The other night my mom went out into our backyard and picked a dozen or so grape leaves to make dolmas with for dinner.  The first thing she did was she took them into our house and put them in a bowl with some ice water for a half hour. There are two reasons why she did this: the first reason is to clean the leaves and the other reason is to keep the young leaves crisp. After the thirty minutes she drained the leaves and dried them off really well. Then she lightly brushed each leaf with olive oil. In a little bowl she mixed together some chevre cheese and black pepper. Then she rolled the grape leaves up around this mixture. Be careful when you are rolling your dolmas up because they tend to tear and break.  When she was finished rolling the grape leaves she put the now assembled dolmas in the broiler for a minute and a half. Then she took them out and let them cool, and served them with dinner. They were so good. They were nice and crispy on the outside and salty and creamy on the inside. Yum!

Around this time of year I see a lot of butterflies. I think it is really cool to see all the different kinds of butterflies flying or pollenating flowers. There is one butterfly that I see most often, and the name of that butterfly is The Cabbage Butterfly. The Cabbage Butterfly is one of the first butterflies to be seen in spring, and one of the last butterflies to be seen in the fall. They are actually the most commonly seen butterfly here in Walnut Creek.

Now, there is something else called a Cabbage Moth although, that is not what I am talking about. The difference between the Cabbage Moth and the Cabbage Butterfly is that the moth eats cabbage and the butterfly eats the nectar of many kinds of flowers. Also, another difference is that butterflies are seen in the day and moths are generally seen at night.  When we usually see them it is in the day, which makes me think that thay are butterflies. There is one other difference that I know: moths have antennae that are feathery and or saw edged, and butterflies have antennae that are long with a little bulb at the end. The Cabbage Butterfly has a very interesting coloring to it. It is almost a dirty white with little spots on the inside of the wings and black on the corners of the wings. The top half of its little body is black and fuzzy and the bottom half is gray going into dirty white again.

So no, the Cabbage Butterfly does not taste like cabbage (I don’t think) but I think the reason that it is called the Cabbage Butterfly is because it is usually found around cabbage. Spring is my favorite time to observe nature because of all the little baby animals being made, all the animals some out of hibernation and the butterflies coming out to flutter. So for now I am just going to sit back and soak in all the nature around me.

I think that House Finches are very cute birds. Female birds are gray with a little red tummy and boy birds have red on their heads, bellies and bottom. House finches also have cute voices, and they are very social birds, so they do talk a lot. There is a downside to having house finches around this time of year, and that is that House Finches mostly like to eat fruit buds and if they do that then our fruit will not develop and we will have no fruit. Right now we have plenty of fruit buds around. Another thing that house finches like to eat is tree sap. Another reason that house finches like to live here is that we have Douglas fir trees and cedar trees. House finches like to make their nests in those kind of trees.

My mom likes to sit out in the back yard in the morning and read. At the same time she listens to nature and House finches. It is very interesting to sit there and watch the house finches make their homes in the back of our home.

First things first, we could start growing cotton organically, which could help to not pollute our water. In nonorganic cotton farming toxins can run into water and pollute and it which may kill animals. Not only do farmers spray a lot of pesticides on cotton while it is growing, but there is some toxin in the dye they use. So, if we were to grow cotton organically, we may still be using the same amount of water, but we wouldn’t be polluting it.

The cool thing about water is that it never really goes away. We have as much water now as we did a million years ago, because water has three forms: liquid, vapor (gas), and ice. So even though water evaporates it comes back as rain water in another part of the world. Even though we still have plenty of water, problems arise when water becomes unusable due to polution, like when we grow cotton nonorganically. To feed our growing population our water efficiency needs to double in the next 20 years.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, how is water a bioregional topic? Water by its very nature can’t be treated bioregionally but the way we use it, and treat can be, as in not having peticides in your own watershed. You could also be active to care for the healt h of your own regions water. If people are growing cotton in another country with pesticides then when they wash the pesticides out, that water eventually makes its way into streams or oceans, kills animals and harms people.

Sometimes turkeys can look very intimidating. Maybe I am just saying that because I am afraid of them. I don’t know. When you see them in person turkeys can seem very calm and cool, but be careful because around mating season male turkeys can get quite aggressive toward humans. Mating season is usually around March and April.

