Bluebirds Down!

The unseasonably warm weather of the past few days lured ProfessorRoush out of the house and into the garden.  Christmas Day and Friday it was 60ºF or over, and the fog was heavy in the mornings; heavy enough to wet the grass and bring out the umbers and reds of the Bluestem grasses.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush loves the foggy mornings when the house feels isolated in a sea of gray and the garden edges are the limits of our world.  

Friday, high 65ºF, I straightened the garage, wandered the garden, target shot for awhile, and just generally enjoyed the free space of the garden, while yesterday it was outside "chore day" in the still 60ºF temperatures of the late morning and afternoon.  I started the day replacing the rat bait in the secure bait stations to diminish the pack rat population of my neighborhood.  All the bait stations were empty; am I poisoning the rats, or merely feeding them?  Afterwards, although I never claim to be any sort of a mechanic, I took a flat tire off of the lawn mower and attempted to repair it with placement of a rubber innertube.  That seemingly simple act involves getting the jack out of my jeep, assembling it, jacking up the lawn mower, removing the tire, and cutting off the existing valve stem in preparation, which all took about a half-hour.   Two hours after that, completely frustrated and defeated, I called a still-open tire shop (Burnett's Automotive of Manhattan Kansas) and took it there where they placed the tube and aired it up in 10 minutes free of charge.  Following that fiasco, putting the wheel back on the tractor was a cinch, the jack and tools were put back into their proper places and the job was complete.

At that point, I should have quit, but the weather forecast for today (Sunday) foretold stiff winds and a massive drop in temperatures, and in the back of my mind was the nagging thought that my twenty-four or so bluebird trail boxes had not been cleaned of old nests and paper wasp nets yet this season.  So I set out and rode the lawnmower where I could, and walked where I couldn't, to service the boxes in the spring-like temperatures.  It's a stiff up and down walk for an old man to the far reaches of the pasture where our house and garden is a distant dot.

Bluebird box nest

I am dismayed to report in hindsight that I found only eight or nine boxes with Bluebird nests and one very twiggy chickadee nest.  Many boxes were empty and I'm at a loss to explain the overall nest decrease from my previous high of 20 nests.  I had not noticed it during the summer, likely because most of the boxes that had Bluebird nests were boxes around the house and garden, so the Bluebirds within my daily vision had not diminished appreciably.  Distant boxes on fence posts of the pasture were routinely empty.  More predators? There did not seem to be more paper wasp nests in the boxes, and my impression is the latter were also decreased this year.    Poor environmental conditions?  More rain?   Less rain at critical periods?   A colder winter last year?  Are Bluebirds domesticating themselves, becoming dependent on populated structures and artificial nest boxes?  

Roush Bluebird Box design

I did get the impression that the newer boxes of my own design were more likely to have nests, and many of my older boxes are nearing 20 or 25 years old, so I have resolved to make more new boxes in the near future and to site them on isolated T-posts instead of on the fence lines so snakes and other predators have a harder time getting to them.  A proper Bluebird home is the least that I can provide as my contribution towards rectifying the environmental excesses of my own footprints on the prairie.

Christmas Galore!

I had long planned to post on Christmas, but this is not at all what I had in mind as late as 6:00 p.m. yesterday.   I apologize that I've been away from the blog for over a month, but it's a long story that I won't bore you with, at least on this most important day of the year, Christmas Day, 2025 A. D.; 2025 years since the birth of Christ, the Son of God.  I had planned a post with pictures of the house and snowless garden engulfed in the thick fog of the past two mornings, but, as often occurs, fate intervened to change my plans. 

Leaving work in the dark on these recent shortest days of winter and traveling towards the grocery, I had recently noticed some Christmas lighting popping up in the K-State University Gardens.  So last night, Christmas Eve, I asked Mrs. ProfessorRoush if she would go with me to see them. I didn't expect such a display, complete with Christmas music over loudspeakers, that would draw us out of the car, and have us walking around the garden in the chill air, but that's what we got.  Evidently, for the 150th anniversary of Kansas State University Gardens, the Friends of the K-State Gardens went all out!  And now, I'll shut up and let the pictures speak for themselves, because the Director, Scott McElwain, and the K-State Gardens outdid themselves this year!

The view from the parking lot approaching the daylily and rose display gardens

The old K-State Dairy Barn, now the Gardens Welcome and Office Center

The "setback" between the Garden's Center and the south wing of the barn

This tree near the walk was spectacularly lighted in bright white

The "setback between the Insect Zoo and the Garden Center

Look closely at the rose garden greenhouse to see the reflection of the Christmas lights in it.

If you'd like to see the display, it's open through December 31st and the music hours are listed on the website linked above.   And if you want to donate to support the display, this QR code works:

Lot's of people were taking selfies next to the backlit statue here!

Merry Christmas to all and all the best wishes for you to have a fantastic 2026 year (gardening and everything else)!