafraid visitor was the male, revisited the nut box to select the perfect nut for himself. It was at this time when I was able to snap a couple of digital photos, which I am sure anyone who knows what it is like living here in Paradise will enjoy viewing.

Our little squirrel friend continued to visit the nut box, and in-between his visits to the nut box, it was visited by several blue, Scrub Jays whom also love nuts in the shell. I am happy and proud to say that during last spring and summer our jays had several eggs hatch in their nests in the spreading pine trees just outside out fence, increasing the Scrub Jay population. I counted eight jays coming and going yesterday, visiting the nut box. Last fall I had noted that there were fewer jays coming into our yard, and I worried if the ferocious possum, who lives in the area, had something to do with our diminishing jay population.

One of the larger, older Scrub Jays earned the name of Buddy Boy from me because he or she, but most likely it is he, comes to the nut box while I am still standing next to it after filling it up with nuts in the shell. Because he is older and wiser he has come to acknowledge my being in his presense, and he knows that I will not harm him.

Yesterday the jay that I photographed through my patio window appeared to be one of the younger, sleeker jays. I snapped several pictures and thought the two I am publishing with this dialogue were probably the best considering the wild nature of these birds; it is difficult to take their picture. Any movement or sound generally ‘spooks’ them causing a 'flight' to safety, accompanied by their warning screeches, and out of camera range they fly!

As I write this today, I am looking out into my yard watching squirrels and jays come and go to the nut box we keep on our patio. It is a chilly day but the sun is shining, and nuts need to be taken and eaten to fuel our wild creatures for the long, cold night that lies ahead for them.

That’s my report from Paradise for today; thank you for reading.

Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra
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Nicole Perretta The Bird Call Lady On Jay Leno...

Late night TV can be as informative as entertaining.

It was late or should I say early one morning last week when I happen to tune in to a repeat of the Jay Leno show at 3:00 a.m., and saw Nicole Perretta, the ‘bird call’ lady doing some of her famous birdcalls.

It was just my luck that Ms. Perretta gave out with a shrill sounding screech, and then announced that this screeching sound she had just made was the ‘female wild turkey’ looking for the male wild turkey, in the wild.
That sound Ms. Perretta made was very close to the sound we listened to that morning I wrote about in my Blog entry entitled Jurassic Park at Eight In The Morning.

It was indeed the female wild turkey that we were watching in our backyard.
I had observed in an earlier Blog I titled Gobble, Gobble that the group appears to have dwindled down from fifteen (15) to seven (7), six females and one male. When I made the gobble, gobble sound the larger bird, which happened to be the male, broke rank with the females, and walked close to where I was standing in my yard. He diverted his path to my neighbor’s yard, and continued to watch me with interest. When once again I gave out with the gobble, gobble call he gave up his vigil of watching me, and returned to his group of female turkeys because he had satisfied his turkey curiosity that I was not another turkey, well at least most of the time I am not a ‘turkey.’

Ms. Perretta gave out with a gobble, gobble call, and she announced that this was the male wild turkey giving back his answer to the female so the female could find him.
Do only male wild turkeys do the gobble, gobble call in the wild?
Was this why the male turkey was so interested in me that day I let out with the gobble, gobble call?
Did he think that I was another male turkey not just another turkey?

In my last Blog entry entitled An Early Morning Visit From Five Wild Turkeys, I wrote about how when I gave out with a gobble, gobble that just one of the turkeys walking around on my neighbor Jim’s roof answered me back with a gobble, gobble. It makes sense now to me that only ONE wild turkey answered me back that morning. It had to be the one lone male that I have observed with the group of females, that numbered only five in total that morning, who called back to me.

I hope that in the spring 2011 that our wild turkeys increase in number, and I am thinking it would be quite interesting to see turkey chicks scattering around the golf course here looking in the grass for whatever turkey chicks look for.

http://www.bird-calling.com/
That link above this line is to Nicole Perretta when she was on the Jay Leno show. Ms. Perretta is an amazing person in her field of endeavor because she uses only her voice to imitate wild birds. Many others, who do wild bird calls use whistles and other sound making contraptions to imitate bird calls.
Nicole Perretta also has a Facebook page.

That’s my report from Paradise for today.

Thanks for reading.

Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra
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An Early Morning Visit From Five Wild Turkeys On The Sunday After Thanksgiving…

ONE TURKEY ON FENCE


TWO OF THOSE TURKEYS ON NEIGHBOR JIM'S ROOF






Today, Sunday November 28, 2010 five of our wild, live, twenty to twenty five pound turkeys re-visited our backyard, and combed our lawn for whatever wild turkeys comb lawns for. Last Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I was wishing they would come back to visit, and they did, two days after ‘turkey’ day.

Wild turkeys move rather fast; before I could retrieve my digital camera the group had moved over to the area in our back yard in front of our lemon tree, which is next to our garage back door. With my camera in hand, I opened the back door, and exited finding myself standing about eight feet away from these five, large, beautiful birds. They all looked at me with their red and blue faces like I had just dropped in their midst from the planet Mars, and one ran 'like hello' for the back gate, which is only about ten feet away from where we all were standing. It lifted itself upward much like a helicopter rising from a short sprint and up, up and away over the six foot gate it went; all twenty or twenty five pounds of bird.

The remaining four birds scattered, and eventually they each rose upward into the air, in their turn with no effort at all, and landed on our neighbor Jim’s roof. Four wild turkeys on Jim’s roof, can you imagine the sight! Can you imagine the sound my neighbors heard inside their house coming from their roof! I snapped some pictures at this time but wished I had taken pictures as soon as I came through the back garage door because they were only eight feet away from my back door. I guess when I found myself so close to them I was almost as frightened of them as they were of me. I didn’t know what they would do, with me so close to them.

I was still tired after all this excitement so I returned to our house, and went back to bed. At nine thirty I awoke with my husband telling me that the turkeys were back, and walking around on the blacktopped street. Here in the ‘country’ we have blacktopped streets but no sidewalks. My husband told me that the wild turkeys were hanging around a speed limit sign across the street that is adjacent to one of our neighbors neatly kept front yards.

I sleepily made it to our front door, and out onto our driveway. I didn’t see anything unusual on the street or at the street sign. I missed their departure. Then overheard I heard the wooshing sound of large, flapping wings coming towards me.
I looked up and saw four wild turkeys, four twenty to twenty five pound birds, flying over my roof and then over my head. What a sight it is to see birds of that size flying, and so close to the ground. I remarked to myself that all I need to see now is a big, pink pig fly overhead, and my day would be complete!

