Oh honey , your just a beginner! LOL! We will have lots of stories for you! It's late and I will tell you some of mine as soon as I can. There are so many here. We should wite a book! Some of us have been around here a long time and the stories are great!

As I am worse than a beginner I am staying 'mum' and just reading everything I can.

With the help of my grandson I put up another nesting box Thursday. Today I saw a bluebird come out of it.

Only a hundred dollars for food? :) This past winter, I was spending $60 a month for mealworms, in addition to the ones I grow myself to feed a flock of 10 Bluebirds. Plus grinding up organic "people" sunflower kernels to add to their suet mix. My basement room is full of boxes of growing out mealworms and beetles, plus the money I've spent on the reptile heaters to speed them up. That's just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure.

I plan my work schedule and vacations around fledging time. I have even NOT attended family gatherings. My family knows when the babies are due to leave I will NOT leave until they have all left and made it to the trees. I don't even go to church and Pastor knows why. I put out 900 wax worms and 2000 meal worms in the frezing weather last week (of course a lot more than just Blues have babies). I have taped and untaped boxes according to the weather and have had to assist in more than 1 baby that would not have made it had I not interviened. I have been known to flap my arms and whistle and point to babies on the ground when I dont think the parents see where the baby went when it left the box. I trap HOSPs put up Wren guards, grease my poles and put soap on the top of the inside of my boxes. I have wrapped them in bubble wrap or cling wrap, put ice packs on top of boxes with umbrellas in the heat. I run off Chipmunks and other critters when the Blue,Dees, whatever are agitated with them. I leave my door open a crack in freezing weather so I can hear what is going on out there at all times. I have a nest box with a video camera and 4 other boxes.I have re usable "raindrop" window covering for my MR. Blue that likes to fight himself in the window. Should I continue????? This is normal behavior for many of us here! LOL!

today I saw the beginings of a nest, WHOOHOO! not even a week after fledging! I went out and picked up some pine needles and hand cut grass so they can dry out. It's all wet here now!

My hat is off to you Craftylady.

I am well into my 60's and have always lived in a rural area. I am blessed to live on a family farm. My grandchildren are the 6th generation to live on this land. I have not spent a fortune on food or supplies but God's creatures are at home and welcome here.

If you had told me a year ago that I would be raising worms, I would have told you that you are crazy! well here I am, My kids think I've lost it and my husband says he'd have never thunk... If I don't get birds this year, that will be the end of that! Not expensive, but sure is time consuming.

Gibby I sure hope you are a success at raising worms. I have not tried that one yet.

I am a novice and not a puriest.

I cried when I saw my blues this year, really, cried. Been having major health issues and seeing those birds made me realize that everything would be OK. Sappy, huh?

Anyway, my husband has the good wit not to ask me how much I spend on the birds. I go to a local butcher, buy suet and add nuts, seeds, berries in large stock pots to render into suet cakes. Build winter roosting boxes to allow more comfortable overwintering. Winters are bad enough for humans, imagine how hard it is on the birds? Built a blind out of cardboard boxes on my breezeway and sat for hours during raging snow storms to shoot starlings, try to keep warm and keep damage to the house at a minimum from my pellet rifle. I talk to the birds as I monitor the boxes and use that special voice to call the blues as I deliver their mealworms (the blues come when I call them, better than my pugs do).

Dig out my non-native plants/shrubs to replace with natives to provide better habitat, let the pokeweed take over, let the birds have ALL the cherries and blueberries (buy mine in the store), sit in the rain with my binocs and sometimes hide under my pine to observe. Windows stay dirty to keep the birds from striking them (good excuse). Never in a million years, did I imagine I would turn out this weird, but it's OK.