Our house has seven long windows facing the south. The ‘idea’ for the seven south facing windows occurred one Sunday morning while I was  serving as a lector in church.

I know, I know, I should have been getting mentally ready to do the scripter readings, but we had just purchased 7.9 acres in the country, and I was excited about designing a house for our new acreage.

Actually, I think God had a hand in it. We were in church, you know.

In the late 1970’s there had been a gas crisis when the prices became exceedingly high and the availability of gas extremely low. That energy crisis prompted me to think about what I could include in our new home to assist in lowering energy costs.

Passive solar energy immediately popped into my brain.

That crisis prompted me to design the house to face south with seven long windows allowing the heat of the sun to warm the house’s interior.

It truly became an energy saver.

In fact, the first fall the sun outdid itself.

I came home from a day in the classroom, and my wife Kathie greeted me at the door wearing a two-peace bathing suit, flushed face and sweat pouring from every possible sweat gland in her body. 🙁

We had no air conditioning, just noisy fans and curtains that could be lowered to control the temperature.

During the winter when the air temperature was below zero, I would lay on the living room carpet and take a snooze on the sunshine bathed floor.

Ahh, those windows provided a glorious view of nature too.

A bird feeder and a suet holder were situated six feet from the windows and what busyness occurred! Varieties of sparrows and finches were always present feeding on sunflower seeds.

When the sparrows and finches suddenly rose in flight you can be assured mister bluejay was about to arrive and greedily gobble up the seeds spilling many on to the ground. Of course, that attracted the squirrels, thirteen-lined ground squirrels and in the winter, juncos.

The shy chickadees would also visit. Flying in to rest on the edge of the feeder, looking right and left, and quickly grabbing a seed and fleeing to the nearest tree.

We can’t leave out the acrobatic bird, the nuthatch. It comes often to the suet cage feeding right-side up or up-side down. It can also be seen feeding on insects in tree bark. It climbs up the tree trunk and suddenly turns and feeds going down the tree trunk.

This summer a population of thirteen-lined ground squirrels took over the yard. Since I was retired from growing pumpkins, they were no longer my enemy, so I allowed them to safely take up residence.

Two chipmunks appeared this spring and entertained us as they made frequent trips to feed on sunflower seeds under the bird feeder.

Of course, the turkeys are always wandering through the yard. They head straight for the bird feeder to clean up after the sloppy blue jays. We mostly get along until 6:00 am when a tom sees his reflection in our long windows and begins pecking at his reflection. The turkey alarm clock I call them. 🙁

Deer wander in to feed on the lawn and leave a little fertilizer behind.

Raccoons scale the post holding the suet and bird feeder and empty both of them. G-r-r-r!!

Cottontail rabbits visit now and then. They use the lawn to hide their young in a grassy nest while nibbling on flowering plants that were not meant to be nibbled on.

An alarming thing happened in August when I sighted a bird fly into our windbreak. I didn’t get a great look at it, but it appeared to be a small raptor. Raptors include eagles, hawks, falcons or owls.

Even though I didn’t get a great view of the bird I would guess it would have been some type of hawk or falcon.

Think of the smorgasbord of hawk or falcon food running or flying around our yard.

I wasn’t paying close attention to the numbers of critters in my yard as the days of August dwindled but suddenly, I realized our yard had become much quieter.

Birds beginning to make the trek south and hibernation beginning was the logical answer. Although I was at the golf course last week and I saw a thirteen-lined ground squirrel racing down the fairway at speeds faster than my golf ball travels. 🙂

Had a hawk or falcon enjoyed a month of feasting in my yard or had Mother Nature’s change of seasons caused the disappearance?

Okay, class now we have a problem.

Your assignment for next spring is to state your hypothesis for the disappearance of critters in Michael J. Larson’s heavily populated yard.

When spring arrives, I’ll report the critter numbers and that data will be used to hopefully solve the problem.

I’ll be grading on the curve. 🙂

Until next time.