It was then that I spied one lone turkey waiting, across the street, waiting for the rest of the group. For some reason four of the birds had returned to either our backyard or our neighbor's yard, and they were now flying back to meet with their friend that waited across the street for them.

WOW, what a Sunday morning I had today! I have lived here on the golf course since April 2004, and this is the first year I have seen the wild turkeys. They are all very healthy looking but their numbers appear to have decreased.
I still think that someone living at the other end of Gabilan Golf has a freezer stuffed with dressed wild turkeys; probably the same person whose car was attacked by the group this past fall.

Living here in Paradise is never dull; it is often as interesting as going out our garage back door, and looking into the red and blue faces of five live, wild turkeys…at Thanksgiving time 2010. By the way, when the four turkeys were walking around on our neighbor Jim’s roof I said the gobble, gobble in their direction, and I got an answer back from one of the birds.

It was definitely a ‘gobble’ reply that I got from the turkey but it had a slight shrill sound to it. Remember that I wrote in my blog entry entitled “Jurassic Park At Eight In The Morning...” how they make a sound that is horribly high pitched when they are looking for each other. Today I learned that when they want to say gobble, gobble they can, and I guess we all did some gobble, gobble ourselves last Thursday on Thanksgiving.

Take care, good wishes from both of us here in Paradise just outside of Hollister, California, U.S.A..

Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra

Jurassic Park At Eight In The Morning...

This morning at eight a.m. my husband woke me asking where I kept my digital camera. I found myself waking up to screeching screams coming from our backyard that were much like the background screams I remember hearing in the movie Jurassic Park!

I groggily went to where I keep my camera handing it to my husband, and looked out into our backyard where all the racket was coming from.

There on our new, red brick patio was a red and blue faced wild turkey walking around like it was a ‘natural’ thing for a wild turkey to do at eight a.m. in the morning.
All the while this bird was doing it’s ‘walk about’ it was screeching those ear piercing screeches that were not the typical gobble, gobble sound that everyone has heard domesticated turkeys do.

I feel confident that wild turkeys still do normal gobble, gobbles at normal times in their turkey lives because late yesterday afternoon I did do gobble gobbles myself, and I directed the gobbles at seven of these birds as they walked on the golf course in front of our back yard. All the hens turned to look to see where the gobble gobbles were coming from.

The larger bird of the group of seven, which had to be the lead male, came over to investigate and got a good look-see at me before he declared that I wasn’t a turkey like he was a turkey so he went back to his hens.
This morning I got the message that something seemed to be ‘different’.
Ahh, Paradise sometimes throws a curve!.

After our visiting turkey grew tired of walking around our patio it hopped up on our retaining wall, and then onto our lawn, which I am sure looked a lot like the golf course to turkey lurkie,
Thank God, birdie didn’t do a poop on either our lawn or our patio!

We watched as Ms. Turkey, we are sure it was a lady turkey, walked around on our still rather new backyard lawn and then proceeded to run, taking up speed, flapping it’s wings and taking flight landing on the red brick patio, and then used the momentum she had created to jump up onto our Spanish clay roof.
This bird, this wild turkey was walking around on our roof, and inside the house we could hear it all clearly because those tiles are hard tiles; all the while it continued to screech those ear piercing, Jurassic Park screams!

This wild turkey walked across our roof till it was on the other side, and then it jumped down into our front yard. We were both still inside our house as we scrambled across our rooms to one of our front windows that looks out on our front yard; the same yard where the cedar pine resides, the same cedar pine where the whole flock of turkeys flew out of sometime earlier in the year as witnessed by our neighbor Phyllis, who lives across the street.

The turkey that walked across our roof jumped down to our front yard, and was met by another turkey that had been walking about in our front yard already. They greeted each other with that same high pitched scream I heard from the one turkey when it was alone walking about and screaming it's head off in our backyard.

Now I know how wild turkeys locate each other when they become separated, and I know how they greet each other when they once again meet. I have to think that the Jurassic Park screams I heard this morning must be to a wild turkey what screams of 'help', or 'where are you' are to we humans when we become lost. The screeches of greeting I heard from the two turkeys when they met up again has to be like the human screams of delight we make to each other when we locate a loved one we though was separated from us, and we meet up again!

Both of the turkeys we watched and listened to this morning appeared to be hens because they were smaller than the ‘big bird’ that I met up with last evening, and they didn’t have the clump of feathers hanging off their chests as the large male did.

Yes, living in Paradise is interesting and sometimes disturbing. Like at eight a.m. when you wake up to the screams that you would swear came out of a scene in the movie Jurassic Park!

Gobble, Gobble, pass the cranberry sauce, please…, which do you prefer; a hen or a tom for Thanksgiving dinner?

Did I tell you that my husband went out the garage door, and tried to get a close up picture with my digital camera but the turkeys, once they got together, moved very fast on down the road, and he didn’t get a good, clear picture but there is always the next time.
Meanwhile I will leave my digital camera where it is easily accessible so the next time we will be able to get to it sooner, and hopefully get a better close up picture than those we got last January when we watched the flock walking in the rain on the golf course.

One thing that was on our minds as we looked at those turkeys was the big feet they have with those long claws. My husband and I are both aware of how roosters attack humans by jumping at them with their feet first landing on one of the human’s leg digging their claws into the leg. This is how roosters defend their hens when it is necessary for them to do this.
We don’t want to get too close to the wild turkeys just in case they do the same behavior when they feel a human is challenging them.

Many years ago I took care of a flock of domesticated chickens for a person I knew who was on a summer vacation. One morning while I was gathering eggs in the hen house the resident rooster challenged me, and jumped at me landing on one of my thick, tall rubber boots that I was wearing. I wore these boots to insulate myself from the muck of the henhouse. If I hadn’t been wearing those thick boots that rooster would have done some real damage to me with his claws, and especially with the sharp, middle claw that they have on their feet.
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Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra

Gobble, Gobble...

Here it is November 4, 2010, which means Thanksgiving Day isn’t far away. The last time I wrote about those wild turkeys marching on Gabilan Golf Course, just outside of our back yard, was way back on May 30th of this year.

During this past summer I heard a story about our wild turkeys that reside here alongside with our wild rabbits, blue Scrub Jays, Robins with red breasts, Hummingbirds, Corvines and Doves; a story that made me think twice about those wild turkeys.

