Lizzie's chickadee nest box

When I moved up to Ipswich, MA, four years ago there was a bird nest box already hanging from the neighbor's Eastern Red Cedar. My husband can't quite remember who put it there, possibly his old roommate, but either way the box hung on our side of the fence and I have adopted it.

In the four springs I've lived here I've never bothered to clean it out, which I know is an important thing to do if you want to have healthy birds nesting in it. Last year was the first year I really paid attention to the box and I caught an adult chickadee exiting it many times. I knew someone must be using it, but I never looked inside, not wanting to disturb a potential nest.

A few days ago my toddler and I were doing a yard clean up (well, I was raking and she was sprawled on her stomach, completely covered in dirt, digging in my veggie raised bed with her bare hands, she totally takes after me) and I noticed the box had fallen in the wind storm the New England coast went through a few weeks ago. Meteorologists say we had winds up to 80 miles an hour and damage equivalent to a category two hurricane.

I picked up the box, located the chain buried in last year's leaves and carefully pulled off the bottom sliding piece of wood. Inside was a wondrous site, click to enlarge:

The old nest fell out in two pieces. The bottom half was soft sphagnum moss most likely collected from a few houses away where my neighbor has a patch of it along the river. The moss layer was an inch thick. Did it start as a tiny piece and grow in there? Four years of not cleaning it out could I suppose grow moss that thick.

The top layer was the nest, a little cup mostly made of animal hair. The neighbors who own the cedar tree have an enormous, friendly, shaggy, golden retriever named Baker. I have a feeling a lot of that hair is his.

I pointed out all the parts of the nest to my 17-month-old who has far too many words for her own good. As I hung the box back up in the cedar tree she ran around in circles screaming "BIRD NEST BIRD NEST BIRD NEST!!!"

Just this morning over her sippy cup of milk and my mug of coffee, which we always drink in a big chair looking out at our bird feeder and the nest box, we saw a chickadee going into the box. I'm not sure she could see it so I told her a chickadee went in her nest box. An hour later we went outside to play and she ran over and said "Chick-chee bird nest?" "I sure hope so, and you can take care of it" I told her, and she laughed. Having one's own little nature pupil is the best thing in the world.

Where is your milk from?

A friend showed me a very cool website yesterday, whereismymilkfrom.com. For any of you in the US who are trying to purchase more locally produced food, or who are just curious about where the cows who made your milk are from, this website is for you!

It's super easy. All you have to do is find the code on the side of your milk (or yogurt, cheese, cream, ice cream, etc.) container and enter it into the milk box on the website. Most codes are easy to find, they're usually right next to the sell-by date. The one on my box of The Organic Cow milk reads 36-4016. So I entered 36 4016 (no dash) into the site and it spit this factory out at me:

The code for New York, the site tells me, is 36, the first two numbers in the series on the box. I'm a little disappointed since The Organic Cow claims to be "New England's Original Organic Milk" it says so right on the carton. But, last time I checked, Elma, NY, was not in New England. In fact it's about 482 miles away by truck from Ipswich, MA!

My family doesn't follow a strict 100 mile diet but we do like to try to buy food from New England, since it's a pretty small area of the country and is a good limit to focus on.

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop buying the Organic Cow all together, but I'll definitely be entering codes from other organic milk products I can find into whereismymilkfrom.com to help me make better decisions when I shop. A little code cheat sheet for fellow New Englanders out there:

25 = Massachusetts
23= Maine
44=Rhode Island
09=Connecticut
50=Vermont
33= New Hampshire

I'm going to try to stick with those numbers!

Health care hypocrisy: Sarah Palin went to Canada for treatment

For those of you who have been following this blog for a while you know I have my share of health issues, the biggest of which is Crohn's Disease. Over the years I have spent an insane amount of out-of-pocket money for uncovered expenses like copays, acupuncture and experimental drugs. In 1990 my parents even imported an FDA unapproved drug from Canada at a dollar a pill. They also paid for my COBRA for two years after I got too old for their insurance but didn't have my own yet. COBRA alone was nearly $300 a month alone, the pills...I don't even want to know.

