Editors of Storey Publishing - Country Wisdom & Know-How

COUNTRY
WISDOM
& KNOW-HOW

Everything You Need to Know
to Live Off the Land

From the editors of Storey Books

The joy of doing more for oneself, mastering a skill, being more independent, connecting in a very physical way with our land, our property, our earththats why we are drawn to this book.

Back in the 1970s, during the back to the land era when hippies were homesteading and gas and energy prices were sky high, Storey began to publish a series of small booklets called Country Wisdom Bulletins, each one addressing a bite-sized piece of country know-how, a simple skill, some knitty-gritty information. The collection of bulletins grew into the hundreds and eventually over 15 million copies were sold to people eager to discover the fun and satisfaction of doing more for themselves.

And now, collected between the covers of this volume, is a compendium of treasured knowledge from hundreds of Country Wisdom Bulletins. If youre like most people, youll get stuck in it like a fly to old-fashioned flypaper. Whether you want to build a stone fence, make strawberry-rhubarb jam, or plant an herb garden, youll find this book to be like your grandfather or grandmother at your elbow, showing you how.

Everything old is new again. Enjoy!

Pam Art
President
Storey Publishing LLC

Copyright 2004 Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Published by
Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc.
151 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10011

Distributed by
Workman Publishing Company
225 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cover and interior design by Platinum Design, Inc. NYC
Interior layout by Cindy Joy

Cover illustration from An Age of Barns by Eric Sloane 1967 Funk & Wagnalls, New York.
Reprinted by permission of Mrs. Eric Sloane.

Portions of the material contained in this work are from the Country Wisdom Bulletin series, published and copyrighted by Storey Publishing LLC.

ISBN13: 978-1-57912-368-0

m l k j i h g

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available on file.

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Olwen Woodier

Birds can be attracted to your home if you offer food, water, and shelter. Trees and shrubs that yield fruit, berries, seeds, nuts, and cones will provide food. Tangles of wild plants and dense undergrowth left to thrive in chosen areas of your property, log piles, dead trees, and stacked branches will provide shelter, protection, and natural nesting and roosting sites. Nesting boxes can be secured to trees and posts to attract bluebirds, purple martins, wrens, downy woodpeckers, flickers, robins, and other species. Birdbaths or pools can be built to supply water, and feeders, strategically placed around the yard, will furnish supplementary food for the birds when natural sources diminish. Such pockets of refuge can be created on as little as a quarter-acre plot, and costs for a bird haven can be kept to a minimum.

First think about feeding the birds from food supplied by trees and shrubs. Check the listings here to find the plant preferences of a variety of birds. For example, cardinals, whose flash of red brightens many a back yard, prefer to feast on seeds and berries and will nest in grape, holly, honeysuckle, juniper, multiflora rose, and willow.

Your vegetable garden will be a source of animal life to a variety of insect-devouring birds, including the voracious purple martins. Compost heaps are also a good source of free food. Daily deposits of vegetable and fruit peelings, chicken skin, meat fat scraps, and bread crusts will attract birds, particularly jays, crows, and starlings (also squirrels and raccoons), thus eliminating these aggressive species from your feeding stations. When forked over daily in early spring, the compost will be a constant source of insects and worms for fledglings.

To keep the birds in your area all year, it is advisable to provide supplementary feedings. Although the countryside has an abundance of food in the summer, most urban and some suburban landscapes are too manicured to supply sufficient grubs, insects, and weed seeds. If this is your problem, stock your feeders year-round, until you have established generous plant life.

Wintertime, everywhere, is another story. Even if there is no snow, the land will yield precious little food. Once you have decided to put up a feeder, it is essential that it is never left empty since your birds will become dependent on your winter feeding. Small birds must start eating at sunrise in order to replace body weight lost each night in their efforts to keep warm. Those that cannot find enough food to refuel sufficiently for the night ahead will die. If you leave on vacation and your feeders do not hold an adequate supply, ask a neighbor to keep them filled.

While the birds are feasting free in your yard during the summer, you can grow and gather food for the winter. Dried grains, seeds, nuts, berries, and ears of corn harvested in the autumn can be saved for a midwinter treat. Sunflower seeds are a particular favorite of birds and are very easy to grow. To harvest the seeds for later use and prevent the birds from quickly devouring your entire crop, tie a piece of plastic mesh (an orange bag saved for this purpose works well) around the stem of the growing sunflower and wrap it around the seed head.

If your land does not offer suitable nesting cover, homemade birdhouses and nesting boxes are acceptable to many birds, as long as they are built to the right dimensions (See Building Nestboxes for Backyard Birds). Put the nesting boxes up in the autumn or in early spring.

All types of nesting paraphernalia are to be found at hardware stores, specialist suppliers, and seed merchants. However, it is more rewarding and definitely much cheaper to make your own. Although birdhouses come in varying sizes, the following requirements apply to all.

Make the entrance hole the recommended diameter.

Protect the nest from wind and rain.

Do not set the house in a thickly wooded or shaded area.

Mount them at the right height. (See table at the end of this section.)

For mounting, poles and posts are better than trees, which are easily climbed by nest raiders, such as raccoons and squirrels.

Rough up the inside front of the box to enable young nestlings to climb out.

Screw together one side of the box to facilitate cleaning. At the end of the summer, discard the old nest to get rid of parasites.

Bore a couple of small vent holes at the top of one side to give air to the nestlings.

Wood is the best material to use because it breathes and is durable. Try cedar, pine, poplar, and cypress of -inch to 1-inch thickness. Metal should not be used; on sunny days it will become too hot.

Unless the adult birds are away looking for food, resist disturbing the nest. If done too frequently, there is a strong chance that the nest will be deserted.