Our neighbor from across the street, Les, goes for his daily, long walk on our rural street as part of his exercise routine, and sometimes like most people who live here, he walks on the golf course. Every single day, rain or shine you will see Les out on his walk. One day last summer it happened that my husband and I were outside in our front yard checking on our sprinkler system right at the time Les was returning from his daily walk.
He stopped to talk with us, as neighbors do sometimes, and he told us a story about those wild turkeys that live here on the golf courses. We actually have two courses here in Ridgemark; the turkeys have to cross the street to get to the other course, which is Diablo, while the course we live on is Gabilan.

Les told us that he accidentally startled the flock, the whole 15 of them, when he ventured down a path leading from the street to Gabilan Golf Course.
The startled turkeys scattered in mayhem talking to each other;

“gobble, gobble”.

A really nice very nice, polished new car was parked in a driveway adjacent to where all of this transpired with those turkeys running back and forth, and calling to each other;

“gobble, gobble”.

One of the wild turkeys, it most likely was a male, ran up to the beautiful, polished new car, and this rather large bird, which had it’s wings intact because it is wild, used it's wings to elevate itself and jumped on top of the car’s roof, scratching the holy smolie out of the paint job.

Holy Flying Turkeys; can you image the owners damage report to the insurance company?

“Hello Turkey Weenie Insurance Company, you see there was this turkey, a really big one, wild, and he jumped on top of my car. Yes, yes he had a blue and red face and rather large turkey feet with long claws. You see all of the trouble came to being from those feet with the big claws. Mr. turkey did the ‘turkey trot’ all over my roof, trunk and back to my roof again then he did a number on my car’s hood. Honest, this is how the damage happened!”

Well, today my husband called to me a little after five in the afternoon to come out into our backyard to witness those turkeys again, the ones that walk around on the golf course grazing on whatever wild turkeys graze on when they walk around on a golf course. He did this because they were just outside of our yard, again!

It’s been a while since we saw the flock of turkeys ourselves, last winter we saw the flock walking in the rain, and this time the ‘flock of fifteen’ (15) from last winter had dwindled down to a flock of seven (7). We witnessed six females and one male today. I thought to myself that perhaps this past summer’s event of the beautiful, new car that was attacked by one of the males could be behind the fact that we were witnessing only seven wild turkeys walking on Gabilan today? This I cannot be sure of. Perhaps someone who lives in a house at the other end of Gabilan has eight wild turkeys, plucked and gutted sitting neatly in their freezer right now all ready for holiday dinners?

Perhaps…perhaps?

When I was a youngster living on the East Coast, I belonged to the Audubon Society for a couple of years. I still carry within myself a love of watching, an appreciation of wild birds, all wild birds, because of my past experience with this group.

My husband went into the house this afternoon after he got me to go outside, and I stayed in our backyard watching our flock of turkeys; I stood on a retaining wall to elevate myself to see over the low hill on the golf course so I could watch them. They were grazing on something; what do wild turkeys graze on when they are out for a walk on a golf course?

Because I got into the habit of learning and using bird calls to attract wild birds back when I a youngster on the East Coast it came naturally to me to let out with a

“gobble, gobble.”

I watched as the six females turned their long necks topped with smaller female heads towards me. The larger male with the larger head and a clump of feathers hanging away from his chest left the group of females, and proudly walked away from the females to where he could see me; as he got to within twelve feet of where I was standing, this rather large turkey turned slightly, and directed himself to our neighbor's yard instead of up to where I was standing watching him.
All the while he kept turning his head towards me watching me with curiosity.

My “gobble, gobble” must have sounded authentic!

Mr. turkey walked all the way up to the flowers and short shrubs surrounding our neighbor’s, Ryan and Beverly's patio. He proceeded to dip his blue and red turkey head into my neighbor’s plants, and as I watched these proceedings I realized that my neighbor’s cat, Shelby, was huddled down on the side of one of the bushes, and the turkey, which was very large compared to Shelby, couldn't see Shelby where she was hiding.
This turkey was one 'big bird' for a wild turkey.
Shelby is a small, multi-colored, female cat.

This scene unfolded just fifteen feet away from me. I was ready to get myself over to my neighbor’s backyard to come to the aid of their cat if it became an issue. Poor Shelby looked like she was terrified; she was staring at me, I could almost hear her plea to me for help!
I let out with another

“gobble, gobble”

with 'big bird' looking directly at me, and he could see plainly that I wasn’t a big turkey like him, not at all!

Without ever seeing Shelby he turned away from the neighbor's yard, and hustled himself over to his small flock of hens. The last I saw of this group was they were walking down Gabilan golf course, grazing on whatever turkeys graze on, when they walk on a golf course.

Thanksgiving is coming…

“Gobble, Gobble.”

This has been another of my true-life stories telling what goes on here in ‘Paradise’ just outside of Hollister, California.

Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra

August Came And Went As Fast As Our Hummingbirds...

Throughout the month of August despite the cooler weather we experienced this year, two pairs of hummingbirds, like tiny, dancing, jet planes, buzzed our back porch every day as they frequented the two red nectar filled hummingbird feeders we have hanging from our porch overhang. I often found myself sitting lazily in one of our porch chairs after working in my garden doing weeding and watering chores. I watched, as these tiny lightening fast aviators would land, settling for a moment, almost always keeping their engines going as witnessed with their wings moving so fast that the movement came together as a blur of continuous flutter.
In this state, sometimes still moving their wings, or sometimes stopping their movement on landing, they would rest on the individual perches provided on the feeders. In one of these states they would attend to their feeding chore.

They rarely noticed me seated near their feeders especially if I had been sitting quietly, not moving for more than five minutes.

I was no more than three feet away from either feeder regardless which end of the porch I would seat myself at with my curious eyes watching, as these tiny birds did their mid-air dance before landing on a refueling station. Sometimes two hummers would feed at different portals on the same feeder at the same time. They would fill their long beaks extending their equally long tongues into the sweetened, red nectar.

Often I saw two birds flying close to the porch, come together in mid air facing each other, and almost touch the tips of their long, thin beaks together. My assumption was always that they were one male and one female.

Watching this behavior at first glance it appeared that the couple were sizing each other up. But their eyes were on either side of their heads so they couldn't look at each other eye to eye. The almost touching of beaks had a purpose, a ritual, a prelude to what would come next.
Always there was the loud humming sound of their continuous mid-air ballet.

The real show stopper was when two birds at a time would come up to each other, and each would touch their front to the front of the other, for a brief second, or less. After this action one or both would start screaming joyously. They made a terrible racket especially when you consider how small these creatures are.

My cats were often lounging on the porch with me, and witnessed the tiny hummingbirds as they celebrated summer. They would watch wide-eyed, as wide eyed as cats can accomplish this facial expression, as all of this transpired. After the hummers were done screaming they often dived down to cat level to buzz just over my cats heads, which annoyed my cats no end! That was our excitement here for August, here in Paradise.