I just opened an email from my husband with a link to the Huffington Post informing me that Sarah Palin, one of the most outspoken opponents to government run health care, and who has openly criticized Canada for its single-payer system, recently admitted she actually went to Canada when she was younger for her health care. Sarah, you should keep your mouth shut.

I'll leave you with reading their article but this quote makes my stomach turn more than usual, "'We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,' Palin said.... The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada's health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and 'death-panel'-like rationing."

So go ahead Sarah and not be ashamed to have used Canada's system where no one goes without coverage and having to worry about how they're going to pay for their medications, treatment and emergency care. But don't let us have any of it. Oh, and that reminds me, I owe Beverly Hospital a $100 copay for the six stitches I received from their ER on New Year's Day after falling on the ice. I'm just glad I have insurance, but still, $100!!? If my family were one of the millions without health coverage in this country I'd probably have slapped a Bandaid on it and have an even worse scar on my forehead. Maybe I should send Sarah Palin the bill....

Science is cool: Chilean quake moves earth's axis by 3 inches

While most of us last weekend were watching the tragic scene unfold in Chile, or waiting to see if a tsunami was charging towards Hawaii, scientists were discovering that the 8.8 quake in Chile last week not only shifted the earth's axis but it also shortened our day. Yes. Seriously.

According to businessweek.com , “The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second)...” and “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).” And, if you already didn't know, the massive 9.1 Sumatran quake in 2004 "...shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by about 2.3 milliarcseconds..." So I guess this happens all the time.

To most of you this tiny three-inch shift in the earth's axis might not seem like a whole lot, but when you think about it from a scientific point of view I'm sure it really throws off a lot of calculations. I can imagine a bunch of physicists and geologists are now doing long, complicated, equations trying to reset clocks and change known data points.

I find this really really cool - what can I say, I'm a science geek. I grew up with a dad (he reads this and will back me up) who instead of reciting us traditional bedtime stories would show us books on plate tectonics and volcanoes. I was probably the only seven-year-old who understood that Hawaii was drifting northwest and a new island was forming way below the ocean surface. My older sister, no surprise, majored in geology.

A mere 1.26 microseconds probably won't change a thing in your daily lives. So don't worry, you were only 1.26 microseconds late for work or school this morning, no one will notice. And there's no need to reset your watch, well, unless of course you're NASA.

For a cool map of the tsunami waves a Chilean quake sends out check out Astray in a Latin World.

Eat yogurt = offset carbon

OK, I know that title sounds kinda silly. Yogurt is produced from milk produced from cows that spew a whole lot of carbon into our atmosphere. But Stonyfield Organic Yogurt, based right near me in Londonderry, NH, has started a rewards program where you can save up points from their containers and redeem them for things like more yogurt, snacks and even carbon offsets.

So I redeemed 25 points just now and offset 1/4 ton of carbon via Native Energy, enough to offset 500 miles of driving, which pretty much covers last weekend's trip to see grandma and grandpa in Westchester, NY. But wait, we still drove about 450 miles, our car producing CO2 the whole way. So what does this mean? According to the Native Energy website a renewable energy offset is explained thus:

For every kilowatt hour of electricity a renewable generator generates, it also generates a one-kilowatt hour renewable energy credit. The generator can sell both commodities together as "renewable electricity" or sell the electricity as "generic" electricity to one buyer and the RECs to other buyers. Legally, it's all about who owns the RECs

The way I see it my redeeming this renewable energy credit is supporting a wind farm, a farm methane gas generator, solar plant or other kind of renewable energy source. Kinda makes me feel good. Think my toddler and I will go eat more yogurt! One more container and I'll have enough points to offset another quarter ton of carbon!!

A maple flavored Valentine: maple cookies

For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while you might know I have a sensitivity to cane sugar which exacerbates my Crohn's Disease. What you might not know is that I also detest chocolate. I know, I must have some sort of rare recessive gene. What woman hates chocolate? It actually makes me gag. I swear. So no heart-shaped box of chocolates for me on Valentine's Day!

