In years past, my parents, sister and I had a tradition of heading down to the local pond to feed the geese on Thanksgiving Day or weekend. I would love to start a similar tradition with Tomato and this year, we are giving it a go with some of our homegrown treats for our own backyard friends. (An addendum note is that Tomato was asleep when I put this together, so maybe next year she will be aware and awake for the tradition.)
When Tomato was an infant last winter, one of her favorite activities was to watch the birds gather in our huge forsythia bush and feed from various trays and feeders that we had put out for them. One caveat from this experience is that I do not advise putting a tray of food directly by your windows on top of the hedge. While the child may enjoy this, the birds expect that food all year long, and when not presented with it, they may take it out on your windows screens. Just a suggestion.
One item that we got for Tomato for the winter holidays last year was a window feeder. I’m planning to mount it today on the window in the sunroom that faces our fig tree. We’ll see if that ends up being a wise spot, but for now, it’s the most reachable since we took out the hedges in that area. We got the window feeder from Gardener’s Supply.While I don’t think that they carry the version that we have anymore, they do have these two in stock.
It’s a great opportunity to bring nature right to the window and have kids learn to identify birds and wildlife in your neighborhood. You can keep a bird book nearby, like the ones that the Audubon Society publishes, and keep track of what the kids see and talk about what type of feeds attract what types of birds. If your kids are of a tech savvy age, Audubon also has an app for different smartphones and an app for just birds or birds and butterflies.
So, as we mount that feeder today, what will we be putting in it? Homegrown organic sunflower seeds from our summer sunflowers. One of the best parts of growing different flowers in your garden is that when you let some go to seed, they become food. So, after reading several issues of Birds & Blooms, I tried out the idea of bagging our sunflower heads to catch the falling seeds.
We took the bags off this morning and shook out the seeds and got this as a turnout.
We’ll be putting them out as part of the Thanksgiving feast for the birds as well as cracking open the pumpkins, which we grew and put on the porch, and placing them back in the garden for the squirrels to munch on and “plant” for us for next year. Starting this tradition already has me thinking of next year’s garden and what other plants I can put in to attract different birds for next year’s feast. I’ll be busy pinning idea pictures onto my Pinterest boards in anticipation of the seed catalogs arriving (or arrival as the 2012 High Mowing catalog hit our mailbox this week). Do you have any suggestions for us in Zone 7? Do you have any other outdoor Thanksgiving traditions to share? I’d love to hear from readers in the comments area or on my Facebook page.
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