Photographs

Fay
- January 09, 2009

Thanks for the beautiful art work and wonderful photographs.  Especially of your cabin with the icicles!  I never see that down here!  Continuing to learn from your newsletters.  I am moving from my home and am concerned about all the birds I have fed here.  Leaving the feeders and will ask new owners to take over feeding.  Any suggestions?  Will continue to read and enjoy your stories.

Dear Fay:

Thank you for your kind thoughts and I’m sorry you never have seen icicles.  When I took that picture I wondered if anything so common would look interesting to anyone else.  You have proven my choice to be the right one.  Icicles hanging around my house are 8 feet long, blue / white / silver and reflect all the light around them.  They are hard and ridged, smooth and wet, sharp and wavy, menacing and lovely—all in one.  I’m sure you will have fond memories of seeing your first one.

The very best thing you could have said to me, you did.  That you have learned something through my articles.  That’s the fuel that feeds my inspiration.  Thank you. 

About the bird feeders, I’ve spent some time in Louisiana this time of the year and the weather, compared to here, is pretty pleasant.  I always tell people who feed the birds here in Wisconsin, “when the weather gets nasty cold with lots of snow, keep the feeders filled.  It takes a lot more energy for a wild bird to search for food than it does to go to the bird feeder.

By mid-winter they depend on the free handout and expect it to be there.  Where you live though, the birds don’t have that severe, yearning hunger like the birds have here in the winter.  If there is no seed at the bird feeders (and please do leave them) the birds will do just fine foraging for food.  You may also suggest to the new tenants that if they feed the birds it can change their lives and you left them the bird feeders as a gift to them.

Sounds like you’re on the right trail and put your mind at ease about the birds, they will be just fine.

Naturally yours,

Dan