I've had a little too many store-bought cookies and Swedish Fish over the past few weeks and it set off a nasty week-long Crohn's disease spell. Considering I'm 20 weeks pregnant I have my growing baby to think about now, so back to cane sugar-free eating for me. Which isn't as hard as you might think. Yes, cane sugar seems to make its way into just about every product on the shelves. But a little internet research, and a lot of home cooking and baking, and you can have your sweets and eat them too!

So on this Valentine's Day in lieu of nasty, sugary chocolate (Yuck!) I've made myself a sweet treat of my favorite maple cookies. Next to vanilla, maple is by far my favorite flavor. A warning: these are in no way a "diet" cookie. Just because they don't contain cane sugar, they do contain a whole cup of butter, YUM!

This recipe comes off an excellent website full of cookies and treats with cane sugar alternatives, I altered it slightly by using only one cup of maple sugar and replacing the extra half cup with maple syrup since it's slightly cheaper than maple sugar. Enjoy!

Debra Lynn Dadd

Maple Cookies

As autumn leaves fall, I love to make these maple cookies cut out with leaf-shaped cookie cutters. They are crisp and crunchy like an autumn leaf and are flavored and sweetened with maple syrup, which, as you know, is the sap of a tree.

They can also be used instead of graham crackers to make a flavorful cookie-crumb pie crust.

Makes about 4 dozen medium-sized cookies

NOTE: Dough needs to chill at least four hours, so don't make these at the last minute for a party. Make the dough ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator. My dough was delicious after chilling for a week, and seems to improve with time.

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated maple sugar or unrefined cane sugar (such as Sucanat or Rapadura)*
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon maple extract
1/4 cup maple syrup
4 cups unbleached white flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In a medium bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer.
2. Gradually add the sugar while you continue to beat.
3. Add the eggs, vanilla extract, maple extract, and maple syrup, and beat until light and fluffy.
4. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.
5. Mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture.
6. Bring the dough into a ball, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
7. Chill at least four hours.
8. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
9. Roll the dough out 1/4-inch thick. Cut out cookies and transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat.
10. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

* Granulated maple sugar is more expensive and hard to find, but would result in an all-maple cookie. unrefined cane sugar (such as Sucanat or Rapadura) is less expensive, available in most natural food stores, and has the added benefit of causing less blood sugar rise.

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Copyright ©2005 Debra Lynn Dadd - all rights reserved

If a tree falls, would a hawk notice?

If an old, dead tree along the highway was cut down would anyone notice? Well, I did, and I wonder about the red tailed hawk pair who used it as their perch.

On the north bound side of Route 95 in Danvers, MA - just north of the Center Street overpass and before route 62 - there was an old, dead tree that stood twice as tall as anything around it. I doubt anyone would have taken notice of this tree unless you were a birder or had an inclination towards the natural world. Most people probably drove past it everyday while on their cell phones or sipping their lattes and never knew it was there. But I knew it, and every time I passed I'd look to see if the hawks were there. And they almost always were.

Sometime this past fall it was suddenly gone, just a clean-cut stump and a hole in the space it occupied in the sky. I assume State highway workers removed it to prevent it falling over in a storm and blocking one of the most traveled routes through northern Massachusetts. I can see their reasoning, but did they think of the hawks?

I thought about the tree again this morning, as I always do, when I drive past the stump. And I thought about it even more because I saw both of the hawks, perched a few hundred yards apart, one on a highway sign and one in another not-so-nice dead tree. Do they miss their old tree? Do they even remember it? Do they fly towards it expecting it to reappear as mysteriously and suddenly as it disappeared?

If I could be another species for just five minutes I've always wanted to be a hawk or an eagle -I know, you're surprised not a dolphin or a whale? It's true. I would love to see through their amazing eyes, feel what it would feel like to fly, and find out if they miss their tree. What sets humans apart from most other animals is our ability to feel empathy for others. And I feel sad for these hawks even though I'd like to think that they don't mind their tree being gone and have found other perches that suit them just as well. Perhaps I'm anthropomorphizing a bit too much, but I am only human.