SERVING HENDRICKS COUNTY SINCE 1847
Page A-6
Exploring Hendricks County
By Jackie Horn
The Republican
Voices
Feeding birds isn’t cheap. Whoever said “eats like a bird” didn’t feed birds! They are gluttons! Nationwide $5 Billion a year are spent on wild bird food! John and I started with a single feeder and now have eight! In the winter, we offer seed, suet, and peanuts to entice woodpeckers, juncos, sparrows, wrens, titmice, jays, and cardinals. Come spring, we switch to grape jelly, oranges, and sugar-water attracting orioles and hummingbirds. While it’s somewhat sad, we feed the hawks too. The Woodpeckers prefer suet. neighborhood Cooper’s ________________________ Hawk comes to the feeder occasionally. (We usually can tell she’s been here by the pile of fluttering feathers on the ground.) That figure above doesn’t include the cost of feeders, birdbaths, and nesting boxes/birdhouses. That’s another $960 million/year. The Horns have three birdbaths, and a couple of birdhouses.
Sunflower seeds are a favorite food for a wide variety of birds including bluebirds, sparrows, and finches.
For The Birds The birds are flocking, preparing for migration. The squirrels are busy digging up my backyard and burying acorns and hickory nuts. I haven’t seen the hummingbirds this week. I assume they’ve already started their journey south. Some may find this time of year depressing but I enjoy watching the preparations Nature makes for winter. The leaves changing color and falling. The grasses and wildflowers turning to seed. The bushes bursting with colorful berries. Hickory nuts, walnuts, and acorns... I can’t step out of my backdoor barefooted for all the acorns littering the ground. It’s that time of year again. Time to clean the birdfeeders and stock up on sunflower and thistle seed. I am one of the 81 million people in the US who enjoys feeding the birds. With that many people providing sustenance, it would be easy to think our feathered friends couldn’t A bright red cardinal at your survive without humans feeder will brighten your day. feeding them. Don’t kid ________________________ yourself. They’d do quite well without us. People feed birds because we like to watch them and how better to get a closer look than to lure them with food? Put a feeder near a picture window and we can be mesmerized in the comfort of our warm homes.
Cardinals, juncos, and sparrows on clean-up duty, eating the fallen seeds from the feeder. ___________________________________________________
Finches can empty a thistle seed feeder in less than a day
Accessories, I don’t have a figure for how much money Americans spend on those. Between the two of us, John and I own several pairs of binoculars (a set for each car, the sunroom, the living room, a “good” pair for the field, and a few spares). We have books and phone apps to identify birds by location, color, habitat, and even song. And we aren’t hardcore birders. We don’t even belong to the Audubon Society! The pleasure we experience when we identify a new species at the feeder or recognize a return visitor makes it worth every cent to us. Birdwatching doesn’t have to be expensive. One of the simplest ways to attract wild birds is to make your yard welcoming. Plant native bushes, shrubs, and trees that provide food and shelter for wildlife. Dogwood, Beauty Berry, and Crabapple are just a few examples. A water source is also important. An expensive fountain or elaborate birdbath isn’t necessary. A terracotta saucer or shallow pan works just fine. It will need to be dumped regularly to prohibit bacteria, algae, and mosquitoes in summer and ice in winter. Whether you go all out and set up a deluxe feeding station or just drop a few breadcrumbs on the ground in front of your window, there’s something special about watching the birds flutter and hop from inside your cozy house. Eighty-one million people can’t be wrong. ______________________________________________
Jackie Horn and her husband, John, transplanted from Warsaw to Plainfield to be near family. An Advanced Indiana Master Naturalist, Jackie is a retired substitute teacher who continues to teach (and learn) about all things outdoors. John is a retired CNC programmer and the photographer on the team. The Horns enjoy traveling, walking, hiking, kayaking, and bicycling.