Blue Scrub Jays still visit our peanut in the shell nut box, and fluffy, furry two toned squirrels, sometimes two at a time, still scamper across my husband’s really green lawn as he waters it to ensure that it stays really green!

Our wild rabbit still visits us often sitting on a certain knoll just outside of our yard, curiously watching us. We are told by our neighbor who has lived here longer that we have, that a whole family of wild rabbits lives on our golf course but we only see them one at a time. I would love to see the whole family together!.

And then there is that flock of wild turkeys that march up and down the green looking for whatever wild turkeys look for. We’ve seen them a couple of times since the memories day when we saw them all together march in a group past our fence, last December, in the rain.

It’s been a good summer despite the cool weather. The last four days the thermometer has been hovering at 106 degrees during the day on our back porch. It figures that it has finally warmed up since last Thursday the 23rd it is now officially fall!

Our hummingbirds are still visiting their feeders but they are subdued these days. Their wings still make the loud humming sound but their screams are gone. Mother Nature is telling them that the time for them to leave us, and fly south for the winter is coming closer. Even though we have mild winters here in Hollister we do have many nights in December to March when the temperature falls below freezing. Below freezing weather at night doesn’t work for the survival of tiny hummingbirds.
We will all miss them for the winter.
But we know that next spring they will return to us again, and next August they will perform their mid-air ballet show for us once again, here in Paradise, just outside of Hollister, California.

Carol Garnier Dutra a.k.a. MOM in Hollister
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra
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Paradise and the quest for a green lawn, a really green lawn...

We never knew the importance of keeping a lawn looking healthy, which means keeping it at least eighty five percent green, until we had a new lawn that looked absolutely gorgeous during the rainy winter months, and gradually turned into golden turf this summer. I include myself in that ‘we’ at the beginning of this paragraph but in reality the lawn in question is my husband’s pet project between his laying red bricks, building our back yard patio, and planning out his future projects, which includes remodeling our bathrooms in our home.

We bought our Hollister home back in April 2004 after selling our long time residence in San Jose. Before settling on Hollister, we spent a good two years researching towns in California, and there was a time we even considered moving to another state in order to get the home we wanted to have, the home we could afford.

One thing we knew was we wanted to live in a community where there was peace and quiet. We wanted a place away from the noise and pollution, and the heavy, dirty traffic of ‘Silly Con Valley’. Excuse me; I am still in the mode to call the valley by my favorite pet name for it. Where we lived before moving to Hollister was officially and appropriately called, Silicon Valley.

We lived in San Jose, the ‘Heart’ of Silicon Valley, for over thirty years in the same house my husband built for us way back in 1970. Back in 1970 there was a sense of peace and quiet in our neighborhood before the State of California widened the freeway by Five Wounds Church. Even though a sound wall was built to block the sound of the freeway we still could hear and feel the steady, loud hum of the freeway when ever we would go outside into our private backyard. Once that freeway was widened our peace and our quiet was completely ruined for us. We installed double paned windows on our home to block out both the dirt and the sound but the ‘steady hum’ we would hear whenever we ventured outside drove both of us to want to get away.

Our neighborhood in San Jose changed over the years, too! Many of the people we knew back in 1970 had moved away or passed away. A new group of younger people had moved into our old neighborhood. We had only one couple left in the neighborhood that was our original neighbors from the old days. Progress changed our old neighborhood into a place that became difficult to recognize.

From the upstairs of our home, in my home-office, I could look out one of my windows, and see Five Wounds Church. That is how close our hidden side street was to Santa Clara Street, and the noisy, dirty freeway. Today Santa Clara Street is the street on which the new San Jose City Hall is located, several blocks down the street from Five Wounds Catholic Church. Back in 1970 Santa Clara Street was a pleasant, quiet street. Back in 1970 San Jose was a nice place to live, and a nice place to raise children.
But progress changed all of that.

The day came when my husband decided that he was going to retire. Retirement for Dick was busy. His father needed him and Dick answered his father’s need by caring for him during his father’s most difficult last months.
My father in law, Manuel Dutra, lived to be just six weeks short of his ninety sixth birthday! While Manuel was uneducated in the classical sense, my father in law was in reality the smartest person I have met in my entire life. Manuel had street smarts that come from knowing how others think. He was a good judge of people, and in business he demonstrated his abilities.

Once Manuel no longer needed our care we knew that we wanted to move to a more peaceful environment to finish out our last years on this earth. That was what prompted our search for a place to retire to. That’s how we ended up here in Paradise, where so many things have happened both to and for us. Some good and some bad included in the mix.

Ahhh, Paradise is a good place…some good…some bad…but at least it is peaceful here in Paradise, here just outside of the Town of Hollister, California.

And my husband has his lawn to care for, which is turning green again thanks to the help of Juan at Tri-County Landscape Supplies in the nearby town of Watsonville.

Dick is also finishing up his project building our back yard patio, which I will feature in a dedicated web page very soon. Dick will give complete instruction in his web page on how to build the patio he designed, and there will be many pictures showing the steps along the way to completion.

This has been another true life story of our adventures in Paradise.

Carol Garnier Dutra a.k.a. MOM in Hollister
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra
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We have a little brown mouse...

We have a mouse, not in our house but in our backyard. This little brown mouse is the first one I’ve seen since we moved here. My guess as to why I haven’t seen one before here is because mice are a favorite food of many predators that also live here in Paradise, so my guess is that little brown mice are short in supply. We have hawks that circle our yard by day, and in the evening I have heard the call of an owl or two. Owls love the taste of fresh, brown mouse!

The other day our MOM cat, Princess, sometimes we call her Lucky Princess and at other times she is just Ms. Sumo was so excited that she was running back and forth in the hall in front of our extra long patio door.
She was making her usual doodley doot sound that she makes instead of meowing like other cats do. When Sumo is excited, she makes unusual sounds that other cats wouldn’t think of saying. In general, when Princess Sumo is excited, she is quite a sight!

Princess is much shorter in the leg than most other cats, and her body width is indicative of a cat that doesn’t believe in portion control. Back when the original Shriek movie was released on DVD I brought home a copy and played it in the back bedroom for the cats. Princess was the one cat who stayed for the entire movie, and every time the Eddie Murphy donkey character was on the screen, Princess would stand up and say doodley, doot, doot. I knew from her reaction that she related to the donkey thinking it was a lot like her since it had short legs like her, was round in the body, and had long ears on the top of it’s head instead of on the side like we humans do. While Princess Sumo’s ears are large they are not quite as long as donkey’s ears are.

