The Happy Hen
Attractive To Bees
Let me tell the story of The Sunflower Thief. A nonfiction novella in the process of being written by me right now! Guess what? The adaptation is unrolling right in my backyard every night, too! So, here goes nothing if I can explain without sounding like a complete freak...
Sunflowers are a very happy flower that makes me happy when they pop up each year. When I feed the birds, I put down an organic sunflower seed. Birds will get the seed and whatever's left turns into sunflowers. Each year this happens.
This year I had my tallest sunflower yet- a 4 footer just about to bloom. Well okay then... I love wildlife and yet it disapproved of this year's batch! The day it was estimated to bloom was just a few days ago. I woke up to the entire bloom decapitated- the head nowhere to be found (sorry to sound gory). No petals, no sign of the flowerhead at all, it was peculiar. The stem had a chewed tip that showed it wasn't just swept away in one of our Maine storms.
I hear squirrels like to bend the sunflower stems. I love my squirrels and I do indeed know that! But this stem wasn't bent. I was thinkin' made a possum could've done this due to their light weight and sneaky ways. But then a few days later after the lower leaves to the stem had shrivelled from the open wound, a quarter of the stem vanished and was nowhere to be found. Ate right off!
Now here we are with half a stem left after another bought of the nightly chewing. I'll get a photo later to show of the damage.
Wait a second... another batch of sunflowers in a much different spot had been decapitated and chewed completely too! Only one stem was bent... but not the others. Who do YOU think this was? A deer? Squirrely? Possum? I'd be more than glad to 'pew, pew' possum away... but I like Mr. Squirrel.
So-- THE END. I'm going to put my game camera out but in advance, I'd like some advice in the meantime. Thank you so much for reading my rambling post. ;P
Sunflowers are a very happy flower that makes me happy when they pop up each year. When I feed the birds, I put down an organic sunflower seed. Birds will get the seed and whatever's left turns into sunflowers. Each year this happens.
This year I had my tallest sunflower yet- a 4 footer just about to bloom. Well okay then... I love wildlife and yet it disapproved of this year's batch! The day it was estimated to bloom was just a few days ago. I woke up to the entire bloom decapitated- the head nowhere to be found (sorry to sound gory). No petals, no sign of the flowerhead at all, it was peculiar. The stem had a chewed tip that showed it wasn't just swept away in one of our Maine storms.
I hear squirrels like to bend the sunflower stems. I love my squirrels and I do indeed know that! But this stem wasn't bent. I was thinkin' made a possum could've done this due to their light weight and sneaky ways. But then a few days later after the lower leaves to the stem had shrivelled from the open wound, a quarter of the stem vanished and was nowhere to be found. Ate right off!
Now here we are with half a stem left after another bought of the nightly chewing. I'll get a photo later to show of the damage.
Wait a second... another batch of sunflowers in a much different spot had been decapitated and chewed completely too! Only one stem was bent... but not the others. Who do YOU think this was? A deer? Squirrely? Possum? I'd be more than glad to 'pew, pew' possum away... but I like Mr. Squirrel.
So-- THE END. I'm going to put my game camera out but in advance, I'd like some advice in the meantime. Thank you so much for reading my rambling post. ;P