JUST AN OBSERVATION
A Note From Bee We are fast approaching the time of year when vegetable soup would be good for supper. I have been said to make very good vegetable soup. That was not always the case. It has taken a lot of practice to come up with good soup. I think the secret to good soup was given to me by my uncle. He suggested I add ketchup. He was given this tip by his father. Nobody can make a small amount of soup. So I share with friends. I add some fruit and my friend has a meal. Recipe for Bee’s soup (All amounts are approximate) 1 lb. browned ground beef small cans of corn, green beans, and carrots 2 cans beef broth 4 medium potatoes cut up and cooked 1 can progresso vegetable beef soup 1 can vegetarian soup 1/3 cup cabbage 1 can zucchini in tomato sauce any other vegetables you wish 1/2 cup ketchup 2 cups water Simmer for about an hour Bee Jones ______________________________________________ You can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people -- and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. William Allen White
Ten And Two
By Janet Beam Remember back in the old days when driver training was offered during the summer? For a couple of weeks in the summer, we met our teacher at the school in order for him to make us safe and courteous drivers. Judging by the behavior of some driving today, some of those teachers failed miserably. But I digress. The instructor had a set of pedals on his side so he could avoid a life-changing accident if necessary. He also had a large wooden block on the floor in front of him. The goal was to never, ever cause that block to fall over. Which, unfortunately, this driver managed to do by slamming on the brakes instead of coming to a gentle stop. The most notable thing I remember learning is that you should drive with your hands at ten o’clock and two o’clock, which seemed utterly ridiculous to me with my 15 year old brain. Who drives that way? Old people! The cool way to drive was with one arm out the window and the other casually holding the steering wheel either on the top or on the bottom or by the cool steering knob you would just have to have on your own car, whenever you managed to get one. There are just too many things people are doing while driving where they absolutely cannot have both hands on the wheel. Who hasn’t seen someone eating a meal, drinking hot scalding coffee or ice cold tea, blowing their nose, picking their nose, holding a cell phone, texting, reading a newspaper, a book or watching a video on their phone, applying makeup, cleaning their ears or clipping their fingernails? With all this important stuff that absolutely has to be done while driving, there was no way, once I passed this class, that I would be at ten and two. Fast forward 60 years and what do I find myself doing? Driving with my hands at ten and two. It all of a sudden seems the most natural way to drive and the safest. Just an observation. ______________________________________________
Thursday, October 14, 2021
Here We Grow, Again
A crowd gathers to watch the rush hour traffic on Danville’s Main Street in the 1860’s.
This past summer, the town of Danville approved new home starts that will double the number of houses in our town within the next several years. Some of my fellow citizens are in favor, but many more are opposed. I am against growth when sitting in traffic, but in favor of it while walking the trails in Plainfield, enjoying the benefits of growth. Of course, it’s easy to favor the growth of Plainfield while living in Danville. The champions of growth are not without compelling arguments. More homes equal more tax dollars, which mean better schools, more parks and walking trails, more jobs, young families, and a deeper pool of civic talent. Several first-generation families in our town just opened Danville Dips, an ice-cream shop, on our town square. How can I be against ice cream? The anti-growers fear it will mean more traffic congestion, which it most certainly will, and worse, more crime, which remains to be seen. I’ve heard some people say they don’t want “those people” moving to our town. If you want to have fun, watch people squirm when you ask them what they mean by “those people.” I’ve heard people who’ve lived here less than three years rail against newcomers, as if their ancestors had platted our streets in 1824. Several of the new residences will be apartments, causing some folks to sniff about renters and their theoretical dangers. When my parents first settled here in 1957, they rented for three years before buying their first home. Twenty-some years later my father was serving as the president of the town board. “Those people” we fear today will likely lead us tomorrow. This growth is not just Danville’s story, it is central Indiana’s story. People from across the state and nation have discovered what many of us have known for decades, that central Indiana has much to offer—affordable housing, charming neighborhoods, excellent healthcare, good jobs, fine colleges, all this a stone’s throw from the sylvan splendor of the Hoosier National Forest, which nearly makes up for the Indiana legislature. What we sometimes lack—innovation, a global perspective, and political and ethnic diversity―will be improved by new citizens who don’t always look like us, think like us, vote like us or worship like us. Thank God! Or for that matter Allah, Bhagavan or Yahweh. Danville has a population density of 1,298 folks per square mile, plenty of elbow room compared to Carmel, who shoehorns in 2,139 folks per square mile, while still making room for 137 more roundabouts. Danville’s answer to traffic congestion is to build some sort of bypass, one possible route carrying traffic right through my living room, or so it seems on the map. For the record, I’m opposed to any road project that involves my living room. Another suggested improvement would split my son’s cattle farm in half, which doesn’t feel like an improvement to him. Nevertheless, the opposite of growth is stagnation, which serves no one well. We all need fresh infusions of life to keep things from silting over. Drive through any town that has declined in population since 1950 and ask yourself if you’d want to live among its shuttered storefronts, its weed-choked sidewalks, its tattered Trump flags, and failing schools. It is only then you realize “those people” are in fact your salvation, your insurance against your town’s decay and death. Visit Boswell or Knox and ask them if they would like to grow, if they would like their empty buildings filled with bright and cheerful businesses, their schools filled with students eager to learn and teachers eager to teach, their churches filled with kind and thoughtful folk. Ask if they would enjoy a town park with a swimming pool and somewhere to shop other than Dollar General and a nice restaurant that doesn’t close at 2 PM. I returned to my hometown in 1999 after being away for 20 years, thinking it would be the same as I had left it, but things had changed in my absence. I complained about these “godawful new subdivisions that are going up everywhere,” until my dad pointed out that I lived in one. Twenty-two years later, I’m still here, living in a neighborhood that was Sam Anderson’s horse farm when I was a kid. Bob Dylan nailed it on the head, “Admit that the waters around you have grown…so you better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone.” Here’s to swimming. ______________________________________________
In the mood for local news?
Get your subscription. therepublicannewspaper.com