The sight of a delicious brown mouse on our porch was just too much for Princess to endure even though she has never tasted brown mouse! “Doodley doot, doo, doot, I spy a brown mousie on my porch, mommy come here, doodley doot, doot.” I am sure this is what she was saying to me!

It turned out that the very small brown mouse had/has set up housekeeping behind a large blue Tupperware tub on our porch where I keep some of my gardening supplies like snail bate and flower fertilizer. Realizing where the little creature was hiding prompted me to go to the local hardware store, and requested a trap.

I didn’t ask for a trap to kill the creature instead I requested a trap that would capture the creature without harming it so I could release it out into the wild giving it a chance to do whatever little brown mice do in the wild. As it stood the little creature didn’t stand a chance in my backyard where cats roam, including my neighbor’s cats, and hawks circle overhead looking for lunch!

The clerk had just the trap. Guaranteed to trap and not kill. The clerk told me; “Add peanut butter to the inside back of the trap, and the mouse enters. The door shuts down, and you have your mouse.”

Add peanut butter?

What have we been putting out in a ‘nut box’ for months, for the Scrub Jays and squirrels that have been frequenting our back yard.

Peanuts!

What is peanut butter made from?

Peanuts!

Squirrels are rodents the same as mice are rodents.
Class both belong to is Mammalia; the Order both belong to is Rodentia. Mice belong to Genus: Mus while squirrels belong to Genus: Sciurus. Both animals are unquestionably rodents. So why do we favor the cute squirrels when they come into our yard to partake of the nut box?
Do I put out the trap?
Do we keep our mouse?

The other evening, unknown to me, my husband removed some of the nuts from the shells and placed them in a dish near the entrance to the back of the blue Tupperware box. He told me that it was just to ‘test’ wither or not the little brown mouse was still doing ‘light housekeeping’ in back of the blue Tupperware box we have in the corner, on our porch.
The nuts disappeared during the night.

The next morning when he told me what he had done, I asked my husband if he remembered to place a dish of water on the porch for his ‘pet’ mouse? And was he ready for when Mrs. Mouse would move in, and we would see thimble sized mouse children wandering on the porch at night playing ‘kick the ball’ and other mouse games?

What would we do if the owls decided to roost on our porch because little brown mice are their favorite midnight snack?

Ahhh, while living in Paradise is sometimes strange, it is never boring!

This is another true life story of Carol Garnier Dutra, A.K.A. MOM in Hollister.

Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra

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Scrub Jay Behavior Has Changed...

Last year I was in charge of putting out the peanuts in the shell for the six Scrub Jays that visited our yard every single day. This was back when I scattered the nuts over our patio. Then we had the problem with the possum coming to our yard in the night, and making a mess on the patio of nut dust and bits of shell. We noticed that after the possum started coming into the yard that the number of Scrub Jays coming into our yard during the day, dwindled down to only two. So my husband started putting the nuts into a ‘nut box’, which he put out only in the morning so the possum would not have a reason to come into our yard during the night, and perhaps the possum would move to a different part of the golf course, and leave our birds alone. .

Last week we saw that three jays were now coming into the yard for their nut snacks.

This morning I watched an aggressive Scrub Jay marching back and forth in front of the nut box, as another jay would approach the nut box the marching, militant jay would scream and run after the new bird, chasing it away so it didn’t get any nuts. Now I am beginning to wonder if Scrub Jays bicker among themselves much like humans do when resources become scarce? While my husband puts the same amount of nuts into the box as I used to scatter on the patio, the amount looks like it is less because it is in a box, and not scattered around the patio.

Back last year when we had six jays coming into our yard to scoop up the nuts I had scattered on the patio we all witnessed the behavior where the six jays would play a ‘game of tag’ with each other. As each bird would come into the yard he would screech at the others in the yard letting the other jays know that he was coming in for a landing. I didn’t see any one bird make a serious effort to prevent another bird from getting a nut. Instead I saw 'playful' behavior. The six jays appeared to be a close family of birds yet we know that it consisted of three couples, and each couple would have their own nest in one of the pine trees that are scattered on the golf course.

I would often go out during the day to scatter more nuts on the patio, and when I would do this I would hear the screech of one of the jays letting the other jays know that more nuts were in the yard. I remember the day when the nuts were all eaten, there were no nuts on the patio... that one of the jays landed on a small shelf I have on my house that is just outside of my kitchen window. I was at the sink preparing dinner and looking out the window, and I saw the bird standing on the shelf looking in the house at me. He was only a couple of feet away!.
I realized that he/she was asking me to go out and scatter some peanuts so he/she and friends could have their snack. I will never forget that behavior on the bird’s part that day they ran out of nuts…the bird knew who I was, and he/she knew where I was, and by his/her unusual behavior this bird was able to let me know that all of the nuts on the patio had been eaten.

Back when I was in charge of scattering the nuts; often before I could leave the yard I would have one of these beautiful birds land just a couple of feet away from me scooping up one of the nuts I had just placed on the patio. This happened so often that I came to call any jay that did this behavior, ‘buddy boy’.
Often before I could get through the back door into the garage, the other five jays would be swooping down playing tag and scooping up their nuts.

The behavior I witnessed today, where one bird stops another bird from feeding has me puzzled. What happened to that beautiful blue bird to change its behavior from playful to belligerent? Was it the presence of a possum in the neighborhood threatening his/her safety, or was it something else?


Puzzled MOM in Hollister

This is a true-life story of Carol Garnier Dutra
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra


UPDATE; Later today I saw a small blackbird, just a plain tiny blackbird, come over to the nut box, and grab a peanut that was almost as big as the little bird's head! One of the jays swooped down from our roof, and tried to stop the blackbird from leaving with the nut, but the little blackbird got away with his/her prize.

I am getting the idea that the strange behavior I saw demonstrated by the jay this morning could be because there are birds other than the jays, and animals too, feeding on the peanuts. 'Buddy Boy' may be feeling that there are just too many visitors to the nut box these days!

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The Rescued Easter Sunday Dove...

I've never been a believer of 'old wives tales' until my husband and I experienced first hand, what we learned months later, was an 'old wives tale', predicting a death in a person's family.

Our strange event started on Easter Sunday in April 2009. Our 'paired off' always together cats, Leroy Brown and Loretta Lynn Brown, were sitting together at the large patio door window that looks out on our back porch/patio, and into our backyard. neither cat had been out in the yard on that day because we were too busy to take them out. We never allowed our cats to roam freely where we live because there are too many dangers for cats, here in the rural area we live in. Owls and other predatory birds can attack a cat as well as raccoons and possums, which eye cats as delicious treats.

