Everlasting strawflowers, birds, etc.

This is the first year I have grown strawflowers, also known as everlastings. One of its everlasting character traits is the ability to withstand a hard frost. So now I am thinking they might be a good substitute for the ubiquitous hardy mums that spontaneously generate each autumn. Just something to keep in mind for next year.

Try as I might, I just can't capture the reds in my yard. That doesn't stop me from trying. This pic has been edited to warm the colors and deepen the shadows and it still does not come close to the real thing. Of course, the skill (or lack thereof) the the photographer has a lot to do with this failure.

Silver grass

I read somewhere that sparrows really love cracked corn, so providing it may limit their ravaging the more expensive birdseed. Toward that end, I bought some cracked corn, which required another feeder, which lead me to also purchasing meal worms and a feeder for those. (I know that the meal worms are dead, but because they are also dehydrated, they shift around easily inside the bag, which makes them look all squirmy - ugh.) So now I am feeding black sunflower seeds, striped sunflower seeds, peanut splits, peanuts in the shell, thistle seed, cracked corn, suet (which always seems to contain corn, probably as a binder), and meal worms.

While I continue to try to outfox the sparrows, I think I have won the squirrel wars. I have not seen a rodent in the feeders since the last adjustment of the baffles. I do see them in the yard, though, or running along the fence or the telephone wire or laying on the shed roof. It looks like they are trying to figure out how to leap from one perch or another to the feeders. If the dogs spot them, much chasing and barking ensues.

The coneflower and rudbeckia look dead, dead, dead, but the goldfinch still find something to eat in their dried seed heads. There are titmice and nuthatches and at least one flicker who are regulars, but so far no cardinals this year. And occasionally a Cooper's hawk makes an appearance, not for birdseed but for birds.

Locally, we gardeners have been encouraged to not put dead annuals in the trash, but to either compost them or chop them up and leave the leavings on the soil. So that is what I have been doing, with the coleus and zinnias. The perennials will be left standing until spring. Instead of thinking of their desiccated presence as "weedy", I will view them through the lens of "winter interest".