Friday, July 25, 2008

Birdseed and homemade bread

OK, so it's happening, I'm turning into the crazy bird lady. I put the feeder up in my tree earlier in the summer and I'm completely entertained by the birds every single day. I LOVE watching the feeder. I enjoy the birds SO MUCH that I decided that I needed a bigger feeder and more fun bird stuff in my tree.

When I bought the feeder last year I just grabbed whatever they had at Target and I buy birdseed at the grocery store next to the catfood. I dunno, it's birdseed and a feeder, right? Anyway, I love the birds and we get lots of finches that hang out at the feeder, but I've been wondering lately how to attract different kinds of birds.

So today I went to this place right around the corner from my house that is basically a wild bird store. I've driven past it a million times, but I've never been in. It's the coolest place! It's full of all kinds of really cool bird houses and different kinds of birdseed and the lady that works there is a total bird expert. She's awesome, she knows it all!

So I asked her why I wasn't attracting different kinds of birds and I told her what I've been using and she basically told me that I was doing it all wrong. That's probably true, what do I know about feeding birds? Apparently the crappy food I've been feeding them is mostly filler, which a lot of birds won't eat. So she fixed me up with a great big bird feeder and fancy bird food and some thistle seed in a sock that is apparently bird crack, and now my tree is ready for a bird party! (Hey, did anyone else just get the Go, Dog, Go book in their head when they read that? I just reread that paragraph and now I'm thinking about climing a tree for a dog party.)

I hung the new feeder up a couple of hours ago and the birds are cracking me up. I can tell that my regular birds recognize that it's a new feeder because they're totally mystified by it. They've been looking that thing up and down and all over for the past hour. They fly up to it like they're ready to land and eat but when they see that it's different they kind of screech to a halt and land on a branch instead so that they can check it out first. Then they do that bird head bob thing for a few minutes while they inspect it from all angles and then they decide that it's OK to sit on it and eat. I guess a new feeder is a shocking turn of events for a bird.

Anyway, I was in total Heaven at the bird store today and I'm totally going back again sometime to look at all the other things I couldn't afford today. They've got all kinds of fun bird things there.

OH!! And the lady said that if I came back with some samples of my bird photos, she might be interested in selling some of my bird greeting cards there!! Woohoo!! It was a good day at the bird store.

So then after we went to the bird store we went to Great Harvest bread, which is right across the parking lot. Is Great Harvest bread a national chain or just something they have in Idaho? I don't know, but if you don't have one, you're missing out. When you go in there they offer you free bread samples that are Heavenly. They make all the bread right in the store and it smells SO GOOD in there! So I bought a few loaves of bread, because how could you go in there and not want to take it all home with you? Eating it reminds me that I really ought to start making more homemade bread. Or at least buy a candle that smells like homemade bread...

Oh, yeah. I'm totally going candle shopping.

2 comments:

Melanie said...

Great Harvest is a national chain, I think, because we have them in Michigan, too.

Bird crack... LOL

Torey said...

Just dropping by from BBC and had to say, we have a place called Wild Birds Unlimited, and it's totally right next door to Great Harvest Bread Co.

Weird, right?

We're in Michigan too.