When Leroy and Loretta would go out into their yard to partake of the sunshine and fresh grass, either my husband or I would stay with them, and when we would go back inside the house, the cats would always go back inside with us.

On this particular Easter Sunday both cats, were watching out the patio window, and they started yowling, I said yowling, not meowing. I rushed to where my cats were seated next to the window/door to find that they were both looking at a small grayish, brownish bundle that was huddled against one of the pillars that supports our patio's roof.



I cautiously opened the patio door, preventing the curious Leroy and Loretta Lynn from exiting the house, and I approached the small bundle. The bundle turned out to be a very frightened bird, a dove, and this was happening on Easter Sunday afternoon. As a Christian I believe that the dove is symbolic of the Holy Ghost, the third part of the Blessed Trinity, and it was Easter Sunday.

I called to my husband to come outside, and he responded. It wasn't the first time we were presented with rescuing a bird in distress but it was the first time we were presented with a dove that needed our help, and it was Easter Sunday afternoon.

The first thing my husband wanted to try was to see if the bird could fly away on its own but we both realized that the little bird was having a difficult time breathing. It was taking its' breaths in gasps. So the breathing issue would have to be resolved first. My husband asked me to bring him a saucer of fresh water, which I did do.

He held the tiny bird in his hand, and dipped its' beak into the water, quickly bringing it up and out of the water within a second. He rubbed the tiny doves' throat to massage it's esophagus, which is the passage through which food travels, The bird coughed, and out from its' throat flew a large seed that had been caught in it's esophagus. The bird started breathing better; it stopped gasping for breath. We figured that the crisis was over, and all the bird needed was to have the seed evacuated from it's throat, and it would be ready to fly away. But this didn't happen. The tiny bird didn't fly away.

We both stayed with the bird for at least a half hour coaching it to fly away but it didn't want to leave us. So my husband asked me to get one of our cat carrier cages from the garage, and I did this putting a clean towel into the cage. My husband put the tiny bundle of feathers into this cage, and he carried the cage into our garage where the contents would be safe from predators. We placed a large, clean towel over the cage to prevent drafts. And we told the dove, "Good night, we will be back in the morning."

Early the next morning, at 6:00 am my husband and I both went into the garage to check on our rescued bird, and when we removed the towel covering the cage the dove let out with a loud coo, coo. That sound to us was a sign that the little creature was feeling much better so we brought the cage outside where we opened the cage, and encouraged the dove to fly away. Once again it couldn't, wouldn't fly away.
We realized at this time that we needed professional intervention to rescue this little bundle of feathers. It was Monday morning, and at 9:00 am I got onto the phone, and called someone I knew that was connected to the local Audubon society. He didn't know where I should take the bird but he was sure that one of the local vets was a wild bird, rescue doctor. I then called several local veterinarians in the Hollister area until I found Doctor Moran, who was the local bird rescue person. The clinic where this doctor is located is the Family Pet Care Center located on East Street here in Hollister. I wrote down the address of this clinic, and called confirming with the clinic that my husband would be bringing in a wild dove that needed professional attention.

Doctor Moran did what he could do for the little bird. He found puncture wounds under the feathers, and confirmed that the dove had a systemic infection, which was the result of some animal mauling it the day before. He gave the little dove a shot of antibiotics, and hoped for the best. The dove didn't make it. It's infection was too far-gone, and the little ball of feathers passed away at the veterinarian's office. I was thankful that my cats had nothing to do with the injury that happened to the dove. Instead they alerted me to the presence of the dove on our back porch. And this caused my husband and I to help the little bird. We thought the issue of the dove that needed to be rescued was over but it wasn't over.

Last spring we had two pairs of doves that would come into our yard, and feast at a seed box that we were keeping on our patio. The injured dove we took to Dr. Moran on East Street was one of these doves. For weeks after this event one of the remaining doves, the mate to the one that died at the vets, would return to our yard, and walk around our patio cooing. This behavior was un-nerving because it showed us that this bird, this little bird was looking for it's mate, and the last place it knew it's mate was before it disappeared, was in our yard. One day, about ten days later after we brought the dove to the vets, I was watching this single dove from my patio window, and I saw it go up to our back garage door, and stand there cooing at the door. This told me how sensitive doves are for this one to realize that we had kept it's mate in our garage after we found it on our back porch, back on Easter Sunday.

Two weeks after we rescued the dove, and took it to Dr. Moran's office where it passed away from an untreatable infection, we noticed that our beautiful deep green leaved bush that would bear deep purple berries in the summer, appeared to be dying. We paid extra attention to the bush, and watered it as it should be watered. Not too much and not too little water was given to this bush. It was spring, and in spring this bush always grew a fresh crop of deep green leaves because it lost all of it's leaves during the winter months. Even though we were especially diligent in caring for our bush the new leaves continued to dry up, dying and turning brown. In time all of the new 'spring' leaves on this bush turned into brown, crinkly, dead leaves.

This bush was located in a plot of earth, next to our back porch, right across from the pillar where we found the huddled, bundle of feathers that was the frightened, injured dove that came to us on Easter Sunday, in April, and died from a systemic infection at the vets office.



It was in early July of the same year when we discovered that our beloved cat, Leroy Brown had a lump in the area of his mouth that could be felt under his chin. The lump turned out to be a salivary gland cancer that was growing under his tongue. Leroy's veterinarian, Dr. White, was ill and was not available to care for Leroy at this time. We had to find another vet, and we took Leroy to Dr. Leroux at the Hollister Veterinary Clinic on Sunnyslope Drive. We thought that we were doing the right thing.

Leroy Brown Dutra died unexpectedly in Dr. Leroux's veterinary clinic after undergoing his third successful surgery on September 18, 2009. Dr. Leroux made it clear to us that Leroy didn't die from the cancer he was fighting, and he didn't die from the surgery. A woman, who worked for Dr. Leroux, allowed Leroy to jump from his cage, and then she chased our dear Leroy around the clinic, two hours after his surgery. Chasing our cat when he was still under the effect of anesthesia was what killed him.

When we were considering where Leroy's grave should be we found that the berry bush that died in our garden was now just a skeleton of black, bare branches, and no longer had a root structure. This bush was located just across from where we found the dove that needed our help, on Easter Sunday morning. it was easy to remove the now dead berry bush; as soon as my husband started to dig the bush up, it just lifted out of the ground. This patch of earth where the berry bush had been became our Leroy's grave.

