My Winter Garden

Along with preparing plants to endure winter and flourish in spring, autumn garden chores include setting the table for the wildlife, too. Welcome to Sue's Cafe.

We've struggled for over a decade to learn what thrives and what dives in our western Nevada gardens. Environments here are challenging for gardeners, especially those who come from California. Some places, plunging a stick into the ground will grow into a tree. Not so in the sere and nutrient-starved soils of the Great Basin.

Advanced age has done a number on my gardening ambitions the past couple of years, so I leave the heavy lifting to my husband. Meanwhile, I tend to the potted plants and the various features to give the local wildlife a bit of aid during the sparse seasons.

As you can see, the ground is bare of mulch. That last Afternoon Zephyr with its Cat 1 winds blew all the leaves and mulch into the next county. The long conifer needles, however, managed to hang in there a bit better.

While some plants fare well in Great Basin winters, others need to be pampered. Thus, the petunias, which rejuvenated in autumn after the heat wave, and a few other patio plants are now inside to give us pleasure. I've kept petunias going for as long as three years by doing this as well as deadheading and pruning the stringers. And they smell so good.

One winter day a few years ago, a huge flock of starlings descended on my backyard. There was easily over a hundred birds. Half of them drank my birdbaths dry while the rest waited their turns on the fence. As soon as I refilled the birdbaths, the second seating drained them dry again. It was a Hitchcock spectacle, for sure. And they didn't return until this last summer, making the rounds of the valley, I suppose.

Put stones and sticks in the birdbaths or other water features to keep animals from drowning. One morning, I found a mother mouse and her suckling baby drowned in one of the pans. Up to that day, ice had formed on the water, so I think she stepped in, thinking the ice was still there. She couldn't climb out fast enough to avoid freezng to death. It definitely put a dent in my day as well as hers.

I don't worry about rodents in my yard; only in my house. It's a fair deal. It's the cheeky Belding squirrels that create ire when they dine on the suet cakes and flower blossoms. We've even decided to allow the bunnies to feed on the grass because we're trying to replace it with wildflowers. (That's another saga.) So far, Bunny Frou Frou has kept to the grass, but that may be because the flowers have already been chewed off by the squirrels.

I've changed out Sue's Café's menu options away from birdseed in pans to suet seed cakes hanging in trees. I make sure there are branches close to the feeders to help LBBs land on the cages. These have been very popular with all kinds of birds, and drop fewer seeds on the ground. These will be picked up by ground feeders so that I don't end up with a birdseed garden under the feeders. Also there are far fewer window impacts. Doves are pretty, but they're not the brain trust.

Sometimes plants will cling to their seed heads deep into winter. I've seen birds feast on yarrow and mullein as late as February when food becomes really scarce. If I do prune, I leave them where they fall to mulch over winter. It provides both shelter and nutrients for the kingdom of tiny critters that call the bushy understory of the garden their home.

Years ago, I placed a few birdhouses in the summer garden to facilitate nesting. What surprised me was to find a little bird sheltering from a winter storm in one of those houses. AHA! So, Jeff and I ordered a package of four birdhouses from Amazon and assembled them very easily. Replacing the old, storm-ravaged houses with these will hopefully appeal to birds needing a place to hunker down during the cold nights. Oh, and we saved the paints for other projects. Also, we’re not endorsing this product. It’s just how we solved a problem fairly cheaply and easily. We go for cheap and easy these days.

So, here you see an old birdhouse and a new one as well as a couple of the seed cake feeders. I hung these with the doorway alee to the wind direction and tried to nestle them in branches that would make it easily accessible as well as secure from being blown out of the trees. We have crazy winds here that rule our outdoor living spaces with little mercy. I used carabineers to secure them to a branch just in case.

Of course, as winter piles on the snow, I sweep it from the birdbaths and pour hot water over the frozen water. While the more enterprising birds will find water sources melting from eaves or icicles, a maintained birdbath in winter will help a lot of birds survive and thrive.

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All my books, Paradise Ridge, When the Horses Come and Go, and Ghost in the Forest are currently available on Kindle. Ghost in the Forest, is also available in paperback for ten bucks. Paradise Ridge is out-of-print, but the Kindle version is re-edited and better quality. Hard copies of When the Horses Come and Go are gone unless that dusty box in the corner still has some.

Book Review of Ghost in the Forest:

E.R. Flynn, Illustrator, Cartoonist, Storyteller and Creator of "Escape from Clowntown Comics" here on Substack.

"Ghost in The Forest' is a great read! Take note People. If you love stories about environmentalism and nature, its clash with urban mindsets, as well as personal transformation, this is the book for you!

"Ghost in The Forest" is a quick 126-page read. It's the story of Dori, a woman trapped in a mix of grief over parental loss and refusing to accept how her hometown and her friends have changed over the years. Because of this, Dori has become a recluse and a self-imposed misanthrope who finds more comfort amongst the hiking trails around her hometown of Morristown than in her dealings with the raw reality of other humans.

The book, in some ways, resembled Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” in that the story follows a protagonist's love of nature and angst about humans encroaching on it. In this case, it’s how Morristown is transforming into a mountain biking destination where cyclists run rampant on trails and nature.

However, a tragedy involving said mountain biking becomes a major pivot point for Dori, leading to a series of events that eventually bring about personal evolution and discovery.

If you're a nature lover, this book is a must-read. It beautifully portrays the clash between environmentalism and urban mindsets and the journey of personal transformation. The book's vivid descriptions of nature and the protagonist's love for it will surely intrigue you.

Paradise Ridge Review by western author D. B. Jackson:

If you draw circle roughly around an area that includes northern Nevada, southern Oregon, and southern Idaho, within that circle exists a culture and people who live a lifestyle largely untouched by modern values. These are the "buckaroos" and Basque characters author Sue Cauhape brings to life in her literary novel, "Paradise Ridge".

Leandro, the illegitimate seventh son of patriarch Xavier Arriaga and his mistress, Gisela, is at the center of this intriguing story that travels exceedingly successfully at both the personal level of the characters, as well as the compelling level where the story is told.

Cauhape writes in a literary style that reminds me of Annie Poulx. Paradise Ridge, on the surface, appears to be an upscale Western novel...once inside the pages, you will soon discover a potential classic waiting to be discovered.

I rated this book a 5...because that's all the stars there were.