Sometimes when you see them, they are on the street eating gravel with their buddies. Like many other birds, turkeys have gizzards. They have to eat the small pebbles to break the food into little bits and pieces, so that their bodies can process it. As with many other animals, male turkeys are much bigger than the females and they are also more colorful. They also have bigger tail feathers. They are so lucky.

They like to go hang out with their friends because turkeys like to travel in groups.Their actual habitat is actually in forests where there is a lot of acorns and nuts. The reason they are seen on the streets and in neighborhoods is we have basically pushed them out of their natural habitat. Turkeys usually eat things like leaves, grass, seeds, and acorns. Another thing that they like to do in flocks is fly. The other day my mom went outside in our backyard, and she saw 3 turkeys flying. They then stopped to roost in our oak tree. So, far we have had a chicken (okay, so maybe the chicken was a mushroom) and a turkey roosting in our oak tree. The reason for roosting in our oak tree, instead of other places, is that turkeys like to roost in high places.

My brother getting ready

But after we bought the beehive we had another swarm, so my brother went and made a skep. A skep is basically a man made beehive made out of something like a wicker basket. We used a woven wastebasket and then plastered the outside with fix-all. It kind of looks like a big cake. So now we have two bee hives in our backyard. And you want to know the funny thing? The bees actually prefer the skep to the actual beehive. Isn’t that interesting? I just think that it is so cool that we are doing this because with these bee hives we could do a lot. We could make our own candles with bees wax and we even could have our own HONEY! I am so excited. It is just a lot of fun to think that we could harvest our own honey.

Bees in the pear tree

Our Skep

A Faraway View of the Bee hive in the Oak tree

How often is it that you can go outside, hear a sound that reminds you of a jet airplane, the sky be black, and it is day?  Every now and then that is what we see in our backyard. That sound is actually a huge bee swarm. Although, it can be kind of scary, when we see bee swarms it is very cool. Did you know that my mom has actually been caught in a swarm of bees on several occasions? And they didn’t even want to sting her. As you have read in my previous post of “Acorns and Applesauce” you know that I have a big oak tree in my backyard. That oak tree actually has a big bee hive in it.

A Closer View of the Bee Hive

The hive that we have in our tree now has been there 23 years that we know of. When my parents moved into the house they didn’t know that there was a bee hive. They hired a tree trimmer and he came down from the tree and was covered in bees. That’s when they found out. 

A Swarm of Bees on a Nearby Branch in Our Backyard

So why do honeybees swarm? Well, after a while of making honey and reproducing, the hive becomes cramped. Then some of the worker bees impregnant the queen bee, and after a while of being pregnant the queen bee gives birth to the next queen bee, and then dies shortly after. Then a bunch of bees with their new born queen move out of the hive in search of a new spot to live. They then create a swarm and find a branch or a bush to clump together on until a new home is found. All of the worker bees create a clump with the queen bee right in the middle, so as not to put her in danger. While they are waiting there, some scout bees leave to go try to find a new home. When they find a new place they come back to the group and do what is called the Bee Dance. The Bee Dance is how they communicate to each other and tell the directions to their new place.

Next time when I go out into my backyard and am surrounded by bees or I see a huge swarm I will remind myself not to bee afraid.

We usually get Lesser Goldfinches in March.We only see them for about a month, and then they will leave. Then we see them again for a little bit in the summer, only in fewer numbers. The first place that we see them is on our bird feeders. Lesser Goldfinches mostly eat thistle, which they prefer but they can also eat little tiny seeds. Goldfinches are not berry eating birds. Chickadees are another bird that also eats thistle and we also see them at our thistle feeder. Did you know that Goldfinches, along with all other thistle eating birds eat thistle while hanging upside down? Isn’t that interesting?

Lesser Goldfinches like to make their nests in the forks of trees surrounded by thick leaves and branches. The female makes the nest out of grass, tree bark, and many plant fibers to make a cup like nest. Then, after the nest is made the female will lay about 3-5 eggs and incubate them for about 12 to 13 days. While the female goldfinch sits on the eggs, keeping them warm, the male brings her food. When the eggs start to hatch both of the parents will leave in search of food for the babies. This is probably when we start to see the again. Then, the parents will continue to bring food to their babies for about a week or so then the little birdlets will be off on their own.