On Leroy's grave we have placed a memorial for him that is a sculpture of a cat. And all around his memorial I planted a green ground cover, and Hens and Chickens. Hens and Chickens are a succulent that is a thick, green leaved succulent that has a red boarder around the edges of the leaves. Leroy liked the Hens and Chickens in other places in our garden, and often checked them out when he went outside, so I planted some where he rests.

Months after all of this happened to us, my husband and I were watching a television program one evening, and we heard one of the characters in the story say that when a dove dies on your porch it is a sign that someone in your family will die. The dove we rescued didn't die on our porch but it huddled there for safety after something mauled it, and it died later at the veterinarian's office. Then the beautiful berry bush that grew close to where we found the injured dove, died, and a couple of months late, our dear Leroy developed salivary gland cancer; dying while in the veterinarian's care at his clinic. Leroy's grave became the plot of earth where the once beautiful, berry bush used to grow. I've looked it up on the Internet, and it is an old belief that when a dove comes to you and dies on your porch that there will be a death in the family, just like the character in the movie on television stated.

We never believed in 'old wives tales' before the Easter Sunday dove came to us on that day, and we did all we could to help it.

Strange things happen here in Paradise, and this was one of the strangest, most painful things that has happened to us here.

This is a true life story of both Carol Garnier Dutra and Richard Dutra originally published on Tuesday June 1, 2010 in my MOM'S Blog by MOM in Hollister.
Copyright 2010/2011/2012
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Leroy's memorial before we planted the ground cover and his Hens and Chickens.
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Fifteen wild turkeys walking on the golf course...in the rain...

It’s Sunday and my husband and I were reminiscing this morning about the Wild Turkeys that roam the golf course that borders our home. We visited an ill neighbor yesterday who is in Hazel Hawkins Hospital, and the neighbor’s wife told us that one day last year, 2009, she saw Wild Turkeys jumping out of our sixty foot, Cedar-Pine tree that sits on the corner of the front of our property, across the street from our neighbor.
She said, ‘turkeys jumping out of your pine tree’, she said that she ‘counted fifteen of them’.
I casually remarked “how can a turkey get into a sixty foot pine tree” to which one of the other visitors remarked that Wild Turkeys can fly up into a tree because they haven’t had their wings clipped like domestic turkeys have their wings clipped.
I learned something new here, that I never thought about before!

I thought before yesterday that my experience with those turkeys last January during a rainstorm was the most unique, but now I know that my neighbor’s wife, who is also our neighbor, has had an even more unique experience than I have ever had.
Ahhh, living in Paradise, is sometimes a bit strange!

Normally while my husband and I sit at our kitchen table, looking out our kitchen window, we can see everything happening on the golf course on the other side of our fence. This is because our fence is five feet high, and the golf course’s topography is composed of hills and valleys with some of the hills in front of our view.

We see golfers riding along on the golf course in their battery operated golf carts that are legal here to drive on the streets in our gated community, because we, the homeowners, own the streets. It’s a bit expensive to own and maintain streets, but that is what it takes sometimes to be able to bend the rules in Paradise.

Last January 2010, during a night time wind and rain storm that lasted from Sunday evening into Monday morning, our back fence, the one that separates our yard from the golf course, blew down. In the morning we sat together at our kitchen table as we do most mornings, and one of us opened the blinds, and saw that our fence was leaning against some of our shrubbery in our back yard.
Thankfully the fence didn’t fall into our rose bushes, which are still young, and may not be able to withstand such an impact.

We planted five of our six rose bushes as bare root roses, and bare root roses take a couple of years to spread their roots under ground, and get going on the upward growth journey, up towards the sky, and out to the side to meet their neighbor roses; finally their journey cumulates in growing dozens of beautiful roses. After accomplishing their goals, we have to cut them back when they get unruly, but as the years go by, the roots are firmly embeded in the ground they grow in, and it is easier for the established plants to regrow their limbs, and dozens of beautiful roses again!
So we were lucky that our rose bushes survived the fence falling down.
But we weren't lucky with our fence. Our fence was a goner!
And since January it has been raining and raining here, so just now, late May, we are getting bids from outside contractors so we can put up a replacement fence to take the place of the one that blew down back in January.

Well, back in January 2010 after our fence blew down on the Monday, on the following Wednesday morning during which there was a light rain storm, my husband was sitting alone at our kitchen table looking out the kitchen window. His sight of view was over the fallen fence, at the golf course. He saw a group of large brownish/grayish birds with long legs and long necks, casually walking, in the rain, down the golf course. He called to me to come see the sight. I arrived in the kitchen and looked out the window to see them, I counted fifteen of them, casually walking along in the light rain, pecking at the grass for whatever they were looking for. One of these large birds flared out his tail feathers and I said; “good lord, that is a turkey”.

I called the golf course’s clubhouse and spoke with Mr. Boyd, the man in charge of maintenance for the course. I said, “Do you know that you have a flock of turkeys walking around on the golf course today?” His answer floored me!
He told me that he was surprised that I hadn’t seen the Wild Turkeys before.
He went further to tell me that they were residents of the golf course, and had been there when my husband and I moved here several years before. Mr. Boyd went on to say that sometimes the birds cross the street so they can walk as a group down the other golf course that is across the street from the one we live on.

While we have been in our backyard we have watched the resident jackrabbits on the golf course sitting on a hill watching us in our backyard, we have several brown and rust squirrels that visit our backyard, at least one possum, I'm not sure if it is a he or a she, skunks, ducks and geese that travel over head quacking and honking all the way to their pond. We have different types of wood peckers, Bermuda Barn Swallows that love to fly as a group into our back porch, doves, several large, black Corvus as big as house cats, blue Scrub Jays, red breasted Robins, Red Winged Blackbirds, a lot of hummingbirds in different colors, and now I know that we also have a flock of fifteen Wild Turkeys that love to walk in the rain on the golf course in front of our back yard, and also love to roost in our sixty-foot Cedar-Pine tree that is in our front yard. I find myself now wondering if those Wild Turkeys also love to watch us in our house when I open the drapes in my front window that is close enough to our sixty-foot Cedar-Pine tree for them to be able to see us in our house?

Life is very interesting here in Paradise; here just outside of Hollister, California.

