Gardening and Suicidal Bird Problem

The last couple days have to soooo wonderful for working outside.  The temps were in the lower 70s’ and virtually no humidity. 

So on Wednesday, after I posted in my blog about the whole fence with the garage door idea, I thought it would be a good day to clear out the whole mess of the perennial overgrowth in front of the fence. 

Doing this is not just to make the area look a lot nicer, but it’s also to completely expose the crooked, broken fence so that the hubby will notice it more and want to do something to correct it.

This is the before picture:

It’s like a mini jungle.  I used a tarp to hold all the pulled plants just because there was so much of it, the wheelbarrow wouldn’t have held it all.

I’m about half-way done here.  I had lots of different bearded irises growing in there so I cut them all back so that I could see what else was growing around them.  I hope they come back next year.

I used to have a lovely lavender plant, but it died off .. it think it was suffocated by the overgrown Thistle. 

The murdering Thistle plants were all removed.  They will no longer be permitted on our property.

So I managed to save the Coneflower plants and hopefully all of the Bearded Irises.  There are a ton of tulip bulbs planted in there too so next spring, it should look really nice

Finished, for now!

The fence, as you can see, is in lots worse condition than I expected.  Oh dear.  I really liked the look of the worn fence but I know he’s going to want a new one in there. Hopefully the posts can be saved at least.

Anyway, the entire area looks a whole lot nicer and shows off the broken fence so well.  I know it’s going to make hubby so crazy that he’s going to want to fix it asap!

Ok, now … the suicidal bird problem.

I haven’t mentioned this, but I did finally get a new car.  I blogged about the search for a new car a few months ago.

I’ve had it since … oh sometime in May. 

I decided on the 2011 Hyundai Sonata.  Thanks to my daughter, Jen, who loves to wheel and deal online with the different car dealers in the area, I got a FABULOUS deal on it … actually getting it for a lot lower price than any of us had ever expected!  I’m talking thousands of dollars less.  Jen is amazing! 

I’m still trying to learn how to use all the different features on it but I’ve grown to love this car in a very short amount of time.  I’m still not sure how exactly to turn on the headlights  but I know as long as the dial thing is pointed to “auto”, the lights are on all the time, (I think)………   :)

So anyway, I’ve only had the car for a little over 2 months now.

There is a little bit of a problem that I’m definitely noticing about this car though …

Birds.

Now, I don’t profess to know the mind-thinking of birds but I do know that the birds in our area seem to either love this car or hate it, not sure which.  Because, in two months time, along with many near misses, two birds have been struck and killed by my brand new car

I’m not happy about this. at. all.

I don’t recall ever striking a bird with any of my other cars in my whole entire time of driving, since I was 16.

But yet, this car, TWO birds have been hit.

Both times, my husband has been driving, with me in the passenger seat , (screaming)

The first bird that was killed by my car was just like a kamikaze pilot.  It dove right into the front of the car … leaving me with the fear that it was laying, dead, on the front bumper as we drove.  Fortunately, no damage was caused, other than some stuck feathers in the headlight. 

Poor thing.  We just couldn’t understand why the bird would come flying right at us like that.  There was no way to avoid a deliberately diving bird while driving.

The second incident happened last night on the way home from getting  delicious ice cream custard (chocolate, at Hanks in N Brighton)

Hubby was driving again, with me in the passenger seat and Rachel sitting in the back seat, behind me.

We are really careful now with birds, since that first killing, because Lordy, we don’t want to ever hear that sound … that soft “THWAAAP” sound again. 

Driving at about 35-40 miles an hour, we see, ahead of us, standing on the road, in our path, a bird.  It was one of those mourning doves.

If you know mourning doves, you know that they are a bit slow to get themselves up off the ground.  Because of that hubby put on his brakes so that the dove would have plenty of time to fly .. or at least MOVE away from us, the oncoming car.

It didn’t move.  It stood there, almost as if it knew it’s demise was coming but just didn’t care.

There was no time to brake fast enough to avoid the inevitable.

The horrifying sound of “THWAAAP”  cursed my ears again.  Rachel, the jokester that she is, informed us that “Daddy scored extra points for that one because two tires ran over it”.

Ok, I know it’s not funny.  We should be mourning the mourning dove.

But Rachel has concluded that these must be suicidal birds that we are hitting.  It does make sense.  I don’t know of any other reason why a bird would just stand right in our path and make NO ATTEMPT WHATSOEVER so move when it saw/heard an oncoming car.

As completely ridiculous as this sounds, could there be something about this car that is making birds want to kill themselves on it?

There’ve been way too many near misses and actual bird deaths in two months to not take notice. 

I wonder if I should notify Hyundai about this.  Perhaps other Hyundai Sonata owners are noticing the same problem.  Maybe it will be like the Toyota brake problem … Hyundai might already know but isn’t saying anything. …..

Birds lives are in jeopardy … and it could be because of the 2011 Hyundai Sonata that they are dying.

Ok, I can just imagine now … people goggling “2011 Hyundai Sonata”

and not purchasing one because they’ve read here that this car is causing birds to commit suicide.

To those of you considering the purchase of a 201 Hyundai Sonata: I’m just joking around.  It’s a great car. Buy one, you won’t regret it … even if you do hit a bunch of birds while driving.  :)

 

Happy Day everyone!  Have a great, safe holiday weekend!