My How-To Articles

I have a number of nature related articles on the eHow website. Check them out:

How to Have a Bird-Friendly Yard

How to Make a Birdhouse from a Hollow Log

How to Make a Walking Trail through the Woods

While you’re there, check out my crockpot pizza recipe and also making a stick horse with a child.

Walnuts for the Squirrels

Larry & I picked up a bag full of walnuts to feed the squirrels this winter. A couple years ago we put some out for them and they planted a few new trees for us. Guess they forgot where they hid them. One of my favorite memories was watching grandpa crack the nuts to feed the birds on the feeder attached to their dining room window.

Campfire Time

We spent the weekend in Oxford. It was nice sitting around the campfire, thanks to Jane & Steve for the tarps to block the wind. Saturday night we could hear the coyotes howling & then a little later a hoot-owl.

My friend Freida said,  “I wish I was there. I love that setting.  A campfire,coyotes howling, wind, hoot-owls. What could be better! “

Campfire Cooking

Neighbors had a bonfire the other night for the local high schoolers. Made me remember the many times we cooked hot dogs or meal-in-can over the fire at our home north of El Dorado. Mom’s way of making a cheap meal fun for all us kids.

Karen Martin Kolavalli -You’ll have to improvise since they don’t make those 1-lb metal coffee cans anymore. We didn’t use the soup–sliced potatoes, onions, carrots on top of the hamburger–and then topped with biscuit dough!

This recipe is more authentic, plus there’s a suggestion that you add corn and I’m pretty sure that was what we did. I still want you to add the biscuit topping! And foil packets work ok, just not as cool!

Cindy – Childhood memories: Need to make some with the grandkids.

Going Batty

I went along with my grandchild’s field trip to the zoo. They didn’t stay in the cave w/ the vampire bats very long. I prefer the fruit bats because they’re easier to see in the tree limbs above. I remember as a child laying on our front walk & seeing a bat in the branch over my head.
My sister Karen Martin Kolavalli, said, “You did not! I think you’re making things up now!”
Yes, it’s very true, I was probably 10-12……. I ran off screaming for mom. My second time to see a wild bat was in my living room on Marsha St, Andover. It flew in as someone was leaving. Ginger & Larry are my witnesses. A friend, Terry Fleming, was bitten by a bat on vacation 4 years ago and had to have rabies shots.

Karen Martin Kolavalli -Ok, now that I think about it, there might have been bats in the abandoned homestead there on our property, although I never saw any, not even in that really cool cellar. I loved that old building! It fascinated me.
We had a huge flowering badam (almond) tree outside our bedroom window in Ahmedabad and you could look right out at the large fruit bats. Our windows weren’t screened, but they never came into the house.

Spooky Out There

I love living on Moss Creek w/ all this nature at my backdoor; well until it gets dark & I’m home along and I hear something crashing through the brush on the other side of the pond. As a writer I can build a scary story really fast in my mind. Time to go double lock all the doors.

Beavers in the pond

What a view: the bright pink & red sunset reflected off the pond like a mirror. There were at least 3 beavers swimming across the water creating a wake behind them. One swam right up to the bank where I was standing—not knowing I was there.

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Fall at Moss Creek

 Fall colors on the trees–makes for a great autumn season.

The snakes were still out & about over the weekend, just about stepped on a water-snake near the house and then a racer was balanced on the fence along the pond.

Two tiny frogs came in …last night–I was able to catch one & put it out the front door but lost the other one…….