This has been another true-life story of Carol Garnier Dutra,
a.k.a. MOM in Hollister
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra

P.S. Back in the early nineteen seventies the golf courses here in Ridgemark, and all of the property where homes now stand, were all a domesticated turkey farm. The flock of turkeys my husband and I watched are living here in memory of the turkey farm that once was this whole place.
The previous resident turkey farm may also have something to do with how rich the soil is here for growing roses and lilies that are the main flowers I maintain in my garden. Unfortunately weeds also grow very well in the rich soil here as anyone who has to maintain a weed free garden can attest to.
Ahhh, Paradise is simple, comfortable, yet at times, Paradise can be complicated.

Here’s to the resident turkeys; may they thrive, and may they all, always cross the street with caution!.
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Visitors To Our Backyard Garden Here In Paradise

I have written often about how much my husband and I enjoy living here just outside of Hollister, California. One of the perks of living here coupled with the serenity of the environment, are the many visitors we have on a daily basis to our backyard garden.

We were living here a couple of years before we discovered that Scrub Jays, beautiful bluebirds that they are, enjoy eating peanuts that they harvest from the shell. So we learned to shop at Costco for the large, economy size bags of peanuts in the shell so we would have enough peanuts to go around for the small family group that became a fixture in our backyard during the last 3 years.

Recently a large, black Corvus has been visiting our backyard, and partaking of the peanuts in the shell that we have learned to place in a shallow cardboard box on our patio.
We have three brown and rust colored squirrels that visit our yard, often together, who help themselves to the peanuts in the shallow box that we have placed on our patio. When the Corvus enters the yard he/she makes a caw, caw sound to let the squirrels know that he/she has arrived. The squirrels don’t leave the yard; instead they share the nuts with the corvus, each taking turns at the shallow nut box, retrieving their prizes.

We have had days when our large black bird brings along a buddy Corvus or perhaps it is a Ms. Corvus; we can’t tell the difference in gender with these birds because both male and female appear to be a solid black. It is quite a sight to see these large birds, which are as big as house cats with wings, as they cautiously side step their way over to the nut box. Sometimes 'our' Corvus is ‘brazen’, and just walks straight up to the box to retrieve his/her nuts. But often our Corvus walks in a sidestep fashion. When a Corvus walks straight it appears to waddle side to side, much like ducks do when they walk.

Back when we broadcasted the peanuts over the bricks of our patio they were left overnight in the open. In time a possum started to visit our yard during the night. I watched this creature on several nights, and saw how he picked up the nuts, grinding the nut cases as he ate the nuts and cases together. One night I could see the possums many sharp grinding teeth, and I understood how it was able to grind the nut cases into a powder that looked much like the saw dust that you see after wood has gone through a power saw.

Every day after the possum was a visitor to our backyard my husband had to go outside to sweep up the groundnut cases and shells that were left on the patio from the visit the night before. The mess the possum made wasn’t what bothered us enough to stop broadcasting/scattering nuts on our patio. What bothered us was after the possum started coming into our yard we noticed that the flock of blue Scrub Jays that fed in our yard every day, dwindled down from a family of six to a family of only two.
Our fear is that the possum, which is a tree climber, ate the remaining jays, yet we don’t know for sure if this is the case. So this is why we now place all our peanuts in the shell into a shallow cardboard box for our friends who now visit only during the day, when the nut box is on the patio.

Every day at dusk my husband takes the box of nuts, and places it inside the garage. He fills the box up again the next morning, and places it on our patio for our wanted furry, and our wanted feathered friends to partake of. One day recently my husband took the nut box, and placed it in the garage early, at 4:00 pm because it had started to rain. Several minutes later I was in my kitchen looking out the window over my sink, and I saw one of the Corvus who visits our nut box, waddling in a straight line toward where the box was supposed to be. As it happens, the nut box is on the patio within 3 feet of one of our patio windows. My cat sits on a wicker chair that is in front of this window.

I heard a loud knock, knock, knock at the double paned, patio window that was followed by a caw, caw, caw. I saw from my kitchen window the large, black Corvus waddling in a straight line back into my view, it turned and looked towards where the nut box is supposed to be, before he took flight. I ran to where my cat was on the chair at the window and her eyes were as big as saucers. The large black bird never came up to the window before but this time he did because he was upset that his nuts weren’t where they should be.

I went to the garage, retrieved the nut box, filled it up, and brought it back to the back patio placing it down where it should have been when our Corvus was looking for it. It was about 15 minutes later when our black-feathered friend returned to enjoy his afternoon nut snack. Sometimes he takes as many as 3 of the large peanuts in the shell into his beak at a time. This day I witnessed our Corvus do precisely this.

Another creature that used to visit our patio during the night to partake of the peanuts in the shell that were broadcasted on the bricks, was a skunk. I witnessed the skunk one night when I flipped on the back yard floodlights, and saw the little creature eating the peanuts in the shell. He or she saw me watching, but wouldn't move away from what it was doing. Once again I couldn't tell the difference between the genders but I am sure the skunk knows who is who. The skunk left the yard without spraying. This was a better outcome than what had happened in the past when a skink visited our yard in the night and was upset by another creature, which resulted in the skunk spraying. The fragrance of skunk is one that is not easily forgotten, and I learned that it is one that travels through double paned windows, easily!

Jackrabbits also visit us here in paradise, but I haven't seen any come into our yard. Instead they sit on the hills on the golf course just outside of our yard, and look into our yard at us, as we work in our garden. It wouldn't surprise me some day to see a jackrabbit eat from our nut box.

We have had many different varieties of birds come visit us but most are not interested in peanuts in the shell. The exceptions are the Scrub Jays, the Corvus, and another exception was a woodpecker that visited us several times last September - December. The woodpecker that visited us and ate from our nut box is called the Northern Flicker.
I told someone I know who is a member of the Audubon Society that this particular woodpecker was in our yard eating the jays’ peanuts, and I was told that the Flicker is not friendly towards Scrub Jays. This person learned from me that the Flicker enjoyed the same peanut in the shell treat that the Scrub Jays enjoyed, and was going to use this information to lure a family of Flickers away from where a family of Scrub Jays were nesting. I guess we will never know for sure if it was the possum or the woodpecker that chased off or ate some of our Scrub Jays. That’s how it goes in Paradise.

Update summer 2010:
In the past couple of weeks we have had five Scrub Jays coming into our yard. It appears that they are nesting somewhere else, away from the pine tree that they used to nest in that is just outside of our fence on the golf course. So we have our answer. The Scrub Jays were 'frightened' away from their 'original' home, and are nesting in a tree further away from our yard. That's why we don't have them visit us as a group, as often as they used to in the past. We still have two Scrub Jays that visit us on a daily basis, that appear to be nesting in a close by pine.

This story is a true-life story of Carol Garnier Dutra
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra
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