This is the biggest mystery this year- what kind of bird is this? Does anyone know? We kind of narrowed it down to some sort of wren. Carolina wren?

Little fella found, somehow, a crack under our greenhouse door big enough to squeak through. He/she then constructed an intricate and sophisticated nest complete with a walkway to the front door, a four inch wide perfectly circular opening four inches in diameter that is 2/3 the size of a basketball complete with a gnarly roof and sturdy sides and floor and a soft comfortable floor and walls.

If feeding is interrupted by a careless human, the babies know magically what to do- SHUT UP AND DUCK DOWN! Be invisible till the beasts go away. How do they know what to do?
​How do the parents know how to build their nests? These birds do a lot more than most species do to make a nest.

If I’m quiet when I go in this room, I can creep a shot of them in between feedings.

...and if I’m sneaky, I can tap on the roof and pretend to be mommy, inspiring this noisy response. Screaming kids “FEED ME FIRST MOMMY!!!” It’s really loud, and I love it!!! Mankind hasn’t eradicated every other species on the planet (yet). Coronavirus is a warning to humanity:

“stop polluting the planet NOW, and we can recover.”

It’s true. Yesterday I got out of my truck at work, and heard Pavarotti bellowing our an opera solo up in a huge sugar maple above my head. I looked up into the tree to see the third Baltimore oriole I've ever seen. Such a rare event, I felt the reassuring hand of Mother Nature on my soul.

How cool, I talked about it all day.

In the afternoon I was talking to people outside and something caught my eye. I looked up and saw a bald eagle flying alone northbound above route 25. I shouted “HOLY SHIT!” I couldn’t help it, it just came out. I turned around and saw a young child and her mother standing behind me- they heard what I said and I apologized to them and said that I’ve seen five in my life, and couldn’t help it.

​Five total strangers stood there staring up into the sky for a rare event.

A mother and father made this nest inside our store. The nest looks like a pile of gnarly sticks that would wash up on shore or get caught in a stream by a fallen branch, but upon further inspection it is extremely well-designed and intricate. I’ve never ever seen a cave-nest before. It even has a stick path leading up to the opening.

If anyone knows the ID of this bird, please please tell me who it is.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! We are open today from 9-4 so you can buy beauty like this for your mom and for yourself. We can also make mulch and top soil deliveries.

We have tons of color and flowers in stock.

WARNING- do not plant veggies or annuals until Thursday. There will be frost between now and Wednesday night. If you plant tomatoes today, you will need to buy them again next week- just too cold this spring.

Iberis (candytuft) flowering in my parking lot. June Beney planted it approximately thirty years ago!!! Twenty got delivered yesterday, half are still in stock. Surround yourself with beauty during CV times. Appreciate mother nature’s bountiful array of flowers- makes you feel good, and staying positive and happy in these times is half of your fight against CV.

Green low drooper is “karmina” perennial geranium thirty years old. The foliage is stunning, and the flowers are even better later in the year. Full sun- full shade. Low and deer-proof!

Pink dogwoods flowering in the bitter cold and wind yesterday morning. My absolute favorite tree.

White birch trees- 40 years old approximately. We have 8’ birch trees in seven gallon pots- five left @$160.

Bluegrass sod- we have the best sod money can buy, and we care for it better than anyone around. $9/piece, ten square feet. $8 each when it is still on the skid when it first arrives, before we put any labor into keeping it happy on the plastic. Lay it down, and you have two year old sod instantly.

I was reading the news this morning and came across this article. I found it interesting, and hope it helps some out there.

When this whole thing started, I heard also that to prepare for total warfare with tRUMP’s Coronavirus (tRUMP owns this epidemic), we as a country needed to stop smoking and lose weight. Those two things, obvious helpful health tips even in non-epidemic days, are as essential to survival these days as they ever were before.

Healthy lungs are more able to withstand attacks by the lethal virus, so tobacco and cannabis smokers...STOP!! If you need tobacco that bad (nothing medicinal at all about tobacco and you know it), try a patch or gum until this passes. Lungs start repairing themselves immediately after each cigarette is finished! Give ‘em a chance, give you a chance.

If cannabis is part of your life for recreation or medicinal purposes, STOP SMOKING IT!!! Edibles.

If you are overweight, this is the time to finally pay attention and do something about it, it could (will?) save your life. Everyone knows how difficult it is to slim down, but this time that effort might just save your life just as much as the all-important and necessary masks.

Wakeman’s White Birch Nursery is not a public service provider. We are not a health service. We aren’t more than a horticultural nursery. This website is SUPPOSED to help our customers navigate horticultural information all in one place......

Try this article, it may contain helpful information for someone out there:

​https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/07/opinion/link-between-coronavirus-deaths-those-french-fries/

Nice little gift someone threw out the car window for someone else to pick up. Not nice.

True story.

Please appreciate the subtle beauty of the American Catbird.

​What’s a catbird, you ask???

Ask my cat. He will tell you. A catbird is:

Easy to catch
Fun to kill
Good to eat.

My cat (meowmeow) knows. He has killed dozens of them over the years. No more, though, if I can help it.

