Animals Know What's Best

All animals know and go for the best part of anything: Here's a daddy long legs enthroned and lounging in the most elegant and fragrant of palaces, the crown of my basil plant, not caring if the plant is not native and scrawny because, I think, I transplanted the young plant into too big a pot, hoping for a big lush green bushy grant of basil. But I love it anyway and am glad a creature has found and appreciates it and feels safe there; there are not enough leaves on the plant for the spider to worry about the risk of becoming pesto.

A young cedar plant, being invasive, picks the choicest spot for its growth an inch in front of a healthy deciduous tree, such as an oak, with the goal of overshadowing it and appropriating all its nutrients, not caring that it's being rude and the other tree was there first; it's just nature.

I was taught to expect or take second-best and leave the absolute best for somebody else -- let them have the best bedroom, best part of the chicken, or shower first and get the hot water, etc. So glad I live where wild animals are teaching me the proper attitude, and there's no pressure to compromise.

Happy Labor Day!

How to Buy and Empty a 50-lb. Bag of Birdseed Without Ever Lifting It

1. Locate a farm and home store or a feedstore selling a 50-lb. bag of birdseed for $16.99 or less.
2. Tell the checkout clerk you want to buy a 50-lb. bag of birdseed but cannot lift it. (Whether that's true is up to you.) Pay for it.
3. The clerk summons a fellow employee able to lift the bag and bring it curbside while you get your car.
4. Have the lifter place the 50-lb. bag not in the car's trunk, but in the back seat. (Previous experience has taught you that if it's placed in the trunk, you cannot for the life of ya lift it out.)
5. At home, lay down some newspaper or cardboard on the ground alongside of the back car door.
6. Open the back car door and tug the bag until it's horizontal and its top lies just a few inches outside the doorframe. Have your containers ready.
7. Pinching the bag just below the top of one corner, cut the corner above your hand with a razor or scissors so the cut is 2 inches wide, forming a spout. A two-inch cut lets the birdfeed flow out at a controllable rate.
8. Place your first and largest container beneath the "spout." Tug, jiggle, and massage the bag until birdseed pours into the container. Continue until the container is full.
9. When the container is full, close the bag, set it upright and get your second empty container.
10. Re-open the bag and repeat with other containers until the bag is empty.
If any birdseed has been spilled, it probably fell on the newspaper or cardboard. Pick that up and pour the spilled birdfeed into the container. Now there's no waste and no treats for mice.
Source: Years of experience at trying everything but this.