Raw Milk Cheese Giveaway!

Check out this delicious sounding raw milk cheese giveaway on the Food Renegade's website!

Raw Milk Cheese Giveaway

And if you don't follow the Renegade, get on the stick and do it! Great info on getting back to eating the way our grandparents and great-grandparents did: whole foods, fresh unpasteurized dairy, real eggs, produce from the garden. She's a breath of  fresh air, and an inspiration to the rest of us! Check her site out, and enter the contest at the link above.

Nutcracking Nuthatches!

This morning I was able to catch on film something I've seen a number of times before (but never had a camera readily available until today.) We have several feeders on our back porch, and I have my desk by the window so I can look down onto them and watch the birds when I am working.

Today I caught a Nuthatch using part of our porch to hold a black oil sunflower seed in place so that it could crack it open to get at the meat inside. I feel very luck to have caught this wonderful behavior on film!

Here's the Nuthatch perched on the porch railing:

He (or she?) grabs a sunflower seed, and jams it into a nailhead hole in the railing:

Then using his long sturdy beak, he pounds at it until the shell is removed:

And then pecks out the white nut meat inside:

Amazing use of avian intelligence (and our aging porch railing) to get at the inside of the seed! Nuthatches are brother B's favorite bird, and I thought he'd like to see this series of one of those clever birdies in action today. This one's for you B. XOXO