By Susan Tomlinson

Now that you’ve picked out your seed, you’re ready for the next big question: how to offer it up to the birds. Despite the array of options, this is a pretty easy task. A few simple feeders, filled with the right food, are really all you need to have a bustling, species-rich backyard.

There are all kinds of feeders available, each with their own purposes and strengths. The styles range from hanging tube, to hoppers (the ones shaped like tiny houses), to net socks, to platforms—the possibilities are seemingly endless. As with the feed itself, though, you can stick with some basics and satisfy nearly all the needs of your backyard visitors.

By Susan Tomlinson

What to do when you see a train wreck about to happen? Keep your mouth shut and let people make their own mistakes, or butt in and look like a pushy, insufferably superior know-it-all?

Just the other day, I was standing in the bird seed aisle of a local store when this same sort of advice pickle came up. I’m busy loading up my cart with a couple of bags of seed, when a couple of women arrive—all a-bustle—and start picking out a bird feeder and the seed to go in it. It was clearly their first feeder. I knew this because I was eavesdropping like any nosey parker worth her salt should. I’m not going to go into all the details here, but it was immediately apparent that they were headed down the Path of Regret.

By Susan Tomlinson

 It may be December, but the weather today seemed too good to pass up the chance to get out there and do a little work on the veggie plot. In fact I’ve wanted to get out there for a few weeks now to put the plot to bed for the winter, which I was planning to do by turning piles of compost and chicken manure into the soil. It was a chore that I was both dreading and looking forward to—the former because it involved a gardening task, digging, that never fails to aggravate my sciatica, and the latter because, well, it was gardening. And if ever I needed to be out in the garden, it was this week.