Why would a machinery-driving, Harley-driving, pickup truck owner care about a stupid bird???

Dunno, but the effects that a unique species has sometimes on an attentive human can change one’s life.

I can tell you how, over the years, this bird worked it’s song into my soul, and from there, into my being, and after I first heard the catbird song, I never ever forgot it. Here is the story for you if you have some time...

Meet meowmeow. 8 years old, and very capable of grabbing a bird out of the air seven feet off the ground with a flying leap, twisting through the air like an acrobat.

At first I was amazed. Then I was proud. As my affection for birds grew, my horror at their cruel senseless deaths increased exponentially.

Tonight, I caught on film, the courting ritual of two young lovers, second time this week. Catbirds in heat. Babies soon to follow, unless meowmeow finds its nest.

Evolution condemned them to short lives with their absolutely stupid nest locations- in scrubby brush close to the ground. Why, sweet lord, did you design them in this manner?

Couple-a years ago, when I was sawing wood after work, I stopped every half an hour or so to refuel and sharpen the chainsaw. When I did this, there was silence except for this sexy, half hour long songbird song high up in a tree.

I put the video on Facebook and asked if anyone knew what that bird was. The next day a lady identified it as a catbird. That’s the beginning of my story.

I wrote on that Facebook post how the bird sounded like a little old lady gossiping. It’s long song was unique, almost like a human dissertation on the foibles of politicians during crises that affect nations great and small. Coulda been about how the mailman disappeared into the neighbors house and came out 45 minutes later zipping up. That bird’s song was loud, It had words. It possessed numerous unique inflections that were deep and varied, exploring the depths of sound and tone. .........and language? Why does mankind always attempt to elevate above all other species? Why do we think we are the only ones with a language.

Most birds repeat their songs over and over, but
NOT THE CATBIRD. Each song is a different entry into it’s album of life, recapping the days events for all to hear who understand its language, as well as for those who do not.

This realization that there was more to this bird species than a good meal for my cat dawned upon me, and ever since, I have noticed how little I actually know about my environment.

Last year, in the spring, I heard that song again at home and whipped out my phone and took this video:
​

When I took this video I wanted to get closer yet didn’t want to scare the bird away. I could actually see this bird as it sang, how often does that happen? Never.

When that lady identified the catbird, I was happy that I then knew 7 bird songs:

chickadees
crows
hawks
robin
house wren
barn swallow (they no longer live at the nursery)
+catbird

Wow. I can identify a whopping seven birds by their songs. How many live in Connecticut, five hundred species of birds? And I know seven by song? 

Meowmeow now spends all daylight hours INSIDE. No excuses ever. If he gets out, I sneak up on him and re-incarcerate. I only let him out at night when it’s completely dark and no more bird songs. Safe in their nests hopefully. I now get up earlier and earlier to get him back in before he kills more at dawn.

I’m on the second year of his unwilling incarceration and I’m sticking to my guns despite the wailings of my son who claims “he is just doing what comes naturally!”

Avondale redbud lit by early sun on my way to work this morning. I drove past it, got to the mailbox, slammed it into reverse and snapped this picture as I thought-

“I’ll never ever see this moment in time ever again”

If there ever were a good example of realizing that moments in time are fast-fleeting and unique to that particular one moment, this is it.

And if there were ever a moment in time to STOP YOUR LIFE and review how it’s being lived, this is it. There IS a silver lining to this epidemic (even as we all worry about dying), and it is the silence and peace that the lockdown has afforded us. 
In the morning, because there are no cars making so much noise, I can hear birds. BIRDS!!! Thousands of them, or at least dozens that sound like thousands. I see bluer skies with no contrails. I drive less, sometimes not at all some days. Gas lasts forever now in the tank. I don’t spend money. 
There’s less stress at work. People seem more considerate.

Wikipedia link:

​https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_catbird

Mixing soil and seed tricks the seed into thinking it’s time to germinate no matter what time of year it is.

It’s easy! We dump the soil onto the parking lot.

Our soil is the best around- ”organicky,” completely Rock- free, and fluffy. We screen thousands of yards of it every other year. Run your fingers through it sometime, you’ll agree: “if I were a plant, I would LOVE to grow in this soil!”

I then kinda flatten the soil like pancake batter in the frying pan.

Ten pounds of seed per yard of soil gets carelessly dumped on the soil.

Then the machine work starts- turn the pile over and over repeatedly until the seed is uniformly blended.

Costs about $105-$115/yard, soil, seed, and labor to blend it all up. You tell us what kind of seed (light level), and we grab it off the shelf.

The combo needs to be special ordered and spread out within two or three days because that’s how fast the seed germinates when mixed up like this.

The seed/soil mix then gets spread on top of the existing turf and raked flat. No hay needed because the seed is INSIDE the soil.

​Try it!

...is so strange.

​I can see blue sky with zero contrails. The traffic on the highway is less than 10% of normal- I can sometimes hear no vehicles at all.

We are still selling privacy trees for those with more time spent at home now.

Avondale redbud beginning to flower. Rare tree!