Where are my bluebirds?

In years past, we had many eastern bluebirds on the farm. But this year they are conspicuously absent.  We have two nesting boxes but no bluebirds nesting.  I looked on Google, but no information on a decline in bluebird populations in West Virginia.  I really miss these birds as they used to hang out near the house.   Hopefully their absence is temporary.

Not the year for the Killdeer

When the CSA was up and running we used have a fenced half acre under cultivation.  The unplanted areas were favorites for nesting killdeers.  They would dig a shallow depression and lay their eggs. When we approached they would kick up a fuss and feign injury to lead us away from the nest.  The fence kept the predators away and we soon would have little killdeers running behind the adults.

This year a killdeer dug their nest in our gravel driveway. Unfortunately the depression was empty when I checked the other day.  Too bad, as those little ones are really cute:  run, run, run, stop...run, run, run, stop...repeat.....

Orange galls

Today we spied an attachment to our juniper bush that looked like an undersea monster.  We found out that they it was an Orange Gall. Susan cut them off and we wrapped and threw them in the chiminea.

Pretty, but scary looking.

Galls On Leaves; Branch Tips Die Back because of Rust.   A disfiguring disease caused by the cedar apple rust fungus sometimes covers juniper branches with bright orange galls. These swellings, an inch or more in diameter, appear on junipers that are near infected apple or crabapple trees (the disease needs both junipers and apple trees to complete its life cycle). Leaves are infected during the summer, and by the following June they develop green swellings. By fall, the swellings have turned into chocolate-brown circular galls. The next spring the galls form many long, yellow to orange "horns", especially during warm, rainy weather.
Spores released from these horns infect apple leaves, which fall prematurely. Infected juniper branch tips die, but the shrubs are usually not seriously affected. Prune out galls in early April before the horns develop. On apple trees, as many as six sprays of wettable sulfur at 10 day intervals are needed to obtain control. Begin when leaves first emerge. Plant varieties that are resistant such as: Columnar, Chinese (Pfizer), Prostrate or Andorra junipers.

Oil Spill

Wednesday I walked a beach in Pensacola, Florida.  Beautiful white sand and a bay teeming with fish, wildlife and birds.   All that is in the path of an ever expanding oil slick.  Returning to Pittsburgh I sat next to a charter boat captain who is looking at a loss of his livelyhood.  But the roads and skies are full of fossil fuel dependent machines.  Some travel needed and some not. 

What kind of world do we want?   Are cheaper fossil fuels worth dead miners and ecosystems?  Where is the political will to overrule the guys with the bad haircuts and get a sustainable energy policy?  

A new coal fired power plant is coming on line next the old one down wind from the farm.  When will I have to limit the intake of fish from my pond and creek due to mercury? 

Crazy stuff.